M1A Purchase?

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Reloadron said:
I don't know. The M14 came along in the M 21 and M 25 sniper versions and when scoped required a riser but the same is true of the AR 10 Rifle.

View attachment 826069

When I add a scope to the above pictured AR 10 I need a cheek riser much the same as when I scope the M1A. Either rifle needs a riser.

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The fact that the M14 enjoyed a short service life as to a basic issue rifle really means nothing. We are not suggesting the original poster is buying a rifle for a combat role but a rifle for punching paper on the range. As to killing things there is no shortage of wealthy West Virginians hunting deer with a M1A while the less fortunate use an SKS. The M16 was just another GI rifle in the evolution of things. It's lighter than the rifles which came before it and uses lighter ammunition. Anyway, when scoping either rifle a cheek rest is pretty necessary.

Ron
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I am not familiar with the mount shown in your picture. Does it mount on top of the 'carry handle' style rear sight? If so that would necessitate a riser. Which is why they have fallen out of favor with the advent of the picatinney rail upper receivers becoming the defacto standard.

None of my AR pattern rifles require any kind of a cheek riser for proper sight picture through an optic.

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KmuLs4Q.jpg
 
It is not my intent to disparage the M1A/M14 with regard to it being capable of doing everything in North America except for squirrel hunting. :)


Pretty much rifle that spent any sort of time as the standard issue rifle to the US military is going to be pretty darn good.


I do think it has been supplanted from a technical standpoint by the AR-10 but nostalgia and personal taste are powerful drivers and if personal taste drives a person to the M14 I would never argue that made a poor decision.

They can certainly get it done!
 
Nature Boy said:
The best option (although not always feasible) is to rip a page from @Reloadron playbook and get both
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Actually I like and shoot both but as mentioned earlier Rifles like trucks and motorcycles are just a matter of personal taste. Really, you consider your objective, find a rifle which will do what you expect it to do, then buy the rifle. Much like a truck or motorcycle.

Ron
 
IndianaBoy... that's an Indiana corn field if I've ever seen one! ...and I have. I'm from Fort Wayne.

Truth be told, if someone is looking for a .308 to mount an optic on, I don't recommend the M1a... I don't think that's what it was meant to have on it, even though it's done (as NatureBoy proves...) I just don't think it's the best platform for optics. As far as the 5# EBR chassis... again, I'm glad to see it, and I'm sure it's practicality shows in certain applications, but it is a niche setup, and I think there are usually better ways to skin that cat.

And... no, I'm not arguing, I find this discussion very interesting, along with other's points of view. There are very few things that get people cheering for their favorite like firearms do.
 
IndianaBoy said:
I am not familiar with the mount shown in your picture. Does it mount on top of the 'carry handle' style rear sight? If so that would necessitate a riser. Which is why they have fallen out of favor with the advent of the picatinney rail upper receivers becoming the defacto standard.

None of my AR pattern rifles require any kind of a cheek riser for proper sight picture through an optic.

View attachment 826085

View attachment 826086
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The rifle pictured in my post is an old (maybe ancient) Armalite AR-10T with a flat top. Here is another picture of the same rifle better showing the flat top.

AR10%201.png

The earlier picture showed the scope mount and original type carry handle and sights.
AR%2010%20Scope.png

To really get comfortable with the scope I needed a riser and you can pretty much see the stock really has no rise and is a flat straight comb. When I put that rifle together about 25 years ago the options in a 308 AR-10 were pretty limited. My M1A goes back to the early 90s also and was a gift from my wife. I never scoped the M1A and most of the mounts at the time really sucked, they would come loose. While I have the scope and hardware for the AR-10 I only used it when I first started with the rifle. It originally had a short 18" barrel and as pictured has a 24" match barrel. The front sight is a hood aperture type. Actually the AR-10 comes in at something like 11.5 Lbs. The 24" heavy barrel is in fact heavy. :)

I enjoy shooting both but I have never dragged either hunting. Nor would I really want to, even 40 years ago when a 12 pound GI rifle was nothing. I have noticed my rifles and my bike seem to be gaining weight and I swear the damn bike is getting taller.

Ron
 
Nature Boy said:
Where were all you guys that have "always wanted one" when I was selling mine a couple of months ago?

