What are some of the pros and cons of these two rifles. Want to get a .223/5.56 and since there doesn't seem to be too much of a price difference between a base AR and a mini, what would be some of the reasons for going with one over the other. Thanks for the help.
Mini 14 vs. AR-15
- Thread starter pjp74
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The mini 14 is built like a tank an will go thousands of rounds with minimal care. Accuracy with most is around 3 inches at 100 yards but like most ruger products it's top notch
The AR's need constant methodical cleaning to remain functional but are more accurate and have a myriad of optons and accesories.
The AR's need constant methodical cleaning to remain functional but are more accurate and have a myriad of optons and accesories.
briansmithwins
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For me it comes down to spare parts and mags. Perfectly reliable AR mags can be had for under $10, the only reliable Mini-14 mags are made by Ruger and go for more than $20 each.
The other is spare parts. I like to have a spare firing pin and extractor for my rifles. Ruger won't sell you those parts.
Other than that it's a question of esthetics.
BSW
The other is spare parts. I like to have a spare firing pin and extractor for my rifles. Ruger won't sell you those parts.
Other than that it's a question of esthetics.
BSW
1KPerDay
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FlyinBryan
Member
well ive had both and now i only own ar15's.
the mini i had was my first ever semiauto rifle. (EDIT: 1st ever centerfire semiauto rifle)
i traded the mini and some cash for my first ar15. ive had several since.
every ar ive owned,,,,, IVE OWNED,,,,,, has been a better rifle than the mini14 that I OWNED......... the whole more accurate with less stoppages thing,,,,,,, you know, that old chestnut.
the pros of the ar15: i like them better.
the cons of the mini: i dont like them as much.
the mini i had was my first ever semiauto rifle. (EDIT: 1st ever centerfire semiauto rifle)
i traded the mini and some cash for my first ar15. ive had several since.
every ar ive owned,,,,, IVE OWNED,,,,,, has been a better rifle than the mini14 that I OWNED......... the whole more accurate with less stoppages thing,,,,,,, you know, that old chestnut.
the pros of the ar15: i like them better.
the cons of the mini: i dont like them as much.
dldbrandon
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AR-15's are pretty tough. Though I don't recommend doing this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unYAcHIUhXE
I'm personally a big fan of the ar-15, if you couldn't tell already. There's a myriad of support and there is no other weapon on the planet that can be accessorized like it. There is a massive industry for it and the amount of people owning these firearms is exploding. They work extremely well for what they were designed to do. You can make your AR yours. Customize it exactly how you want to a point that it doesn't even resemble the weapon how it was bought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unYAcHIUhXE
I'm personally a big fan of the ar-15, if you couldn't tell already. There's a myriad of support and there is no other weapon on the planet that can be accessorized like it. There is a massive industry for it and the amount of people owning these firearms is exploding. They work extremely well for what they were designed to do. You can make your AR yours. Customize it exactly how you want to a point that it doesn't even resemble the weapon how it was bought.
ugaarguy
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AR-15 type rifles will run when absolutely filthy if you keep the bolt carrier group wet with lubricant. They do not need constant, nor methodical cleaning to work.
You can get the S&W M&P Sport for $600, which is $50 to $80 cheaper than a Mini with 20 round mags. The Mini looks more PC, and operates like a Garand/M14/M1A - those are its only advantages over an AR, and the latter is only an advantage if you have lots of training with those rifles. Reliability is a draw. Everything else - accuracy, sights, optics mounting, quality mags, parts availability, accessories - the AR has the advantage.
jmorris
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I have both, well a mini and a pile of ar's. The mini runs but is loud side by side to an ar. The mini chunks brass into a different zipcode than you fire it in. The ar shoots smaller groups. I am all for owning one of everything until you get there buy an ar.
FlyinBryan
Member
i think the mini14 has had somewhat of a rebirth since ruger came out with that new-fangled target model.
from what i hear its only a few hundred dollars more than ar15's in the current market,,,,,,, and almost as accurate!!!!!!
from what i hear its only a few hundred dollars more than ar15's in the current market,,,,,,, and almost as accurate!!!!!!
