Springer M1A NatMatch issues

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by SamTM

You probably figured out Sam KNOWS more about the M1A than he is letting on!

Luv that McMillan stock, as well as it's nifty color scheme!

Good picture!

[wutitiz]

Originally Posted by monkeywrenching

I know I will never hear the end of this, but on my M1A, I have a Sage EBR stock. I love it and it works great, plus it makes the rifle a bit lighter.

Makes it lighter? I thought those stocks were all-alumninum and fairly heavy. Do you happen to know how much it weighs without scope? I believe the weight is 9.3 lbs with walnut stock, a little less with composite.

[monkeywrenching]

Originally Posted by wutitiz

Makes it lighter? I thought those stocks were all-alumninum and fairly heavy. Do you happen to know how much it weighs without scope? I believe the weight is 9.3 lbs with walnut stock, a little less with composite.

with everything attacked that I want on it, no scope but a eotech sight, my M1A comes out to about 10.5 pounds. with walnut stock, bi-pod and 3x9 leopold scope, it was over 12 pounds.

[wittic]

apples and oranges, doesn't tell us what the base weight of the rifle is, correct? the real issue, however, are the 18 to the lb 150 gr rds, and the 7 oz steel mags, along with the 2.5 lb 1911 that you probably favor, the 6 spare mags, at 2 ozs each, and the 22 rds to the lb 230 gr ammo, 50 rds of it, minimum that everyone "thinks" that they just "have" to carry if shtf. :-) If you keep 200 rds of 308 in mags with the rifle, hat leaves no room for the essentials, like bug dope, soap, water, sleep and foul weather gear, etc, etc. Just the ammo and mags total 15 lbs. :-)

[Nite Ryder]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

Question for you, Rifleman...

If, for example, I were to purchase a Fulton Armory M1A would I be subject to snobbery such as those who shoot Uberti "Model P" .45s? More importantly, is such snobbery based in actual funtional superiority or is it just because the Springfield/USFA crowd paid a lot more?

HA! Good question Jim! I was kind of wondering about the snobbery and use of all that 'fancy' lingo also. Just plain old English is hard to beat when you want another person to understand what you have written.

I have a Springfield Squad Rifle, 18" barrel and synthetic stock. I suspect it isn't as accurate as the standard length M1A, but it does better than the Springfield with the 16" barrel. I also have an Armalite AR-10, two Garands, and four Ar-15's, one of which has a 450 Bushmaster upper installed. The triggers on the M1A and the AR-10 and not at all alike as far as feel goes, but both rifles have decent triggers. I've replaced two of the triggers in the AR-15's with JP Triggers, which was an improvement. I shoot nothing but factory loads in the two 308's, I have two bolt guns for long range shooting.

[Nite Ryder]

Originally Posted by wittic

If the m1a is so great, why has the 223 ar been winning all the 600 yd matches for the past 15 years?

The M1A is used for competition far beyond what a 223 is capable of, as was the M1 in it's day. These matches start at 1000 meters, 223's can't begin to compare to 308, 30-06, or 300 Win Mag.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by wittic

apples and oranges, doesn't tell us what the base weight of the rifle is, correct? the real issue, however, are the 18 to the lb 150 gr rds, and the 7 oz steel mags, along with the 2.5 lb 1911 that you probably favor, the 6 spare mags, at 2 ozs each, and the 22 rds to the lb 230 gr ammo, 50 rds of it, minimum that everyone "thinks" that they just "have" to carry if shtf. :-) If you keep 200 rds of 308 in mags with the rifle, hat leaves no room for the essentials, like bug dope, soap, water, sleep and foul weather gear, etc, etc. Just the ammo and mags total 15 lbs. :-)

Yep; these are all the "good" reasons that our military "leaders" chose (with a little mental programming help from Colt lobbyists etc. back in "the day"...). As well, we were burdened (and I do mean burdened… ) by a DRAFT-inducted force of wishful non-combatant whimpo (i.e.: not born to be "Army"…) types, those for which the .45ACP sidearm was far too much gun.

