Question for Mini 14 owners

Wish I could tell you for sure. Thinking it was fair at least or I'd remember that. It's been 25+ years since I used it.

An AR will be more accurate

The 581 series and newer rifles are more accurate than the older rifles, per the internet. I can tell you this, I have a newer 581 series rifle and it will shoot green tips in a 10" paper plate at 250 with irons, and that's using a Mule seat a rest. I prefer it over an AR personally, I like the longer sight radius and the wood stock. And the garland style action. mine shot far right when I got it, so I re torqued the gas block and did some trigger work on it, too.

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An AR will be more accurate

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Leave the Mini alone. It's not accurate and more expensive than an AR.

Yeah, an AR is a tack driver.


Logic much.

Babe,
Cgrand has a pretty good summary. I've never owned a Mini-14 or Ranch Rifle, but I have 2 friends who have.

Both are stock Mini-14's. One gun is prob 20 yrs old; the other was about 1.5 yrs old. Admittedly, newer Mini 14's appear to be more accurate, but usually leave much to be desired. Both friends are VERY competent shooters and skilled handloaders. Both guns are lucky to get groups of less than 2 1/2" MOA. In the case of the newer gun, my friend tried: 4 different powders; many quality bullets weighing from 40-65 gr; 2 different scopes; 2 different sets of scope rings/mount; multiple different factory loads; in addition, he spent $75 and drove 3 hours round trip to have a trigger job done by Clark's. Despite this, 3-4" groups at 100 yds were the norm. Totally frustrated, he sent the gun back to Ruger. They replaced the custom 3.5# trigger w/ a 7# factory trigger, destroyed the custom trigger and replaced the factory bolt. W/ the returned gun they included a target of a 3/4" group at 50 yds shot w/ 55 gr American Eagle ammo. Thereafter, the best it shot for him was a single 2.5" group at 100 yds; it averages 3-3.5" groups. This is not a problem of an incompetent shooter and the wrong ammo. After the gun was returned, my friend called Clark's and asked them what they could do to accurize the Mini-14. They basically said, "Nothing" unless they installed a target barrel and reworked the gas system. He ended up selling the gun w/o losing too much money. Yeah, Ruger made some manufacturing changes a few years ago that helped the accuracy of many Mini-14's, but from reading the internet, my friend's experience w/ a recently made inaccurate Mini 14 is not uncommon.

If you can be happy w/ a reliable, handy, neat looking, solid feeling gun that shoots 2-3 MOA on a good day, then you'll like the Mini 14; if not, you'd better look elsewhere.

Cgrand,
Thanks for the link. My friend w/ the newer Mini decided he'd spent enough money already and got rid of it. I think the other friend has just accepted that his is NOT an accurate rifle.

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Removing as much creep as possible from the trigger helps a lot, as does trimming the main trigger spring a little to lighten it up, that's what I did.

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That's what my friend w/ the newer Mini 14 was hoping for when he paid $75 for a trigger job. Unfortunately it didn't help much; it surely was no help after Ruger restored it to a factory trigger when he sent it in for warranty work.

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So I called Ruger and they didn't offer shite as far as returns, help, ect go.

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Sounds like something's not right w/ your iron sights. Does the gun shoot that way for everyone or just you? If it's everyone and you want to return the gun to Ruger, you might can get some help from the store you bought it from. Of course, it you DO return the gun to Ruger, there's a good chance they will redo the work you did on it, return it to factory specs and not return to you any parts you altered.

Hope it works out for you.