Chris Rhines
Member
Hey, I guess it's Wednesday again...
-C
This is exactly the opposite of correct. Mini-14s are known to be quite fragile and unreliable when run hard, and properly built ARs function very well, even when dirty.
-C
notasfancy
Member
What do you need them for?
W/o some indication of purpose you will get blasted on an endless discussion of AR vs Mini vs who knows what.
Both are good choices but again depends on what you want them for.
W/o some indication of purpose you will get blasted on an endless discussion of AR vs Mini vs who knows what.
Both are good choices but again depends on what you want them for.
Pure BS.
I've owned several of both. I'd say both are equally reliable with quality magazines. Quality AR magazines are everywhere and dirt cheap. Rugers function just fine with the expensive factory magazines, but they are very pricey and hard to find. Finding a Mini,(even the new ones) that will shoot anywhere near as accurate as a cheap AR is a rare, but possible find.
Years ago when I could pick up a Mini used for around $200, $350 new, and the only AR's were $700-$1,000 the Mini made sense. But with new Mini's selling for $600-$700 now it makes no sense not just buy an AR now that the prices have dropped to around $600, even less if you shop around. I own 4 and paid between $450-$700 for them.
wow6599
Member
This ^ is also 100% grade A BS.
The bottom line is people who own AR's are going to blab away about Mini's ahooting 2 foot groups at 10 yards and magazine costs. Mini owners are going to blab about AR's being delicate and requiring a ton of maintenance.
The bottom line is both do the same thing (580 series and up Mini's) for about the same cost. The edge definitely goes to the AR for "tacticool" accessories, if that floats your mall ninja boat.
Proud owner of an AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14 NRA edition. Guess which one is more accurate...........it ain't the AR.
http://www.defensereview.com/the-bi...pingement-gas-system-makes-the-m4-unreliable/
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010...mplaints-about-american-rifle-reliability/?hp
http://www.ar15.com/content/swat/keepitrunning.pdf
Assuming that my links work, I would really recommend the articles above for those that doubt the AR's reliability and don't trust the recommendations from those of us that own AR's.
I'm not a Mini 14 guy but I know a little bit about the platform and this is my take on the weapon. I'm not going to talk about the accuracy and reliability of the rifle because I don't have enough long term shooting to judge.
I will say however that up until recently there was only one magazine manufacturer for the Mini 14.....Ruger. The mags were around $30. Tapco makes a Mini 14 mag now but I don't know how good they are. There was a Nutnfancy video from last year in which they caused consistent jams but I believe they tried to correct the problem.
Sooooo.....call this a +1 for the AR/M4 platform. Mags are at least half the price of those for the Mini 14, they are available everywhere and from a host of manufacturers. I've used 5 different brands of mags in my M4's (clones but I'll call them M4's) with perfect reliability. Do you like steel, polymer, aluminum? They're all available.
The Ruger is not as modular as the AR/M4. You can do a lot with it and there is a very good aftermarket out there but there is not as much gear for the Mini 14 as there is for the AR's. Sorry but it is what it is.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe that the Ruger qualifies as an "Assault Weapon." Call this a +1 for the Ruger as you don't need to be 21 yrs old to own it and you hopefully won't end up on the evil black rifle list.
Everyone knows how to work on the AR's and parts are plentiful since it seems like everyone is doing a build today. Common parts are easy to stock up on in case of another Assault Weapon Ban (sooner or later one will get through). Mags are cheap and also easy to stock up on in case of another mag ban (and sooner or later one will get through again). I bought 10 from www.dsgarms last year for around $90. They work perfectly and have the Magpul followers. Most of my Magpul mags were just about $15. Pretty reasonable overall.
Let's talk about a plus for the Mini 14.
Ruger makes it. That's it. Other than a few custom shops there is almost no one doing anything with the Mini 14 besides Ruger. When you buy one you know who made it and you know that it came from a trustworthy source (lots of Ruger luv in my house).
On the other hand there is a lot of people making M4's out there. There are some outstanding companies, some good companies and some guys making really pretty paper weights. Then there's the Bubba's making jam o matics in their basement because they read how to make a build on arfcom. The good thing is it's easy to fix an unreliable AR if you know what's wrong with it. It's not hard to find an AR guy or smith to work on it if you don't know what's wrong.
Just buy a top tier brand and there won't be an issue. Heck, buy a 2nd tier brand and there shouldn't be any issues.
My shooting goes in cycles. I get on a kick for a year or two and shoot ____ a couple of times per month while only shooting blackpowder, skeet, rimfire, hunting rifles, etc every couple of months. Then I switch it up and rediscover that _____ is the greatest thing ever and wonder why I haven't been shooting _____ this year.
Should I get bored with my AR's I can change everything on them. I can set them up for the bench or 3 gun matches. I can set them up for home defense or drop a CNMG .22lr conversion kit and head out to the indoor range up the road. I can buy a different upper and shoot 20 different calibers. Heck, I can even buy a .50 cal conversion or crossbow kit if I want to get really rediculas. The sky is literally the limit.
One more thing. The AR's of today are not the M16's of the 1960's. They are reliable and the experiences of military men and women with the M16A1's are irrelevent. The AR's of today are not even the M16A2's of my experience in the 1980's.
BTW, when I was in the military we absolutely trashed rifles with the kind of stupid over cleaning that the military loves. Any cleaning agent that you can imagine from brake cleaner to Spic & Span was used in order to get our rifles white glove clean. We also never ever took a magazine out of service. As you know most reliablity issues are magazine related and I never saw a single magazine of any kind being taken out of service. Give a Marine or soldier a couple of bad mags and you just created someone that will spend the rest of his life talking about what a piece of crap the M16 is.
I'm going to go a little off topic but it's relevent at the end.
Some people jump right into the Assault Rifle market and buy an AK without doing an research. They all talk about how the AK is soooo much more reliable than the AR and that's why they bought it despite having zero experience shooting AR's. They use this excuse as a reason for buying their Century Arms AK. Sure, it might have magazine wobble, canted from sights and possibly the wrong barrel (Tantals) but it's uber reliable compared to those unreliable AR's that they've heard so much about but never actually shot. There's nothing wrong with AK's but you can get a budget AK for much less than an AR and those that do seem to have to justify why they did so. Thus the AR reliability trashing commences from those that have usually have little experience with the AR/M4's. I've seen it before. There's a lot of great AK's out there and there's a lot of mediocre AK's made from cut up parts kits and US made recievers. I've got nothing against the AK platform or it's owners but they all seem to feel the need to perpetuate the myth of AR unreliability despite many of them having never owned or shot one.
I don't think you'd go wrong buying a Mini 14 or AR (or AK for that matter). It's all down to what you want to do with it and what makes you want to part with about $700 without getting buyer's remorse.
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010...mplaints-about-american-rifle-reliability/?hp
http://www.ar15.com/content/swat/keepitrunning.pdf
Assuming that my links work, I would really recommend the articles above for those that doubt the AR's reliability and don't trust the recommendations from those of us that own AR's.
I'm not a Mini 14 guy but I know a little bit about the platform and this is my take on the weapon. I'm not going to talk about the accuracy and reliability of the rifle because I don't have enough long term shooting to judge.
I will say however that up until recently there was only one magazine manufacturer for the Mini 14.....Ruger. The mags were around $30. Tapco makes a Mini 14 mag now but I don't know how good they are. There was a Nutnfancy video from last year in which they caused consistent jams but I believe they tried to correct the problem.
Sooooo.....call this a +1 for the AR/M4 platform. Mags are at least half the price of those for the Mini 14, they are available everywhere and from a host of manufacturers. I've used 5 different brands of mags in my M4's (clones but I'll call them M4's) with perfect reliability. Do you like steel, polymer, aluminum? They're all available.
The Ruger is not as modular as the AR/M4. You can do a lot with it and there is a very good aftermarket out there but there is not as much gear for the Mini 14 as there is for the AR's. Sorry but it is what it is.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe that the Ruger qualifies as an "Assault Weapon." Call this a +1 for the Ruger as you don't need to be 21 yrs old to own it and you hopefully won't end up on the evil black rifle list.
