Found a brand new ruger mini 30 for $700 cash.

Really want a more traditional looking carbine for camp duty in a caliber I can confidently shoot deer, hogs and badguys with.  I love my ar's but want a rifle that looks unassuming.  It has a syn stock and blued metal and I will probably mount a 1-4x luepold firedot.

I want to go for an M14 look so I'd need a wood stock and accustrut.  Are the wood stocks and upper hand guards hard to come by/pricey?  That really is my deciding factor.

How is the accuracy on the new mini 30's?
The only x39 ammo I regularly see is Tula steel. Will the mini 30 run on that shit?


Should I FO?



FYI my only experience is with an older mini 14 my buddy let me borrow.  Ran flawlessly and felt great with the butler creek side folder but was not as accurate as I wanted it to be.

http://www.aresdefense.com/?page_id=729

The individual lower, w/ bolt carrier, is available.  Drop a 7.62x39mm upper on it, sweet talk Longziz out of some mags "for testing", and you're GTG.

Check out Perfect Union's Mini-14 and Mini-30 forum HERE to get information about the Mini-30.
I just got a NIB Ranch Rifle, 5.56 and Wood Stock and added a SOCOM length Accu-Strut, Mini200 rear sight, choate handguard (I painted brown) Wilson Buffers, and polished the sears.  Shot 88 rds so far and I'm happy with the results.  I'm waiting for some smaller gas port bushings to tame it's tendency to throw brass into the next county which should also help accuracy a bit more.  So far I'm at about 2MOA with iron sights only.  Many get 1-1.5 MOA with scopes.  That's consistent with my M1 Garand and M1A performance.  
ETA: I'm extremely pleased with it and am considering adding a Mini-30 to the
mix.  The only thing stopping me is the expensive components to reload
as I'm not a fan of cheap Russki ammo.  BTW, MidwayUSA shows a replacement wood stock for $106.    I like the Choate handguard better than the wood one because, 1) The M14 was never issued with a wood handguard and, 2) the Choate handguard is small, light and cools the barrel better.  In addition, painted brown, it looks much more like the M14 version than the stock Ruger one.
Shameless pic of my Ranch Rifle:







 
 

An ares SCR lower is in my future, trust me.

Right now I'm interested in the garand  style action and think the ruger mini30 makes a handy little camp carbine  that looks unassuming

Only a little more and you could have an original M1 carbine.  Saw an IBM this weekend for $900, so a Winchester should be less than that.

Given the option between .30 Carbine or 7.62x39, I'd take the 7.62 every time.

The .30 just don't have the punch, to me.

Do note that a Mini-30 will not just drop into a wooden Mini-14 stock; you're going to have to do a bit of work on it to let it fit. You're also going to need the metal forend liner & stock cap assembly, although those are only like $7. The synthetic stock don't have them, and you need one for a wood stock.

Most of the wood upper handguards came off 180-series Mini-14s as it was dropped before the 181 series started. Too fragile. You can look around for one on Ebay, but they can get pretty spendy. There's a place or two that makes repros out of walnut, but they cost almost as much/as much as an original. That choice is up to you.

I suggest going the same route COSteve went and just painting a synthetic one. Cheaper, and less likely to get scorched/catch on fire.

As for ammo, I would probably avoid the Tula in it; there's been plenty of documentation about -30's snapping firing pins on the hard Tula primers. Most of those rifles, however, run just fine on some of the other Russian ammo, like Silver Bear.

If you're considering a M1 Carbine and want one good enough to shoot well, an original will be so expensive it's too valuable to shoot.  As you're talking about the $700 range, consider a Auto Ordnance M1 Carbine.  I have an pristine '43 NPM carbine, Rock River Arsenal rebuild with high wood, excellent condition original barrel, and all the accessories I picked up over 40yrs ago and haven't shot much.  It's now worth so much I can't see shooting it so a few years ago I looked around for a shooter.  The GI carbines in that price range here were worn out and shot out so I took a chance on an AO and couldn't be happier.





It's surprisingly accurate (2-3" groups at 100yds), reliable with AIM's Korean mags, comes with the M2 mag release so you can shoot 30rd mags reliably, and just works.  I did add a type II rear sight (adjustable one) over the flip sight as I like to shoot this at varying ranges with my handload and all I can say is I'm very happy with it.  Best of all, I can shoot the heck out of it, wear it out if I want, and I'm not worried about ruining a pristine piece of history.





Top - Original '43 National Postal Meter, Bottom - 2012 Auto Ordnance: