Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mini-14

I can't even imagine such a thing. Did you have bad magazines? Loose gas piston nuts? Were they commercial Carbines?

Postal Meter and IBM, and a Universal. Perhaps the magazines were bad, but I worked in a gun shop at the time, and swapped out a couple that gave me fits, and by cracky, the "new" GI mags gave me fits, too. 15 rounders, not 30s.
I've just been snake-bit with M1 carbines.

However, I've owned 4 Mini-14s (bought two, won one in a raffle, and inherited one) and shot umpty-gazillion rounds thru them, with nary a gag or choke, without factory Ruger magazines, at that.
The first Mini-14 (181 series) shot quite well, the second was pitiful, and the third and fourth weren't anything to write home about, either.
I'm glad they're gone from the house, frankly, and at today's prices, I'd rather have an AR despite the handling, which is where a Mini shines.

I'm not bagging on the Mini-14, I really love the things. My first .223 was a stainless 181 with a wood handguard and I'd gladly give a testicle to have it back now. And I've never had any problems with the Mini either, but then again I've never really driven one hard.

Back in '84-'85 I worked for a small arms importer (actually it was several companies under the same roof) called Pacific International. We imported 7,000 M1 Carbines form China, and 4,000 from Israel, and I was the lucky SOB that got to go through each and every one. I got pretty good at working on the Carbine. But I have to say, it was very rare to find one's that didn't work. And consider, these were ex-military carbines that had been drug through at least one war, if not two before they were dipped in cosmoline and put on the shelf for a few decades.

The Chinese ones were pretty rough, but most were in working order. Some needed a new recoil spring, and most needed a new finish. There were some that had hand made replacement parts. There was an M2 that cracked me up. Someone had whittled out a bolt, but put the extractor right on the very top of the bolt, so it would have ejected ever case right into your forehead...hahaha.

The Israeli one's were in VERY nice condition, I'm betting most had been carried at the most, but probably never saw action in the Israeli independence war because they had most of their finish intact.

Bummer you had bad luck with your carbines, that's really odd; you just don't see that. You ever come out west, I'll let you play with mine; just too much fun.

Bad mags are the plague of the Carbine. Great little rifle, so light and handy. It was designed as a replacement for people carrying a 1911. Never really intended for a front line or full auto tool. The book War Baby tells the rapid development and production of the carbine - very interesting.

I guess it's a good thing I have the .30 Carbine option covered as well.

The little Carbine was so good, it has never been really considered as what it was intended to be; a personal defense weapon (PDW) and a replacement for a pistol. In that role, it holds up damn well even today. But it has always been compared to general issue infantry weapons where it tends to fall short because of its cartridge.

It was intended to replce a 1911 for support troops, but was often put in other roles. The irony is the m16 rifle was to be the replacement for the carbine until "the whizz kids" under johnson got ahold of the idea, to protect air force bases.
The carbine is the ONLY rifle starting it's life as a semi auto that became a select fire late in the war. Over 7million of them were made, estimates at less than 1million roughly left in the world. And now they are being manufactured with forges recievers like the orginal. I think ten different manufacturers during the war, something like 1400 parts suppliers, and yes they were and are an effective rifle.
I am kind of a carbine whore among other things you might say.
The barnes or hornady bullet puts a different spin on them.
I have never understood why someone would wet their pants at the thought of a HK MP5 shooting a 9mm bullet at about 1300fps, but turn their nose up at a carbine firing the same weight bullet at just under 2000fps. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it?
And a lot of that poppycock about then not penetrating, shoot one some time. It could be in korea skinny chinese in winter clothing they were not getting good hits on the chinese. And they were NEVER intended to shoot five hundred meters. Oh, wait a minute. How much energy does that poodle shooter bullet have left at five hundred meters.
To each his own.
The fire control group in the garand and carbine was appreciated by others. Ever compare them to another widely produced rifle?
The a.k.47?
you put a carbine on a folding stock with two 30round mags, you have a LOT of firepower.

geez, first it's the beard, then the hat, then a fondness for knives, then the carbines. Are you a long lost relative?
the only problem i see is you have those spare mags mounted on the wrong side.

Mini-14 can be tuned into a tack driver. Never said it was cheap, but what a fine rig it can become.

DF

there is war baby one and war baby two, by the way. The mag thing has to do with aftermarket cheapo mags. I have NEVER had a problem with a military mag, which are getting harder to find these days, particularly in the 30round type. Those require a certain mag release that helps support the mag by the way. Without that catch, the 30rounders have a tendency to fall out.
I can't really imagine it either as to the reliability issue except for one thing. By the time most people would get their hands on a carbine, not knowing in general anything about them, most were used hard and put away wet. It is NOT a fair representation to complain about them after 50 years of being dragged around by little brown/yellow people.
There are some carbines out there that are in close to factory new condition, stored by the military for years, such as the "white bag" carbines. But you ain't gonna find anybody wanting to sell one easily or cheaply either for that matter.
might add the gvt was not particularly fond of releasing carbines after the war. Thus the "duffle bag" bringbacks. When they did turn some loose it was years later and declared unfit for service. Which is a crock because i ran across one of those last year sold through the NRA years ago, that was basically brand new. What did happen is after the war there were a lot of parts circulating and people were building them with cast recievers, such as alpine, universal, and so on, which are generally crud. They were not military at all. One of the interesting things is tho, cmp was selling barreled recievers a few years ago, rumor being they were returned from south america, and cmp only had access to stuff returned as lend lease.
They were selling universal barreled recievers i think for 50bucks a piece. Interesting how they got in the pipeline as they were never military. C.I.A. maybe?

My experience mirrors yours exactly. I've had three M1 Carbines, and all of them occasionally flubbed, and that's with FMJ. I've had two Mini-14s, and both were super reliable. More accurate, too.

Good post. Carbine mags are better quality than M16 magazines, so I don't understand the comment about bad mags. Even the GI 30 rounders were somewhat less than perfect suffering from the same malady of the 30 round M16 mag; straight then curved. But my two GI 30 rounders are very reliable, but they are never allowed to get "battlefield" dirty.

In my case, two were Iver Johnson, and one was military surplus, Inland.

Same here. Exactly as you say.

Universal didn't do the M-1 rep. any favors.

My brother had a Universal. I had the Iver Johnsons, one standard, and one WWII commemorative.

My carbine is a Universal and I'd put it up against ANY other carbine for accuracy. From the sound of it, it is more accurate than most older Mini-14s. It will stove pipe every now and then but I attribute that to the low scope mount.

I can tell you one story about a carbine, friend of mine now deceased found one in a stream in vietnam. Took it to the navy armorer who cleaned it up, put in the magic parts, and cut the buttstock. Dave put a leather thong on the handle, looped it over his neck, with a 30round mag. He called it his "whore" house gun when visiting various establishments.

neither universal or the iver johnson were military guns, both aftermarket.
The later universals are different than the original design, and personally i wouldn't fire one.

I would love to own one of the military carbines, just don't see them much anymore.

http://www.m1carbinesinc.com/carbine_universal.html

a good writeup on the universal.
The military ones around but they suffer as said before of being used hard and put away wet in many many conflicts. But good ones are still floating around if you know what to look for.
Generally a WWII or korean war vet dies, and the grandkids hock the gun for a few bucks.
There have been some released through CMP that were arsonal rebuilt by the military in the early 50's and stored all those years, refered to as "white bag" carbines for the storage method.
They are basically brand new.
The ones given to the germans in 1945 and brought back a few y ears ago are also in pretty good condition, as are the italian "F.A.T." carbines.