How would you rate the ruggedness of a Mini-14/30 to an AK or an AR?

I’m not how you compare them.
The AR not being reliable story is a myth because the early ARs had issues. If you go to YouTube and look at the PSA AR torture test you’ll see what abuse an AR can take and still run. Iraqvet8888 also did a few on ARs and showed what it took to destroy them.

I suspect that none of us would come even close to that level of abuse. So I’d say if you even take moderate care of any of them they’ll last a long long time.

Although I've never personally used one, I've heard that Mini-30s have trouble with steel-case ammo. Based on what I know, I would probably buy an AK before a Mini-30 (I've never used an AK either, though).

However, I do have a Mini-14 and find it to be very reliable. The only trouble I ever ran into was with a dud primer. The gun eats everything from pricey Hornady stuff to the cheapest steelcase I can get my hands on. I honestly don't notice any difference between shooting steel and brass with it, but I'm more of a plinker than a group-shooter. I wonder why there is supposedly such a difference between the 14 and the 30 when using steelcase? You'd think that, because the two guns are basically the same other than chambering, they would both react the same way to steel ammo.

I don't have much experience with ARs. I handled one at Cabela's one time (It was a Ruger model IIRC), but I've never fired one. I grew up hearing that ARs were flimsy and fragile (I live in fudd territory), but I was pleasantly surprised by how solid the gun felt. It probably felt about as solid as my Mini-14. I ended up picking the Mini because I'm a sucker for a classic-looking autoloader, but the AR felt like a tough, well-made firearm.

EDIT: I should add that mags are a problem for the Mini. Only the Ruger magazines seem to work reliably and, although they are very good, they are expensive. The AR and AK platforms definitely beat the Mini here.

The information Ive seen about the mini-14s is that gov agencies and LE agencies that have used them hard indicates they dont hold up well compared to M-16/AR-15 type and AK type guns. I dont recall the source of the info, and I hate to throw the "Ive read" or "Ive heard" with no source type comment out, but it is likely obtainable with some googling. I think they are likely fine for most realistic civilian use if one isnt fond of doing mag dumps and other such nonsense.

Iraqvets destruction tests were not very well done if the ones ive seen are an indication. He didnt use actual military grade barrel on the M4 type, but a stainless barrel, and the first AK he destroyed cratered early, so he got a heavier barrel variant, then indicated from that firing result that AKs were good to go, not mentioning that his previous test was more representative of most AKs. Just wasnt really representative of a true military grade barrel on the M4, and the AK was not really recognized or acknowledged for the light barrel and overheating issue in a standard grade gun. Both work well when used without running them at cyclic rate for hundreds of rounds and drastically overheating them. It does seem the M4 type lasts longer with the overheating abuse than the AK with standard barrel, though bending the barrel back into sort of straight shape after melting it by whacking it on a tree or whatever isnt likely to work on the M4.

I have never been abusive to my Mini 14 Ranch rifle I guess I am not too bad on my AK or AR platform rifles either. If ejection is any measure of ruggedness (it’s not) the Ranch version of the mini would win hands down. The regular mini 14 doesn’t throw them as far but it doesn’t have the scope mounts the Ranch does.

I’d put the mini 14 between the AR’s and AK’s in the accuracy department, from the ones I have played with.

The fastest way I know to make a mini choke (any mag fed firearm for that matter) is to use cheap aftermarket mags. Lots of folks make mags that run for AR’s and AK’s, I have always had the best results with Ruger mags in the mini.

While I good AK is generally considered to be more durable and rugged than an AR, how does a mini 14/30 stack up between these two?

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I've had better luck with AR's and AK's than Mini's.

To be fair I haven't owned one of the new Mini 14's, just the older type.

On the Mini's that I've owned and fired the feeding was usually so-so (often depending on what mag and ammo was used), the ejection fantastic in that it send brass into friggin' orbit and the groups were generally okay.

AK's had the Mini beat on surviving neglect and price of ammo and the AR had it beat in accuracy. So it had that middle child thing going on.

Mags : The main problem I've had and seen in just about every Mini I've run across is feeding. Some of that might have been the fault of the mags that we were forced to use. Back in the 70's, 80's and 90's Ruger wouldn't sell their 20 rd mags to just any law abiding citizen, they had to be law enforcement.

Since it was just a company policy and nothing legal saying that they couldn't be bought and sold by anyone you'd see those Ruger LE mags floating around gun shows. I'm guessing cops or some gun stores that had an agreement with them not to sell to anyone but LE would flip them and make some money on them. Those mags worked fairly well. My dad had 5 back then.