Everyone knows how to work on the AR's and parts are plentiful since it seems like everyone is doing a build today. Common parts are easy to stock up on in case of another Assault Weapon Ban (sooner or later one will get through). Mags are cheap and also easy to stock up on in case of another mag ban (and sooner or later one will get through again). I bought 10 from www.dsgarms last year for around $90. They work perfectly and have the Magpul followers. Most of my Magpul mags were just about $15. Pretty reasonable overall.
Let's talk about a plus for the Mini 14.
Ruger makes it. That's it. Other than a few custom shops there is almost no one doing anything with the Mini 14 besides Ruger. When you buy one you know who made it and you know that it came from a trustworthy source (lots of Ruger luv in my house).
On the other hand there is a lot of people making M4's out there. There are some outstanding companies, some good companies and some guys making really pretty paper weights. Then there's the Bubba's making jam o matics in their basement because they read how to make a build on arfcom. The good thing is it's easy to fix an unreliable AR if you know what's wrong with it. It's not hard to find an AR guy or smith to work on it if you don't know what's wrong.
Just buy a top tier brand and there won't be an issue. Heck, buy a 2nd tier brand and there shouldn't be any issues.
My shooting goes in cycles. I get on a kick for a year or two and shoot ____ a couple of times per month while only shooting blackpowder, skeet, rimfire, hunting rifles, etc every couple of months. Then I switch it up and rediscover that _____ is the greatest thing ever and wonder why I haven't been shooting _____ this year.
Should I get bored with my AR's I can change everything on them. I can set them up for the bench or 3 gun matches. I can set them up for home defense or drop a CNMG .22lr conversion kit and head out to the indoor range up the road. I can buy a different upper and shoot 20 different calibers. Heck, I can even buy a .50 cal conversion or crossbow kit if I want to get really rediculas. The sky is literally the limit.
One more thing. The AR's of today are not the M16's of the 1960's. They are reliable and the experiences of military men and women with the M16A1's are irrelevent. The AR's of today are not even the M16A2's of my experience in the 1980's.
BTW, when I was in the military we absolutely trashed rifles with the kind of stupid over cleaning that the military loves. Any cleaning agent that you can imagine from brake cleaner to Spic & Span was used in order to get our rifles white glove clean. We also never ever took a magazine out of service. As you know most reliablity issues are magazine related and I never saw a single magazine of any kind being taken out of service. Give a Marine or soldier a couple of bad mags and you just created someone that will spend the rest of his life talking about what a piece of crap the M16 is.
I'm going to go a little off topic but it's relevent at the end.
Some people jump right into the Assault Rifle market and buy an AK without doing an research. They all talk about how the AK is soooo much more reliable than the AR and that's why they bought it despite having zero experience shooting AR's. They use this excuse as a reason for buying their Century Arms AK. Sure, it might have magazine wobble, canted from sights and possibly the wrong barrel (Tantals) but it's uber reliable compared to those unreliable AR's that they've heard so much about but never actually shot. There's nothing wrong with AK's but you can get a budget AK for much less than an AR and those that do seem to have to justify why they did so. Thus the AR reliability trashing commences from those that have usually have little experience with the AR/M4's. I've seen it before. There's a lot of great AK's out there and there's a lot of mediocre AK's made from cut up parts kits and US made recievers. I've got nothing against the AK platform or it's owners but they all seem to feel the need to perpetuate the myth of AR unreliability despite many of them having never owned or shot one.
I don't think you'd go wrong buying a Mini 14 or AR (or AK for that matter). It's all down to what you want to do with it and what makes you want to part with about $700 without getting buyer's remorse.
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Art Eatman
Moderator In Memoriam
Forget military-style firefights and all that. Think normal use.
For home defense, equal.
For reliability in any sort of normal usage, equal.
For a hunter, where the first shot or two are all that are important, equal.
Compared to the early, thin-barrelled Minis, the AR is a better target rifle. The new Minis are near-equal to all but the top-end ARs.
For home defense, equal.
For reliability in any sort of normal usage, equal.
For a hunter, where the first shot or two are all that are important, equal.
Compared to the early, thin-barrelled Minis, the AR is a better target rifle. The new Minis are near-equal to all but the top-end ARs.
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