If you were going to set up a standard M1a rifle as a walking long range hunter/ tactical,
Which accessories would you use? I am thinking along the lines something comparable in weight and profile to an SVD. Just a lot more American. A walking rifle so not to set it up as an overboard 15 lb sniper.
I am thinking it would include a scope with the tactical style adjustable knobs, mount, and cheek riser? I am not too big on 30mm scopes, something moderate in weight. Low profile too.
I used to own a Springfield National Match M1A for years and years. After I left Los Angeles for Arizona in the 90's it was one of the first rifles I bought. Once we made it to Texas and the guys at the fire station introduced me to hog hunting it was the first gun I brought out there thinking that it would be a good rifle for that, I was both right and wrong. It depended greatly on what type of hunting we were doing.
Before using the M1A for hog hunting the only place I'd ever really carried that rifle was to the firing line at the range (which was like 50 feet from the parking lot) and in the desert basically shooting off the tailgate of my truck using that as a table for Mags and ammo.
At the time it was basically the most accurate rifle I owned. In its stock configuration it was heavy, but doable. But to squeeze every bit of accuracy out of it I scoped it with a fixed 6x S.A. scope, then later a 3-9x40 Leupold variable and used an ARMS mount and rings on it. This increased its weight a great deal. Accurate as all get out, but that kind of put it past the tipping point and made it a complete pig.
If I was hunting out of a stand or stalking from watering hole to watering hole for just one or two nights it was fine. Totally worked, but we'd go out there and eradicate hogs for like 5 days at a time and literally hunt all night and by the morning of the 3rd day it was frigging heavy. Before people start with the calls to '
Lift Weights' or '
Do you even lift brah?' I'll just point out that I did, at the time I was benching 300 lbs. It was just somewhat of a cumulative effect and this was also during the summer.
Eventually I had to sell it. Just needed the money.
Here it is ...
I used an ARMS mount and rings, bomb proof ... but heavy
I just recently bought another semi .308, but it's a PTR-91. I made sure not to repeat the same mistake that I did with the M1A and when looking at optics I took weight into way more consideration than I did with that M1A.
With just the iron sights the weight wasn't bad though. A conventional fixed 6x or variable scope, rings and mounts just made it too heavy for an almost week long hunt. It also screwed with the balance and made it top heavy.
If I had it to do over again and was going to hunt with an M1A what I'd do is buy and install one of the lighter weight Trijicon ACOG's. Something like a TA-33 calibrated for .308 Win. I have a TA-33 for one of my AR's and what you get out of that tiny lightweight package is amazing. You can also use the horse-shoe reticle kind of like a dot by keeping both eyes open. At the ranges that most people hunt deer and hog at that would have given me more precision at distance and have given me an illuminated reticle for hog hunting in poor light and at night, but wouldn't have made it such a pig.
So I'd personally forget about using a variable scope. That's just me though. Depends on if you'll be hunting out of a stand or not too. While throwing on a variable scope will mess with the balance at least it won't weigh you down while you're having to walk if you're exclusively hunting out of a stand.
As far as semi .308's/x51 NATO rifles go I grew up with an H&K 91, I've owned two FAL's, two PTR's, a BM-59, an AR-10 and that M1A and out of them all the M1A is the easiest to make an out of balance mess by throwing a scope on. Just not really made to be scoped. So with the the M1A I'd measure a few times and cut once in regards to installing an optic.
For accessories I used one of those padded leather run of the mill cheek pieces with the bottom laces and a VTAC sling. The fact that sling was padded helped a great deal.
