Larry from Bend said:
DGW1949 said:
Just to continue along blume357's line of thinking, it's been my long-held belief that "upgrading" a Mini-14 should first start by addressing it's basic problems.
What I mean by that is that as a group, almost-all Mini's (regardless of era) display some rather significant short comings relative to both design and execution which could/should have been addressed by Ruger eons ago, but have not been.
The biggest offenders are sloppy stock bedding, poorly executed barrel crowns, rinky-dink sighting arrangements, and (to blume's point) poorly-finished trigger assembly's...all of which have a direct bearing on accuracy/precision. With the exception of buying a better set of sights AND doing something to improve Ruger's crappy rear sight-mounting system(s), exactly none of those other things can be fixed by simply throwing after market do-dads on the gun.
I'm not sayin' that some of those do-dads are not useful, because some of them clearly are. I'm just simply sayin' if you do "first things first", you may find that all you really need to buy afterwards is more (or better) practice ammo.
DGW
Not true at all. My Mini threw the first shot out of a cold, clean/dirty barrel 4-5" out of the group (which without the first shot was 3+") making it useless for my purposes. After installing an AccuStrut it's an honest 2" (3 shots @ 100 yards) shooter. The first shot goes in the group. That do-dad made what I'd call a vast improvement...
First off, please allow me to repeat myself...
"I'm not sayin' that some of those do-dads are not useful, because some of them clearly are. I'm just simply sayin' if you do "first things first", you may find that all you really need to buy afterwards is more (or better) practice ammo."
Now, with that established....Yes, I agree that adding a proper "strut" can (and often does) make quite a difference in how well any certain Mini shoots.
On the other hand, what simply adding a strut can't/doesn't do though, is address any of the other issues which I articulated as being rather-common amongst Mini's regardless of the specific era in which they may have been produced.
In other words, no rifle which exhibits sloppy bedding, or an out of square muzzle, or a poor crown, or has had it's barrel unevenly-stressed while pressing-on it's front sight, or has poor and/or ill-fitted sights, and/or an ill-fitted trigger Ass'y, and/or any combination of those things is going to be capable of delivering the amount of accuracy/precision which it would otherwise have...and the Mini platform is no exception....That was my point.
Purty-basic stuff really.
DGW