Something followed me home today...

[The Annoyed Man]

MaddeAccording to the interweb, and we all know how reliable that is, the M1A can be picky with the ammo. Anything dispelling said subject would go a long way in the persuasion area involving me with buying a similar rifle.

I'll be sure to let you know. I'm really curious about the 1:11 twist. My Remington 700 VSF has a 1:10 twist, and it stabilizes heavier bullets quite well. So far, it's favorite load is the Federal or Black Hills 175 gr SMK, and it really doesn't like bullets in the 150 gr range at all. But I know that a 1:12 twist is better for the lighter weights in .308 around the 147-155 gr range, so I'm going to start off with 168 gr SMKs and see what happens. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Keith]

Congrats a beatiful rifle. My father shot the same gun 500 yards with open sights,shot a 495 out of a possible 500. One heck of a shooter that rifle is. Sure is great when our ladys support us in this exspensive hobbie we love. Please follow up with a range report.

[markthenewf]

My first 'owned' long gun is an M1A standard I bought about a month ago. I'd not shot a long gun for over 20 years. I cleaned it up, bottomed out the sight and took it down to the range. 10 clicks up on the rear sight and I was hitting sub 2" groups at 100 yards using regular NATO 7.62 ball rounds. I did this not using bags or a sled; only used the strap to steady pull it to my shoulder. Using a sled/bags, I can easily get 1" groups or better. Using a fairly quick shot set (a cease-fire was coming up at the range), I let off 14 rounds in about 30-40 seconds (also at 100 yards) and every single shot hit the 8" target, with the majority within the 6" circle. Considering I'm near sighted, that's pretty fantastic using good old iron sights. There's no reason to believe your M1A won't be as good as mine. I can't wait to try and see how it performs using a scope and bi-pod. I'd like to be able to keep around 1 MOA at out to 300 yards with or without a scope.

As for ammo, I've really only run WWB 7.62 (147 gr) ball through it so far. I've just bought 200 rounds of it and I may begin reloading depending upon how things go with my brass catcher and if I get a Christmas bonus this year.

[The Annoyed Man]

As for ammo, I've really only run WWB 7.62 (147 gr) ball through it so far. I've just bought 200 rounds of it and I may begin reloading depending upon how things go with my brass catcher and if I get a Christmas bonus this year.

Mark, have you experienced any failures to eject? A friend of mine who has the Scout model said he had some FTEs with some German NATO rounds, and I'm curious if anyone else has had this problem, and if so, why.

[The Annoyed Man]

I have finally added a .308 battle rifle to my collection!

I was in Euless Guns & Ammo this afternoon, for completely unrelated reasons to this purchase, and I spied a Springfield Armory M1A Loaded on the shelf behind the clerk.

I was there Sat afternoon as well - I'm pretty sure I saw the exact rifle you just bought

Congrats on a fine purchase

Really! What time were you there? I was there from about 4:00 until they closed. If you were there then, I was the heavy set guy talking to Scott (with the beard). I had my son with me.

[Kevinf2349]

11am - I was there buying some cheap plinking AK ammo to take my step-daughter to her first full-auto shoot:

Cool picture.

My wife would simply love that gun for sure.

[mr surveyor]

wow... great looking Springfield rifle! I would love to own one, with a few thousand rounds of ammunition. But, just my opinion, a $1700+ rifle deserves much better than ProMag magazines. I hope they work well for you.

surv

[LongHairedRedneck]

Sweet Rifle!!

[JC77]

Congrats on the new rifle. I really like the synthetic stock on it too.

[The Annoyed Man]

wow... great looking Springfield rifle! I would love to own one, with a few thousand rounds of ammunition. But, just my opinion, a $1700+ rifle deserves much better than ProMag magazines. I hope they work well for you.

surv

Yeah, I'm merely hopeful about the magazines, but I'll believe them when I see them. I read the reviews on the Midway site before deciding on which ones to buy. These ones had the most favorable revues. The only other acceptable alternative was the Springfield Armory magazines, which were literally twice as expensive. We'll see.

Last night, I ordered a Sadlak scope mount from Brownells, and I'm going to be looking at scopes today.

[Oldgringo]

Who started, and then spread, all of these rumors about a nationwide Recession?

[MechAg94]

I just ordered four 20 round Promag magazines from Midway, but I'm just itching to get out and shoot this thing! I've got a friend with a big deer lease that he says is crawling with hogs, and for my money, this is the ideal hog gun.

If I could make a suggestion, try buying the CMI (check mate industries) mags from http://www.44mag.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. They are close to mil-spec GI mags I have seen, and I think they are the current GI supplier. They are not cheap, but they work. The Promag mag I tried years ago was okay for practice, but not very dependable. Same for all the "cheap" mags I have tried.

I have a standard M1A and it has always ate up all the surplus ammo I have fed it. I'm working on a getting a scope mount working for it, but I am still working on that.

[PUCKER]

Very nice purchase!!