I had the M1a Loaded version with the full length stainless heavy barrel-
The good:
Very accurate
Awesome trigger
Reliable feeding (with good magazines)
The bad:
Awkward handling due to its great length, would be impossible to get in/out of a vehicle with.
Nose heavy and poorly balanced.
The N/M iron sights have a TINY aperature and front blade, making reaquiring your target after each shot difficult.
High quality magazines are tough to find and pricey, old GI surplus and the stainless Checkmate mags worked fine, other brands not so much.
The bolt would not fall into battery if lowered slowly due to rough receiver machining. Ive handled other Springfields which were better and this did not effect function, but it was annoying.
So, for a bench/target rifle, it was good, but as a fighting gun I wasnt really satisfied with it. I may give one of the shorter/lighter variants a try at some point such as the SOCOM- I still have a stack of $$$$ magazines, lol.