I have a Mini-14. Pre-Ban stainless with a Choate folding synthetic stock. The stock locks up tight, no looseness.
It fired 4 inch groups at 100 yards. Off the bench.
I found this unacceptable and started looking for a way to improve on this. I decided the rear sight had to to go. It RATTLED when I shook the rifle.
I had it replaced with a micrometer peep sight (sorry, it's been so long that I forgot the brand name, it is not embossed on the sight).
Groups at 100 yards off the bench shrank to 1 1/2 inches.
I'm just an average shooter. A really good shooter would do better.
Equipment aside, it's really training that does the job.
Most non-shooters would have taken my mini-14 in its origional form and shot zero, no hits at all.
Most military trained shooters would have gotten the same results that I got before I replaced the rear sight.
Most sniper trained shooters would have refused to waste their time with it.
I replaced my rear sight too.
I also put a Varmint Scope on it so I could remove any poor shooting variables from the tests. It can be a nice shooter for a few rounds and then after the barrel is heated up, the point of impact changes drastically.
What I have found out with my Mini and the few that I have played with is, the barrel heats up as I said, the operating rod slams into the gas block[since the barrel isn't attached in any way, it leads to more problems] and the gas block can be torqued too tight.
Most people who don't shoot a lot out their Mini's don't heat the barrel up to notice or they're spray and prayers who don't notice.
Then there's people like you who get the odd perfect one.
Congratulations. Don't sell it. FMCDH and all that.