There’s been some talk about mini 30 firing pins being problematic, but it usually is caused by steel cased ammo (Wolf) or berdan primed milsurp.
Not sure what to tell you, but someone will be along that knows that’s up.
i have a p345. great .45 automatic for the price (about $400), but not without its share of complications.
Talk to these guys.
http://www.accuracysystemsinc.com/index.php
They know as much about the Mini-14 as anyone on earth, including Ruger.
They may or may not make the specific parts, but they’ll certainly be able to tell you what the problem is, who makes the parts, and how to fix it.
I would advise calling Ruger prior to returning the gun again. The Mini-rifles are modified Garand actions and firing pin breakage has never been an issue with that design to the best of my knowledge.
I’m not sure if replacing the firing pin could be done by an “amateur” gun plumber but I would think that returning the bolt would be all that was necessary to replace the firing pin.
I just hate it when firearms go CLICK when they should go BANG.
Breakage of the firing pin on the Mini-30 has been reported by others. I believe there is a fix for the problem. Check with the good folks found here:
http://www.rugerforum.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=3cc109209e0795413ec9fc4280f15d3b
You might get a more complete response at http://www.perfectunion.com It’s a mini-14/30 M1 site.
I’ve never had a prob with mine. So, I have no other input.
My son has one upstairs, but I'm not real knowledgeable on these carbines. Broken firing pins scare me. A repeat failure means the problem is still undiagnosed and even scarier. We don't want any portion of the pin touching off a round, especially if lock-up hasn't been achieved. Don't shoot it till it's fixed! So give the factory guys another chance and tell them you think it is unsafe. They would much rather have a satisfied customer than a law suit.
As the old sage wrote, "The only interesting rifle is an accurate rifle". Even if you get it to function acceptably well for playing, it will never deliver acceptable accuracy for serious purposes.
I talked with Ruger engineers at the SHOT Show in February and asked what they did to improve the Mini-14 accuracy as so stated in their 2008 catalog. They provided a weak story about adding some kind of dampener to the muzzle which supposedly cut group sizes in half. Loosely translated, that means that the typical old 6-8 inch groups at 100 yards can be expected to be as small as 3-4 inches (about twice as large as their competitors). Over three decades and they still haven't fixed a basically poor design
If you are willing to live with a rifle that performs so poorly, go ahead and waste more time and money on Ruger's Mini-14.
Try Brownell's
Ping
PING!
I woulda blamed steel cased russian ammo but that aint it
I guess this must be “breaking news.” Sorry about your problem.
I didn’t know that Ruger still made the Mini-30.
FWIW