Most of the other mags made for the Ruger Mini-14 by other companies did not work well. Fed Ord was an exception, those worked. Most of the others were horrible. Many shooters today might forget the mangled pieces of dung that we had to use to feed our rifles with back then.

Accuracy and optics : As far as accuracy went Mini's seemed all over the place. Most of the ones I've seen were good enough for field use, especially if you found a load that it especially liked. I've ran across a few that weren't that great from the factory that customers were sending back. That is the exception though. Most did okay.

The AR crowd will just generally all bag on the Mini-14 because that's an area that most AR's will do pretty well in. The irons on the AR-15 are better in every way and it's easy to use any red dot or scope you want. In contrast the Mini-14's sights are okay and it isn't as easy to mount optics.

Ammo : Most AK's can and will shoot anything. This is an area that the AK is going to do the best in since 7.62x39 has been one of the least expensive to shoot.

Price : Back in the late 80's you could buy a Mini-14 for $225 and AR's were about twice that. Now that Mini's are $800 and AR's can be had for $450 it seems like their target audience are those shooters that like wooden stocks and those stuck in states where they can't own evil black rifles.

Bigmike79 asked:
...how does a mini 14/30 stack up between these two?

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I bought my Mini-14 in 1979. In 1986, I put a Choate pistol grip polymer stock on it. My father chose to keep his Mini-14 with the original wooden stock. Both rifles have survived years of being carried around the family farm, transported in a trailer in back of a tractor, stored in an un-air conditioned garage for decades on end.

It's not like I had an AR or AK sitting next to the Mini-14 the whole time so that there was an objective comparison, but my Mini and my father's Mini has suffered nothing other than cosmetic deterioration and both still function flawlessly with factory and certain after-market magazines.

Both rifles have been fed a steady diet of my own reloads (60 grain Hornady soft or hollow point over 20.3 grains of IMR-4198 - at the time a below maximum load but now shown as above maximum per later editions of the Hornady Handbook).

Malamute wrote:
I hate to throw the "Ive read" or "Ive heard" with no source type comment out, but it is likely obtainable with some googling.

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Then why don't you do the googling instead of posting an unsubstantiated allegation regarding the reliability of the Mini-14/30 series rifles?

Browning wrote:
AK's had the Mini beat on surviving neglect

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Please explain what you mean by this.

What sort of "neglect" are you talking about that is so particularly deleterious to the Mini-14.

I've got a Mini that was fired and put up uncleaned for 20+ years and suffered ZERO deterioration.

Mags : The main problem I've had and seen in just about every Mini I've run across is feeding. Some of that might have been the fault of the mags that we were forced to use.

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There are many bad Mini-14 magazines out there, but I've got nearly 20 third-party magazines that have yet to experience a failure-to-feed on either my 181-series or my father's 182-series Mini.

The AR crowd will just generally all bag on the Mini-14 because that's an area that most AR's will do pretty well in. The irons on the AR-15 are better in every way and it's easy to use any red dot or scope you want. In contrast the Mini-14's sights are okay and it isn't as easy to mount optics.

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Agreed that the Mini-14 is an iron sight rifle.

But, my experience with the irons on the Mini-14 is that they were as good as the irons on the M-16A1 I carried in the Army. The current generation of ARs with the handle/rear sight ground off of the upper receiver presents options for optics that were not available to either the Mini-14 or M-16A1 (or its civilian equivalent). But, when it comes to iron sights, owners of the current generation of ARs are pretty much forced to add - at extra cost - a handle/rear sight if they aren't going to use optics.

My Mini's point-of-impact starts wandering after ten rounds.....if I slow down, groups tighten up. The barrels are slender and builds heat quickly.

My go-to firearm for defense is an AK-pistol.....I own six and have never replaced a part. The oldest AK I have is from Romania and has a SlideFire stock since new and I would guess it has digested 10k+ rounds easily.

Ruger didn't design the Mini-14 as a combat rifle. They were intended as a cheap knock around semi-auto for farmers and ranchers to keep in the truck or tractor for occasional varmint control. They are able to take a beating pretty well and still shoot dirty. And back in the day sold for about 1/3 what an AR cost and were a viable alternative at that price.

There were some LE agencies, and even some smaller countries that used them for a while in those roles for a while. But they didn't hold up as well as hoped under those conditions. I think that for someone interested in home defense they are still a viable alternative. But in recent years the prices have climbed to the point that a Mini-14 or Mini-30 is priced right with the upper end AR's and more expensive than a mid level AR. Unless an AR was banned where someone lived it just didn't make sense to choose one over an AR.

