Gun: Mini-14 GB
Manufacturer: Sturm, Ruger & Co.
Chambering: 5.56 NATO
Manufactured: 1989
Condition: NRA Excellent (Modern Gun Standards)
Value: $2,200
When initially released in 1973, the Ruger Mini-14 quickly made a name for itself on the recreational-shooting market. Designed by L. James Sullivan and Bill Ruger, it combined the best attributes of the M1 Garand and the M1 carbine with a “rock-’n’-lock” detachable box magazine inspired by the M14. At a time when the Colt AR-15 SP1 was available for $250, the Mini-14 offered comparable shooting characteristics for just $199. But despite its success on the civilian market, the Mini-14 did not make much of a splash as a government-issue service rifle.
Hoping for law-enforcement and military sales, Ruger introduced a new version of the Mini-14 in 1979 that was equipped with a special barrel profile. Unlike the standard model, the 18.5″ Mini-14 GB (for “government barrel”) incorporates a muzzle brake and a combination front sight block/bayonet lug capable of mounting the USGI M7 bayonet. Other than that, the GB is no different than the standard model insofar as it is built on the same investment-cast receiver, uses the same adjustable rear-sight assembly and is capable of semi-automatic fire only. While several law-enforcement agencies and corrections departments purchased it, the Mini-14 GB had but one military contract, and that was for the Royal Bermuda Regiment. In 1982, it ordered 500 examples that differ from the standard GB production guns only in that they have a regimental crest roll marked on the left side of the receiver. Ruger delivered the guns to Bermuda in factory wood stocks with heat-resistant ventilated fiberglass handguards.
But in the 1990s, the regiment purchased Choate Machine & Tool fiberglass-filled polymer pistol-grip stocks for them. Those stocks remained with the guns until 2016 when the regiment completed its transition to the British SA-80/L85A2 rifle. For a period of 32 years, though, Mini-14 GBs in Choate composite stocks armed the Royal Bermuda Regiment, during which time they were photographed in the hands of women and men during annual training and on parade.
Some of them even traveled to the United States in May 2015 when the regiment participated in Exercise Island Warrior 15 at Camp Lejeune, N.C. That joint exercise was designed to enhance the regiment’s operational effectiveness while simultaneously strengthening its partnership with the U.S. Marine Corps. Three Marines photographed the Bermudans during their time in North Carolina, and in so doing, collected a number of excellent digital images of the regiment’s GBs in action.
While some of those images show the guns being used during tactical-scenario training with blank- firing adaptors and M200 5.56 NATO blank ammunition, other photographs show them out on the range during live-fire training with M193 ball. These photos captured the end of an era, because shortly after the regiment returned from Camp Lejeune the Mini-14 GB’s service life as a military rifle ended.
Although Ruger never did sell the Mini-14 GB commercially, domestic law-enforcement agencies that purchased it did, and that is how police trade-in examples of the rifle entered civilian circulation during the 1990s. They can still be found today with either a blued finish or in stainless steel, with either a hardwood semi-pistol-grip stock or the distinctive, side-folding tubular stock that Ruger introduced way back when Jimmy Carter was in the White House.
In 2024, Ruger released a retro Mini-14 that generally reproduces the vintage aesthetics that made the GB chic to begin with, but the original model is what collectors really want. It came from the Golden Age of the Mini-14, before the introduction of the “Ranch Rifle” or the “Mini Thirty” and long before the 6.8 mm Remington SPC and .300 Blackout cartridges even existed. While it might not be known for accuracy, and it might not have been a big hit in terms of government sales, the Mini-14 GB has a mystique all its own that survives today.
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