I just fired a mini-14 a couple weekends ago and find that to be a great rifle with little recoil. I shot an AR-15 as well and thought it sucked
My favorite has been the SKS paratroopers carbine: Inexpensive, servicable and very accurate.
I have a case of East German, full metal jacket military rounds dated 1958, 7.62 X 39, and they have quite the penetrating power. The only thing that has stopped them was the front brake rotor from an old pick up truck. After shooting that a few dozen times we found these curious little pins, cylinders actually, that were around the said rotor. We matched them to the circular indentations left in the rotor where our bullets impacted. It seems these are inside of each bullet as a kind of "penetrator". The weird thing was they were not deformed the least bit from their impact with the steel of the rotor! Anyone know anything about this...?