I’ve been looking at a Ruger Mini-14 (I need lots of extra firepower… for… umm… biker gangs… and gophers… well, mostly gophers). It comes with a rather conventional wooden stock, but I saw some advertised with “folding-style” butts that didn’t actually fold. Are folding butts illegal in the US (specifically, Texas)? Are stocks with pistol grips illegal?
As a peripheral question, what are the legally available magazine sizes for the Mini-14?
As far as US law goes, I don’t know about Texas:
It’s illegal to put a folding stock on now. You can buy an older rifle that had one already on it before a certain date (shame on me, but I get these various ban dates mixed up). Though I’m not sure how you are expected to prove when it was put on…
Pistol grip stocks are fine, as long as they are the whole stock (I mean you can’t have JUST the pistol grip part).
Stocks that look like they fold but definitely don’t are fine.
Stocks that would fold except that they are held open by a pin or a screw… kind of a grey area. Technicaly legal, I think… but the ATF “re-interprets” rules like that a lot.
Any size magazine is fine. I don’t think you’ll find too many large mags for that rifle but I could be wrong.
As it happens, I had just this conversation with an ATF agent about…well, many years ago, regarding the Mini-14 and the 10-22.
There were four models of Mini-14 that came with a folding stock from the factory:
Blued, non-Ranch
Blued, Ranch
Stainless, non-Ranch
and the Queen of them all, Stainless, Ranch (mine! 
)
These rifles are perfectly legal to possess under Federal law (note, State and local ordinances may over-ride this!) provided they were legally purchased and have a legal provenance. And as such, there was an ATF circular that stated, paraphrasing, “if the Mini-14 originally came with a folding stock, you could replace the folding stock with one from another manufacturer. But adding a folding stock to a Mini-14 that did not come with one from the factory was ‘manufacturing’ an assault weapon”.
The reason this came up was a dealer asking the ATF about the legality of adding a Ram-Line folding stock to a Ruger 10-22 (both of which I also have), and trying to determine if one could do this, or if one could only do this with pre-1994 weapons, or if one could not do this at all. IIRC, the ruling was “no, adding a folding stock to ANY 10-22, which did not come with it from the factory, was ‘manufacturing’ an assault weapon” - under the Clinton Administration definition of “manufacturing”, of course.
The rec.guns FAQ claims that this is still the case, although I am aware of no case brought against an individual which charged them with adding a folding stock. And many other sources claim that it does not in fact violate the provisions of the Act.
There are people that claim that a folding stock without pistol grip would be “OK”, but I think that might be 1) less usable (IMO) and 2) slightly unclear as to its actual legality. I certainly know nothing of the legality of the item you mention in the OP.
Personally, I would NOT want to be the “test case” for the courts, so I would recommened you err on the side of caution, unless you can find a cite from the ATF directly, preferrably in hardcopy circular form, that says otherwise. And carry this with you, too.
The magazine question is easier. You can legally have any size of magazine for the Mini-14 (or 10-22) provided it was manufactured before the enactment of the ban. After the ban, it must hold 10 rounds or less.
There is a lot of FUD that using a “high-capacity magazine” with a post-ban weapon constitutes “manufacturing” an assault weapon, but this is not true because the magazine is legally considered separate from the weapon itself, and the combination of the two does not in itself make a “weapon”. Note that the ability to accept a detachable magazine is a “characteristic” of an “assault weapon”, but not the magazine itself. But that “ability to accept” applies equally whether the detachable magazine holds 1 round or 100.
That’s odd. The Mini-14 is one of the most common “poor woman’s assault weapons” there is, and my experience is you could find almost as many large-capacity magazines for it as for the AR-15. Certainly not as many as the slave-labour produced AK magazines. Ram-line even makes a magazine which works in both the AR-15 and the Mini-14, which I can personally verify works.
I have a batch of stainless steel 30 and 40-round magazines for mine, and I’ve even seen a 75-round drum, very similar to the AK drum. I’ve even seen a stainless 75-round drum too.
The 1994 ban is set to expire this coming September. It will be interesting to see if Congress reenstates it or not. Because of this, now is not a good time to waste money on pre-ban weapons. Let’s wait and see what happens in a couple months. Those 1500 dollar prebans, might be 800 dollars again. And you could then put whatever style stock you want on your gopher killing Mini-14.
