I was given a 180 series Mini by a family friend who just couldn’t live with its minute-of-pie plate accuracy. I’ve owned several Mini-14s in my life and enjoyed them. But I’ve always just used them as trade fodder when other stuff came around. For reasons I’ll likely keep this one despite it being a 180. I detail stripped and cleaned it then re-torqued the gas block the other night and I’m interested to see how that affects accuracy. I’ve read that shortening the barrel can help accuracy so I might try that. It’s already been drilled and tapped for scope mounts and it looks every bit of its 45 year age so collector value isn’t a consideration. The question is how much should I chop it.  Should I Form 1 it and go 13 inches or do 14.5 with a pinned flash suppressor or just down to 16 inches? Or should I just leave it alone and blast dirt when the mood hits me? It’s a neat rifle and I’ll enjoy it no matter what.

Mini's can be accurate with some WECSOG treatment. Cut the crown and lap the lugs then make some tighter than normal handloads.

So I did what you're talking about. This is an old Mini-14 with its original factory folder stock, chopped to roughly 13 inches. I bought the AC556 sight off ebay and threw it on there. Now I'm just waiting for the stamp on the Dead Air Naked Nomad (uncerakoted so it looks silver) to complete the look.

Slippery slope.
I decided that Mini-30 could be kinda accurate.
I had a .311 Hart Barrel contoured and installed and a Colt Commando style flash hider welded to 16.5.
It's pretty accurate with a Leupold 1-4 scope...but don't add up the parts and labor...that hurts.

Chop it, put on a barrel stabilizer, and supposedly the old ones shoot much better.  My new one treats me just fine.

I’m thinking one option might be 13 inches with the AC556 sight but keep my original stock. It would be sorta reminiscent of a Reising.



I know what you mean. Lots of my projects have been like that. But I’m not going to rebarrel it. I might Stamp it but that’s about it.




I’ve considered a stabilizer and might try that too.

My brother has a Ruger Mini 14 180 series and before I chopped the barrel I’d try a barrel stabilizer.    Mini’s are basically 2-3 MOA guns unless you get lucky.   Their fine for short range self defense but there are better platforms if you desire more accuracy.

I might try a stabilizer maybe. But I have plenty of better weapons for defensive and hunting purposes. I’m just looking to make a range toy better.

Having BTDT, may I suggest trying/investigating the simple. inexpensive alternatives before trying more expensive alternatives?

For instance, investigate whether or not your Mini's muzzle was damaged by improper cleaning by a former owner.  this will take expert, magnified examination.  If so, and the damage is not severe, a simple re-crowning, or perhaps a counterboring might be in order.

If the muzzle is undamaged, then there are many accuracy-enhancing alternatives open to you.  

You might want to investigate the Rate-of-Twist of your barrel (Ruger used quite a few), and use bullets of the optimum weight.

More often than not, a tighter-fitting syn stock will put you miles ahead of the notoriously ill-fitting wooden OEM stocks.

I have an original, non-buggered pencil-barrel Mini.  I have done most all "improvements" to it that one can do.  In its' later iteration, (not having some latter improvements), it was a genuine 2 MOA rifle, with good ammo.

After the latest round of improvements, I reckon it might shoot a little better.  Time will tell.

In sum, try the simple stuff first.  

I have shortened, re crowned and added a flash hider to a couple older Minis, and 4 different Mini-30's. All were improved by the treatment.

The Mini-30s all came with a heavier .625" barrel, I've found a strut doesn't help as much with those, unless you were to get the barrel really warm a lot.
With the .560" barrel like your 180 has, an Accustrut , along with shortening, re crown and adding some muzzle weight,  will reduce accuracy robbing harmonics and barrel whip.
The strut is a must with the old pencil barrels, that mod alone tightened my groups by 40 %, and vertical stringing was greatly reduced as well.

If you want to add a small red dot, consider an Ultimak railed hand guard, it helps stiffen the barrel further and acts as a heat sink like a strut. They are  a great place to mount an optic like a micro RDS, low, out of the way of the action and ejecting brass, and getting the RDS further from your head greatly increases peripheral vision.

For the skinny barrel older Mini's, use the two clamp strut, and do the "dimple option" as recommended by the maker. Where the two small set screws dig into the side of the gas block, drill a shallow hole to help keep the set screws in place. A strut that can float around on your gas block isn't near as effective, and is just a weight hanging off the barrel ( not a bad thing in itself).

