Posted: 1/22/2010 10:28:24 PM EDT
| know of them never shot one how are they, seen one at wal mart today which I thought was odd. |
Newer ones are great.
Mini's are great for people who want an assault rifle, without looking like one. Or for folks that live in Cali. It has been many many years since I have shot one, what I do remember was ALOT of jams (I'm guessing mag related as this was during the AWB and probably crappy mags) and you had better not be a reloader if you ever wanna find yer brass....those things can kill with 1 shot, one from the bullet, the other from the brass
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| I had one for a couple years. I really like the platform, its just the execution is lacking. I paid out some $$$ to help accurize it, but only go marginal gains at best. Main draw backs to it are the cost of mags (especially when compared to an AR), piss poor rear sight on the ranch rifle, and the paper thin barrel. The brass ejection thing can be fixed. You can replace the barrel with a thicker one. But the new ones have gotten past a lot of the problems. Sights are way better, barrel is thicker and a bit shorter. Really they have come a long way and the new ones are definitely worth a look. I never had a failure of any kind with the one I had. And other than the accuracy issues, I really liked it. Gotta love that Garand-ish action. |
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Some people are talking about their negative experience with the OLD models which had thin 18" barrels, which tended to have a lot of whip and would string once warmed up(which didn't take much), and at the time no factory hi-cap mags. + cheap cast parts.
We are talking about the NEW models which have heavier 16" barrels which perform much better, come with good peep sights from the factory along with a flash hider, and generally 2 20 round factory mags. The parts look and feel much nicer and well built. They are priced in the lower end AR price range, but are quite serviceable and make excellent and reliable truck / tractor / car guns or simply KISS self defense rifles. If you want to hang a bunch of stuff off a SD carbine and have the money get an AR if you want to buy a rifle and run with it the mini is also an excellent option. |
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I really like ruger products.
I have always thought the mini-14 barrels where a little light weight and caused poor acurracy like a thin AR barrel. I have a mini 30 and have been very happy with it. never jamed on me and any of the scouts I have hard shoot it. scopes are very easy as they come with ruger scope rings normally. I think I paid $10 for thirty round mags, still running great. the action is the same as the m-14 just smaller. it is easy to get a pair of plyers on the back of a round if it were to fail to extract, without having to take anything apart. I like my mini-30, but know that it has almost no up grades save a poly or folding stock. If you want to customize everything buy an AR. I can not speak for the mini-14 but my mini-30 has never failed me in stock configuration. I have an AR and would buy another. I would not hesitate to use a mini-14 to protect my life. I wish they took AR mags. |
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Quoted: They are ok. Not as accurate as a Ar15. Good mag's are hard to find and expensive. In conparsion to Ar mags. Scopeing it can be a problem. I had a S/S one way back. Did not like the cast parts that much. Just my two cents. The mini just isn't accurate enough. You don't sight in a Mini-14, you pattern it.  |
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Mini-14's are "neat" guns, and they can be fun to shoot. But dollar for dollar, they are not a particularly good value.
In most cases, it would make sense to pony up $200 more and get an AR-15. Parts, and especially mags, are much more readily available for the AR. In addition, an average AR will be more accurate than a Mini. In addition, for the same price as a Mini, you can get a new Kel-tec SU-16. The SU-16 is sorta like an AK/AR hybrid, and in my opinion is an underrated gun. The SU-16 also folds, takes AR mags, and is extremely light. And like the AR, it is more accurate than the Mini. I'm not a fan of Kel-tec's pistols (in fact, I think their pistols suck), but Kel-tec's rifles are good to go. If I was looking for a 5.56 rifle for around $600, I wouldn't hesitate to get the SU-16. There's nothing wrong with the Mini. Like I said, they're kinda neat and have their place. But for the money, the Kel-tec is the better rifle IMHO. |
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Quoted:
Mini-14's are "neat" guns, and they can be fun to shoot. But dollar for dollar, they are not a particularly good value. In most cases, it would make sense to pony up $200 more and get an AR-15. Parts, and especially mags, are much more readily available for the AR. In addition, an average AR will be more accurate than a Mini. In addition, for the same price as a Mini, you can get a new Kel-tec SU-16. The SU-16 is sorta like an AK/AR hybrid, and in my opinion is an underrated gun. The SU-16 also folds, takes AR mags, and is extremely light. And like the AR, it is more accurate than the Mini. I'm not a fan of Kel-tec's pistols (in fact, I think their pistols suck), but Kel-tec's rifles are good to go. If I was looking for a 5.56 rifle for around $600, I wouldn't hesitate to get the SU-16. There's nothing wrong with the Mini. Like I said, they're kinda neat and have their place. But for the money, the Kel-tec is the better rifle IMHO. umm, but you left out the fact that the mini looks 800x better than the su-16. yes its a neat rifle but man, its ugly. Even with the accuracy issues on the older Minis I would still take one over the kel-tec. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
They are ok. Not as accurate as a Ar15. Good mag's are hard to find and expensive. In conparsion to Ar mags. Scopeing it can be a problem. I had a S/S one way back. Did not like the cast parts that much. Just my two cents. The mini just isn't accurate enough. You don't sight in a Mini-14, you pattern it. http://i45.tinypic.com/20fatld.jpg LOL... that is a great photo. I was going to comment that the mini-14 is a solid, and I mean solid 6-8 MOA rifle...
