Ruger Mini 14 Internals Questions

[Glockwaffle]

I have a mini 14 with synthetic stock. It's stainless steel, has a 580 serial prefix, and is marked 'Ranch Rifle'. I purchased a wooden stock off of backpage.com, stripped it down, sanded and refinished.

There were some metal parts inside the wooden stock: forend liner, stock reinforcement, two lock washers and two screws for securing the stock reinforcement piece to the stock. The stock reinforcement has a metal tab protruding from its front slightly that holds the forend liner in place.

The synthetic stock has only one part inside: a forend liner that is the same as the forend liner from the wood stock except at the end, instead of having a plain tab that is held down by the stock reinforcement (which the synthetic does not have) it has a tab with a small slot that clips to a small raised piece of plastic on the stock.

The question(s) is this: the rifle wont fit into the wood stock if the stock reinforcement is in place (its flush to the stock w/o the reinforcement). Is this ok? And how about the forend liner, will that stay in place w/o the stock reinforcement in? If not, can I glue it down or screw it down? And finally, w/o the stock reinforcement in, is there any downside to having those screwholes not have screws in them? If someone out there has put a newer mini 14 into an older stock, I want to talk to you!

 

[dampoo]

Try the folks at the perfect union:

http://www.perfectunion.com/vb/ruger-mini-14-mini-30/


Dampoo

 

[benEzra]

The Ruger factory wooden stock comes with the metal reinforcement plate in the receiver area and the metal liner in the forend. The hooks from the trigger guard assembly lock into recesses in the receiver and hold the action together, and the reinforcement plate and the screws hold everything in place relative to the stock.

To assemble it, you remove the trigger guard from the receiver in the usual way, by opening the trigger guard from the back to disengage the two fingers at the top of the locking mechanism. The barreled action into the stock from the top, so that the wide parts of the receiver fit down inside the U-shaped cutouts in the sides of the reinforcement plate that is screwed into the stock (if the plate's not in there already, it goes in from the bottom, after the liner is in place, but I'm sure you got that). Then you put the trigger guard in from the bottom, with the trigger guard open, and then once it is in place, you close the trigger guard to tighten things up and secure it.

If you shoot the rifle without the reinforcement plate and/or screws, I'm pretty sure that eventually the trigger guard will fall out or else the wood-to-metal fit will loosen up. It should be in there.

Is it possible that you don't have the tabs and slots lined up exactly right? It is a bit of a puzzle that has to go together just so or else it won't fit.

If the parts are in correctly and the receiver is just too wide, it is *possible* that the 580-series mini's are wider through the receiver than the pre-580's, and that your wooden stock is for a pre-580. I thought they were the same size, though.

 

[Glockwaffle]

The wooden stock came off an older (180-181) series mini 14. The fit on the wood stock (w/o reinforcement, as my problem is i cant fit it in w/reinforcement bracket in) is actually tighter than the fit on the synthetic, so it is apparent that the 580 does indeed have a wider receiver. There is no way to make it fit with the bracket in. What exactly does this bracket do? Is there a way I can jerry rig a bracket, or some option other than starting over with a different stock? The thing that is driving me crazy is that all the forums at perfectunion state that any mini will fit into any other mini stock with some elbow grease. Am I missing something here? I can't possibly be the only person to have encountered this problem!

 

[SGW42]

I am pretty sure the older Minis have a longer receiver, at least the first ones did. I don't think the stocks are compatible. One can be made to fit this other, but I forget which way it goes.

 

[pbrktrt]

If the stock is from a 180, that's the problem. You need a 181 or newer to work.

 

[Glockwaffle]

pbrktrt, it is from a 180. Thank you for a definitive answer (I kept getting "580 will fit both 180 and 181 stocks" from others). Guess I need to decide wether to try and trade this 180 stock for a 181 stock or try and find a cheap old mini to put in the 181 stock lol!