Hello Byron. I’m happy that your experience was so positive. If only mine had been like yours ... but after getting 9†+ groups with each of my Minis at one point or another, I couldn’t disagree with you more vehemently. It is for this reason that I respond, not because I want to argue, but because in an academic sense I’m fascinated as to why so many people have wildly varying experiences with the Mini 14.
In short, I want to know what you are doing right. Obviously, if I’ve bought $1500 in Mini rifles, I like the concept and want it to work in the real world. Maybe you could help me solve the mystery.
Here is what baffles me:
1. Had my experience only been with ONE rifle, I could see how it could be a fluke. It was THREE rifles. Such consistent inconsistency is really an aberration, really.
2. Is it that I just can’t shoot? I have always been able to obtain at least 2†groups with my other rifles, like my 7mm Rem. Mag. without even really trying. I guess that’s why I never really shot my rifles much ... but the Minis were different. I liked shooting them and didn’t mind testing them. Probably 1/3 of my lifetime rifle shooting has taken place with a Mini in hand.
3. Is it that I can’t measure groups? With my other rifles, a 3-shot or 5-shot group is measured center-to-center with a tape measure from my shooting bag. These rifles produce groups that are more or less circular, and very consistent - 10 rounds gives you one ragged hole. The Minis however would produce a wandering zero during the SLOWEST of slow-fire. Twenty rounds would not all be in a nice 9†circle or “shotgun patternâ€. I could work with that. But no, each 5-shot string would be, say 9 inches, but the 9" groups would be on different parts of the target. I’d be all day trying to zero the rifle with each new reload, but to no avail.
4. Why wouldn’t I have discovered the magic load for at least one of these rifles?
I put everything I could buy or cobble together through my Minis to no avail. Each one in its own right was an ongoing reloading project, each broader in spectrum than the last.
5. Did I just own a Mini that was of the wrong rifling twist? I had a Mini 14 in 1994 and a Mini 14 Ranch in 1999. At least the latter one would be the “new improved†1 in 9, right? No luck with accuracy though. And if it’s a matter of rifling twist, why would the Mini 30 shooting be shooting so poorly as well? It hated both .308 and .310 bullets.
I’ll tell you why I think these guns all performed similarly, and why some on the Internet have really accurate ones. I think Ruger has issues with production and quality control. My one glimpse of accuracy came when my Dad had been fooling with my Mini 30 and tightened the Allen screws up near the gas block. For a little while, my gun would produce 1.5†groups at 100 yds. Unfortunately, the accuracy diminished and subsequent efforts couldn’t get it back. I finally became convinced once and for all that it was just a mysterious mechanical/fitting issue and that there was probably nothing I could do to correct it. I also remembered the half-dozen Ruger handguns I’ve purchased with fitting/out-of-spec component issues, and it wasn’t hard to infer that Ruger may have similar issues with the Mini.
IMHO, these guns are not all bad, some are very accurate. But it’s a crap shoot as to what kind you’ll get, and if you get a bad one, there just isn’t anything you can do to overcome it. Again, this is all based on my 9 years of dealing with three rifles. YMMV.
