mini 14 using m16 mags

That's a big negative, white. Totally different mags. Sorry, brother.

No it won't--and I've never heard of anyone dreaming up a mod that would make such a thing possible. It would have solved many mini owners headaches about expensive 'good' mags.

Here's my .02----they WILL fit!!! Don't know if they will work, never got to try it out.
I found a M16 mag in the woods one day,loaded with blanks---NG play ground
Took it home and tried it in my Mini----think I had to drill a hole in it to get it to stay in place, but never actually loaded it and used it.
Gave the mag to a friend who has a Mini and he said it worked for him,but I never saw him fire it, so I still don't know for sure.
UJ

I wonder just how much civilian and LEO sales Ruger lost out on by not making the Mini-14 accept AR mags.....

...and how many sales they would get if they did.....

No get an AR. You will not like how fast the mini 14 will heat up on you.
I have a mini but if was to do it over again I would have spent the extra
200 bucks on a Bushmaster AR. The M16 mags should fit the AR.

Not necessarily true. I had some Ramline mags up until recently that worked in both AR and Mini14, both without a hitch. They were molded plastic but good mags, 30 rounders. Would not know where to begin with metal. When I bought them they were advertised for use in both guns.

I wonder just how much civilian and LEO sales Ruger lost out on by not making the Mini-14 accept AR mags.....

...and how many sales they would get if they did.....

Click to expand...

I believe it was Bushmaster, with their .308 using FAL mags, who learned the hard way that you do not design a firearm around a magazine.

If you want a mini, you'll need mini mags, if you want to use AR mags, buy an AR.

As mcwhitey says, there HAVE been "three gun" mags made that were advertised to work in the AR-15, AR-180, and Mini-14, but these were made before '94.

I'm also not convinced their use is an impossibility. Ram Line did make magazines that worked in both rifles. It probably wouldn't be easy, but if you wanted to take the time and effort, I think AR magazines could be modified to work.

we played with some AR mag for use in mini's. We tapped metal tabs and drilled holes accordingly. They worked fine, just a pain to and some trail and error. The hardest one to get past and one we never found was the little tab on the follower to hold the bolt on the last round. Over all is was way much more work than warrented, but if a person was bored enough, you could do the mods

I wonder just how much civilian and LEO sales Ruger lost out on by not making the Mini-14 accept AR mags.....

...and how many sales they would get if they did.....

Click to expand...

That would require a new design. Ruger can't seem to do that much anymore.

how about mini-14 mags in a mini-30. I know a 14 mag will hold the ammo.

Actualy I know a guy that found a way to do just that. He had to "un-weld" the seams (AR mags too wide) about halfway down and reweld them and I believe there where some other mods and a jig for drilling the hole and welding a catch up to the rear of the mag after that. He had done several and claimed they worked well....I've never used them myself...it was not for the meek (lots of work) I've been using promag 20 rounders with 100% success in my 580 series mini...actually they lock in and out even better than the $50 factory 20 rounders I have (the cadillac of mini mags) the promag steel 20's are around $15-18 a pop if you shop around. You could probably sell your AR mags for close enough to that you wouldn't be out much. I saw pics of his mods somewhere on the net.

My Uncle had some metal 30rounders that he got from CtD that were Pre-Ban that advertised to work in Mini's and AR's seem to recall them not having last round hold open, could be wrong though

Note that the Kel Tec does take AR magazines. So does the 7615.

BTW, the idea that Ruger couldn't change the mag well and catch to work with AR magazines is simply false. Remington did it with the 7600 to get the 7615. They just hung a new mag well under the action, with the AR-style mag catch. Looks a bit funky, but it appears to work reliably.

7600


7615

How about trying a polymer 5.56 AK mag in there? Sure you'd have to do some Dremel-fu... but you can get a cheap Promag and butcher it for pretty cheap...

Reason I say that is, one of the guys at the Saiga forum was going to make a magwell insert that would allow a mini-14 magazine to function in a Saiga .223... Not sure if he got around to it though.

The magwell idea is tried and true on the Galil, the UA adaptors would allow an AR mag to be used in a Galil.

The magwell adaptor also works for Saiga .223 rifles.


I'm not saying run out and buy a Saiga, just relating to the topic of finding higher capacity magazines for rifles that come with low capacity magazines.

With that said, if you get a mini, get the newest model available as the barrels are fatter than past barrels...

And Ruger is going to start selling 20 rounders to the general public.

At least they will if you buy their $1K mini... I haven't yet heard to the contrary.

i have wished some one would make a kit to convert ar mags to the mini 14

It would probably be fairly easy to make a drop-in trigger-group/floorplate unit for the Mini that would accept AR mags, but the tricky part would probably be making a mag catch that's easy to activate.

And Ruger is going to start selling 20 rounders to the general public.

Click to expand...

Not according to thier factory guys, ain't happening, if you want factory 20s, buy the NRA rifle.

So I was just out were the safe is to put away for a rainy day project a tiger stripped M98 stock for what appears to be for something like the Brazilian M1908, though it lacks a sling hook on the front band and has a bayonet adaptor like on the M98 Spanish Cortuna guns and thought about this topic.

I grabbed the wifes Ranch Rifle out of the safe and reached up into a box or AR15 magazines on a higher shelf. Seven AR15 magazines later (from GI COlt 20s to no name works in AR15 and AR-180 ) and none, not one, would seat in the Ranch Rifle Mini. Generally the rear of the mag would not fit past the metal tabs of the trigger guard and the one that did barely squeeze through there hung up on the front end where it should begin to enter the reciever.

The only "AR-15" magazine that fit the Ranch Rifle was the afor menationed Ram line plastics that were intened to work with the Mini, the AR15 and the AR-180. I have recently found those old plastic slabs are no longer reliable in an AR-180 BTW though they still seem to seat just fine. They are some what tight in the Ranch Rifle as well.

Perhaps some folks have some sort of mini that will allow an AR-15 magazine to go far enough in to even think about modifying the magazine, but they won't even get close in the wife's Ranch Rifle.

-Bob Hollingsworth

I wonder just how much civilian and LEO sales Ruger lost out on by not making the Mini-14 accept AR mags.....

...and how many sales they would get if they did.....

Click to expand...

You are apparently not old enough to remember that the Mini-14 came out in 1974. At the time, the AR-15 was an uncommon oddity in the civilian shooting world (and made ONLY by Colt).

Making a commerical rifle such as the Mini-14 share a magazine with an uncommon military look-alike would have made no sense, and had NO marketing benefit.

It was not until MANY years later that the AR-15 became popular with the civilian shooting world.