AR 15 or Mini 14

[SabbathWolf]

The mini stays cleaner inside the receiver and FCG parts.
The AR has parts galore to customize any way you want.
Decent mags are easier to find for the AR.
The mini is a better choice if you participate in A-Team reenactments.

 

[Ed Ames]

Just a question... What's the skinny on changing calibers on an AR?

It seems like you would pretty much need to build up a complete upper, perhaps with a different bolt. That can't be right though because an upper ends up costing more than a lot of entire rifles. I dismiss the Encore most of the time because the $250+ barrels are too expensive but having to buy a stack of uppers would make that look like a bargain. Also, it seems like you'd be really limited in What you can change to...my encore can switch between .17 Hornet and 7mm rem mag in a few seconds, but that's because it doesn't need a feed system for the ammo. How would you get around that with an AR?

Seems kinda iffy to brag up changing calibers if all you mean is you can pay the price of a savage bolt gun to swap between a handful of low power cartridges. ...

 

[Roadking Rider]

Agree 100% ASH.
The M14,M1 carbine, and Mini 14 can all trace there roots back to the M1 Garand. One quick look at the bolt assembly will surely tell you that. Yes the gas returns are different and the M14, Carbine, and mini take a Magazine instead of the Clip but there is no mistaking it's linage to the Garand. People can say what they want about the Mini 14. They can praise it or condemn it but mine isn't going anywhere. As far as I'm concerned it's a great little rifle that has been flawless from day one, and it puts the rounds where I need them to be, providing I do my part.

 

[35 Whelen]

Just a question... What's the skinny on changing calibers on an AR?

HIGHLY overrated IMHO...unless you find it appealing to change from a weak, long-range cartridge to a stout short range cartridge.

35W

 

[Ed Ames]

Well here's what throws me: you say stout short range..maybe 5 years ago I paid about $406 for a stainless .454 casull lever gun. It is quintessentially stout and short range, and a handy little carbine. I've been able to buy factory ammo continuously through two politically-induced shortages even. How much would buying a .458 socom (or whatever is closest to .454) upper save me over buying a whole gun?

 

[MistWolf]

Shrug. I am not a huge folder fan. It's just something a mini can do and an AR can't.

An AR can be set up with a folder, but the adapter I believe is around $200. The AR cannot be fired with he stock folded. There is another option that moves the action spring to the upper so a folding stock can be used and the AR fired with it folded. Again, it's an expensive option and a lot of hoops to jump through. It is much easier to install a folding stock on the Mini than the AR. Still, I'd rather have the adjustable stock of the AR over a folder or fixed stock on the Mini

(Paradoxically, I find I like the full sized M14 or FAL with a fixed stock for "truck gun" duty better than the Mini. Go figure)

With or without. A heavy conventional stock would be better. You can jab with either, but 90+ percent of ARs sold cannot mount a bayonet properly. They have carbine length gas systems and 16.5" barrels so the bayonet lugs are a joke.

Actually, the market is shifting towards 16" middies and it's very easy to mount a bayonet. It'a also easy to mount a bayonet on a 14.5" carbine, but ya have to pin the muzzle device to make legal length.
View attachment 665121

In truth, I was being facetious about mounting a bayonet. Few want them anymore.

If the someone were serious about needing a butt stock tough enough to beat on their foes without breaking, the UBR is their choice for an AR stock. As I understand it though, modern tactics has it that it's better to jab with the muzzle than use the rifle as a club

For a gun you are going to leave behind the seat of a pickup? Absolutely it can be.

This is what I think of as a gun sock
View attachment 665122

Socks of that type are too thin to offer any protection to a rifle carried in a truck. What I'm currently using is this
View attachment 665123

It's well padded. I don't have a truck to see if it'll fit behind the seat, but it's length is short and will hold four extra mags securely plus a few other items

Minis do not require a folding stock.

True. I suppose no rifle really does. Doesn't mean I hate folders. I'd rather they were attached to something else
View attachment 665124

Hmm... With my hands I have a choice of using my off hand, breaking my grip, or maybe reaching up with my...no, just those two. The mini is easy.

Heheheh!

No two hands are shaped or sized the same. Personally, I find the safety of the AR easy to manipulate and I like the Garand/M14 safety as well

Most minis don't have a folding stock and don't need it...snagging is a big part of why. With the ar you don't have a choice about the snag points.

Yeah, a folded stock does offer more snag points. ARs can also be outfitted with fixed stocks if the owner desires. Magpul makes a couple of nice alternates to the standard A1 & A2. Even so, the AR, the grip of the AR is only one more snag point- as long as someone hasn't dragged it through a Cheaper Than Dirt Catalog

Of course, the Mini offers a slicker profile if 5 round mags are used in both

It's weak for a center fire rifle. Not the weakest, but weak enough that many people question its use on large game.

I'm with you on big game. But the 5.56 is good at what it's designed to do, has given many a badguy a dirt nap and has proven effective on deer and hogs

But do you need that for a ranch gun? In other words a gun that will live in a scabbard on an ATV or behind the seat of a pickup? A rifle that will be used to take occasional shots at roving dogs that might bother the chickens, or pigs tearing up a field, but mostly will just be along for the ride?

I think if both rifles were outfitted with 20 or 30 round magazines, both would be just as easy to draw from an ATV scabbard or from behind the seat of a truck.

I find a rifle that's fitted to me and my needs works better. I don't need much on any rifle, I believe in keeping things simple. The AR above has a weapon light because it also does house defense duty. (Light is easy to remove to remain legal while hunting).

I don't know why such a person would want to mess around with their rifle so much. They have actual work to do.

If you mean someone who is a member in good standing of the Tacticool Item of the Month club, I agree. But I like having an adjustable stock and the ability to configure the sights to suit my needs easily. Not that I change sights all the time, but it's good to be able to install a sight for testing without having to hunt down a special mount first

 

[MistWolf]

Just a question... What's the skinny on changing calibers on an AR?

It seems like you would pretty much need to build up a complete upper, perhaps with a different bolt. That can't be right though because an upper ends up costing more than a lot of entire rifles. I dismiss the Encore most of the time because the $250+ barrels are too expensive but having to buy a stack of uppers would make that look like a bargain. Also, it seems like you'd be really limited in What you can change to...my encore can switch between .17 Hornet and 7mm rem mag in a few seconds, but that's because it doesn't need a feed system for the ammo. How would you get around that with an AR?

Seems kinda iffy to brag up changing calibers if all you mean is you can pay the price of a savage bolt gun to swap between a handful of low power cartridges. ...

You make a good point. To quickly change calibers, it's best to have a whole upper ready to go. Just push two pins and change the upper. The problem with that is, it's simple to just build up another lower and just like that, you have two rifles.

For calibers based on the 223/221 case, no bolt change is needed. That means the 300 BLK, the ballistic twin to the 7.62x39 uses the same bolt as the 5.56. What use is the 300 BLK? Just think of it as a 30-30 Lite.

The other two popular caliber changes is the 6.5 Grendel and the 6.8 SPC. Both require a larger bolt face and sometimes a dedicated magazine.

I think a Mini-300 would make a terrific brush gun

 

[mnhntr]

HIGHLY overrated IMHO...unless you find it appealing to change from a weak, long-range cartridge to a stout short range cartridge.

35W

Really? The weak long range calibers like the 6.5 grendel or 243wssm. Either is a very effective long range caliber as well as the 20-30 others out there.

 

[Ed Ames]

Mist...I mostly agree with you so just a few points...

Buttstroking was mostly intended in fun, but. Buttstroking - punching with the dominant hand through the rifle, so that the buttstock becomes an extended and weighty fist - is an example of the sort of thing you can do with a strong solid rifle....and the mini might just come up to the minimum standard for that. Or not...but it surely comes higher than an m4gery.

On that note...agreed about mid-length and the like, but 90% or so (casually/personal observation only) of m4geries don't use a mid-length or pinned/soldered flash hider. I could be wrong about the percentage but if much over 10% of ars sold can properly use a bayonet I'll be surprised.

I've had 2 rifles and a shotgun with folding stocks. I've had 2 rifles with collapsing/adjustable stocks. I've had .... one, I think, carbines that could fold in a non-firing way. Of those, the m4 style adjustable is nicest. On the other hand...I always use my m4s in the same detent. Also, any rifle can be adjusted. I have a hand-me-down traditional rifle that was once owned by a guy who was 6'4" or so. He had extended the stock by about 4-5” LOP...in other words, it was about 18.5" LOP! I shortened it back down to 16” (still too much) and have been considering adjusting it to 13” and using a slip-on recoil pad to adjust it back to 14” to accommodate seasonal clothing differences. The nice thing is that once it is dialed in you don't need to worry about a floppy rattly expensive plastic gizmo. If it's a personal weapon, personalizing it is natural and desirable.

I did mean one of those knit socks. If you have a rack (e.g. one of the big sky racks) the rifle doesn't need padding. It needs protection from dust and condensation.

If I was carrying a ranch rifle I would use a 5rd mag because it is slick. I might have a 20 in my kit but the 5 would be in the gun. On the other hand...what do I know about ranch guns? I'm not a rancher. If I was dropped on a ranch I wouldn't take either my mini or my AR...I would take my stainless .454 casull m92 lever gun, because it is the lightest/slickest/most impervious of the three and can fire 11 260gr bullets at around 2000fps as fast as you can repeatedly yell "flinch"...which is probably excellent evidence that I have no feel for the ranges at which ranch-gun people operate. It's all speculation to me.

If you get back to the original question of which a person should buy...I think it's totally a matter of the personality of the buyer. There are a lot of buyers that will never in their entire life mess with the operating system of a rifle, or change the upper, or even buy additional magazines. They get what they want and they keep it until they die. My mini's first owner used the included 5 round magazine, and only a single magazine, for decades...he got rid of it for health reasons, not because he was unhappy with the rifle.. It didn't last a week in my hands before I started tweaking it. Different personality. I like modifying, others don't. I modify guns that are hard to modify, not to mention my ARs...but it would be a mistake to suggest that just because I enjoy something it is the best choice for everyone.

 

[MistWolf]

To me, the Ranch Rifle is an idea. It's just another name for a truck gun. You don't need to be a rancher to have a ranch rifle, just have a rifle that's handy. Since I like shooting what I got, not just for busting jackrabbits & coyotes but for plinking as well. As much as I like the idea of the lever action 454, I like the idea of a self loading rifle better.

Of all the rifles I've had, the truck guns I've liked the best- in no particular order- are the M14, 10/22, AR15, M1 Garand and FAL.

After playing with the Mini14, Mini30 Ranch and AR, I prefer the AR for hunting, plinking, self defense and Truck Gun duty

 

[itsa pain]

it may not be fair to compare any rifle to the AR. no rifle or the round it shoots has had more money spent on it in the history of mankind in over 50 years tweaking the length the twist the handguards the sites the grip etc. the round has seen numerous changes. it was forced on everyone like busing obamacare etc. no one wanted it. comparing it to another rifle is like comparing a kid with a billionaire father helping him along to a kid born in a one room shack

 

[justice06rr]

HIGHLY overrated IMHO...unless you find it appealing to change from a weak, long-range cartridge to a stout short range cartridge.

35W

It actually makes the AR more versatile and cost-efficient in some ways.

Pop in a 22lr Conversion kit and you can shoot on the cheap. Or swap a larger caliber upper like a 6.8SPC or 458Socom for hunting. Nothing overrated about that. Not just about appeal, but also functionality and multipurpose.


Can the Mini do this? No.

 

[itsa pain]

if I had 50 years and tens of millions like the AR did to work on a gun I could take a pipe clamped on to a 2x4 and have turned it into a plasma gun by now

 

[buckstrucks]

The new minis come drilled and tapped for a rail, and the rail and rings for the receiver mounts both come in the box. They also come with two 20 rounds magazines if you live in a state that allows this. I have done a dirt in action test with a mini 14 vs a SGL AK clone. Well two back to back dirt tests. And I am talking about packing the action full of dirt, pulling the rifles up, racking the bolt a few times, inserting a magazine and shooting. The mini needed help going in to battery the first shot, the AK choked on soft point ammo and would not fire because of a giant chunk of lead on the feed ramp that kept the bolt from going all the way forward. The mini functioned as a bolt action for the first 3 rounds in the magazine then proceed to function as it should. The second dirt test the rifles were both to dirty to cycle. So we blasted them with a dose of CLP, the Mini decided to work 100%, the AKs trigger needed to be pushed forward with every shot fired, but otherwise worked as it should. The minis bolt did not lock back on the last shot fired. This dirt test was well beyond what a rifle should be expected to function on. And I have no doubt that each rifle with a mag in and the bolt closed each would have worked just fine. I would also put my mini up against any AR that isnt crazy expensive.

 

[Ash]

I bought into the versatility line when I got into AR's, but realized that was overrated. Yeah, you can change, but just about nobody does. Sure, some guys do, and that is what makes the Savage a nice rifle, but the reality is that as an advantage, it is no better than a Mini's superior butt-stroking. Neither really matters. Lowers are cheap, so the need to change out calibers in a single platform offers no real economic advantage. You're multi-purposing a lower, not much advantage in that beyond the 22lr set.

Can my Mini do that? No. But the vast majority of rifles out there can't do that. So what? It has no bearing in its usefulness in the field. My .22lr shoulders like my Mini anyway and I get two guns. And my entire .22lr rifle cost less than a .22lr conversion kit, and works as a stand-alone rifle.

I can keep a loaded 22lr and a loaded Mini plus a loaded SKS ready to go. Can a single AR do that? No.

 

[35 Whelen]

I bought into the versatility line when I got into AR's, but realized that was overrated. Yeah, you can change, but just about nobody does. Sure, some guys do, and that is what makes the Savage a nice rifle, but the reality is that as an advantage, it is no better than a Mini's superior butt-stroking. Neither really matters. Lowers are cheap, so the need to change out calibers in a single platform offers no real economic advantage. You're multi-purposing a lower, not much advantage in that beyond the 22lr set.

Can my Mini do that? No. But the vast majority of rifles out there can't do that. So what? It has no bearing in its usefulness in the field. My .22lr shoulders like my Mini anyway and I get two guns. And my entire .22lr rifle cost less than a .22lr conversion kit, and works as a stand-alone rifle.

I can keep a loaded 22lr and a loaded Mini plus a loaded SKS ready to go. Can a single AR do that? No.

Thank you. The only thing I can add is this: Why would I want several different caliber rifles that all look exactly the same? I have an AR and a Mini, the AR spends most of its time in the safe, the Mini, out of it.

35W

 

[Beentown]

You guys may not know it but you are the minority. Just because you prefer a Mini most don't for all the reasons people (majority) prefer the AR.

Both are used at my home. But the AR gets MUCH more range time. If it needs hit the AR gets the call...

 

[Roadking Rider]

I like my mini 14 just fine. I do however have questions on the 223/556 round know matter what rifle it's shot from.
Speaking only for myself here. If I really want to drop something in a hurry I'll grab either my M1 Garand, SKS, or Mosin Nagant 91/30. If I want to put a lot of ammo down range fast than I'll go with the mini14. As for 22lr's, the 100% stock 10/22 has always worked well for me.
I'd rather have two different rifles of different caliber than one rifle that can be converted to shoot two different calibers. Suppose your one rifle breaks or jams? Then what?

 

[itsa pain]

buttstrucks I always said a mini has AK reliability and you have shown it might be better. we used to go in the woods overnite and leave the guns outside in snow and freezing rain and the SKS and minis would function no matter what blasting the ice and snow off them when shot

 

[WinThePennant]

Both rifles are nice. But, I say go with the AR... All day long...

 

[35 Whelen]

You guys may not know it but you are the minority. Just because you prefer a Mini most don't for all the reasons people (majority) prefer the AR.

Both are used at my home. But the AR gets MUCH more range time. If it needs hit the AR gets the call...

What does being in the minority or majority have to do with anything? Being in the majority certainly doesn't make anything more right. I'd refer you to our current President who was favored by the majority.

Of course more people prefer the AR. It's cheaper, it's "cooler", and millions use it daily playing Call of Duty.

 

[Ash]

"You guys may not know it but you are the minority."

And I should care because...why? AR owners are in the minority in America. So when New York, Connecticut, Colorado, and California seek to ban them, that's okay, because AR owners are in the minority and being in the minority makes them wrong?

I wear a wind-up watch. I am in the minority of watch wearers. I prefer 1960's and 1970's Mossberg Centerfire rifles for hunting, again, minority. I didn't vote for Obama, so I am in the minority. Being in the minority on popular opinion must be...what is it again that makes being in the minority matter?

That I justify my choices (and have established I consider them no better than other choices, just as those other choices are no better than mine) establishes that the AR is not the best choice for all people. There are legions of us who use a Mini 14 to good effect and obviously choose it for good (and thoroughly fleshed-out) reasons.

It remains that the Mini 14 has features that makes it a very desirable rifle/carbine. Those features make it the obvious choice for many of us, regardless of our minority status.

 

[Art Eatman]

I still hold that what's important is one's primary use. If it's hunting and plinking, the Mini and the AR are equal. Target shooting? Generally the worked-over ARs are better.

Having had several of each, I've found zero difference in reliability. Since I'm not interested in customizing an AR, that facet is of no importance to me. YMMV.

 

[blitztech]

I paid $400 for my mini-14 and spent another $300 on new stock, a brace that provides stability for the barrel, and 4-factory 20 rd mags. It'll shoot sub moa groups with the occasional flyer and rarely ever malfunctions.

 

[SwampWolf]

Some of the comments in this thread are just laughable. sorry to be a negative, but wow.

Well, I guess there's been a couple of posts in this thread that might be considered "laughable" by some but, for the most part, I've read mostly pretty informative and well thought-out comments. I especially liked pintler's opinion in post no. 6.
I own both; one of the early Mini-14s and a Rock River National Match AR-15. Admittedly, the little Ruger will never be a match rifle but it was never intended to be. And the AR that I have was never meant to be a close-quarters, self-defense rifle. Its sole purpose is to shoot accurately in service rifle matches which I compete in and would be a good sniper rifle if I ever needed one (I do use it for some varmint hunting in the "off" season).
So, imo, the only valid comparisons would be contrasting an AR carbine with the Mini in self-defense scenarios. And in that context, my choice would be the Mini-14. Mine has been super reliable, easy to field-strip and clean, durable, plenty accurate for its purpose and, as some posters have noted, lacks the sinister, "bad boy" image projected by the typical "evil black rifle"-which just might work against you (albeit unfairly) if you ever find yourself in court defending your actions by defending yourself.
True, the Mini is not nearly as easy to "accessorize" as an AR (which I think is often overdone to the point of having jeweled mudflaps installed on the butt and fox-tails streaming from the muzzle on some) and the factory mags are pricier (get a few and be done with it-they aren't that expensive).
Bottom line for me is that there is no wrong choice here and subjective individual preferences and particular needs in terms of application and uses should be the determining factors as to which one to have. It's probably the ultimate cop-out but I agree with those who advocate getting both rifles. Just buy the Mini first.