So this is all new to me, but I wanted to hear some feedback from those of you who have been owners for a bit. Every Ruger owner I've spoken with all have echoed the same thing, "Factory Ruger Only, buy once-cry one".

So I've been search for reasonable 20 and 30rd mags, came across some between $25 - $30.

So are the other brands really that bad?

I'm gonna have to agree. Buy once, cry once, factory Ruger.

The straight 20 round "OE" brand ran well for me last week, aside from one specific round that I apparently sat a bit too far forward in the mag in relation to Others.  The ones sold by CDNN, about which there are several threads in this forum.

I plan to buy several more.

I have a pre-ban Ram-Line "universal" AR-15/180/Mini-14 mag, if anyone would like to test it.  I've verified it will lock into my AR, and a Mini-14 @ the Tulsa gun show, but it wouldn't fit into the only AR-180 I saw there.  I don't have a Mini-14 to test with.

ETA:  I have tested it in an AR, and the results were indifferent, at best.  Curious how well it would run out of a Mini.

I've got 5ea Ruger brand 20rd curved and 5ea OE brand 20rd straight mags for my 583 Series Mini.  Both are top notch mags and in fact, the OE brand are made better, especially in the mag lock block where they have a spot welded on tab like the M14 mags while Ruger's catch is a thin, bent metal tab.  OE's mags fit more solidly in the Mini and during my stress testing of both brands where I shot 2 full mags worth out of all 10, the single failure I had was with one of the Ruger brand mags where the rd failed to fully chamber.

BTW, CDNN has the OE brand in stock again for $14.99, half the price of the Ruger brand.  https://www.cdnnsports.com/mini-14-223-20rd-premium.html?___SID=U

Factory Ruger 20's and 30's.

Factory 20s and 30s, but also a few of the newer ProMag 20s and 30s that I got on sale and actually seem to fit and function - although I haven't used them very much.  But for spare mags at under $20 when I got them from Midway on a sale, I can't complain (yet).

Can confirm after the Texas HTF shoot this weekend that pre-ban "universal” Ram-Lines run in a Mini when loaded to 15 rounds.  Now to look for a new magazine spring.

Yup