As hard as it is for me to say anything bad about Rugers, the mini' s are not their best work. THAT SAID, I' ve found that for the money, their construction and reliablility is more than worth it, a guy can but a NEW mini-14, replace the barrel and have some other work done, and still have money left over as opposed to buying a USED AR-15 (or variant) even have money left over as opposed to buying AK-47' s! As far as it goes, I' ve owned more SKS' s than MINI' s, but I plan to purchase another mini soon.

They are GREAT plinking guns, and the mini-30' s do ok as deer rifles (as well as most similar rifles would do). With a little work, you can get them to shoot pretty well, with a lot of work, you can get them to leave one hole, but it' s pretty pricey. I got them for fun, for work (bounty hunter aka bail bond enforcer), and for hunting, they do it all well enough in my book. I' ve NEVER had any one of them jam, nor missfire, or slamfire, all of which everyone of my SKS' s were known to do from time to time. The construction is sound, not a lot of moving parts, and built like a tank, I think that might be part of their problem.

ONE OTHER THING TO LOOK AT: Ruger' s " New" deerfield in .44mag, I love them, they shoot much better than the mini' s, basically are built the same, and are VERY capable deer rifles, falling just behind in performance to the mini-30, which the accuracy makes up.