Mini 14 Tactical Bubba

dbarale

dbarale

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I have always wanted a Mini 14, I have heard the complaints about accuracy and expensive magazines but I think they look cool in a Garand-ish kinda way.

So I got one :

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Yeah, no, no this one.



That one:

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Isn’t she purty?
Look at that awesome muzzle, errrr, device?

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It even has that awesome battle worn finish that the cool kids love:

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Even the internals look battle worn!

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I am so proud!



So, yes, it’s a turd. But it was cheap. Although probably no cheap enough in retrospect.
The muzzle device thingy was a chunk of steel brazed onto the factory front sight. The whole clusterfuck was then pinned, welded, and brazed onto the barrel. Kinda.

I took some quick measurements and the reason was painfully obvious. The barrel had been cut at 14.5” at some point.
The monstrosity of a muzzle device was needed to make it legal. The problem is that it looked like shit. And the whole thing was loose, easily rotating 1/16” back and forth.

Not wanting to go to fed camp, the first order of business was to remove the barrel from the receiver.

At least I didn’t have to worry about messing up the finish, Bubba had already taken care of it for me:

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Once that was done I drilled out the crosspin. Turns out there wasn’t one. Just a couple of bits on each side, held by some crappy brazing.

After that it came right out. The marks on the barrel were not from me. I think someone tried to unscrew it at some point, then just put it back on:


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At least they did a nice job on the crown:


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Actually no, Bubba didn’t do that either.
 
Frack N Cylons said:
Wow that thing is crusty inside. Eagerly awaiting the outcome….
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The -very loose and likely to change- plan is to crown and thread the barrel for 1/2x28, then pin and weld an extended A2 flash hider.
For the front sight I am thinking about the new, winged, version of the factory front sight.

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As I said, the original plan was subject to change…

I spent a few minutes looking at the front sight assembly disaster. It really wasn’t brazed on properly.
I chucked it in the lathe and trimmed the back end of it. I could see the factory front sight peeking at me from under that big chunk of steel.

I then cut off the front end of it, and parted the outer “shell” in half lengthwise. It was fairly easy to peel the remnants off.

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The front sight needs a little clean up but is serviceable, and original. I am thinking about reusing it.

What do you guys think?

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Condition is tuff. Barrel is off. Whether sbr or long Rifle, might be worth screwing on a new one. More options and fewer surprises later. Could go stainless too
 
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Sharps40 said:
Condition is tuff. Barrel is off. Whether sbr or long Rifle, might be worth screwing on a new one. More options and fewer surprises later. Could go stainless too
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That would make sense. But if I had any sense I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.

But, yes, I thought about it. Accuracy Systems has take off barrels for $70, so if the threading and crowning does not turn out perfect, I am definitely keeping it as an option.
 
I kinda like how you are trying to "fix it" first. Prolly what I would do too. But I'd end up buying a new barrel anyways.
 
I am one to usually try and work with what I have first, but one of those take-off barrels would breathe a whole new life into this rifle. For $70 bucks? Yeah, a new barrel would be on the way.

I love projects like this though…following to see the outcome.
 
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Not much to report, I am waiting on an extended A2 flash hider to arrive before I start doing any real work on the barrel. I am just looking at sight/sight placement options.

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I am seriously considering threading, pinning, and reassembling this one with just a rattle can paint job on it.
If I like it I might get a stamp and a new barrel, cut/thread that one and get it blued or properly coated.
 
Desolo said:
Watch, it will some how pull bug hole groups or something with that trashed barrel >_>


😆
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That would be funny, unlikely, but funny.
Stranger things have happened though. I had a co-worker who bought a Rem 700 in 308 at a gun show. It was a good deal, until he got home and realized the barrel had a visible bend in it. He was not amused.

At least until he slapped a cheap Walmart scope on it and shot it. It took a while to get the scope sighted in, but the stupid thing ended up being a tack driver. You couldn’t look at it from the top though, nothing lined up and it would make your brain hurt. 😂
 
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Update incoming, but first, a disclaimer: I am obviously not a gunsmith. The friend who helped me with the machine work, although incredibly talented, is also not a gunsmith.

The time we spent “fixing” this gun was not worth it, and the only proper way would have been to fit a replacement barrel. This was meant as a trial run for future projects, with no real consequences if we fudged it up…
 
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👀👀👀
 
First off, both my friend and I are metric people, and the standard system is something you threaten the kids with when they misbehave. So the first order of business was to change out the back gears on the lathe so we could achieve a standard 28TPI thread. Once that was done we installed the (80lbs) 4 jaw chuck and tried to index the barrel. Only to realize that it wouldn't clamp on tight enough for this barrel, it is a pretty massive lathe.
So we turned a collet of sorts that would allow us to clamp down on it.
Because the barrel was so messed up, we had to clamp way back above the gas port as we were pretty confident it was untouched in that area. We then inserted a pin gauge in the bore and indexed it to 0.0004 runout. I don't know if that's good enough but that's the best we could achieve.

