Do yourself a favor and just get an AR. Mini-14's are not accurate and you would have to spend alot of money to get near the accuracy of an AR so you might as well just save yourself the trouble. I had a Mini-30 and it was fun but was not accurate. Many AR's shoot sub moa, mine isvery closeto my savage 12bvss. I have never had my AR jam while hunting but then again I shoot good ammo and clean it once in a while. The only jamming I have had is when shooting my 16 inch upper and shooting 600 rounds of wolf junk in a two hour period. Another upside to an AR is it is a modular weapon and you can change uppers and have different calibers by popping two pins. good luck