I am mostly an 'old gun' person, either way you want to read it. Most of my joy is buying old, unloved guns and putting the breath of life back in them.
But, I came across a new in the box Ruger Mini 30 at the LGS that just said, "Take me home and I will not disappoint you..."
I have read all the reviews for years about how they won't feed metallic casings, frailty and accuracy issues from magazines when they first hit the market to YouTube now. But I thought, what the heck, and traded for it.
It is the stainless with the synthetic stock, scope rings and two 20 round mags. The fit and finish isn't up to my expectations from my old 'Red Label' days, the stock looks 'toy' quality from the visual aspect but it really is quite sturdy and locks up the the receiver REAL snug. In other words it is a gun a blind man would love.
I brought it home with some steel cased Wolf ammo having decided I would force feed it if necessary. To my delight, it ate that ammo like peanuts. To my dismay the trigger was a gritty as a Gulf oyster just after a hurricane. Opening it up the trigger group looked like the sharpest tool used to mill it was a rusty piece of rebar. But on the bright side, I had used my buddy's Leopold bore sight and the very first shot landed right in the bulls eye as did the second, third and fourth. At 100 yards the four shot group could easily be covered with one of those Birchwood Casey Shoot-N-See stickers and 3 of the four were touching.
I let each of the other 3 shooters with me have a chance to pull the trigger with similar results. So I packed it up and brought it in the house for a cleaning and a trigger job. Even the machined edges of the 'mated' surfaces weren't straight or flat. Using a small flat file and then a medium stone I had it to where the take up was predictable and a very distinct break was felt. I retained the factory spring and now this thing is a honey.
I was shooting the 123gr hollow points all day and it did get to where the target patches would no longer have enough surface area to stick in the point of impact. It almost felt like I had a TV crew determining where they landed because they all hit in the same spot, even the ones my 13yo grandson shot hit in the same hole.
Talk about a confidence builder! Everyone wants to use my new yote rifle now.
Now, the MSRP on these guns are plain ridiculous. I would never had paid anything close to MSRP for one, but, if you can find one for a good price and expect to put in a little work (even on a new gun) they can shoot. My findings with the cheapest ammo available is just over 1/2 inch low at 50 yards, spot on at 100 yards but starts to peter out after 200 yards. Don't get me wrong, you can hit at 300 as long as you get the optional mortar sight, but the Kentucky windage is difficult to split second transfer past 200.
The whole rifle is literally as long as my arm so transportation isn't an issue, and the fact there are no aesthetic attributes worth protecting makes me more comfortable dragging it through the woods. It is still early in the dance, but from what I have experienced so far I don't think this gun was lying to me back in the LGS...
But, I came across a new in the box Ruger Mini 30 at the LGS that just said, "Take me home and I will not disappoint you..."
I have read all the reviews for years about how they won't feed metallic casings, frailty and accuracy issues from magazines when they first hit the market to YouTube now. But I thought, what the heck, and traded for it.
It is the stainless with the synthetic stock, scope rings and two 20 round mags. The fit and finish isn't up to my expectations from my old 'Red Label' days, the stock looks 'toy' quality from the visual aspect but it really is quite sturdy and locks up the the receiver REAL snug. In other words it is a gun a blind man would love.
I brought it home with some steel cased Wolf ammo having decided I would force feed it if necessary. To my delight, it ate that ammo like peanuts. To my dismay the trigger was a gritty as a Gulf oyster just after a hurricane. Opening it up the trigger group looked like the sharpest tool used to mill it was a rusty piece of rebar. But on the bright side, I had used my buddy's Leopold bore sight and the very first shot landed right in the bulls eye as did the second, third and fourth. At 100 yards the four shot group could easily be covered with one of those Birchwood Casey Shoot-N-See stickers and 3 of the four were touching.
I let each of the other 3 shooters with me have a chance to pull the trigger with similar results. So I packed it up and brought it in the house for a cleaning and a trigger job. Even the machined edges of the 'mated' surfaces weren't straight or flat. Using a small flat file and then a medium stone I had it to where the take up was predictable and a very distinct break was felt. I retained the factory spring and now this thing is a honey.
I was shooting the 123gr hollow points all day and it did get to where the target patches would no longer have enough surface area to stick in the point of impact. It almost felt like I had a TV crew determining where they landed because they all hit in the same spot, even the ones my 13yo grandson shot hit in the same hole.
Talk about a confidence builder! Everyone wants to use my new yote rifle now.
Now, the MSRP on these guns are plain ridiculous. I would never had paid anything close to MSRP for one, but, if you can find one for a good price and expect to put in a little work (even on a new gun) they can shoot. My findings with the cheapest ammo available is just over 1/2 inch low at 50 yards, spot on at 100 yards but starts to peter out after 200 yards. Don't get me wrong, you can hit at 300 as long as you get the optional mortar sight, but the Kentucky windage is difficult to split second transfer past 200.
The whole rifle is literally as long as my arm so transportation isn't an issue, and the fact there are no aesthetic attributes worth protecting makes me more comfortable dragging it through the woods. It is still early in the dance, but from what I have experienced so far I don't think this gun was lying to me back in the LGS...