Malamute said:

The information Ive seen about the mini-14s is that gov agencies and LE agencies that have used them hard indicates they dont hold up well compared to M-16/AR-15 type and AK type guns. I dont recall the source of the info, and I hate to throw the "Ive read" or "Ive heard" with no source type comment out, but it is likely obtainable with some googling.

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jmr40 said:

Ruger didn't design the Mini-14 as a combat rifle. They were intended as a cheap knock around semi-auto for farmers and ranchers to keep in the truck or tractor for occasional varmint control. They are able to take a beating pretty well and still shoot dirty. And back in the day sold for about 1/3 what an AR cost and were a viable alternative at that price.

There were some LE agencies, and even some smaller countries that used them for a while in those roles for a while. But they didn't hold up as well as hoped under those conditions.

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I'm gonna have to request this info from you guys. I just spent the last 2 hours looking on google for LE dept complaining about the longevity of the Mini 14. In fact, what I have found is the Police and small countries "AROUND THE WORLD" still use the Mini 14 to this day, and you wouldn't believe the GB model Mini 14's I have found for sale. If the Mini 14 busted to pieces from over use, then I damn sure cant find one.

Mini14 has one thing in common with AR and AK: parts are commonly available to maintain them.*

The Mini-14 action is more compact than the AK, SKS, and AR platforms. Vertically the Mini14 action is not as "tall" and is more likely to fit conventional gun cases than the AR or AK. Carrying cases for ARs and AKs pretty much advertise "tactical rifle inside".

Like the M1 Carbine, Mini14 looks more like a sporting rifle than the AK or AR (in fact its stock was deliberately configured like the earlier Ruger .44 and 10/22 sporting autoloading rifles' stocks). The Ruger Mini14 Ranch Rifle was intended to occupy the niche of the Winchester and Marlin leveractions.

My cousin's Mini14 was reasonably accurate and reliable. His Mini14 would do one thing the AR or AK would not do: in a firefight, its ejected empties would protect your right front flank. (Yes an old joke of mine, but I still find it amusing to recall those bolts of brass lightning flashing out at 1:30.)

The French police deployed during the recent Paris attacks were still armed with the Ruger Mini14 but with a different stock.

______________
*[added: I will concede that Mini14 repairs often require sending the gun to the factory. (I suspect that we really ought to be talking about a Mini14 family of sub-models based on the changes over time identified by ser num prefixes.) My son's AR was built on a friend's kitchen table and that exemplifies ultimate user maintainability. The various countriies' AKs amount to subtypes (so far my M70AB2 has run fine but I can't just pick "AK" parts from a box with a guarantee they will fit).But for all three parts can be found. It's not like being stuck with a gun with 50,000 production run that ended 50 years ago.]

For 'ruggedness' I'll agree with the consensus; in between the AR and the AK.
For accuracy, starts out with the AR quickly deteriorates past the AK, due to that noodle barrel. The new ones supposedly solve this.
The weak point does seem to be aftermarket magazines.
I've never owned one, but shot several of them.

jmr40 said:

Ruger didn't design the Mini-14 as a combat rifle. They were intended as a cheap knock around semi-auto for farmers and ranchers to keep in the truck or tractor for occasional varmint control. They are able to take a beating pretty well and still shoot dirty. And back in the day sold for about 1/3 what an AR cost and were a viable alternative at that price.

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Perfect use for them.

jmr40 said:

There were some LE agencies, and even some smaller countries that used them for a while in those roles for a while. But they didn't hold up as well as hoped under those conditions. I think that for someone interested in home defense they are still a viable alternative. But in recent years the prices have climbed to the point that a Mini-14 or Mini-30 is priced right with the upper end AR's and more expensive than a mid level AR. Unless an AR was banned where someone lived it just didn't make sense to choose one over an AR.

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The Minnesota dept. of Corrections was using them (AC556) as late as 2012, when a family member retired from Stillwater.

Carl N. Brown said:

Carrying cases for ARs and AKs pretty much advertise "tactical rifle inside".

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Mine says 'softball equipment' or 'tennis racket'.

I only know from reading, but the select-fire Minis got a bad rep for poor durability from full-auto fire. Semi-auto Minis are noted for durability.

The true test of any weapon system is combat.
I have tested the M16A2 . I know that my Mini 14 could not take the abuse that my A2 went through.
And for the guy on the other side of my test, he no longer had use for the AK47 that he started the day with.

