Any Mini-30 owners out there?

[cboss]

Been looking into adding one to my collection and am looking for input from those who have or have had one.

What I am most looking to get info for is:
Reliability
Function with steel case ammo
Would you buy one again if you lost it in a boating accident?

 

[Chief Sapulpa]

I have a 583 prefix serial number tactical model with 16” barrel. Accurate, light weight and functional normally with both brass and steel cased ammo.
I bought a Ultimak rail to install a RDS.
Yes, you need one.

 

[mr ed]

The only thing Ruger used to warn about was they used 308 barrels instead of 311 and said not to use surplus ammo.
But I've never heard of any real problems except light strikes on hard primers.

 

[Okieprepper]

I sold mine a few months ago and I wish I had just kept it. But your probably better off with a quality made AK if your stocking steel case ammo.

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

Been looking into adding one to my collection and am looking for input from those who have or have had one.

What I am most looking to get info for is:
Reliability
Function with steel case ammo
Would you buy one again if you lost it in a boating accident?

I got one right after they went to the newer/current model.

The Good: Nice gun. Something different. Ruger OEM 20-round mags are readily available. Boringly reliable* in terms of feeding, ejection, etc...

The Bad: Price. They're really expensive for what they are.

The Ugly: Mine functioned fine in terms of feeding and ejection with Russian steel-cased ammo. But the Russian stuff must have some really hard primers because mine had about a 50% failure to fire with the Russian ammo, even with what appeared to be very solid primer strikes. With any other type of ammo function was 100%.

So, for me, that was a deal breaker. I suppose that might be fixable but the whole point of having it was to shoot cheap, commie ammo. I doubt I'd get another. I have two Mini-14s and love them both...an old one and a newer one.

 

[Chief Sapulpa]

The Ugly: Mine functioned fine in terms of feeding and ejection with Russian steel-cased ammo. But the Russian stuff must have some really hard primers because mine had about a 50% failure to fire with the Russian ammo, even with what appeared to be very solid primer strikes. With any other type of ammo function was 100%.

I’ve had no issues with Russian Silver Bear steel cased ammo.

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

I don't recall if I ever tried Silver Bear. I loved shooting the Silver Bear .223 stuff. I always thought that was really good ammo.

The stuff that didn't work for me was the regular Wolf and Tula and similar stuff to that under various names.

 

[Chief Sapulpa]

The only thing Ruger used to warn about was they used 308 barrels instead of 311 and said not to use surplus ammo.
But I've never heard of any real problems except light strikes on hard primers.

I slugged my barrel and it’s 310.

 

[mr ed]

They may have cured that due to complaints sometime with the newer models

 

[1mathom1]

I've had mine a long time. Pigs and deer have fallen to it.
Accuracy is only fair. Going to add a barrel strut soon.
Added a Williams rear sight and a Choate front sight/flash hider. Can see them better than the original.
Surplus ammo has been fine since I added an extra power hammer spring. Before that it would fail to ignite surplus once in a while. Non-surplus ammo was fine.
Feeding with cheap mags has been iffy.....no issue with Ruger mags.