Mini-14 disapointment....

[Skans]

Let me start off by saying that I own an AC556 (basically full-auto Mini-14) and absolutely love this gun.

However, I was looking at some new Mini-14's both blued and stainless. I was highly dissapointed with the finish of the metal on these guns. Both blued and stainless finishes were so rough that you could see casting marks in the receivers. On the older mini-14's the stainless was polished and bright and the blued guns were reasonably polished to a smooth finish.

These new Mini-14's look like cheap china-junk to me. No, let me correct that - China seems to use more forgings in their guns and the fit and finish on a number of guns are far superior to that of the newer Ruger Mini-14's.

I'm assuming that the newer Mini-14's are still decent quality guns, but the finish is pure-awful. Has anyone tried polishing the receivers and barrels to achieve a more refined finish in either the blued or stainless guns.

On another note, the New Thompson .45 copies of the Tommy Guns also have a lack-luster finish compared to the ones that were being produced in the 1980's. Has anyone else noticed this degradation in quality? Or is it just me.

 

[fisherman66]

Has anyone tried polishing the receivers and barrels to achieve a more refined finish in either the blued or stainless guns.

Yes, I have. It's a very time consuming process, but the results are very nice. I have only done it on a SS revolver. Mother's hand rubbed. I used a Dremel for the cylinder flutes, but everything else was finger pressure. I large wheel might be okay for the large flat surfaces, but I'd be tempted to just use hand pressure to avoid waves in the finish.

If I were to get that far I might consider going for hard chrome or super metal surface. If I were dealing with a blue/chrome moly steel you'd need to refinish anyway.

I wouldn't assume the "enerds" are finished any better than the "outerds". I'm a little surprised Ruger would do that to one of their higher end rifles, but I'm far from shocked.

 

[Te Anau]

I agree 100% that new Mini 14's are pretty rough looking.Actually,I was horrified at how bad a new stainless mini looked recently at Gander Mountain.That guns receiver should never have left the factory.

 

[lipadj46]

The mini-14's I have seen lately would require more than polishing to get them to where they would look like say an M1A receiver (nicely finished). the casting marks I have seen would require some light grinding first.

 

[Citizen Carrier]

I used a dremel to polish my Ruger Mk II stainless. I used a very fine polishing compound from Lowe's. Now the pistol looks much like a shiny pinball.

I'm thinking of doing the same for my stainless Ruger Bisley.