Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles AR vs. Mini 14 question

No at 100 yards you can hit a coyote with a mini, now put that dog out at 300. Would you rather have an AR?? A mini is very crude compared to an AR, and you mention one in your thread the Remington. It's nothing more than a Bushmaster and certaintly not what I'd consider a good or top end AR. This discussion is kind of stupid as the guns in question are very different. As for the reliabilty of an AR, don't let the dust cover fool you, our military depends on this very rugged and versitle weapon.

E,

Sorry my friend, but I have to disagree with you here, and I don't normally disagree with you. But the Mini (and I'm a fan of the Mini), just isn't in the same ballpark as the AR15. The Mini-14 is NOT a military rifle, and has not benefitted from 40 years of military development in use with the US military. I can't begin to tell you what that statement means. I'll catch hell for this, but the AR15 when properly maintained is more reliable than the M1 Garand and IME the M14 (and I carried an M14). The ONLY US military rifle that has ever been more reliable than a properly maintained M16 is the M1 Carbine, which is by far, the most reliable auto-loading arm the US has ever produced.

But the problems with the AR can be traced to two things:
1. Improper maintenance
2. After-market gadgetry, ESPECIALLY those aftermarket triggers that magically turn a serious fighting rifle into a range toy...but who cares, it's more accurate at the bench right? Which is all American shooters do anymore anyhow.

A REAL fighting rifle has NO BUSINESS having one of those match type triggers, it's a fighting rifle for God's sake.

The Mini-14 is not made to anyone's specification than Ruger's, and Ruger's specification is all the quality necessary to sell rifles and keep them coming back for more. Not, all the quality necessary to keep American boys alive. I'm not bagging on Ruger, after all, I'm an admitted fan of the Mini-14. But I'm not under the illusion that the Mini-14 is anything but one of the best made and most reliable SPORTING rifles ever made.

Oh, and a REAL fighting AR should have a prancing pony on the side; anything else is NOT a military specification (less the FCG) rifle.

My answers....
Trigger wise, some are better than others... But it doesn't take a good trigger to be able to shoot good, thats mental. I've shot some of the best scores I ever have offhand in a pinch one year at nationals because my M14(big version of the mini 14....sorta...) lost its engagement and we ran a strip of emory cloth in there to regain it. I never weighed the trigger while shooting, but made the jump up in class that year to Master, and won a lot of my categories and or placed in them. Trigger pull when home after appx 800 more rounds fired..... pushing 8 pounds and not all that crisp or clean. Mental when it comes to a trigger.
Coyote accurate... first a 2 inch mini is a good one for sure. Of course saying you'll only miss by an inch one way or the other leads one to believe you have ice water in your veins and can hold the gun perfectly still... I'm still wishing for that... Second I've rarely had a shot at a yote thats under 100 yards... most ever last one I've shot has been the far side of 200 and then moving a bit generally, they rarely stand still. So accuracy is my friend. If everything I shot was 100 and under, I'd have no need for a rifle and simply carry my 329PD 4 inch 44 mag.
I carry an AR in my vehicle out of a case, year round mostly. At least its not out of there more than about 2 weeks when we are gone.... and I have yet to actually use a dust cover, the rifle gets plenty of dust in it. I clean it once a year or if I put appx 500 rounds in it or more (truck rifle I generally fire less than 20 a year). It stays mag loaded chamber empty. Never failed to chamber under those circumstances... I do like the forward assist as when I try to quietly chamber a round, IE on the way to the deer stand, I can do it slowly and just push it shut with the FA.
As to sending cases flying an AR with an untuned ejector spring, normally tosses them way out back towards 4-5 oclock and about 7-8 good steps from the ejection port. Clear enough for me. But regardless I just simply can't recall having a malfunction, IE jam, wiht an AR in a LONG time.

