Never had M1 Carbine, had several Minis. So I'll trust you guys about the reliability of the Carbine. I also hear they are quite inaccurate, but so are Minis. You can get parts for Carbine, you can't for Minis. Ruger won't make a factory 10rd mag (giving excuses how the tooling is obsolete - how much do dies cost?), just to make sure their rifle will be the last one to be banned in the future.
Some facts about Minis that I experienced. Each one that I owned functioned perfectly with factory mags (5, 20, 30rd). The aftermarket mags are generally ****. However, they can be made to work by messing with the lips (and you can replace followers and springs). For example, I have seen a guy fire several mag full bursts out of
AC-556 without a jam, using modified USA mags.
As pointed out previously, they realy fit into two different classes.
Between the two I'd take an AK clone.
[This message has been edited by glockgazda (edited October 09, 2000).]