Ruger Mini-14 vs. AR-15 - Which one and why?

[Ignition Override]

Exclude how tight groups can be.
For example you can hit a clay pigeon at 50 yards on a berm with each rifle type..

Which of the two rifle types is more fun to shoot in a general sense? Or is the concept too alien for most people?

 

[Crosshair]

Hey, I have a summer place near Detroit Lakes. If you have a stock mini, I have a stock AR 15 carbine. $100 bucks at 100 yards? Or If you like to meet up sometime I would buy you a beer. I was at a relatives funeral at Red Lake Falls last summer.

And round and round we go, arguing past each other.

All the people on the AR side to can point to is "Muh accuracy" (While avoiding plinking ammo, from a concrete bench, and secure sandbag rest) and "It's cheap". (Ignoring that cheap ARs are, at best, only marginally more accurate than a Mini and often actually heavier.)

This is like discussing different pickups where one side only thinks about sticker price and MPG rating on the window. Meanwhile, the other side is thinking about stuff like "real world MPG", "How the controls are laid out for the driver", and "Are there any components that require frequent replacement"?

I do not care if your AR can shoot 1.5 MOA at 100 yards from a bench and mine only shoots 2 MOA. I'm shooting while leaning on a pickup hood or door, kneeling, or even prone. In the real world, the accuracy difference is irrelevant. Nobody compares the difference in accuracy of an AR-9, Sub-2000, Hi-Point 995, JRC, ASR, or Ruger PC-9. While the accuracy difference does exist between those guns, they are irrelevant for all practical purposes. There are far more important traits to consider. When you see threads where people are asking about PCCs, one of the first questions is to ask, "What do you plan to do with it"? The different designs come with different trade offs. With a Mini I may sacrifice a little bit of accuracy, but I gain other things that I consider more important. Same reason some people choose a Sub-2000 over a PC-9. Something that even AR owners do when they go with a NATO or Wylde chamber over a 223 chamber.

 

[benEzra]

One factor that favors the Ruger, is factory support. If you ever have a problem with your mini 14,30 , Ruger will take care of it. Not sure I could say the Same thing about Delton, Radical, Anderson, even Sig.

I would take the opposite tack on this, I think. If you want spare parts for an AR, they are available cheaply locally or via mail-order, and you can easily install them yourself. If you want a buy a spare bolt for the Mini, you have to ship the rifle back to Ruger, at least when I owned mine. I’m not sure how easy it would be to buy a spare firing pin, either.

To me, the ready availability of inexpensive spare parts is a plus for the AR.

FWIW, Ruger also makes ARs in addition to the Mini, and I imagine that their customer service for a defective one would be just as good as for any other gun they make. S&W’s customer service is also quite good.

 

[Styx]

Hey, I have a summer place near Detroit Lakes. If you have a stock mini, I have a stock AR 15 carbine. $100 bucks at 100 yards? Or If you like to meet up sometime I would buy you a beer. I was at a relatives funeral at Red Lake Falls last summer.

I've been quiet to try and take "thehighroad." It seems that people can't stand and become extremely emotional whenever someone else dares to be critical in any way to what caliber, manufacture, platform, etc. they carry. If this was a 9mm vs 45acp, 40s&w vs 10mm, Glock vs Sig or S&W, S&W vs Colt or Ruger revolvers, revolvers vs semiautos, so on and so forth, the thread ends up just like this one because members HATE for someone else to say what they do has any pros whatsoever than over their preference to the point that they can't even concede commonly accepted points, e.g., ARs manufacturered by higher-end companies are more expensive than the Mini14.

To address your challenge, I don't recall @Mini30SS or anyone else saying the Mini14 is more accurate. No one stated it was the best platform for target or competition shooting. What has been stated is that its current accuracy isn't as bad as some believe (based on several member's first hand experience), and its accuracy is adequate for home defense and self-defense. In a realistic self-defense situation, they both will accomplish the same goal. To this point, others keep reverting back to what kind of groups they can get from 100 to 200 yards away.

 

[Styx]

I would take the opposite tack on this, I think. If you want spare parts for an AR, they are available cheaply locally or via mail-order, and you can easily install them yourself. If you want a buy a spare bolt for the Mini, you have to ship the rifle back to Ruger, at least when I owned mine. I’m not sure how easy it would be to buy a spare firing pin, either.

To me, the ready availability of inexpensive spare parts is a plus for the AR.

FWIW, Ruger also makes ARs in addition to the Mini, and I imagine that their customer service for a defective one would be just as good as for any other gun they make. S&W’s customer service is also quite good.

You can buy spare Mini-14 and Mini-30 bolts and firing pins.

 

[Speedo66]

There are a few companies that makes aftermarket parts and accessories for Mini’s, Accuracy Systems for one comes to mind, but they are definitely not inexpensive.

Nobody is making knockoffs of the Mini, unlike everybody with a drill press making AR-15 replicas, for better or worse, so the economy of scale is not there.

