Ten Pound Mini

I know someone will wonder, "how did you make a ten pound Mini-14?"

How does one get from 6.4 lb. to 10 lb.?

First thing you do is swap out the 0.25 lb. 5-round magazine for a 1.1 lb. 30-rounder.

Up to 7.2 lb.

Then you swap out the wooden stock for a plastic one with a pistol grip and metal folding stock and rip off the front sight and replace it with a combination front sight, flash-hider and bayonet lug.

We're now at 8.4 lb.

Then add an Aimpoint 1000 in a B-Square see-through mount.

9.2 lb.

Now add a Harris bipod.

Ten pounds!

Add another 0.4 lb if you count the sling.

It looked vicious!  And it had a wandering zero, was balanced poorly and the scope was mounted too high for a good cheek-weld.  A learning experience to be sure.

There were aspects of this gun that I assumed were just part of this type of gun until I got better guns.  The Daewoo was far better in almost all respects, not to mention 0.6 lb. lighter, but I didn't notice any accuracy improvement because the front sight on the Daewoo is almost 3/8" wide.  The Daewoo brought three huge improvements for me.  Lighter, took the far more common AR magazine and it stayed zeroed!

PS: I bought the DR-200 in 1995 and it was a post-ban gun.  I had absolutely no problem obtaining 30-round USGI magazines for it.