The Mini's biggest problems are a lot of myth mixed with grains of truth.

i.e. Mini-14s (and 30s) are very inaccurate weapons. Early Minis had a pencil barrel, and after the heated up, they would vertically string. I never had a problem qualifying with the Mini, because we were not doing mag dumps! We did 10 rounds for qual, and it did fine. After about 20 rounds, if fired in a mag dump, they got less accurate, but still stayed under 4 MOA (which would be considered alright for the average AKM!). Both my 583 series minis (a 14 and a 30) do sub 2 MOA with iron sights and decent ammo, with the newer, heavier, tapered hammer forged barrels. Both will break clay pigeons on the ground at 100 yards, and both with ring the 200 yard, 12 " gong regularly. Early ones can have that accuracy with the installation of a barrel strut. I turned a pencil barrel 196 series into a 1.5 MOA shooter with a strut.

Mini-14s are unreliable: L. James Sullivan (the actual design engineer of Armalite who designed the AR15) scaled down the M1 Garand/M14 action for Bill Ruger to create the Mini-14. That is one of the most reliable battle rifle designs ever invented. The weapon is absolutely reliable IF you use Ruger factory magazines. The majority of aftermarket Mini magazines are junk , with the exception of John Masen, PMI, and USAicon Magazines (all three now defunct) and OE (Original Equipment Company - a division of Metalform), and KCI Korean Mini-30 mags. I have 100% reliability out of both my Mini-14 and Min-30 using Ruger factory magazines, and that's after about 600 rounds through each in the last two months.