In this TFB TV video, James reviews Ruger’s new Mini-14 Tactical in .300 AAC Blackout. The Mini-14 lends itself to a suppressor specialized round such as .300 Blackout because the Mini always has been a piston fired rifle, making it a cleaner-operating gun than systems such as the direct impingement operation in the AR. Accordingly James gets to test the Mini-14 with a Yankee Hill Phantom silencer and muzzle brake combo. Also, TFB TV sponsor Ventura Munitions generously supplied James with a range of .300 Blackout cartridges that James runs through this new Ruger Mini.

Thanks to our Sponsors: Grizzly Targets and Ventura Munitions.

Guns in this review:
Ruger Mini-14 Tactical in .300 AAC

Accessories in this review:
Yankee Hill 7.62 QD Phantom Silencer
Yankee Hill 7.62 QD Brake
EOTech XPS
Bushnell Banner

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The full english transcription …

– Hey guys, James again for TFB TV.

Today I’ve got the Mini-14 Tactical in.300 Blackout, which I’m really excited about and I’ll tell you why, but first I wanna say, this is the first video that I’ve made since we’ve been sponsored by Ventura Munitions and Mike at Ventura Munitions really hooked it up, made sure I got the ammo that I needed, really went out of his way for this shoot today.

So I wanna say personally, thank you Mike, and thank you on behalf of TFB TV, Ventura Munitions for being our sponsor.

Now, moving onto the rifle, like I said, I’m really excited about this Mini-14 Tactical, I’ve never owned a Mini-14, I’ve never owned a.300 Blackout, and I think this is going to be a fun and a new experience for me.

And there’s something else really exciting about this gun that I really just can’t put my finger on it, or maybe I can.

No pun intended.

I’ve got a.30 Cal Yankee Hill can that I’m gonna put on here, and we’ve got, compliments of Ventura Munitions, some subsonic 220 grain Remington ammo that we’re gonna be able to put through this thing with the suppressor and really get the full effect.

As far as the basic stats in this Mini-14, it’s 6.75 pounds, which is pretty light for a.30 caliber gun and it feels good, it’s got a nice weight to it, a little heavy towards the front end but not much.

20 round magazines, comes with two 20 round magazines.

I don’t really like the super large, super obnoxious .300 AAC Blackout print along the side of the body, but that’s not really that big of a deal.

And when you get it, it does come in a standard shitty Ruger cardboard box, but I guess if I had to choose between having a cardboard box or a Plano and having two magazines I think I’d take the two magazines and the cardboard box.

It’s got a 16 inch cold hammer forged barrel, a 13 inch length pole, and an overall length of 36 inches.

Not bad, pretty compact.

And at 750 dollars straight, this is a pretty good way to get into.300 Blackout.

It’s relatively inexpensive for a high-quality gun.

Also, if you have a suppressor, this is a nice option for you too, because this is a piston operated gun.

So there’s going to be a lot less blowback in your face as would, say, a direct impingement AR-15, which is another good option for.300 Blackout.

To those ends, Ruger also has this picatinny rail cover that goes over the action, which they say further reduces the blowback.

I really don’t care to take this off and put it back on and see if there’s more blowback.

I don’t think that’s gonna be a huge issue, but what I do notice is that it’s nice that it comes with the gun, but you can see there’s this scalloping and that makes it hard, it made it difficult for me to get this EOTech on.

And all the way to the front was the only place I could mount this EOTech because of that scalloping, and it’s still only about half on the rail.

Ruger says that this piston operating system is optimized for shooting either subsonic suppressed or supersonic unsuppressed.300 Blackout rounds.

I’m going to test that out and shoot subsonic suppressed, supersonic unsuppressed, but also gonna shoot some supersonic through the silencer and some subsonic without, see if that makes any difference.

Now, that said, because this is already preoptimized from the factory, according to Ruger, there’s no way to adjust the gas settings on this rifle, at least that I know of.

It’s got the standard peep sight, and I like that little ghost ring in the back and a front blade with ears, but the front blade’s actually a little on the short side for me.

Again, you get the picatinny rail mount, but it also comes with Ruger’s scope rings and the receiver’s pre-drilled to accept those rings.

So, that’s a nice little feature.

Also, you’re getting a Mini-14, so, you know, it’s now not nearly as many accessories as, say, an AR-15.

However, there are pages and pages and pages of accessories for this gun, so you can pretty much rig it out the way you want.

Really excited to shoot this thing.

Let’s take it for a spin.

So as I’ve said, I’m pretty much giddy about shooting this.300 Blackout with the subsonic ammo.

This is gonna be my first time shooting 300 Blackout through a can and I’m really excited about it.

Let’s see how it does.

(pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) Ho, ho, holy crap.

That is awesome.

Really surprised at how quiet it is.

