All new Minis are Ranch Rifles, which were first introduced in 1982 and allowed the easy mounting of an optic via Ruger’s rings that attached directly to slots cast into the receiver. Extraction and ejection were tuned to toss cases away from scopes. The stainless-steel All Weather rifle has a matte finish, wears a black synthetic stock and comes with adjustable, aperture and post iron sights, both of which are protected by stout metal wings and finished in matte black.

The rifle’s controls are simple and, no surprise here, mirror the M14. Magazines are rocked into place by inserting the bullet-end first and pivoting the magazine up and in. They are released by pushing a tab ahead of the trigger guard forward. A charging handle is located on the right-hand side of the receiver, and a small button on the left-hand side of the ejection port acts as a bolt stop if no magazine is in place.

The ambidextrous, two-position Garand-style safety is quite positive and disengaged by pushing it forward through a slot in the trigger guard. Field stripping is easy and again mirrors the M1 or M14.

The bolt has twin opposing locking lugs, massive extractor and fixed ejector. The one big departure from the M14 is the gas system, which has a fixed piston and moving gas cylinder.

“The big advantage with a moving gas cylinder is that the system is self-cleaning,” Melcher says. “A system with a moving piston, like the M1 or M14, requires more maintenance.”

Early Mini-14s were renowned for their reliability but never accuracy, and in 2003 Ruger completely shut down the Mini production line to start from scratch. Melcher oversaw the project.

The rifle comes with a ghost-ring rear aperture sight and also has slots cast into the receiver for mounting an optical sight with the supplied rings.

“We retooled the line and tightened the tolerances to make the Mini better,” he says. “The guns should shoot and inch or an inch and a half out of the box, mostly as a result of the tightened tolerances.”

Some subtle design changes were also instituted, namely moving the point where the gas cylinder impacts the gas block from below to above the gas pipe.

“That keeps the things closer to the center line of the barrel, both horizontally and vertically,” Melcher says. “This improves the harmonics when the gun is functioning, and that is one of the keys to semiauto accuracy.”

Building a 6.8mm SPC rifle was pretty simple. The bolt head diameter was enlarged to accept a bigger case head, and the extractor and ejector were reworked to accommodate the new cartridge--but timed so they still ejected spent cases out and not up.

The 6.8mm SPC operates at similar pressures to the 5.56x45, but since the bolt face is larger, there is an increase in bolt thrust. Melcher says the rifle was overdesigned for strength from the start, so the increased bolt thrust was of little concern. New magazine followers and springs were the only other change.

So what does a guy do with a Mini-14 chambered in 6.8mm SPC? I secured a rifle for testing and experimented with several different commercial loads and optics, applying each combination to situations where they seemed most appropriate.

A Bushnell Elite 3200 3-9X was mounted for accuracy testing and worked just fine, though a Leupold 2.5-8X Compact seemed a more natural fit for hunting because of its reduced weight and size.

ACCURACY RESULTS: RUGER MINI-14 6.8
6.8mm SPC Ammo Type	Bullet Weight (gr.)	Muzzle Velocity (fps)	Extreme Spread (fps)	Standard Deviation	Group Size (in.)
Remington MatchKing BTHP	115	2,402	99	23	2.14
Remington Open Tip Match	115	2,512	53	12	1.87
RemingtonCore-Lokt Ultra	115	2,420	48	14	1.65
Hornady VMax	110	2,550*	NA	NA	1.80
* factory ballistics, recorded through 24-inch test barrel All testing was done from a bench with a Caldwell Lead Sled at 100 yards. Groups were three shots. Velocities were calculated from 10 shots and captured with a Competitive Edge Dynamics M2 Chronograph placed 14 feet from the muzzle.