But lets get real. Any of the three weapons will serve well for home defense, or a EDC on the farm. At the range the AR with be more accurate. When it comes to accessories the AR is far a head of the others. When it comes the magazines the Mini is in last place.
But when it comes down to it, it’s personal preference. Pick the one, or ones you like, and enjoy them.

My preference in order:
#1 AR15
#2 Mini 14
#3 AK

The true test of any weapon system is combat.

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If “ruggedness” was the only attribute that was beneficial in combat, rocks would still be the best choice.

Even if you happened to break one into two pieces, well now you have doubled the number or weapons you have...

hdwhit said:

Please explain what you mean by this.

What sort of "neglect" are you talking about that is so particularly deleterious to the Mini-14.

I've got a Mini that was fired and put up uncleaned for 20+ years and suffered ZERO deterioration.

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I've had AR's, AK's and Mini-14's (and just about every other popular rifle) show up at the Gunstore I used to work at in various states of disrepair. When they came in used (since we had an indoor range) we would usually run a few rds through them to make sure they cycled if they were trying to sell it. Sometimes the gunsmith would do it himself, most often he would hand it off to one of us. Since I split my time helping him, working in shipping and receiving and working the counter/range he usually handed it off to me. Even if it wasn't me I was still interested in how it did since back then the internet wasn't around like it is today. That's how we learned things back then.

As a result I've noticed that even when the gun was neglected or abused by being left outdoors as a 'barn gun', rattled around in the back of a trunk, left submerged in water in a flooded basement or subject to god knows what the AR's and AK's still typically tended to still work. Some of the Mini's worked, some of the Mini's did not work. Some came in for repair from the Maricopa County Sherriffs office.

Sometimes it was not neglect and the rifle in question had broken parts and it was something that needed to be sent back to Ruger since spare parts are not made available to the public. I'm going to tell you, people hate having to send their rifles off for repair. With everything else we were able to fix it right there.

So that's what I'm going off of in combination with a report done by a police firearms instructor setting up one of the first patrol rifle qualifications in the US.

You can find it here ...

http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/hating-on-the-ruger-mini-14

That instructor found that Mini's tended to break parts often. With an AR you can just buy those parts and have your armorer or a gunsmith off site repair them. That's not the case with Ruger (that may have changed since then, but a quick look on the web tells me that's still true).

In that article he states that he didn't believe that feeding was the issue, then again he's not a broke 20-something trying to use aftermarket mags in the early and mid 90's when there weren't a whole lot of economical options as far as Mini14 mags went. He's a cop using actual Ruger brand Mini-14 mags (and he's still having issues).

There are many bad Mini-14 magazines out there, but I've got nearly 20 third-party magazines that have yet to experience a failure-to-feed on either my 181-series or my father's 182-series Mini.

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Awesome. Can you teleport some mags back to 1990 to 1995 for me?

For lack of a low cost alternative we were forced to use ...

USA brand
Eagle
Thermold
Ramline
Triple K
Mystery mags from gunshows new in wrapper with no markings? Asia maybe
Fed-Ord (later became PMI)

Except for the last one on the list they didn't work well. Don't know what to tell you. Maybe that's changed now that Ruger is offering standard cap mags and supposedly made some changes to their rifles, I don't know. However I'm still hearing complaints about the new Mini-14's.

On the other hand AR-15 USGI mags are available on sale for $5.99. Usually they're right around $10. They're inexpensive and they work.

AK mags are a bit more ($15-$25 a pop).

Agreed that the Mini-14 is an iron sight rifle.

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I didn't realize that this was in question.

But, my experience with the irons on the Mini-14 is that they were as good as the irons on the M-16A1 I carried in the Army. The current generation of ARs with the handle/rear sight ground off of the upper receiver presents options for optics that were not available to either the Mini-14 or M-16A1 (or its civilian equivalent). But, when it comes to iron sights, owners of the current generation of ARs are pretty much forced to add - at extra cost - a handle/rear sight if they aren't going to use optics.

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Then I doubt that you were shooting a great distance. (300-600m).

The carry handle on many AR's isn't exactly 'ground off' so much as there is now a rail to attach optics to. Half of my AR's still have carry handles though.

The windage adjustment on an AR carry handle requires no tools. The front sight can be adjusted for elevation with a front sight adjustment tool, a cartridge tip or a pen.

The rear sight on the pre-2004 Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle that I'm talking about requires a 5/64 inch hex wrench and a screw driver. There are no clicks where one click equals 1 cm at a certain range, just trial and error.





Someone besides me must have thought that they were a pain to adjust or they wouldn't be selling these ...



