N555
Member
The mini14 loved by few, hated by many. It deserves to be loved. It introduced many new and old shooters to the possibility of a semiautomatic 223/5.56 rifle for half the price of an AR15 back in the day.
Dont say just get an AR15, I already have 2 that the government knows about.
I have an old mini14, that was made around 1980, so that piece of junk is about as old as I am. It has slipped into irreverency with the onset of cheap AR15s with their evil threaded muzzles, seductive 1:9 and 1:7 twist barrels and my love of silencers.
When I slugged the bore in the mini back around 2001 the lands measured 0.222'' and it's had at least several cases of ammo through it since then. The best factory ammo I was able to find in the late 1990s was a winchester 50 or 52gr flat base soft point, would make it so I could hit a page of note book paper at 100yd pretty much 100% of the time, till the barrel got hot, and my definition of hot back then was burning the oil off the barrel and out of the gas block. So the original 1:12 barrel is pretty much shot out. For comparison any factory ammo that shoots worse than 2.5 inches at 100yd out of my FN made A2 upper gets resold quickly and at a slight loss if need be. I don't even waste my time with it.
Now all my 223/5.56 ammo is reloads anything around 1.5 inches at 100 is acceptable. I don't load any 50gr flat base bullet. My current 55gr fmj bt load that could shoot okay in the mini14 and is my AR15 carbine load using around the start load of H322 but it does not cycle my mini14 at all, but it cycles an AR15 carbine with a silencer great, only a tiny bit over gassed with vltor H4 buffer. Only other rounds I load are a 69gr that probably wouldn't stabilize at all out of a 1:12 barrel and a 62gr fmj bt, but I already know my mini14 never liked any M855 style ammo, if I remember correctly I could hit a note book paper at 70yd most of the time with M855 style ammo.
So a new threaded 1:9 twist barrel will make all my AR15 loads shootable in the mini14 with a silencer. More than likely.
I'm only going for milspec accuracy of 3 or 4 moa. Right now it's best is at least 6moa with a bullet that doesn't exist any more. Making it shoot milspec would be making it suck less, shooting like an AR15 with 2 to 3 inch at 100yd would be great.
Enough about all that.
To make the mini14 great again, or at the very least not suck as much I was thinking buy a new already 1/2x28 threaded heavier 1:9 twist "581 and up" 99% finished barrel, just needs to be finished with a finishing reamer in 223rem, 223wyld or 5.56mm is my understanding. I already have a 5.56mm go and no go gauge set for mixing and matching barrels with bolts. My FN upper and a Delton barrel with DD BCG close tight on the go gauge and have great accuracy. The mini14 swallows the no-go gage like nothing. So that is what I would be reaming for, get it to close tight on the go gauge. I already bought the receiver support blocks to disassemble the mini14 years ago when I was going to just swap the pencil barrel for another pencil barrel but never did.
Obviously the original gas block for the pencil barrel won't accept the fatter barrel and turning the heavy barrel down to accept the original gas block defeats the purpose of the heavier barrel. So I was going to buy an aftermarket adjustable gas block with M14 inspired barrel stabilizer for a 581 barrel.
Will all that fit together like I think it will?
I can't find anyone who has actually done it.
Dont say just get an AR15, I already have 2 that the government knows about.
I have an old mini14, that was made around 1980, so that piece of junk is about as old as I am. It has slipped into irreverency with the onset of cheap AR15s with their evil threaded muzzles, seductive 1:9 and 1:7 twist barrels and my love of silencers.
When I slugged the bore in the mini back around 2001 the lands measured 0.222'' and it's had at least several cases of ammo through it since then. The best factory ammo I was able to find in the late 1990s was a winchester 50 or 52gr flat base soft point, would make it so I could hit a page of note book paper at 100yd pretty much 100% of the time, till the barrel got hot, and my definition of hot back then was burning the oil off the barrel and out of the gas block. So the original 1:12 barrel is pretty much shot out. For comparison any factory ammo that shoots worse than 2.5 inches at 100yd out of my FN made A2 upper gets resold quickly and at a slight loss if need be. I don't even waste my time with it.
Now all my 223/5.56 ammo is reloads anything around 1.5 inches at 100 is acceptable. I don't load any 50gr flat base bullet. My current 55gr fmj bt load that could shoot okay in the mini14 and is my AR15 carbine load using around the start load of H322 but it does not cycle my mini14 at all, but it cycles an AR15 carbine with a silencer great, only a tiny bit over gassed with vltor H4 buffer. Only other rounds I load are a 69gr that probably wouldn't stabilize at all out of a 1:12 barrel and a 62gr fmj bt, but I already know my mini14 never liked any M855 style ammo, if I remember correctly I could hit a note book paper at 70yd most of the time with M855 style ammo.
So a new threaded 1:9 twist barrel will make all my AR15 loads shootable in the mini14 with a silencer. More than likely.
I'm only going for milspec accuracy of 3 or 4 moa. Right now it's best is at least 6moa with a bullet that doesn't exist any more. Making it shoot milspec would be making it suck less, shooting like an AR15 with 2 to 3 inch at 100yd would be great.
Enough about all that.
To make the mini14 great again, or at the very least not suck as much I was thinking buy a new already 1/2x28 threaded heavier 1:9 twist "581 and up" 99% finished barrel, just needs to be finished with a finishing reamer in 223rem, 223wyld or 5.56mm is my understanding. I already have a 5.56mm go and no go gauge set for mixing and matching barrels with bolts. My FN upper and a Delton barrel with DD BCG close tight on the go gauge and have great accuracy. The mini14 swallows the no-go gage like nothing. So that is what I would be reaming for, get it to close tight on the go gauge. I already bought the receiver support blocks to disassemble the mini14 years ago when I was going to just swap the pencil barrel for another pencil barrel but never did.
Obviously the original gas block for the pencil barrel won't accept the fatter barrel and turning the heavy barrel down to accept the original gas block defeats the purpose of the heavier barrel. So I was going to buy an aftermarket adjustable gas block with M14 inspired barrel stabilizer for a 581 barrel.
Will all that fit together like I think it will?
I can't find anyone who has actually done it.
Last edited:
