mini 14 fans?

[mustanger98]

All I know is that Barbara Boxer thinks my Mini-14 shoots friendly bullets while the evil, black AR15s shoot mean, nasty bullets.

Everytime I take my Mini out, it reminds me what a complete idiot she is. Because there is absolutely no difference between the two.

That's interesting. Last I knew, she and Fienstien and Schumer wanted to ban 'em all. That last list they were floating for the next round of AWB included Mini-14 and pretty much anything else that shoots more than once. I won't even go into that failed inane attempt we saw in GA. They would have banned everything but a Sharps, and they'd have gone after it as a "sniper rifle" next.

I still like my Mini-14.

 

[chopinbloc]

let me get this straight. the mini-14 is a terrible rifle because it costs a lot of money to make it shoot accurately - bringing the cost up to almost as much as a stock ar. but the ar is good because it shoots reasonably well out of the box - if you shell out the money for a quality ar.
'cmon, guys the mini works terrifically well for the job it was designed to do. it dispatches just about anything up to and including smallish whitetail, it does so with reasonable accuracy and it does it for a reasonable price. bill ruger believed in giving the workin' man a decent product at a fair price and the mini is an excellent example of that. if you want to get all nija-fied and drop evil-doers at 600m then get a springfield m1a. if you want to play high-speed, low-drag, door kickin' swat guy then get an ar. but if you don't have the money for all that or maybe you don't want to drag your prized $1,500 ar out to the field and get it all dirty and scratched up, or if all you plan on using it for is knockin' around cans and maybe repelling medium sized two- or four-legged predators then the mini is your kinda rifle. i own one and it rides in my truck with me everywhere and i even bought it one of those nifty xs 24/7 front sights so it won't be mad at me when i get back. i also own two ar's but they spend a lot more time in the safe than playin' with dad. i guess what i'm saying is that a rifle doesn't have to be the newest, coolest, most whiz-bang thing at shot 2005 to get the job done.

 

[umc180gr]

mini, I got one

Amen, I like my mini too. I am not afraid to rough it up out in the field, I have an AR too I would not want to do that with. I shot several thousand rounds before I took the time to break it down and clean it. Pro-mag and Triple K 10-20 rd mags work for me. You also got to say something for a gun that can eat Wolf .223 all day. I tried that with an M4 I had and it jammed a bunch.

 

[Risasi]

Likewise UMC, my first Mini, that I gave to my Dad did NOT like Wolf. It would FTE to the point where we would have to run a rod down the barrel to knock the casing loose. (Didn't have a shell extractor).

So jams will occur in any platform. Granted I do see them a lot more often on the AR.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

FTE with Russky Ammo makes Mini14 bad?

I have a junker Remington Nylon 66 that looks like
hades but fires Remington, Winchester, Federal, CCI
etc. all weekend every weekend. Then I tried a steel
cased Russian .22 round and got FTE failure to eject.
I don't think FTE with one brand makes the gun bad...

 

[JohnKSa]

Has anyone tried ONLY simple, cheap things to get one to shoot?

Here's some things I was mulling over:

Crown touchup
Simple bedding job to keep the rifle from shifting in the stock
Retorqueing the gas-block screws
Trigger touch-up
Delrin/polymer buttons inside the stock to act as op-rod/piston guides
Recoil buffer
Flash hider or muzzle brake (just to put a little weight on the end of the barrel & protect the crown)

Seems to me that unless the barrel is defective this kind of stuff should get one down to around 2MOA or so--maybe better.

 

[KarbineKrazy]

Recoil buffer
Flash hider or muzzle brake
Simple bedding job to keep the rifle from shifting in the stock
Retorqueing the gas-block screws
Trigger touch-up


Yes, I have done those things you've listed. Haven't touched the crown. As for accuracy, I can't give you a great solid answer cause I can't shoot for ???? off a bench, and I have a standard model with a red dot on a scout mount. If I could mount a scope, I would. I can tell you that at 100 yards, off the bench, I can get 5 Winchester 45 grain HPs in a 2.75 MOA circle. That was after shooting about 25 rounds within the half hour to get it on paper.

That's good enough for me. I figure I would drop an inch off my group if I had a real scope, more if I could shoot from a bench.

 

[JohnKSa]

KK,

If you like a project, find some tough plastic--like Delrin and affix some buttons inside the stock where the op-rod moves back and forth. Pick the size of the buttons so that the op-rod doesn't have much room to move sideways. You might need a second set, one at the front and one set at the back.

For shooting off the bench:

Get comfortable. No stretching or straining.
Make sure the barrel's not touching the bags.
Keep both feet flat on the ground.
When you think you're all ready to shoot, close your eyes and relax. Open your eyes--if the sights aren't still on target, adjust your position or the gun's position.
Go slow.

 

[KarbineKrazy]

What does the op rod mod do? Less banging around I suppose...

Those are some good bench tips, I will have to try them. I know I've been hitting animals and targets for quite some time off hand, so it's just getting in position I need.

I went to a shooting range one time with the USMC recruiting office and fresh recruits. I got to practice the sitting, kneeling, standing and prone with a real select fire FN m16! That was cool...

 

[JohnKSa]

The way I figure accuracy on semi-autos, the more everything is the same for each shot, the better the accuracy.

So, putting the buttons inside the stock keeps the op-rod more or less riding straight back and forth in the stock. You're trying to make sure it ends up in exactly the same spot for every shot. I'm thinking this could make a pretty decent improvement in accuracy--and if it doesn't you've spent virtually nothing but some time.

Another thing that might help, would be to figure some way to make sure the stock maintains its position to the gas block. As it stands, there's a slip-fit that's pretty tight. With the op-rod banging around in the forend and the barrel flexing with each shot, the stock is probably shifting around a bit and varying the pressure it exerts on the gas block for each shot. I guess you could carefully cut the stock back until it doesn't make contact with the block but still looks ok, but you'd also have to bed the action carefully so that it's supported without help from the gas block/stock joint.

Probably one of the best mods you could make to a Mini would be to do put a semi-heavy barrel on it. One that's heavier profile (maybe fluted to keep the weight down) under the stock/handguard but that is normal profile out past the gas block. I'm kind of surprised that Ruger hasn't done it already.

The most important thing with bench shooting is making sure you aren't muscling the gun. You want it to be just sitting on the bags. You're not HOLDING it in position, you're just aligning it and then letting it sit there by itself while you pull the trigger. If the sights start to move at all, stop and figure out why. The only thing you need to do is position the gun, hold it so it doesn't fall during recoil, and then pulling the trigger.

Also, memorize the sight picture (for iron sights) and make sure it's exactly the same for each shot. If you're shooting a scope, push it a bit forward in the mounts so that you can just start to see a ring of black around the edge of the picture. Keep the picture centered in the ring of black and you'll never have parallax issues again.

 

[KarbineKrazy]

yea, that button idea sounds like a good one.

I've often thought about putting .750 barrel on it. the stocker is a .558