Any mini-14 experts?

[Jackrabbit1957]

Thanks BBBBill, couldn't remember the name of the commercially made one, being the cheap, I mean frugal kinda person I am I just made one.

 

[misser]

i have seen one that did shoot good using 62 gr. pills and it had a bipod hanging on the barrel . i have wondered if the bipod had something to do with its accuracy

 

[Ignition Override]

“Perfectunion”.

My first reading on that website began in 2008.

It compiled Mini knowledge the same way the (former) AKfiles compiled the other knowledge for those wonderful creations.

 

[mokin]

There's a lot of good information in this thread. I haven't experienced any failures with mine but there is a good trouble shooting procedure here. Thanks for sharing everybody.

That makes it a 3 inch gun at 100 yards. That is good to go as per Ruger. The Mini's are not target rifles.
kwg

This reminds me of a conversation a few of us had at a 3 gun match once. Several of us had older rifles equipped with iron sights (non AR-15s). We had all done a little reading about our rifles and knew that when they came out of the factory, 3 inches at 100 yards was considered good enough.

 

[BBBBill]

It has been reported that the Mini was originally intended to be a plinker. If you got one that was accurate it was a plus. I was fortunate in that regard with my first one (stainless). What is most aggravating to me is the excessive prices for factory mags. Even the 5 round ones are too high. And every aftermarket mag that I've ever tried was junk although I have been able to tweak a few to work. If MagPul were to come out with a good reliable Mini mag priced similar to their AR mags they would own the market.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Possibly a stupid question,but;Did you disassemble the bolt and clean out the firing pin channel?

First thing I would have done.

This is the ONLY video I could find on the actual bolt disassembly!
If I recall correctly, it's similar to the M-1 Garand

I took the bolt apart and cleaned it, replaced the hammer and recoil springs, and spent some more time cleaning the chamber. No more failure to fire. However sometimes it won't feed a new round or it will get jammed on the way it. It happens with a Ruger magazine and an aftermarket magazine.View attachment 961365View attachment 961365 View attachment 961366

Did you oil the slide and the rail? Oil on bolt head?
It could be the magazine (test in another Mini-14)
It could be underfunction - too much stress from the bolt impeding the bolt travel to and fro
It could be hyper-function. Bolt is moving faster than magazine spring can push up the fresh cartridge.

 

[Catpop]

Mine shoots sub 1/2” MOA at 100 yards with reloads. Also chunks brass into the next county

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

Is that an aluminum sleeve? What holds it on, is it vented for cooling?

 

[Catpop]

Is that an aluminum sleeve? What holds it on, is it vented for cooling?

No it’s a piece of 1 1/4 steel shaft I bored out to fit my 9/16” mini barrel. It was a quest I followed to see if I could make my mini shoot MOA. It worked!
I was supposed to keep turning it down until the accuracy started to fall off, but alas it still sits just as I left it three years or so ago! I gotta get back to it!
And no since it was only step two of the quest it never got vented This is a pic of step one. This was to see if I was on the right track. It reduced group size from 3” to 1 1/2”. As you can see, step one was vented

 

[jmorris]

^ that reminds me of a cast aluminum torque tube repair on a late 70’s chevette we used in our dirt track derbies at the farm years ago.

The vise inserts are one of the better designs I have seen too.

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

I tried an aluminum 2 piece sleeve but results were less than expected. I made my homemade Accu strut and that did the trick, 3 shot group at 50 yards the size of a dime.

 

[Catpop]

Is that an aluminum sleeve? What holds it on, is it vented for cooling?

Sorry, it has three Allen setscrews located 120 degrees apart at muzzle, but only one Allen setscrew at gas block because I was in a hurry to test it! Shame on me!
It’s also about 4” too long and alas I have’nt got around to that either. If you look close you can see one muzzle Allen screw.

 

[jmorris]

If you look close you can see one muzzle Allen screw.

I can see it. You also shouldn’t leave the key in that chuck.

I suppose leaving one in there to hopefully just fly out is still better than trying to hold onto one...

 

[Catpop]

I can see it. You also shouldn’t leave the key in that chuck.

I suppose leaving one in there to hopefully just fly out is still better than trying to hold onto one...

Drats I looked all over the shop for that dad burn key!! Thanks for finding it for me!

 

[The Car Doctor]

Here's my update: The ammo I'm using is some reloads I got from my grandfather. I've noticed that some of the primers are set deeper than others, however since replacing the hammer spring and disassembling the bolt for a good cleaning, I haven't had any more failure to fire. I think there must have been some crud in there keeping the firing pin to reach those deeper primers

As far as the feeding problem, I bought a new magazine but the ammo was slightly too long to fit inside. I seated the bullets a little deeper and BAM! The rifle works flawless with either magazine.

 

[rbernie]

As a general rule – when you’re having functional issues with a firearm, it is generally best to buy some reasonable quality factory ammo to use as a baseline before troubleshooting in earnest. That helps isolate whether the issues are specific to the ammo or the gun.

 

[Ignition Override]

The Car Doctor: Zero expertise with any gun, to be honest.

My used Mini 14 (bought in 2008) still had some of the silver sticker which said "State of KY", and the true Ruger OEM, 20rd. (?) magazine. It might have been a KY state police, or prison gun?

The only ammo used, maybe 600-800 rounds, was Russian. Much of it was Silver Bear and some Wolf.

Zero issues of any kind with that superbly reliable gun: perfect feed, firing, extraction and ejection. Even with the somewhat harder Russian primers--perfect. I was impressed.
I'm glad that yours has seen a serious improvement.