As the operating slide moves rearward, it compresses a recoil spring riding on a guide rod that projects into a deep hole in the rear of the operating slide’s forward section. The slide moves about a half-inch before unlocking occurs, which allows the bullet to clear the barrel and pressures to drop. A kidney cut on the slide’s inboard side, near its projecting handle, engages a projection on the right locking lug of the bolt and cams the bolt to the unlocked position. The one-piece bolt has two horizontally opposed forward locking lugs. Viewed from the front, its Garand-style pivoting extractor occupies the 9 to 11 o’clock portion of the bolt face, and a slot at the 3 to 4 o’clock position allows a fixed, blade-type ejector to project past the bolt’s face, kicking out an empty case, after the bolt reaches the end of its rearward travel.

The Mini’s magazine, like that of the M14, hooks on a post inside the magazine well’s front and rocks upward at the rear until it latches with an audible “click.” A projection on the ejector serves as a bolt hold-open and is actuated by depressing a button on top of the receiver’s left side when no magazine is in the rifle. When a magazine is in place, a tab on its follower lifts up the hold-open automatically after the last shot has been fired.

Encore Performances
The Mini-14’s original design team was a talented mix of individuals including Jim Sullivan, who was the primary designer and is perhaps best known for his early work on the AR-15, Harry Seifried, who carried on Sullivan’s developmental work and Roy Melcher, who finally brought the Mini to market. Melcher, who was with Ruger from 1968 to 1987, came out of retirement in 2003 to rework the Mini and re-tool its production line. “I was surprised when I came back that original tooling was still being used,” he recalls.

Of course, Melcher knew the Mini was based on sound design principles—after all, he had seen some law enforcement Minis come back for service after they had fired as many as 100,000 rounds, and they still functioned. But he also knew that updated manufacturing techniques could only make the Mini better. “Instead of moving parts around, we applied the concepts of cells and lean manufacturing,” Melcher said.

Such manufacturing models are intended to minimize waste and maximize efficiency by arranging factories into sections with teams who make products with greater flexibility and speed than in traditional mass-production. But the drastic changes didn’t come without a price. They forced the closure of the Mini-14 line for an extended period between 2004 and 2006. “The results were worth the effort,” said Melcher. “The receiver fixturing was completely redone with more reliable locating points and tighter tolerances throughout.”

The new guns also capitalize on the success of the original 1982 Ranch Rifle version of the Mini, which was so popular it convinced Ruger to carry its main improvement—integral scope mounts for proprietary Ruger rings—across the entire line and adopt the name as the primary designation for all later Mini-14 and 7.62x39 mm Mini Thirty rifles. The latest rifles benefit from: the tighter manufacturing tolerances, evidenced by a receiver with rounded exterior contours; a slightly heavier barrel contour; a fully adjustable, wing-protected rear aperture sight assembly adapted from Ruger’s PC9 pistol-caliber carbine and a wing-protected front sight assembly.

According to Melcher, guns chambered in .223 Remington retain the modified chamber Ruger has used since the beginning, which has a generous leade designed to accept a variety of bullet weights and styles. Rifling twist rates for .223 Rem.-chambered guns stand at 1:9", having evolved from 1:12" and, later, 1:10" on earlier Minis.

Such improvements have been constant during the Mini’s 33-year lifespan. In 1978 it was made available in a proprietary stainless steel alloy. In 1982, the original Ranch Rifle debuted with a fold-down rear sight, redesigned ejector and integral scope mounts for ease of use with optical sights. The Mini Thirty hit the market in 1986, and in 2007 Ruger introduced a Mini chambered for the new 6.8 mm Rem. SPC cartridge.

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