From what I understand they fixed the sights on the new Mini-14's along with some of the inaccuracy issues. As far as I'm concerned it's too little, too late when AR-15's are available for $450-$550 and Mini-14's are going for $800.

If you like them, great. The OP asked for people's experience and that ismy experience with them. :Shrug

If someone is in a ban state I can see why they stick with them, but I'm not. Personally if I were in a ban state I'd go right to the M1 Garand or M1A if I couldn't move on account of family or due to employment, but to each their own.

I guess OP never heard of Bravo's "FILTHY 14". Last I heard it was well over 45K rounds through it without ever being cleaned. I doubt a Mini could go that far.

When the Mini-14 first came out...I got one to compare against the AR-15 (SP-1). Seems that the Mini's got a bad reputation from later rifles because these first ones (180 series) didn't eject violently like I've seen in later ones and it also isn't very fussy about what magazine it uses...likely from the cycling speed being slower. Later rifles seem WAY over-gassed and there are restrictor plugs made to tame down the ejection which seem to work well and might make them less magazine sensitive but I've never seen that reported.

The M-16a1's I was issued were reliable...generally and always worked well at the rifle range (no combat experience), but after crawling through an infiltration course where they got pretty dirty (no way around it) I always tried cycling action afterwards and it would stick back with a gritty grinding sound from all the grit that got in. This proved conclusively to me the value of the forward assist as there is no way to break open the rifle to clean it if the carrier isn't fully home so click by click and grind by grind I pushed the bolt carrier forward until it would break open to be cleaned. The Mini...as well as the M-14 it mimicked might not have fared any better after the same treatment, but being open would have probably been easier to clean enough to get working....but I've never subjected either to the same treatment so that's just a guess.

Reading the link above 'hating on the Mini-14' I find it incredible that their rifles couldn't hit man sized targets at 70 yards. Something was VERY wrong with the rifles...could they have been THAT fouled? Or was it just inexperienced shooters sucking that badly? My Mini is 'beer can' accurate at 100 yds as long as it's not severely overheated and I'll not do that to a rifle unless the SHTF really bad....and even then the ingrained training of 'sustained rate of fire' would be hard to break. The stories of M-4's overheating because some panicked trooper stuffed 8-10 mags through it full auto as fast as he could is NOT a condemnation of the rifle....everything has a temperature limit and he exceeded it.

Somewhere along the line it looks like Ruger went to MIM parts and this might explain the breakage issue on extractors and firing pins.....don't believe the 180's had such problems. Wish Ruger would make the replacement parts available or the aftermarket would step up...and the fact that many aftermarket internal parts are not available leads me to wonder if there really isn't that big of a problem there? If money was to be made making better parts I think someone would have stepped up and cured it...so maybe that's more internet hype or a symptom of overheating from certain departments overworking the guns? The first Mini-14's are worth keeping if you have one.

I put somewhere between 3-5k rounds thru my 581 mini, never broke a part never had a gun related failure.

Magazines could be an issue, i had a few that didnt work. All the ruger made mags ran fine.

I put about 1k rounds thru it in a day with no cleaning. No failures that I can remember.


Ive put about 2000 rounds of mixed cal on my AR lower. The only failures i can remeber have probably been related to my reduced power spring kit. Oh had some ftfs and stuck rounds in one 556 upper from ammo sized for my mini.

RecoilRob said:

I find it incredible that their rifles couldn't hit man sized targets at 70 yards. Something was VERY wrong with the rifles...could they have been THAT fouled? Or was it just inexperienced shooters sucking that badly?

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That smells like BS to me. I'm not a great shot, but I can hit targets that are significantly smaller than an adult male at that range. If I can bust a flower pot at 100 with mine, I would certainly expect that the same gun could hit a man at 70. Hell, I could probably whip up some unholy combination of 2x4s, pipe, and hose clamps that could hit a target at that range.

It sounds to me as though the author did not like the Mini, and was exaggerating its drawbacks. It's common knowledge that the Mini isn't a precision rifle, but it sure isn't THAT bad.

My brother had a heavy barrel mini 14 he bought as a prairie dog gun (snicker, snicker) that was just completely useless. Like could barely hit a milk jug at 100 yards useless. That obviously wasn't going to work for what he bought it for so he resold it right away.

I know there are good ones and bad ones but I do wonder how many owners some of the bad ones have had. Someone buys it from a pawnshop, sees how pathetic it is and sells it back, someone else buys it and sells it off to a friend, and on and on and on... I'll never buy one unless I can shoot it first.