DucksBucks

What is the feelings on the Ruger Mini 14? How about Mini 30?

Ruger-Redhawk

The Ruger Mini' s are a well made rifle. Their accuracy leaves allot to be desired.They' re by no means a tack driver.All the ones I have shot have been very reliable. For general plinking it fine.If you want a tack driver look elsewhere.The way the world is today it wouldn' t be a bad idea having one with a few 30 rnd mags ready to Rock-n-Roll.You might be glad you got one.
Ruger Redhawk

basserman

Personally I don' t like them as a huntin gun. Good plinker made well. I guess I' m tainted as a couple of youngens have them and mostly just empty their clips at Wt' s and coyotes. I guess they have developed the " lay up a lead wall" ideal. I' ll stick with my bolts.

critch

I' ve owned three Mini 14' s. Why I owned #2 and #3 is beyond me. Must have had something to do with cost. The Mini' s were conciderably cheaper than any of the AR .223' s.
I shot a friends Mini 30 one day and enjoyed it. But like the ' 14 it' s not very accurate. It also has too much barrel lift after the shot. That, I think is more characteristic of the round than the rifle. AK' s and SKS' s also have too much barrel lift. If you want to shoot short distances and through small branches to kill a deer then the ' 30 would be fine. The .223 won' t go through any branch and stay on course. It didn' t in Viet Nam for me and it won' t do it here for me either.
I honestly would save some more money and get a better shootin' rifle. I' m looking into the .223 myself. I' m leaning again toward the Baer super varminter. I have some more money to save. Good luck. critch

eldeguello

These guns are well made, but there is something about them that keeps them from shooting well. Some say it is barrel quality, which may be the case. I suspect there is also something about their design which impairs the way they shoot. I recall that at about the time the Mini 30 showed up, Ruger was touting an enlarged version called the XGI, which was to be available in .308 and .243 Win. Well, thie XGI' s design was very similar to the Minis, but it never hit the dealers' shelves. Reason: Ruger could never get them to hit twice in the same place! No matter what they tried, accuracy with the XGI was even worse than with the Mini' s!! Must have been awful!!

BigEd

One thing I found out is Ruger has changed the twist rate several times on these guns.
So many that you can' t get a straight answer from them on the subject.
I' ve heard 1-12" , 1-10" and 1-9" .

That must explain why I had one that shot great , one that shot good and one that was fair.[:' (]

They can be helped some by using glass-bedding to tighten-up the fit between the stock and action, which is very sloppy in many of them. The metal stock liner should also be bedded as it tends to rattle around some too.

Also, replacing that wobbly rear peep-sight with a good after-market one helps.

Nomercy

As hard as it is for me to say anything bad about Rugers, the mini' s are not their best work. THAT SAID, I' ve found that for the money, their construction and reliablility is more than worth it, a guy can but a NEW mini-14, replace the barrel and have some other work done, and still have money left over as opposed to buying a USED AR-15 (or variant) even have money left over as opposed to buying AK-47' s! As far as it goes, I' ve owned more SKS' s than MINI' s, but I plan to purchase another mini soon.

They are GREAT plinking guns, and the mini-30' s do ok as deer rifles (as well as most similar rifles would do). With a little work, you can get them to shoot pretty well, with a lot of work, you can get them to leave one hole, but it' s pretty pricey. I got them for fun, for work (bounty hunter aka bail bond enforcer), and for hunting, they do it all well enough in my book. I' ve NEVER had any one of them jam, nor missfire, or slamfire, all of which everyone of my SKS' s were known to do from time to time. The construction is sound, not a lot of moving parts, and built like a tank, I think that might be part of their problem.

ONE OTHER THING TO LOOK AT: Ruger' s " New" deerfield in .44mag, I love them, they shoot much better than the mini' s, basically are built the same, and are VERY capable deer rifles, falling just behind in performance to the mini-30, which the accuracy makes up.