I posted a thread yesterday about maybe picking up a used 182-series, but I deleted it because my local gun shop found me a brand spankin' new ss/syn Ranch, which is EXACTLY what I want, although I wasn't really ready to spend the cash on a new one just yet. But oh well.

This may not seem like a big deal to you Americans, but they're getting pretty scarce in Canada because Ruger isn't exporting them any more, thanks to that end-user certificate bs, so I decided to bite the bullet (no pun intended) and go for it.
I was also asking about Elcan scopes, but I found something I like better, the
Leupold Mark 4 CQ/T (1-3x14mm, with circle dot!). Unfortunately, it costs more than the Mini-14, so it'll have to wait. A friend of my brother just picked one up, and he's going to let me test-drive it.
So many hobbies, so little money.