According to Title 18, Chapter 44, Section 921 of the United States Code, you are not allowed to assemble, possess, or transfer a semiautomatic "assault weapon’’ that was manufactured after 13-Sep-1994. (It’s O.K. to possess one that was manufactured before 13-Sep-1994. These are called “pre-ban.” Not surprisingly, pre-ban semiautomatic assault weapons are quite a bit more expensive than “post-ban” weapons.)
Though there are some minor exceptions, the law defines an “assault weapon” as follows:
Rifle
Semiautomatic
Ability to accept a detachable magazine
Has two or more of the following “evil features”:
I have a “post-ban” FAL. While it certainly looks like an assault weapon, it is not defined as such. This is because it has only one evil feature (pistol grip). In fact, it’s not even proper to call it an FAL, since (by definition) an FAL is an assault weapon (or assault rifle). It is called a semiautomatic “sporter” rifle.
Thanks guys, I appreciate the answers.
One bit of clarification on the magazine question. Say I end up choosing to buy an off-the-shelf, recently-manufactured Mini-14. Would it accept the aforementioned 30 round box or 75 round drum? There’s no way in hell that I need a 75 round or even 30 round magazine, barring attack by large numbers of unusually-sized and unusually persistent rodents, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it.
AFAIK Mini-14’s made as late as last year are identical in magazine fitting and physical (not capacity) size. Unless there was some very, very recent change, which they (Ruger) have no incentive to do, you should be able to use any older Mini-14 magazine on a new Mini-14. You can always ask to try an (empty) one in it at the gun shop too. They’d be happy to make the sale.
Una
I ordered mine from the Ruger catalouge (via my local dealer) in the early 1990’s directly. And You can almost always find one or more of them at the gun shop. I’m not certain, but I think that what you’re thinking of, IIRC, was a decision by Ruger in the mid-1990’s to no longer sell them direclty to “civilians” (a word I hate, since last I saw the police were not covered by the UCMJ either, but oh well). I heard that this decision was later reversed, but am not certain on that either. I do know that Ruger-factory high capacity magazines were reputedly only sold to police departments (although legal to own by non-police), and they had a blued steel 20-round mag as their only offering at the time. When everyone else and their Grandma has 30-round stainless magazines for half the price…seemed like a dumb thing for Ruger to do.
No disagreement on poor accuracy, but at one time the Mini-14 was a very inexpensive gun - in 1989, they could typically be picked up for less than $350 for a stainless, wood stock non-Ranch version. Secondhand you could get them for $250. Where I grew up a lot of guys, and some gals, had Mini-14s and would spend many long, hot Summers blowing holes in targets.
In the pre-ban hysteria of 1994, someone offered me $2500 cash for my stainless Mini Ranch, and I should have taken it. Especially since I bought it for $450.
I was always depressed shooting my Mini-14’s, as I wondered “how can I be such a bad shot” every time I used them. And I used to be a very, very good shot. But I’m getting back into practice…
Una
What is the rational for this particular item? The folding stock and flash suppressors I can understand in the context of easily concealable weapons but this one mystifies me.
It looks mean.
As a side note about magazines for the Mini-14: Ruger didn’t make many 20 and 30 rounders for abundant factroy magazines to be on the market. After market magazines have the reputation of generally being less reliable and less well made. PMI ( PRECISION MAG INDUSTRIES ) blue 20 rounders seem to have the best reputation.
You’re assuming the hoplophobes in Congress (Boxer, Feinstein, Schumer, Clinton, etc.) are rational. They are not. A pistol grip looks “scary” to them, therefore it Must Be Evil[sup]TM[/sup].
The supposed intent of the law was to ban so-called “assult rifles” so the “evil” list of features for rifles is flash suppressor or threaded muzzle to accept one, attachment for firing rifle grenades (launched from the end of the barrel by firing a blank round), folding or collapsable stock, pistol grip and bayonet lug. Since an assult rifle is by definition full auto they are already tightly regulated by the 1934 GCA and further by the “gun owners protection act” in '86. The only thing left was to ban mostly cosmetic features on semi-auto weapons.
Count me as a non-mini-14 fan. It can be made to shoot well with some mofidication but some engineering flaws in the way the operating rod slams into the gas block causes it to string shots as the barrel warms. If you want accuracy get an AR-15 type with a floating hand guard and you’ll get the bonus of more widely available 20 and 30 round magazines.