This stainless synthetic stock Mini-30 was the lone hold out that I hadn't shortened yet, but last week I got around to cutting it to 16 .5".
A stainless/synthetic stock mini finished in FDE/Desert sand Cerakote is about as weatherproof of a carbine that you can devise.

I have maybe $140 invested in a handle, cutters and pilots from Brownell's to face the barrel to 90degrees after cutting with a hacksaw, then use a beveled cutter to crown.
I then thread the barrels with a die, handle and guide that I got from Carolina Shooters Supply, but Brownell's sells those too.
Mini -30s are easy to thread by hand, as the .625' barrel is already the correct size for the 5/8" x 24 threads.
For a skinny barrel (.560") Mini-14, you'll have to have a step milled on the end of barrel, as the muzzle will have to be .500" for the 1/2 x 28 TPI thread.

As raf said above, check that your muzzle hasn't been damaged from improper cleaning. it's easy to improve on the mediocre factory crown, even if previous owners haven't damaged it. Improper use of a rod being cleaned from the muzzle by guys not using a brass muzzle guide could have also damaged the first few inches of rifling, if done enough times. Cutting the barrel back 2 inches will get you back to the good stuff. Guys that don't know how to clean from the muzzle properly would be better off sticking to a pull thru cable like the Otis.

And also as raf mentioned, consider shimming the stock if there is side to side play when trying to wiggle the action. You can use brass shim stock or thin cut up pieces of old credit card.
Rough up the back side of shim and on the stock where the shim will rest, and epoxy in. It helps to taper the top edge of the shim, so every time you put the action back in the stock the receiver lugs don't snag on the shims. Here's a pic of credit card shims on one of my poly stocks:

I can hold 2-3 MOA with the Fastfire red dots with my older eyes, anything out to 300 yards and beyond would be in trouble.
For testing load accuracy and seeing what ammo the Minis like, I put a Nikon 2.5-8x on the Ultimak's rail, with the help of magnification and better bullets handloaded groups more like 1/14 to 1 1/2.
Silver Bear doesn't do too bad for mass produced cheaper Russian FMJ or HP:


I love my Mini's but they do take some work to get running sweet. Just about all of my mods, can be done yourself for cheep if you are a bit handy.
I also do my own Cerakote, including the magazines. For the Mini-14 stick with Ruger factory mags ($22 on sale) or O.E brand are good to go also and run about $14 each. Some guys replace the O.E. followers with Ruger ones. For the Mini-30 stick with Ruger factory mags, and the KCI 30 rounders are even better.


Rear factory sights are replaced by Tech sights and the front blade is thinned. Slings are Vickers Blue force and are side mounted with Magpul polymer rails bolted to the forend, and top mounted in back with a Q.D. swivel.

If this is really a 180 series, I wouldn't molest it any further.  I would try a stabilizer, and if that didn't help, I'd just take it out every now and then and make some big patterns.    But that's just me...

Ruger no longer supports the 180, or has the parts to sell that are specific to them. Jack First in South Dakota is making a few parts for the 180s.
https://jack-first-gun-parts.myshopify.com/collections/ruger-180-series-mini-14

Not sure what I would gain from lying about it being a 180 series but whatever.




ETA: thanks arfcom for the picture orientation.

You’re my hero. Thank you.

I think I bought an M14 stock from you some years back.

Yes, you might be right.  Was a long time ago.  Hope the stock worked out well for you.  

As far as the 180 goes, I rather concur that making any irreversible changes to it might be inadvisable.  YMMV.


ETA: if, as some have mentioned, the rifle is a specially-marked item, then I strongly suggest NOT making any irreversible changes to it.

Wasn't implying you were lying, sorry.  Not everybody knows the difference between a 180 and the other 18x prefixes.  (And now you think I'm implying you don't know what you're talking about, which I also am not.   )  I guess I just wanted to clarify, since IMO there's a big difference between chopping a 180 and any other 18x.  Just didn't phrase it well.

If it’s a 1976 Model with the bicentennial markings, don’t cut it down...  If anything sell it and buy a beater series 183-186.

The series 180 isn’t a rare rifle, but the 1976 bicentennial marking are cool...  I have one that need some TLC.  I bought it cuz the price was right and it’s different.

Nothing is as sad as looking at a Bubba-rized classic firearm.

Concur.