Lucky,
The mini's are as reliable as sunrise with good ammo, but the average accuracy of them is about 4" at 100 yds, a rare one will do 2", and the guys on perfect union have had some success making them shoot with some very cheap mods.
After many complaints, Ruger tested a bunch of mini's for accuracy, took a few of the best ones and a few of the worst ones and tore them down and measured everything trying to find out why, results were inconclusive and deemed to expensive to fix.
I have 2 that shoot very well that were rebuilt by ARS of Odessa Tx., they were rebarrelled with Lothar Walther super match SS barrels, and a few other tweaks done to the action and a bit of trigger work. The 223 is a 12 twist 22" barrel rebuilt in 1992 and the rebuild was 700.00, the thumbhole is a 6 PPC with a 20" 12 twist rebuilt in 1998 at a cost of 780.00 not including the stockwork. The 223 will shoot about every 55 gr factory load I ever tried into about 1", the PPC shoots a good bit better but is a reload only proposition. Have considered selling the 223 but my 11 yo daughter would disown me.
The guy who ran ARS passed on a few years ago but there is a company that still works mini's do a search for accuracy systems inc. they have a website and do good work on them. also I'm pretty sure that Jim Clarks custom guns of keithville la. still works on them. Hope this helps answer your ?'s.
RR
What's Wrong With The Mini 14???
