Lance0812
Bearcat
I finally had a chance to get to the range with my new mini-14 yesterday and, except for the stiffness of the magazine springs, was pleasantly surprised.
About the first set of shots, I have no idea. I was firing at fifty yards and unable to see small white holes in a beige target at that range. When a cease fire was called, my daughter and I walked out to the targets and I was mortified to see no holes in my target. (Hers, shooting with her new Marlin 795, had a very good grouping.)
So I pasted an Orange peel target over the pristine one and an Arab type to my right started yelling at me in fractured English. Seems he had been shooting at the same target and had just posted the new one.
Long story short, one of his buddies - who spoke somewhat better English - settled things in my favor and the Orange Peel target stayed and was mine.
I fired twenty more shots, using the 5 round mag to avoid overheating, and saw only one burst of color on the target. However, when I collected the target, I saw I had done quite well: the twenty shots were low and to the right, but the group was consistent. (The one burst I was able to see from 50 yards was irordinately large.)
Now, all of this was with the mini-14 right out of the box - except that I had used CLP on the bore a week or so earlier - and with no adjustments to the sights.
In all, I'm very pleased with the mini-14: handles good, recoil very managable and it put all my shots in the same area. Granted that the area was not as close to the center bull as I would have liked, but I put that down to the distraction of four Arabs next to me and firing an assault rifle - anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
And I may have had the last laugh after all: the Arabs were to my right and I understand the mini-14 flings brass about 15 feet...
About the first set of shots, I have no idea. I was firing at fifty yards and unable to see small white holes in a beige target at that range. When a cease fire was called, my daughter and I walked out to the targets and I was mortified to see no holes in my target. (Hers, shooting with her new Marlin 795, had a very good grouping.)
So I pasted an Orange peel target over the pristine one and an Arab type to my right started yelling at me in fractured English. Seems he had been shooting at the same target and had just posted the new one.
Long story short, one of his buddies - who spoke somewhat better English - settled things in my favor and the Orange Peel target stayed and was mine.
I fired twenty more shots, using the 5 round mag to avoid overheating, and saw only one burst of color on the target. However, when I collected the target, I saw I had done quite well: the twenty shots were low and to the right, but the group was consistent. (The one burst I was able to see from 50 yards was irordinately large.)
Now, all of this was with the mini-14 right out of the box - except that I had used CLP on the bore a week or so earlier - and with no adjustments to the sights.
In all, I'm very pleased with the mini-14: handles good, recoil very managable and it put all my shots in the same area. Granted that the area was not as close to the center bull as I would have liked, but I put that down to the distraction of four Arabs next to me and firing an assault rifle - anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
And I may have had the last laugh after all: the Arabs were to my right and I understand the mini-14 flings brass about 15 feet...