Alright, so I expect people are going to bite my head off on this one (they have before), but this is the honest assessment of someone who was a US Army Armorer years ago and actually owned a Ruger Mini-14.
Short Answer:
They're really cool looking cosmetically and it's nice to have something different, but they're not worth the price. You can get a way more performant, accurate, wieldy, and reliable weapon for the price point.
Thorough Answer:
I'm not sure if anyone is going to read this because people online tend to gloss over long posts, but I regret buying my Ruger Mini - 14. I'm glad I sold it.
I really wanted to like this rifle.
It was different from an AR, it drew less attention when I was carrying it, it was still in 5.56, and it was less common.
I'll explain why, but let me address some of these comments first:
Respectfully,
That ain't right...
Get one that looks more like these and have a good time.
View attachment 980435
My Mini-14 is one of the most fun rifles I have. Is it a target rifle? Not even close.
Did I say that???
Coyotes, bobcats, paper, always fun to shoot.
I took the scope off of it years ago and shoot it with the peep.
Maybe I like it because when I miss, I can blame the gun, not myself. Doesn’t work with the rest of my guns.
I had to smile when I saw Mini 14, Ranch and Target in the same sentence. Don't get me wrong, I love my mini 14 and my mini 30. Both have the struts which does help the accuracy after the barrel warms up. My friend was joking with me at the farm the other month when we were shooting them. He said you might hit the steel plates more often if you aimed perpendicular to the range and just ejected your brass at the steel.
All joking aside, they are fun guns to shoot. I had to just adjust my expectations.
As other members are alluding to here, this is precisely the biggest pain point of the Ruger Mini-14.
It's just not that damn accurate. People can give me internet anecdotes all day about how their rifle shoots the head off a dragonfly at 90000 yards and there's some big conspiracy against Ruger, but talk is cheap. I'm sure someone is
eventually going to post up some sub MOA group and claim it's from their Mini (and therefore, all Minis must be this accurate), but you can generally expect to shoot 2.5 ~ 4 MOA with it (and that's
if you have one of the later serials). You can always spend more of your hard earned money to make a weapon more accurate, but that doesn't mean you should when other weapon will be simply way more performant right out of the box.
CYA more than anything because it’s not really that big of an issue.
The mini 14 other than price is perfect for what it was designed to do. It was never designed to be a precision rifle. It’s just fine if you need something on the farm or if you need a decently capable battle carbine. It’s also great in areas where scary black guns are hated.
It’s really the one going I’ve ever had that I regretted selling. I bought mine used but practically new for about $400-$500 (a newer 581 series).
Speaking of anecdotes, this has
not been my experience. I got my Ruger mini-14 specifically to shoot groundhogs so that I'm not on state gameland with a big scary black rifle (yes, the game commission in my state will stop and browbeat you with some Elmer Fudd BS about how "no true sportsman
needs an AR-15 to hunt" if you're out there with one). Every time I saw game commission when I had an AR, they stopped and checked my license. When I used anything else (including the Ruger Mini), they didn't do anything other than wave.
Now, like everyone else in my family, I eat what I kill. That said, I'll pose this question :
Have you tried shooting a groundhog with a 3~4 MOA rifle?
The 5.56 cartridge is perfect for whistelpig, but the suboptimal accuracy of the rifle makes taking any shot with this weapon at even 50 meters isn't fair to the animal. Moreover, you cannot guarantee a shot that's going to leave you with a lot of meat to salvage. People always say "
it's practical enough for x," but I don't agree. I've blown too many groundhog's feet off with it.
I have an older, late 80s or early 90s, Mini my dad bought. It is what it is. Field accurate and handy. He loved the thing. It is pretty dang accurate as long as you don't over heat the barrel. The biggest problem with the Mini is, I can buy an AR that is more accurate, uses any mag, and has more aftermarket support for less than a Mini.
But that is the neat thing about firearms. There is enough to go around and plenty of different styles to match what people want.
This is my second point. It's 2021. There are literally hundreds of rifles to choose from. You will find many at competitive to superior price points than the Ruger Mini-14 that are demonstrably more performant. A large amount of those are ARs. A Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II will run circles around a Ruger Mini-14 and is literally half the price right now. It also doesn't need special magazines, and they pop in much more easily than the Ruger mini. Which, to my next point:
Not only is the weapon more expensive, but the magazines are as well. Again, you can buy two AR magazines for the price of one Ruger Mini mag -- and the AR mag will be of higher capacity.
Another big problem nobody on this forum seems to want to talk about is, with many wooden stocked Ruger Mini-14s, they have this inconvenient little problem of
having the entire trigger assembly fall out when they're rapid fired. I've mentioned this before and was met with a barrage of "WELL THAT NEVER HAPPENED TO ME! I FOUGHT IN WORLD WAR TWO WITH MINE AND IT MADE ME BREAKFAST EVERY MORNING! YOU MUST HAVE REASSEMBLED IT WRONG! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!? I THINK YOU JUST HATE RUGER!"
And yes, someone actually said that last line.
Look it up online. I'm not the only person who has experienced this with the wooden stock. In an earlier thread, It was revealed that many of the folks who found these claims completely unbelievable had synthetic stocks or older Mini-14s.
That said, many later versions of this rifle have had this problem, and it's particular to those with wooden stocks. Again, a simple google search reveals that hundreds of people have reported having this problem with this rifle. Ruger has experienced some quality control problems over the last decade or so, and even long time Ruger fans like Hickok-45 have come out and made videos about it. As an aside, it's not just their minis that have had issues.
Remember, just because the rifle someone else got from Company A was great, doesn't mean your new rifle from Company A will be just as good. You're taking a risk.
There are other points about using this rifle for "defense" or SHTF scenarios. All I will say is if you're trusting your life with a 3ish MOA rifle against people with sub-MOA rifles when you can get the exact same rifle (and magazines) that your enemies have at a cheaper cost, then I question why you ended up with a Ruger Mini-14. I don't care if you're in California or some similar state. There are better options.
Again, I really wanted to like the Mini-14. I got mine brand new, put hundreds of rounds through it, and spent days researching how to improve on the problems it has. Part of the reason is because I was applying for a job that might have taken me to a state where my ARs weren't legal, and I was trying to determine if a Ruger Mini might be my best bet. At the end it wasn't worth it. I sold it for more than I bought it for but I honestly think about all the poor groundhogs I butchered with it and really regret just not using something else.
So what about the Ranch Target?
I've heard many mixed reviews about this weapon. Personally I haven't fired one so I'll keep my mouth shut because I know what I don't know. However, there is an existing thread about that rifle on this forum.