Sure a mini is what it is and if it floats your boat, thats great. Personally after I shot a couple of them in the early 80s, after seeing one I wanted one so bad, but realizing that I only like accurate guns, I simply do not care for them. Our TPW game wardens have or had them... we had one here that continually jammed his in quals.... but found out the big lug has huge hands and was bearing on the op rod surface to slow it down.

You will also note that the AR has proven more than reliable and accurate enough for our troops for many moons now.

Thanks Rost and to you as well Kevin. This has been a very interesting discussion. E

Civil discussions are appreciated. This has been a decent one for sure.

I definitely appreciate all the options and opinions presented.

Newer Mini's are better than the older ones. Unless talking about a Mini made in the past three years or so, you've got an inaccurate gun. The mags are relatively expensive and not as easily obtained as an AR. IMO, the Mini has all the ergonomics of a 2x4. I'd go with the AR hands-down.

Oh, and the worst thing about the Mini is the expense. Now they are higher than a low-end AR. This was not always the case. Back in the day they were typically 25-30% cheaper than a low-end AR.

Sorry for repeating what others have already said, but IOW, I agree.

Here in Kalifornia, nobody sells any kind of AR-15 for less than 50% more than I can buy a mini 14. E

Thats cause you live in a Kommunist state...

A lot of guys here in Kaliwhacky are making a bundle by replacing mag releases with "bullet buttons," to get around all the evil black rifle restrictions and then jacking up prices. The big fly in ointment is the fact that the DOJ has never ruled on the legality of that, so things could conceivably get interesting down the line. DOJ absolutely refuses to answer any of my queries on that, so I'm staying hands-off until I move out of state. Don't want to be the test case...

Actually, the AR's greatest strength is, for lack of a better term, it's "modularity". Almost anyone can alter their gun as they desire without a trip to the gunsmith. You can change barrels, calibers, triggers, furniture...vitually anything one desires. No need for a lathe or other complicated 'smithing tools, just get a Brownell's catalouge and get with it. Try changing the barrel length...or putting a new barrel...or swapping out a trigger on a Mini or any other rifle and you are looking at a JOB. Not so with the good 'ol AR. Do you want your receiver to be able to shoot a variety of calibers that you can swap out in mere minutes? Get a Contender and be satisfied with a single shot (which ain't bad) or one of a very few hi-end bolt actions.

The AR platform is simply in a class by itself and that is why it is preferable to any other semi platform.

Pecos

i would say stay with the ar. they do require a little more cleaning but shoot 20 times better then the mini. if its a true ar which is made by armalite you wont have any regrets.

It dosent need to be an Armalite to make a person happy. IMHO.

Now thats a wild quote. Whats a "true" AR? Eugene Stoner and that had nothing to do with armalite in the start that I can recall.
Besides, armalite has at times turned out nothing but pure junk, especially with the golden eagle line.. new guns that didn't work out of the box and so on. I have no issue with them currently. Of course they tried to take the milazzo designed trigger and steal that but got nabbed by patent issues and had to rework that problem...

Armalite, a division of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corp., sold the patent rights to Colt long ago as the "original" was an AR-10 which the Army didn't want, then they rescaled it to fit the new 5.56/.223 and while it looked promising, they had no buyers so they moved on...

Eagle Arms was formed by Karl Lewis (of LMT fame) and Jim Glaizer who later sold EA to Mark Westrom in 1994 and in 1995 he bought the name Armalite...

More or less, here's the story http://www.armalite.com/images/Library/History.pdf

The current rendition of Armalite has absolutely nothing to do with the original other than in name. The name has been bought and sold so it is now far removed from any semblance of the original Armalite.

That is interesting, I was not aware that Stoner had to give or whatever, his design work to armalite at the time. I had not read that anywhere, but I will say I"ve never been all that much into the history, just shooting them.

Nice read. Also interesing that LMT formed by Karl Lewis... and Eagle guns SUCKED big time, but LMT is respected. Things change for the better though.

Westrom is not high on my list of good folks, he's rubbed me the wrong way a few times but thats life and it doesn't matter.