 

[benEzra]

You can buy spare Mini-14 and Mini-30 bolts and firing pins.

Where? I see a few used bolts for sale on Numrich, Gunbroker, etc. for older mini’s that were apparently pulled from no-longer-serviceable rifles or retired LE guns, but I don’t see anyone selling new-production bolts.

As far as OEM bolts, the word on the Ruger Forum is that Ruger’s policy has not changed. You can send Ruger your rifle and they will fit you for a spare bolt, but you can’t just buy one from them without shipping them your rifle, and it appears no one else makes them. I believe they are probably concerned that the headspace be in spec since the bolt indexes on the receiver, which is a legitimate concern, but it does make it far harder to have spares.

Edited to add: Looks like Accuracy Systems does resell Ruger bolts, which is good.

Ruger OEM Bolt Firing Pin Extractor Plunger Spring for Mini 14 Mini 30

Accuracy Systems sells Ruger Original Equipment bolts, firing pins, extractors, extractor plungers, and extractor springs. If you have lost or broken parts give Accuracy Systems Inc a call.

www.ruger-mini-14-firearms.com

 

[mcb]

This story is going to bound over the some high points and probably miss some details. I was at an impressionable age when the A-team originally aired on the TV and for years I really REALLY wanted a mini 14 with the folding stock. The 94 assault weapon ban hit before I had expendable income (eye ball deep in college through all of the 90's). Coming out of college getting a real job and the AWB sunset in 2004 I was getting into practical shooting since I now had expendable income. I was shooting USPSA almost weekly and being drawn into 3-gun and multi-gun matches. I borrowed an AR-15 for my first match or two. So when I got serious about buying a semi-auto 223 rifle for those sports Ruger was still not selling magazine over 10rd to the public. Having become far more political in college and far more a 2A focused person that rubbed me the wrong way. I settled on a Rock River Arms AR-15 for my 3-gun rifle. That started my AR-15 addiction and would also be the last AR I bought complete. I have since built a heap of ARs for myself and others and have done so in a bunch of cartridges other than 223/556. I don't dislike the mini-14 but every time I look at one and then the price tag I think about how many AR parts I could buy for that money and I pass.

 

[jmorris]

FWIW, Ruger also makes ARs in addition to the Mini

That in itself says a lot.

I'd pick one of their 1911's over the P85 too.

If you can't beat them...

 

[mokin]

I didn't vote. I currently have a couple AR-15s, had others in the past, and was issued a few M-16A1s/A2s back in the day. I also have a Mini-14. I take the Mini-14 out a lot more than the AR-15s. Although every AR-15 performed better than the Minis I've shot, I like the Mini better. As others have posted, real accuracy isn't that different and by the time you add a scope, light, and other bells and whistles people like to add to AR-15s, they're so heavy you won't want to shlep it any distance more than the bench at the range.

I was thinking about respective values and it occurred to me that the value of the Mini-14 has increased on a scale similar to what the used "pre-ban" SP1 I had sold for during the ban.

 

[Mini30SS]

Thank you Styx. That is exactly my point. My love of the mini platform started because when I bought the first one, my dealer friend gave me an option: for $500 you can have either:

1) An AR-15
2) A Stainless/Standard wood stock Mini 14 and a 1000 rnd case of m193 ammo.

I took option 2. In the intervening years, the AR-15 was banned in the People's Republic of California, the Federal AWB came and went (New AR'S were not available for 10 years). And then in 2006, the newer ,improved 580 series Ruger Mini's became readily available. So for those of us stuck behind the iron curtain of communist states, the Mini series of Carbines became a default choice in 5.56/.223 and 7.62x39 calibers.

The good news is that I retired and escaped to free America. I am starting to learn the qualities and positive benefits of the Lego AR's. And there are many. That said, there is a special place in my safe and gun cabinet for a few Mini 14's and 30's.
They will do 90% of what I need a carbine in their Calibers to do. Most of my recreational shooting is 100 yards or less. My mini 30 with LPVO is near my bedside for home defense purposes. A long shot would be 80 feet in any direction. At that distance would still make holes within an inch of each other if it is a 3.5 MOA gun.

There is one special project I'm working on with an AR, that I can't do with a Ruger Mini. I'm building a DMR/SPR in .224 Valkyrie with Heavy 22 inch long barrel, and high quality Leupold scope with a 50mm Objective lense. This AR project will cost me well north of 2k, so yeah, I could buy 2 Mini's for the price of this one AR.

Let's all get along and give a toast to Mr. Sullivan, and his two great firearm designs... The AR-15 and Mini 14.

 

[1KPerDay]

That in itself says a lot.

I'd pick one of their 1911's over the P85 too.

If you can't beat them...

LOL

 

[Robert]

This seems like more than enough for this round of X vs Y. It's been a while since we did this particular version, but we are still unable to accept that someone might like something different...