I will be going into the armed forces pretty soon i thought that i would buy a Ruger .223 rifle because i heard that they are the closest to the M16A2 that they use in the military. I have had bad luck with semi-automatic rifles in the past and am wondering whether a Ruger Mini 14 is a good investment.

Give me some feedback

Thanks

The Mini 14 can be fixed to work quite nicely.....They seem to feed, eject and load nicely but the triggers are notoriously poor and accuracy often is about 6" groups and sometimes worse.

I have seen one that didn't shoot too bad.....but it's a crapshoot.....

There are folks that specialize in accurizing them and they are very successful at it.

I had one for awhile and scoped it, i was able to get 1.5" groups at 100 yards with it fairly regularly. But, on the other side, I have a buddy who has one and he cannot get the thing to group under about 6-8". (he can shoot very well.)

internetrush,
First,...Welcome to the group!
Second, any of the AR-15 varients would be more like the M-16A1 you are going to be familiar with(soon). They can be had for somewhere between $750-$1000 depending on what you want it to look like.
The Ruger Mini-14 would be more closely assimilated to the M-14A1 (civilan M1A1), the namesake for the Ruger rifle, as they both operate with a gas operated rotating bolt.

Rock River Arms and Bushmaster would be my 2 suggestions for an AR-15.

I agree with everything Mlaubner posted.

The mini- 14 is a scaled down version of the M-14, through Ruger's scaling, some of the best attributes of the M-14 were lost such as accuracy and the ability to shoot .308 (7.62x51) and the availability of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

Bill Ruger's attitude is that "no honest man needs a magazine bigger than 10 rds" which is why I'm pretty much jaded about anything semi-auto larger than .22 made by ruger.

The mini-14 is basicly an overpriced plinker- its good for making alot of noise and burning up centerfire ammo fast.

-You asked if it was a good investment?
They cost about $500 in my area. If I bought one (I almost did a few years ago) and got sick of its poor accuracy, I would probably be able to sell it for $200- $250 or spend another $500 accurizing it and still having a $500 gun in the end.
If I were going to go the accurizing route, I would be much better off buying an AR set up for match shooting for around $1000.
For comparison, I could build a low end AR for about $150 more than a mini-14 and have much better sights and far better accuracy.

My brother had one, you could pull the trigger as fast as you could and shoot a paper plate size group, when he put a scope on it, it still shot a paper plate size group. My friend barrowed his cousins for a winter and that one shot about a 1.5" group with a scope. I don't think they are worth the 5-600 they want for them. I would personally buy the Armalite AR 15, it is closer to the M16 than the mini 14.

Buy an AR-15 it is almost the same gun.

Yea....due to the above comments and my prior experience with a semi auto 30-06 and a semi .22 i think i might actually go with a bolt action .223. Ive seen the rugers and they look pretty nice... Any suggestions on a bolt .223??

I would go with a ruger 77 in 223. I am very partial to the ruger 77. What branch are you joining? I have been in 7 yrs in the army and am currently finishing up 18 months in Korea

I love Ruger and own 5 of them but my .223 is a Remington 700 VLS and it touches holes at 100 yards with my hand loads and will shoot a .5" group at 100 yards with the cheap Winchester 45gr 40 round value pack at $11.00. The only thing I don't like is the weight, 10lbs with out a scope, very good for the bench though.