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Mini-14's are "neat" guns, and they can be fun to shoot. But dollar for dollar, they are not a particularly good value. In most cases, it would make sense to pony up $200 more and get an AR-15. Parts, and especially mags, are much more readily available for the AR. In addition, an average AR will be more accurate than a Mini. In addition, for the same price as a Mini, you can get a new Kel-tec SU-16. The SU-16 is sorta like an AK/AR hybrid, and in my opinion is an underrated gun. The SU-16 also folds, takes AR mags, and is extremely light. And like the AR, it is more accurate than the Mini. I'm not a fan of Kel-tec's pistols (in fact, I think their pistols suck), but Kel-tec's rifles are good to go. If I was looking for a 5.56 rifle for around $600, I wouldn't hesitate to get the SU-16. There's nothing wrong with the Mini. Like I said, they're kinda neat and have their place. But for the money, the Kel-tec is the better rifle IMHO. umm, but you left out the fact that the mini looks 800x better than the su-16. yes its a neat rifle but man, its ugly. Even with the accuracy issues on the older Minis I would still take one over the kel-tec. Looks is a personal thing. I asume if you don't like the way it looks you will take that into acount on your own. At times I prefer the wood of my mini thirty, at times my AR. I have not had the poor accuracy problems with my mini-30 ever I have had AR jams when I was a boy scout and military scout leaders took us out shooting. every single time. A lot of people here will tell you that jams are not common. Everyone tells me my P85 looks ugly. not sure why. I gusee it hurts when a $400 gun out shoots your $2000 gun, got to make yourself feel better about a poor choice some how. To each thier own. shoot what you like carry what works for you. |
| I really like the design, but have to agree about the accuracy issues. IF Ruger could solve the accuracy issue and get the rifle to shoot a reliable 1.5 moa even, then I think it would do much better. Someone has to have thought about a solution to the Ruger gas system that will help accuracy.. |
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Quoted:
I really like the design, but have to agree about the accuracy issues. IF Ruger could solve the accuracy issue and get the rifle to shoot a reliable 1.5 moa even, then I think it would do much better. Someone has to have thought about a solution to the Ruger gas system that will help accuracy.. there are fixes for the gas system and the new mini's I would think are quite capable of 1.5mo with the heavier bbl. The other thing one could do, is to get a trigger job. A couple of smiths make gas reduction bushings that really knock down the brass chucking. |
| I have a mini 14 and 3 ar's and a fal. I prefer the ar's to the mini and the fal is my fav. That bein said if im goin hikin or campin with people who are anti gun or scared of gun i take the mini its alot less scarry lol i just put a five rounder in it and keep a couple good 20 out of sight but handy. I aslo hunt deer with my mini it works great. |
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Quoted:
I really like the design, but have to agree about the accuracy issues. IF Ruger could solve the accuracy issue and get the rifle to shoot a reliable 1.5 moa even, then I think it would do much better. Someone has to have thought about a solution to the Ruger gas system that will help accuracy.. The gas system has no problems. I have a mini-30 same system. it shoots m.o.Ritz craker in the hands of children that have little to no experience shooting. The mini-14 has a thin barrle and that can cause problems. now they offer a thicker barrle version that does fine from what I am told. Saying that my mini-30 shoots better than an AK is not saying much but it does shoot better then most ARs it was compared to in the past. they were all light barrled carbines. a heavy barrled AR may do better. I have shoot deer with it with no worries about missing. one shot one kill. the mini's bigger problem is there are very few after market options. if you want to shoot an out of the box rifle it is not bad, then I would same mags. I have 4 30rd mags for my mini 30 and have not had problems with them. I do wish they had gone with the AR mags as there are so many out there. |