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We cleaned up the face of the barrel then cut an 11 degree crown. Neither one of us knew why it had to be 11 degree but that's what all the cool kids do, so we did it too. Then we turned the outside diameter to 0.500 (from 0.562).

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The crown was further cleaned and deburred after that but I forgot to take a pic.
And then, we thread. We went slooooow, checking progress often as we wanted to keep it as tight as possible. Once it threaded all the way, we cut the shoulder to time the flash hider so we wouldn't have to use the crush washer. We ended up with a 0.001 cut on the last pass so it would line up! Having a digital readout on the lathe was awesome.

Side note: we used the gas port as a reference to line up the front sight, flash hider, and to re-torque the barrel back into the receiver.

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Sorry for the lack of pictures, but once we had the threading done we turned to the front sight. That was..... entertaining.

The barrel profile was fucked. There was some obvious damage where someone tried to unscrew the pinned muzzle abomination. There was also an area behind the front sight where someone apparently tried to pin and weld the assembly to the barrel. And, yes, it appears Bubba may have tried to actually weld it straight to the barrel. Bubba then realized he done messed up and tried to clean it up with a file, creating a very interesting undercut. Then he brazed the shit out of it.

Anyway, we could not clean up the area underneath the sight as we were concerned it would be too loose. So we remounted it. We had to do quite a bit of peening to the channel for the retaining pin so the sight would be tight and straight up (we used green loctite on final assembly just to be safe).

Once the front sight was on and secure we cleaned up in front of it, and behind it. We cut as little as possible. Behind the sight we cut about 0.040 (completely arbitrary, that's 1mm) and stopped there. It's not perfect but it's good enough and much better than it was. I just have to come up with some cool story for the stepped barrel profile and length. Maybe a super secret SOCOM prototype and the stepped area was to install a grenade launcher?

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The crown was cold blued with oxpho blue before the final assembly.
Then off to the mill area. Indexed the mill head using a pin gauge, then drilled down about 0.060. A final pass with a 1/8 reamer and the pin was inserted and tapped in. It was ground down to length and tig welded.

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After that we re=assembled the barrel into the receiver. No idea how much torque was used. Not a crazy amount, but just just enough to line up the gas port.

And here's the final setup. I should have re-set the lathe and turned the stepped down area back to the gas port clamp, but I didn't, and now it's too late.
I still think it looks better and is mechanically a hundred times better than it was. At least everything is tight, square, and properly lined up.

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Next step is rattle can paint so it's all one color, and a trip to the range to see how it shoots.

A member of this forum (he can name himself if he wants), also generously donated a wood stock to the project. It apparently shows signs of a house fire and needs some love. It should be perfect for this!
I will post pics of the wood work when I get it.
 
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dbarale said:
Phone is pissing me off, full story in a couple of hours when I can get to a desktop.
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I'm eager to hear this. Your earlier post made it sound like a dumpster fire, but it looks like it's turning out well enough. A coat of paint and it won't catch anybody's attention as a home build.
Edit to add, I think I see a small booger in the crown in a few of the pictures...might be high spot from rifling not sure.
 
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Very impressive looks great!
 
Timfoilhat said:
I'm eager to hear this. Your earlier post made it sound like a dumpster fire, but it looks like it's turning out well enough. A coat of paint and it won't catch anybody's attention as a home build.
Edit to add, I think I see a small booger in the crown in a few of the pictures...might be high spot from rifling not sure.
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I certainly felt like a dumpster fire at times, and we had to get creative since we had no experience and had to work around the existing damage.
I edited the picture post.
 
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Is the sling swivel on the (left) side?

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Well, that right there is worth something. There are people out there at the shows that will pay $$ for one of those. They will put in on their Mini, source an old, factory folder (or one of the copies) and sell it as a factory folder for 3 X what a regular one will go for. Good score.
 
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Dan0311 said:
Well, that right there is worth something. There are people out there at the shows that will pay $$ for one of those. They will put in on their Mini, source an old, factory folder (or one of the copies) and sell it as a factory folder for 3 X what a regular one will go for. Good score.
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Good to know, thanks for the info. That might explain the Choate stock, the factory folder was probably sold a long time ago.
 
Dan0311 said:
Well, that right there is worth something. There are people out there at the shows that will pay $$ for one of those. They will put in on their Mini, source an old, factory folder (or one of the copies) and sell it as a factory folder for 3 X what a regular one will go for. Good score.
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You were not kidding, I only found one that was for sale recently and it appears that it sold for $430!!!
 
Yessir, not a bad haul. Just add to that the satisfaction of the work you put into it, and without knowing what you spent, you're probably way ahead of the game.
 
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