Well, nuts….another gun show where I had the best of intentions and still managed to return to the house with something that made absolutely no sense to purchase….
The fine print:
A little something from the Slick Willy legacy… a ‘restricted’ marking, denoting that this particular boomstick was only to be possessed by Only Ones. 
Someone at the Mohave Sherriff’s Office is missing a Mini-14GB.
Back in the old days of survivalism, if you wanted a .223 semi-auto rifle your choice was limited to either an AR or a Mini-14. (Yes, you could get an HK93 or an AR-180…..maybe a Valmet …or some other equally obscure gun, but broadly your choices were just between the AR and the Mini.) The Mini-14 was about as accurate as your average AK, but also about as reliable as your average AK. And it was a bit cheaper than the Colt (which was virtually the only outfit making AR’s back then).
The GB models were targeted (so to speak) at law enforcement and, amsuingly, military markets. (Yes, some tiny jerkwater nations did issue the Mini as their primary long arm.) When Bill Ruger decided to start throwing people out of the lifeboat, he yanked the GB models and the ‘high capacity’ mags from the public marketplace. Fortunately, Bill Ruger has left the biological stage of existence and the company has largely undone the damage he wrought and has come out with many awesome products since.
Anyway, the GB was not on my shopping list and I genuinely have no use for it…but it’s kind of a novelty with the police markings and the ‘Restricted’ stamps. And the price was right. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. I suppose in for a penny, in for a pound….I may as well hunt down a GB folder to put on there and go full A-Team with it. Or I may just pick up a half dozen mags, stick it in a soft case, and use it as a tertiary level ‘just in case’ carbine to store somewhere. Or I may sell it to the first person I can make a hundred bucks off of. Who knows. But, it will definitely go out to the range for a spin.
I pity de fuhl that can turn that down. :^)
Never owned a Mini, shot a couple. I have an acquaintance who is 25 years further along in the Gun/Survivalist journey than me due to greater age who loves Mini’s though, and has a couple that will deliver the goods when he is running them. Nice score.
Back in the day when these hit the market I was all set to buy one. But, whenever I went shopping the Mini was just out of my financial reach. Also, there were a lot of bad stories about accuracy. Eventually I gave up looking for a reasonable priced one and settled for a new Chinese SKS-D with several extended mags. When the Canadian government said no more autos with mags over 5 rounds, I simply put the large mags away. At the time I picked up the new SKS-D it was $199 Cdn. and, if memory serves, the cheapest Mini I could find was north of $600 Cdn. Even today, a new Mini 14 is around $1,200 to buy up here, which is more than I want to spend.
I’m still a little sad that I never bought one, they look like a very classic rifle.
Ah yes. A particular gun can be manufactured by a Dirt Person; each firearm is serialized and logged, tested with a proofing round, and distributed by certain ATF couriers as well. No one employed can be a user of a controlled substance such as marijuana, or meth, or even on a medication that can alter brain chemistry.
Every one will need a federal background check, books have to be perfect, every piece of scrap accounted for, every round accounted for. They work at a secure facility that the ATF can and will inspect at their discretion, the same with logs, security, maintenance, milling machines, lathes, and people who can run them well, and metallurgists, and likely a decent lawyer. Yet, Dirt People cannot own certain guns because…………Dirt People. Funny isn’t it? We do everything but enjoy them. I’ll add machine guns to this list.
The Mini is *not* as reliable as an AK. Not even close.
I do have to admit, it is a fun gun to own and shoot. But I wouldn’t want to use one for any sort of serious purpose. But then again, not every gun needs to be about surviving the end of the world.
One of my first guns. Sent it a guy in AZ and had a 16.5” SS heavy barrel put on. Leupold scope and it drives tacks. And yes, I know. Too much $ on a mini, but oh so cool.
Way back in the day (‘82 or ‘83) my unit trained with the Caribbean super power of Jamaica. They were ‘armed’ with the Mini-14and most looked near new. At the small arms range, almost every one of them jammed or had issues within firing the first or second mag. Going over them most were totally dry, no lube whatsoever. We broke out lube (which not one of the Jams had), which helped somewhat, but they still had problems after that with mis-feeds, bolt issues and broken extractors. Finally we broke out a couple of extra M16s (A2) for them to use. I remember the Jam LT telling me they wish they had sixteens ‘mon these are sweet’ instead of Rugers. That said, I know the French police have used mini-14’s for over 20 years and been happy with them, of course that’s not a military unit using them and all that entails.
Do not, at any price, acquire non-factory mags for this gun. There was only one aftermarket maker that made decent mags, and they have been out of business for a long time. (P.I.? something like that)
A high end dealer grabbed a batch of NIB SS/GB Folders after Ruger cut off sales to the public. ’88/’89? Came from a police inventory. Not marked like yours. (Think that was done after the Federal ban in ’94.)
Dealer kept one, I got one, and he sold the remaining 8. Years later I sold it to a Tx collector. I was intending on giving it to a friend when he got a (live aboard) sailboat, but he died shortly after getting the boat. Think I paid $1k.
IIRC, the Mini-14 developed their bad accuracy rep due to having a range of twist rates. You have to ascertain the twist for each gun, and match bullet weights. Apparently, this cannot be obtained correctly by referring to the serial # range.
My experience has been that the Eagle brand plastic magazines, with the ‘window shade’ follower spring, worked extremely well in the Mini, but I don’t think they’ve made those mags in many years. https://www.gunauction.com/buy/12547998 Otherwise , yeah, its gona have to be factory mags all the way although I might try a MecGar for kicks.
I had a standard (NOT gov only) Mini back sometime in the late seventies. Oh, the humanity – a few months later I was pricing ARs.
Funny thing: Many years later when I acquired my M1A I was able to compare the innards of both guns, the M14 and the Mini14, and was impressed once more by what an inferior rip-off the Mini is. If a rifle could sue, M14s would have started a class action suit against Ruger for misuse of the name.