Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Mini-14 or AR platform 5.56 NATO carbine: You can only have one: Which?

How about some Mini 14 porn?

Is that walnut on the bottom? Nice rifles.

They are nice, aren't they? All of them are custom walnut stocks. Unfortunately, none of those are mine.

The top two appear to have aftermarket steel butt plates. All of them appear to have aftermarket bayonet lugs.

My source is Clint in a face to face conversation.

Here's one I had built a few years ago. It's not as pretty but very accurate and a lot of fun to shoot. A 5.56 Wylde chamber 1 in 7" twist with a few other modifications. Just a fun range gun.

Hmm. Our local game warden would grab his mini snug enough that he would slow the op rod down... and jam the gun.

The empty case feeding is a 45 tuning deal, while I've never tried it with an AR, I'd be willing to be my guns would probably do it. But it proves nothing reliability wise.

Personally I'd take an AK47 if I just had to be sure it wo uld go bang, though I prefer the SKS over the AK by far.

But in the grand scheme of things, and nothign being specified as to specific use, its a no brainer. AR hands down.

And I LOVE the looks of the mini... its like a mini 14... LOL and I have 2 M1As in the safe for the wife and I that we'll never part with.

Yet I have no love at all for the mini14. I've never been impressed with em at all.

That should probably carry some weight.

Love me some mini 14, the ar-15.....stupid

Not that I care if you like the mini and not the AR, what are the downfalls of the AR that make it stupid?

Guess I'll have to take your word for it, then. What part is breaking on them?

Sweet!

His exact comment was in response to me on the phone asking if I should bring an ar or my mini.

I followed up at the class and he said every mini-14 that had come through had problems at or under 500 rounds, and virtually everyone who brought a mini to the class finished the class with a borrowed AR.

I don't recall the exact reason but recall extractors and op-rods in the discussion.

I don't own minis anymore.

I never really warmed up to the AR platform. I started looking at the Mini-14. I like the Garand type action. That said I can only go by reading several different sources and the Mini-14 seems to need Ruger magazines to be 100% reliable. Maybe so or maybe not but when I saw DPMS Oracles for $598+ tax out the door with a $50 rebate I bit.
The AR is like Chevy 350 engines, 1911s, and Remington 700s. There more after market goodies for less $$$ than anything else than their competition.

I've only been to one civie AR class and a Mini and an old M-1 carbine there both would not run. That was the first unreliable M-1 I'd ever seen.

The problem with that at least was, that you invest a LOT of money to make the mini as accurate as a stock AR typically is.

Can't argue, there.

It wasn't a problem at all. I've built a few AR's too, neither are cheap and the above rifle is very accurate. More so than most stock AR's. If you end up with a rifle that performs well it's money well spent. The picture wasn't posted to prove anything. The OP posted a few he liked and posted one that I enjoy shooting.

It's like I said in first post on this thread. If I could only have one it would be the AR-15. Fortunately in the real world I can have both. I guess I'm unusual in that I like both platforms and don't have to vilify one to enjoy the other.

Mini-14; been there and done that.
Magazine cost and magazine quality: yuck.
Pencil thin barrel needs to be replaced to get any decent accuracy. But while one figures that out he invariably spends hundreds of dollars on hopeful mods that don't improve anything.

If Ruger were to modify the mag well to accept AR15 magazines, and if they were to put a bull barrel on it with the right gas block for a bull barrel, at 16 to 18".... and if it were priced in the range of 400 dollars to maybe 500...

I might buy one.

But then mounting an optic and getting good cheek weld is mo harder than an AR...

So the AR wins hands down. Without a doubt on every count.

BUT hope springs eternal!:
http://www.perfectunion.com/vb/ruger-mini-14-mini-30/

it is a nice looking rifle in wood stock form, and I have always wanted to like it. I had one of the first ones back when they were $139.00 and killed a lot of Jack Rabbits with it. They just were not very accurate whenever I had one so after the 3rd try I gave up on them. People say the firing pin breaks easily don't know about this myself, the gas port can rust to the op rod, I know this for a fact. If you live in a humid climate its a good idea to clean and oil the gas port nozzle and op rod.

A lot of your complaints have been addressed by Ruger. The barrel is now heavier (typical MOA is now between 2" and 3" right from the factory), and they come ready for Ruger's proprietary scope rings. Also, Ruger has been selling their high quality twenty and thirty round mags to the general public for a while now, i.e., they are no longer "police only," so you don't have to use cheap, aftermarket, high cap mags.