The early ones had the wood handguard. I also remember the stainless ones, at least the ones I saw back then, started to have the fiberglass handguards first.
My first center-fire rifle was a blued Mini-14 with a wood handguard. And that would have been in about 1982. Mine a a 181-prefix.
I don't recall when they switched to fiberglass on all of them though.
I had to replace my wood handguard with a vented Choate zytel one after I cooked the varnish off of it.<img src=icon_smile_big.gif border=0 align=middle>

&quot;Lord, make me fast and accurate.&quot;