Why do I have ears on? (pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) Oh yeah, that’s awesome.

I really can’t believe how quiet a hard-hitting round like this can be when you throw a can on it.

That was 220 grain Remington.

I gotta say, the trigger is excellent on this gun.

(pop, tink) I mean, it feels like it’s five pounds, single stage.

I wanted to shoot it with my EOTech on here ’cause it would have looked way more badass, but it was so far off zero from being on my AR that I don’t think I’m gonna mess with it, and as you can see, this is 40 yards and it’s doing just fine with the peeps.

So like I said, I’ve got the Ventura Munitions, 135 grain Hollow Point that we’re gonna put through the unsuppressed Mini-14 Tactical and see how it runs, let’s see how it does.

(clicks) Well, I don’t like that.

I just slightly pulled back the charging handle, released it, and it just nosedived.

(clicks) There we go, that probably fed it.

Let’s see what happens.

(bang, ping) (bang, tink) (bang, ping) (bang, tink) (bang, ping) (bang, tink) (bang, ping) Well, I mean, probably just a fluke.

And again, this is a brand spankin’ new gun.

I’m gonna go ahead and attribute that presently to break-in, and it works reliably.

As far as the shooting experience goes, it’s really not much different.

It’s a lot louder, but other than that it’s not much different than the 220 grain in terms of recoil impulse firing accuracy.

As you can see, even with the peep sights at 40 yards, still makin’ pretty good hits on a 12 inch torso target.

But let’s change it up a little bit, throw this Yankee Hill can on there, see what happens.

(booming crack, tink) (booming crack, ping) Yeah, it goes supersonic.

It’s definitely a lot louder.

In fact, it’s unpleasant.

It’s certainly not deafening as an unsuppressed blast would be, but the gun works with it.

In fact, I would even think that this would be more reliable if it’s tuned the way Ruger says to work perfectly with 135 grain unsuppressed.

The suppressor’s probably gonna give it a little bit more back pressure and maybe make feeding even more reliable.

(booming crack, ping) (booming crack, tink) (booming crack, ping) (booming crack, tink) (booming crack, ping) So far, so good.

I notice from gripping up front towards the gas block I’m actually gettin’ a little bit of blowback on my hands, but speaking of blowback, that’s one thing I do wanna say.

I’ve had no blowback issues whatsoever with this gun.

Normally, now, if you shoot suppressed with an AR-15, a lot of you shooters know that you’ll get some debris, some hot gas blowback in your face by virtue of the direct impingement operating system.

Here with this piston system, it has been perfectly clean.

Okay, guys, you’ve seen me shoot the supersonic rounds, and the 100, low 100 grain range today, and you’ve seen me shoot the subsonic, the 220 grain.

I’ve got 6 rounds in this mag, the top 3 are gonna be supersonic, the bottom three are gonna be sub, and hopefully the mic will pick up the difference between the two.

It’ll be kind of a neat experiment.

(clicks) (bang, ping) (bang, tink) (bang, ping) (pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) (booming crack, ping) (booming crack, tink) (booming crack, ping) (pop, tink) (pop, ping) (pop, tink) Wow, pretty cool.

Pretty nice difference.

You can tell, you can really tell ears on or off that is a huge difference between the supersonics that let out that small sonic boom and those subs that just, they’re amazing.

So I’ve been pretty impressed with this 300 Blackout all day today.

Final thoughts on the Mini-14.

I was pretty impressed with it, overall a pretty good shooting experience.

The trigger’s good.

I said that we had good accuracy, but after I put this 3-9x on it, the results weren’t as good, so maybe it isn’t the most accurate gun in the world, but if you’re looking for a good 300 Blackout, this might be your answer.

For only 750 dollars, you have a piston fired 300 Blackout gun that shoots clean, you don’t get any blowback in your face, performs very well, and you’ve got some good aftermarket support.

Nothing of course like an AR, and nowadays you can get a good 300 Blackout AR.

You could probably build your own for around 750 dollars, so it’s your call, but again, you do have the advantage that this is a piston operated gun, not DI.

And it’s piston from the ground up, so it isn’t as if you take a DI AR and put a piston operating kit on it.

We had that one little scare that you remember, where the first round wouldn’t chamber out of the magazine.

I’ve been shooting it now for three weeks and that has never occurred again.

That was just a one time thing.

But yeah, I like this enough.

I’ve got the 300 Blackout suppressor, so for me this made sense.

I went ahead and bought it.

I like it and I think Ruger’s got a good product here.

Thanks again for watching, guys.

Thanks to Ventura Munitions, and also thanks to our newest sponsor, Grizzly Targets.

We really appreciate the support, guys.

And don’t forget to subscribe, we’d really appreciate that.

Thanks for watching, see you next time.