Two-stage piston instead of direct impingement.
Best of both worlds.
Posted on 06/13/2017 8:35:33 AM PDT by CodeJockey
My son is finishing up his two week National Guard training and I'm going to get him an AR15 as a token of my appreciation for his service.
While shopping at the local gun shop, (I'll wait until he is back before purchasing) I noticed a couple of Ruger Mini-14's. Ranch style and tactical.
I was drawn to the ranch style version. Something about the hardwood stock. Really liked the feel and the size of the rifle. 5/20/30 round mags are available.
We currently have no .223/5.556mm in our collection and gun shop will give a generous discount on a purchase of both rifles, especially with cash.
Comments/opinions on the Ruger Mini-14? I'd ask about an AR too, but I'm going to let my son make that decision.
I bought on with the wood stock in 1983. According to the receipt that I still have, I paid $398.00
Two-stage piston instead of direct impingement.
Best of both worlds.
I agree. While I've always liked the aesthetics of the Mini-14, the AR platform is just a more practical, serviceable weapon.
Interestingly, the French police have adopted the Mini-14 specifically because it doesn't have a "scary black rifle" look about it.
Like anything else, it’s all about how much money you want to spend. You can go high end and spend $1700 and up, on an AR.
Or you can get into that $800-1000 range. Plenty of great rifles in this range. And ARs can be modified in all sorts of ways. Whatever you want to hang on it, from optics, lights, lasers, grips.
And, as someone stated earlier, he just trained on the AR, no need to change it up.
If they use them in France that means they still work after you drop them, or after they get hit with a hammer.
AR will be sub-MOA. The Mini might be 2 or 3.
Current generation examples like what is pictured are an improvement over the older examples.
From a purely practical perspective, an AR built to TDP specs or better will be faster to operate, likely more durable and vastly more flexible to configure.
That being said, you can get fast accurate hits out to 300 yards with a modern Mini-14 if your eyes are good enough and you practice instead of just plinking like I see most Mini-14 owners do.
Don’t buy steel case ammo for it. The case isn’t the issue, it’s the steel projectiles. The “ejector wears out” is an ignorant straw-man objection to steel case ammo. The projectile is the main problem. The low and inconsistent velocity is the other problem.
Get Wolf GOLD (imported Taiwanese M193 ball) and a pile of 20 or 30 round RUGER magazines. Get factory mags. Do not rely on anecdotal “my after market mags worked fine” suggestions. Get factory mags. 44mag.com is my go-to place for a lot of mags. No shilling, just heard about it on ARFCOM ages ago.
If this is going to be your only defensive rifle, I don’t think it’s an optimal choice, however it would be better than nothing.
If this is going in the safe with a bunch of other stuff, get 3-4 good magazines and a pile of ammo and shoot the living bejeezus out of it and enjoy it. It will probably pleasantly surprise you.
I knew I could get solid reviews here. Thanks.
Jr. will be getting an AR, and I’ll go with the Mini-14.
He’s camping out at Bragg now, (pun intended) and when he returns we’ll go shopping together.
Here’s a pretty nice deal:
http://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-16-midlength-moe-freedom-rifle-5164452021.html
They’ll ship to any FFL holder to do the transfer...
I’d also check gunbroker.com, you’ll find an amazing variety there.
I like the way it looks, but you can build a custom AR for the same price as a Mini 14 and get much better performance. Plus AR mags and parts are extremely plentiful and cheap. I’ve read that the only mags that feed reliably from the mini are Ruger mags.
Agree. Factory (Ruger) mags only, no knock off’s and brass cartridge casings only.
French police - probably an FN-FAL.
Bill Ruger was at the forefront of that idiocy back in the early 90s.
He’s dead and the company moved on to do things ol’ Bill swore he wouldn’t do like sell normal capacity Mini-14 mags to the public.
When that happened after the AWB expired, I went back to buying Ruger stuff.
Bill Ruger is likely rolling over in his grave seeing his company sell BX-25 mags, suppressors, 1911s and even worse, a few pretty decent AR15 variants.
I don’t buy Springfield Armory or RRA or CAI for similar reasons. Not crapping on your stance, just wanted to chime in on why I changed my mind on Ruger.
Having once owned, before the boating accident, both the Mini and the AR-15, I believe the new Mini to be a superior end-of-the-world rifle.
It NEVER, EVER fails to fire. Even without cleaning and after thousands of rounds.
The heavier barrel on the newer ones overcomes the accuracy problem of old.
The ONLY advantage of the AR is that everyone else has one and you can share magazines.
Basically, you get what you pay for. I can’t knock a mini-14, but if you go that route, get one beginning with 580xxxx or newer serial number. They say these are made better and more accurate. For a few more bucks though, there are some REALLY good (and accurate) flat-top AR-15 platforms out there, and a slew of available mods and parts for them.
If Ruger would put a slimmer non-quad rail on that and put the gas system on a bit of a diet, I’d get one of them.
I’d have to second that. I have a stainless Mini-14, and I like it but without some more tinkering on my part it just doesn’t have the accuracy I’d like to see. I haven’t built out a lower for an AR I’ve got yet, but a buddy’s kid had one he built with a polymer 80% lower and a Rock River complete upper with an 18 inch heavy barrel out at my place and it was wicked accurate.
I only paid about 600 for the Mini a few years back, but it’s gotta be within ~15-20% max of the cost of an AR build like the friends kid had and most everybody here would agree that out of the box/build accuracy differences like that are worth it.
I’m sure I can dial/tighten the Mini up, but it sounds like you’re looking for something that’s pretty dialed in out of the box.
That was the CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité). They've been packing them since at least the early '80s and my guess is that they still have the same guns. I tried asking them about their Mini 14s once but they aren't the least bit chatty.
Watched a 10 shot 100 yard group go into 1.75” with PMC Bronze .223 through a new $535 S&W M&P Sport II with just the plastic Magpul rear sight and GI A-frame front sight.
Hard to beat that in a practical sense.
Couldn’t agree more that there are some REALLY good (and accurate) examples of the AR out there.
But with the Tactical line, the barrel has been redesigned and gives, so I've read, MOA accuracy. If I were gifting a Ruger mini, it would be the Tactical series. Much better potential.
However, currently, ARs can be had for bargain prices. I've seen the Ruger AR556 for as low as $460 locally. I paid $630 for mine, and that was a good price at that time.
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