Project Appleseed

Cross Posted on the AAR for Leyden, Mass  08-26-2017

FWIW- Saturday was a great day to get in some trigger time!  And I got to try out a Ruger Mini-14 at an Appleseed.  As I am sure that
other instructors can attest, an Appleseed is a great way to see what a rife can do and for a shooter to become really familiar with that rifle. I believe we put somewhere near 250 rounds though the rifle that day.

Impressions of the Mini-14

1. Handles and feels a LOT like a 10/22
2. The stock trigger is rough.. yuck.. the trigger is going to get sent out to a smith to be smoothed a bit..
3. No function issues whatsoever.  The mini-14 lived up to its reliability reputation.  I was using federal golden eagle 55 gr. ammo.
    which, by all accounts, produces a pretty fair fireball and shockwave!
4. Accuracy.. wasn't bad.. I think the problem was more with the shooter and over 55 year old eyes..
    unfortunately iron-sights don't cut it anymore..as much as I'd like to believe otherwise.
    We will be adding an optic (Nikon P-223 on order) and will try again. FWIW- I now have the same problem with the 10/22.
5. It got HOT!.. Wow! did this thing heat up after a couple of AQTs!  The barrel got HOT!.. I set the rifle on a tarp.. and the barrel
    melted the tarp which adhered to the barrel.  That was fun to clean off.. Did the hot barrel it affect accuracy..probably, just not sure  how.
6. The Mini-14 REALLY throws brass.. like 30 feet! No joke!  Ejected brass pinged the shooter alongside me in the head while he was in a sitting position . It hit him pretty hard too. It would be wise to keep any Mini-14 shooters to the FAR right of the line.
7. Magazine changes are no big deal.  While not quite as fast as an AR, I had no problem finishing any AQT in time due to fumbling with the rock and lock magazines. (These being typical NE  4 minute QDAQTs)



In summary:

The Mini-14 is a fun gun to shoot!  It's not quite as accurate as an AR. IMHO it handles very fast and I prefer the feel of the Mini-14 to the AR.   It is very similar in feel to a 10/22 and with  only slightly more felt recoil.  I feel that any shooter familiar with a 10/22 could easily transition to a Mini-14.  I need to do some more accuracy testing, especially after I attach an optic to eliminate shooter vision issues.  I will  also be testing  other ammo to see what the Mini prefers.  I have little doubt that this handy little rifle could easily produce Rifleman scores.

Very nice review; thanks! I've been eyeing a wood & stainless Mini-30 myself for a while now. Yes, I grew up watching the A-team. 

From what I've read about that platform, over-gassing is pretty typical, which leads to the mile-long brass throwing. A few options that I've seen to reduce that are swapping out the gas port insert for one with a smaller diameter hole, and/or replacing the fixed gas block for an adjustable one.

Supposedly the adequate-but-not-awesome accuracy issues that were common with those rifles have been reduced by the various improvements over the years, in particular the ones made when they changed the serial numbers to start with #580. I'd be interested to see your results once you get a scope on yours.

Keep up the good work!

did you shoot the score with it?

 hbennett, was that a 180 or 580 series rifle?

I've seen a few 580 series on the line here, they do launch empties!

The Mini-14 is a 580 series, Stainless Steel, Polymer Stock.

The rear sight is not stock. It is a Tech Sight, for which I have nothing but praise. I cannot fault the sight.

And no, I did not shoot a qualifier..Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Finally got some range time after mounting a scope on the Mini-14 (Nikon P-223 3-9x40 BDC ) using the Ruger-issue rings.  My first problem was that the scope would not fit along with the Tech-sights.. The  ears and the aperture both made contact with the scope.. bummer.. the Ruger rear sight went back on..

I hand-loaded some ammo and got several hours to myself to be able to test them.  After zeroing the scope at 25 yds, I moved the target out to 50 yds.

In short, I got a really decent group with Sierra 69 gr. MK over a load of H335, but the best group of the day came from Hornady 60gr. V-Max over a load of Varget.   
The V-Max out-shot the MKs.  While the MKs produced a 1" group, the V-Max easily kept everything inside the 1" square.   I will call that good enough.
For full disclosure I did all shooting from a bench..and used a rest..  For what it's worth the 55gr bullet/power combos I used produced groups on the order of Meh, to Yuck....

Of note, and a rookie mistake.. early on my groups really started opening up..I was starting to get discouraged when I notices a bit of a rattle to the rifle.. As it turned
out, the screws holding the scope to the rifle had begun to loosen..Duh!..  I really torqued down on them and the problem went away.. I did have to re-zero the rifle though.

The little rifle continues to impress.  I put over 200 rounds through the rifle today.  I started with load combos that seemed promising, given the availability of bullets and powder in my area.  I started with minimum loads and incrementally increased the test load by 0.2 grains for each subsequent string of 5 rounds.  I kept my loads  under the listed max in the manuals.  I watched for a sweet spot where the groups would shrink and then started to grow again..The sweet spot being the "best load" of that combination for that rifle..  Any loads that shot a 4 moa group or less was good enough to hit the steel silhouettes at 200 and 300 yards, but we know that..

I used commercial, economy grade ammo to get the rifle zeroed.    The Mini-14 never experienced a stoppage or a failure to feed during the entire session, no matter what I fed it.
Given its role as a carbine, and not a match-grade sniper rifle, I believe it fills its role very well.  Groups under 1 inch at 50 yards is plenty good enough for my purposes.. The local coyotes now are on notice..

As for negatives, again, the Mini-14 gets HOT..  I took breaks between strings to beat up on a dueling tree with my 1911.. but  the Mini still heated up pretty quick..it was hot again after another string or two... again I melted my "brass-bag" when it came in contact with the barrel..   

And it REALLY chucks brass...   I felt bad for the father and young son in the bay next to me..My Mini kept flinging  brass in front, over,  and passed   them.. I walked over to apologize..and handed them a couple of the AS pamphlets and Red Coat targets  that I keep in  my range bag..  They also got to test fire my Mini-14..and they will be coming to an Appleseed soon..

Mini-14 a fun shooter.

Never saw one score AQT without a barrel stabilizer example http://www.accu-strut.com/

Shoot .223 and it will toss the brass half as far as 5.56.

 hbennett, good report overall on the Mini-14.  the loose scope problem something to keep an eye on when one is being used. Kind of like the loose action screw on a 10-22.

Mini-14's are generally not highly regarded in some circles but there's a lot of them out there and most likely some of them will make it to an Appleseed firing line. It's good to know some of the nuances of them when difficulties arise.

While working the April 21-22  Mansfiled, MA event, I got the opportunity to test the Mini-14 under "field conditions".  This was after the trigger had been reworked by Accuracy Systems, in Byers, CO  (http://mini14triggers.com/).  I had a basic trigger job done. Gone is the gritty and raspy feel. The trigger now breaks much more cleanly. I strongly recommend this work for a Mini-14 trigger.

Since I was in a rush to prepare for the event and didn't have time to load custom ammo, instead I used bulk Federal XM855 bulk ammo, which wasn't bad.   I noticed that the first two shots from a cold barrel seemed a little low, but the next 38 shots seemed accurate enough to shot a rifleman's score, that is, if the shooter could do his part. 

I did find a problem with cheek weld and eye relief in the prone position that will have to be addressed, althought the little rifle absolutely owned the standing position target.

Shooter error was "mostly" proven not to be a factor, as he easily shot a qualifying target with a 10/22 between AQTs with Mini-14.  There may be additional adjustments necessary in the future as well, given that the shooter is a fat old man, and out of practice.

FWIW- The father and young son that got pinged by my brass during my earlier range session attended the 03-17-2018 Winterseed in Leominster, MA where they had an AWESOME time (no surprise there).  Both will be returning to future Appleseed events.  Having Appleseed business cards and pamphlets to hand out is a huge recruiting tool.. as is an AQT with holes very close together. It seems that folks get real interested when you tell them that your shooting used to look a lot like theirs and that if they come to an Appleseed THEY can learn how to shoot like this too.. in addition to adding a taste of the strikes ...

Nice report on the Mini-14.  Never even thought about using mine to try for a rifleman score.  I never thought they accurate enough for that.  Minute-of-zombie was good for me.  I would like to know how you liked the Nikon P-223 3-9x40 BDC??

While l like the scope, I'm not sure that it's the right tool for the Mini-14.  Eye relief has ben a problem in prone position with this setup.  I think a scout scope configuration would work better, as this is more of a fast handling carbine rather than a precision shooter.  Were my eyes a couple decades younger, I'd prefer the Tech sights. In standing position, the scope worked very well.  Clarify and magnification are excellent. The BDC is unnecessary at 25M AQT range.  I will sight it in at 100 YDs once I am done wringing it out. I have access to a 300YD range which will allow me to test the BDC component of the scope.

So in a SHTF situation, will the hot barrel really cause issues with accuracy? I really want tolike this little rifle, but I have access to an ar-15 and M1 Garande as well.

Thanks,
Mooney