The iron sighted Mini-14 with factory five round mag is without peer.
Move away from that and its value declines rapidly.
There is truth to this, although adding a 20 round mag doesn’t detract much. If you grew up on a 10/22 (or really any sporting rifle) the mini comes to the shoulder and sights far more naturally than an AR. It is considerably more svelte than an AR, especially with the flush mag and iron sights. Like Winchester M94 svelte. They are also available in stainless for those that like that configuration, and they tend to be reliable.
No doubt the last 50+ years of government funded tweaks devoted to making a DIGS gun run well have helped the AR become much better than it once was. That, along with the ‘cool’ factor And tinker toy nature has made it very popular indeed.
Regarding accuracy, the old minis were not that great, but they weren’t as bad as most folks imply. Especially when compared to a pencil barreled A1 of the same vintage. The new minis are quite a bit better, but still not as good as most quality modern AR’s. I do think minis tend to be rated by their worst groups while AR’s tend to be rated by their best. Probably not fair to the mini but there it is. My guess is the majority of folks who utterly trash the mini at every turn haven’t owned or spent much time with one (not that they would admit it if they did).
The bottom line is the mini is a functional 5.56 that produces acceptable groups and reliability, especially for iron sight shooting. They aren’t a match rifle, but they don’t need to be. They fill a niche for shooters in rights restricted states, those that like the form of a traditional stock over the AR, or those that just want to keep a low profile.
