I always wanted a Mini 14 Ranch Rifle, bought one last fall but haven't shot it yet. After I bought it-doing my research too late-I read an article detailing the updates Ruger had done to rectify the accuracy issue on the earlier ones. Forget the year-2003?- they changed the design and manufacture technique of some of the parts, new Mini's are supposed to be good for 1-1/2" 100 yd groups versus the older 4-5" patterns.

Take home message, the new models are suppose to shoot better,even though they look the same. The prefix is different in the SN, don't recall the specifics.