Tag Archives: mini 30

Ruger’s Wolf (ammo) eater

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So Ruger just introduced their new American Rifle Ranch model, a bolt-action 7.62x39mm– because what is more American than that, right?! The lightweight (~6lb) rifle has a free-floating 16.10″ medium-contour, cold hammer-forged barrel with a 5/8″-24 threaded muzzle for cans and devices.

It takes Ruger Mini-30 mags, which is nice but would have been nicer if it took AK mags. Still, expect it to run in local stores by this fall at around the $550ish mark, comparing nicely to the CZ 527 carbine, which is roughly the same concept but with a walnut stock and slightly longer barrel but costs more like $700.

And best yet, it chews through Wolf import ammo.

An ‘assault weapon’ by any other name…

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In 1989 California lawmakers puked up one of the first assault weapons bans in U.S. history and in subsequent years added tweaked it and added such blanket restrictions as prohibitions on .50BMG (because there are so many crimes done with these…). While the California Department of Justice has tried really hard to ban anything that is AR-15ish or AK-47like, all enterprising gun owners have had to do is use devices such as ‘bullet buttons’ and low-capacity magazines to be able to own one today.

Still, between 1989 and 2001, the state allowed the registration by civilians of grandfathered guns. Well through Guns.com I did a public records request to CA DOJ and obtained their list of registered guns, all 145,253 of them. A detailed analysis found some really interesting things.

Here’s a snapshot of the top 25 manufacturers for example:

 

  •     28,259 Colt Mfg, almost all Sporters and AR-15 type rifles
  •     16,665 Chinese Norinco/Polytech/Clayco rifles, primarily AK and SKS pattern guns in 7.62mm
  •     14,797 Bushmasters, almost exclusively XM-15 series rifles
  •     9,158 Heckler & Koch firearms, with Model HK 91, 93 and 94 rifles accounting for the majority
  •     4,529 Springfield Armory rifles, primarily M1/M1A 7.62mm guns
  •     4,528 IMI guns including 179 Galil rifles and 4301 UZIs of multiple types in 9mm and .45
  •     4,199 Armalites including 291 AR-10s and 1046 AR-180s
  •     3,124 Eagle AR-pattern firearms
  •     2,924 Intratec branded guns, all variants of the TEC-9/AB-10 and TEC-22 pistol
  •     2,732 Ruger firearms, mostly Mini-14 and Mini-30 rifles
  •     2,199 FN/Browning/FNH with mainly FAL and FNC type rifles listed
  •     2,189 SWD guns mostly Cobray and M10/11/12 MAC-style pistols
  •     1,876 Arsenal made AK-pattern rifles in 7.62mm
  •     1,461 DPMs, all AR-15 variants
  •     1,457 Austrian Steyrs, almost all AUG-series 5.56mm rifles
  •     1,303 Korean Daewoo firearms in several variants, almost all 5.56mm rifles but also 16 DR300s in 7.62 and 5 DP51 pistols
  •     1,170 Franchi shotguns in the uber-scary SPAS 12 and LAW12 varieties
  •     1,132 CAI/Century guns, primarily 7.62mm rifles
  •     1,082 Hungarian FEG guns, mostly SA85 AK-style rifles
  •     914 Auto Ordnance, typically all Thompson 1927 style carbines
  •     770 Imbel L1A1 type rifles in 7.62mm
  •     693 DSA rifles, all SA58 models
  •     526 Enterprise Arms 7.62mm rifles
  •     496 Berettas including some 122 AR-70s and 60 rare BM-59s
  •     445 SIGs, including 122 P-series pistols and 139 SG550 5.56mm rifles
  •     392 Benellis, split roughly between their M1 and M3 tactical shotguns

The rest of the 3,000~ word report over at Guns.com along with a photo gallery of some of the more interesting guns here.

weaver arms nighthawk

 

Ruger’s rifle that never was– the hard hitting XGI

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With a decade of fast Mini-14 sales behind them, Ruger decided to up-gun that .223 rifle to a much more impressive .308 caliber around 1984.

In the mid-1980s, Ruger was planning a reinvention of the company to include police and military products. They marketed the AC556 and the GB-series Mini, as well as introduced the P-85 pistol all aimed at law enforcement sales. Many police departments were adopting the ’14 for use from coast to coast and it made sense to offer an accurate but compact semi-auto in .308 Win that could be used by SWAT teams and the like.

Other 7.62x51mm options on the market for LE use at the time, the Springfield M1, HK G3, and semi-auto FN FALs, were and still are very long and awkward to use rifles tipping the scales at close to 10-pounds.

The answer was the XGI rifle and they are about as rare as it gets.

1985 Ruger catalog page on the gun offering great things to come...

1985 Ruger catalog page on the gun offering great things to come…

Read the rest in my column at Ruger Talk

Mini 30: The all-around, goto Ruger carbine

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Over a decade after Ruger brought out their classic Mini-14 rifle in .223, the company decided to update the design to a completely new hybrid chambered in a very Russian caliber. The rest, as they say…is history.

Why was it invented?

Taking a trip back to the mid-1980s, the Reagan-era had a lot of neat things about it. Besides allowing private ownership of new full-auto firearms, the feds also had very relaxed import regulations with Communist China as a counterbalance to the Cold War with the Soviet Russians. This open border trading policy with Beijing allowed thousands of Chinese made Norinco Type 53 carbines to flood the country from sea to shining sea.

chinese made norinco sks are often called spikers due to the shape of thier bayonet

These East Asian versions of the Soviet Semenov SKS-45 rifle were sold for as little as $79 brand new in the box.

It was estimated that during that decade nearly a million SKS’s and almost as many Polytech, Maddi, MAK, and Norinco AK-pattern semi-autos arrived on our shores. This propelled the humble 7.62x39mm round, made military standard behind the Iron Curtain before Winston Churchill even coined the term, to instant popularity in the U.S.

The cartridge, ballistically similar to the .30-.30 Winchester, was effective out to 200 meters or more and was insanely cheap with 1300 round cases of brass Chinese milsurp going for under a $100 bill. Soon domestic production by Remington and Winchester started, meaning that the loading was available in your local Wal-Mart and gun shop.

That’s when Ruger decided to answer the Chinese invasion with a carbine of their own.

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Read the rest in my column at Ruger Talk