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/springfield-m1a-with-extras-price-drop-texas.843190/


Edit:

BTW, I wasn't selling because I hated it or had problems with it. I'd own another one again if I thought I'd shoot it more. 2018 was a big $ expenditure for me on custom rifles. Something had to go and the M1A drew the short straw.
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Broke, cause of projects.....my usual....I was damned tempted on yours a few times tho. I did want a shorter one also.
 
Coal Dragger said:
Ultimately Uncle Sugar dorked up the FAL, and all the other NATO rifles of the era with the idiotic insistence on the 7.62mm NATO.
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Coal Dragger, we can certainly agree on that!. We should have went with the 276 Pederson round, the early gas operated Garands were in that caliber. The 280 British round was another good one.
 
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LoonWulf said:
Thats and the variant i want also!
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That was actually what I intended to get... but there were none to be had. I wrote Springfield and they replied that whatever was in the market at the time was it, new production wasn't even slated at that point. I packed up the credit card and headed to the shop to buy a Loaded, but there was this Socom16 hanging on the wall below it... and it came home with me, instead. I do still wish for a Scout, but I'm very happy with the Socom... and there are others on The List at the moment, so a Scout any time soon is unlikely.
 
MTMilitiaman said:
Yeah having parts fall off your rifle is really fun.
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Never had parts fall off my M14 or my M1A? The M14 saw much more abusive treatment than the M1A but as far as I can tell neither ever lost any parts. Thinking I would have noticed that. Maybe if some parts did fall off and I just didn't notice it they were non essential? That's a possible.

Ron
 
Reloadron said:
Never had parts fall off my M14 or my M1A? The M14 saw much more abusive treatment than the M1A but as far as I can tell neither ever lost any parts. Thinking I would have noticed that. Maybe if some parts did fall off and I just didn't notice it they were non essential? That's a possible.

Ron
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I had the gas system on my M1A shoot loose in about 1200 rounds and start stringing vertically about 8 MOA. Sent it into Springfield for unitized gas system and then had my bolt roller fall off within a dozen rounds of getting it back from them. That is when I found out about Springfield Bolt Roller Impact Defect. Wish someone had told me about that before I invested $1500 into the rifle. Not fun. And the rifle has been a 10 pound paper weight collecting dust in my closet because before I invest any more money into it, I want to get a real rifle that doesn't require constant maintenance to keep accurate and functional.
 
This appears to be devolving into a , er, um, "gunfight" of a sorts.

I think even good guns made by top notch companies can have a few lemons. I once saw one individual complain about a M4 that had jammed up on him due to a poorly staked gaskey.

He was a soldier complaining about his issue Colt M4....Colt, the cream of the cream of ARs.

But they're a GOOD brand of AR, RIGHT??!?!?!
 
I've owned the same M1A since 1983, I've fired thousands of rounds through it and have never had any issues with function or parts breakage. Before I figured out the bedding, my accuracy was variable, five inch groups one day, inch and a half the next. Now that the stock is tight, it'll usually stay under two inches for five shots if I don't screw up.

I got an S&K? (no markings) scope mount soon after I bought the rifle and it holds zero pretty well but I'm not fond of shooting it scoped near as much as with the factory sights, except for the rare occasions when I take it hunting.

For me, the M1A and the FAL are the two best 7.62x51 rifles out there. They may not be the most intrinsically accurate (and neither one has as many accessories available as Malibu Barbie) but they both work well for my purposes and both feel "right" to me. I prefer the M1A for shooting prone, but nothing "hangs" like an FAL for offhand shooting.

Either rifle has more accuracy than I do when shooting from field positions.
Coal Dragger said:
The M14 had the shortest service life of any US service rifle. Because it sucked.
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The M14 had the shortest service life of any US service rifle because Robert McNamara was way too fond of "systems analysis", deadlines, and early retirement for those that didn't meet them.

The M-14 was too long, heavy and powerful to be an ideal weapon for jungle fighting, but at least there were no news stories or congressional investigations related to dead G.I.s and Marines being found next to their hopelessly jammed M-14s.

The M-16 was fielded too quickly, without proper R&D, cleaning kits or troop training.

Hell, there wasn't even enough of the proper powder available to load ammunition, so they just used leftover M-14 propellant that'd gum up even a brand new M-4 after a few hundred rounds without cleaning!

If you wanna talk about a rifle that truly sucked, look at the M-16 as originally issued to infantrymen and Marines in Vietnam.
 
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