And yes, the recoil from the M14 is harder to learn to handle, meaning it required a tad bit more training, coupled with an honest and diligent desire to learn to handle it. As well, the overall weight of the rifle and the necessary ammo carry-load is a bit intimidating.

Meantime, back in my day, and up in The Canuck Army, we had the lovely FN CAL, only available to us kilt-wearing grunts in semi-auto form ("Let's not be like those damned wasteful Yanks, who just spray and pray, men! We tend to hit what we want to, with a limited number of rounds to achieve that desirable goal!").

I used it to achieve some pretty good scores in our informal base matches, but then went on to use a Parker-Hale-accurized Lee-Enfield Mk4, in .303 for heaven's sake, to score a ten-round group of 46". Forty-six inches! Purty Danged Amazing huh? Back in what was it? 1967, and that one garnered me 2nd in ALL OF CANADA for the Canadian Army Long Range Shooting Team Cross-Canada team shoot!

Oh.... I forgot to mention: that was @ 1000 metres, with open (iron) sights. My eyes were A LOT better then.... sigh....

Q: could I have even hoped to achieve that score with even a highly modified M16 but with open sights? I doubt it! The glorious M16, beaten out by the ancient .303! It's still used everywhere in Canada to down moose, elk, deer and bears, incl. grizz, black and polar versions!

Oh yes; and men, in two World Wars. No so much with the anemic .223, which is a good varmint cartridge for sure, but no too good on enraged, drug induced or savage hominid combatants! Unfortunately, the relentless lobbyists have convinced the modern Canadian Nairmy (they have combined all three forces into one homogeneous force group; great for morale, right?...) to "adopt" the C-4 Carbine. Oh ohhh... manipulated by the Yanks again, eh boys?

(PSssstt: Remember The Avro Arrow? Did you not learn anything from that one?)

What was the "rounds fired per enemy downed" statistic for the M-16 again? Also, the number of battlefield jam-ups per round fired for that historically distrustful rifle, esp. in it's early years? Why is that that our grunts sought out either an M14 or an enemy's AK-47 when their lives depended on it?

So now, on the other side or that very two-sided coin (they always have another side, wittic...). The M6 was proven to be an inferior design, whose only attribute was/is it's compact size and light weight. These attributes also apply to my Gerber Mk II in L6 tool steel! A truly lethal sharp double-edged combat knife! and no reloading required, just skill and determination! The known propensity of the M16 to jam, due initially to the wrong propellants [who was responsible for that one, pray tell? Colt? yikes!] and it's non-chrome-lined and thus jungle-corrosion-prone chamber & bbl, was well-known and required attention that, sadly, took too long to correct! Men were dying, for heavens sake, due entirely to design problems coupled with a truly inferior cartridge ballistics profile, and that was with it's original longer barrel, not the current 16"r.

Then there's the Stoner-mandated direct-impingement gas-op system (which everyone else has avoided, plus the tacit admission of that BIG MISTAKE seen now with all the replacement solid action op systems finally crowding the M16 clone marketplace...Hey; it's only about 40 years too late, and is still not part of the curent military issue rifle!), plus that obviously necessary forward assist push-button on the side to help in battlefield jamming situations (V. scary, let me tell you!], and it's established terrible performance on people at any range over about 200+ yds.

So... how many mother's sons died unnecessarily in the Nam because of some lobbyist's and Colt management greed, coupled with a truly inferior design in the rifle and its' whimpoid cartridge?? One would have been too many, IMHO.

Yes, they could and should have done up a better cartridge, let's say the proven 6.8SPC or a 6.5/.308 X 1.75" "cat", into a plastic-stocked and alloy receiver-based newer design evolution of that proven M14? Fememvber the big advantage it's design predecessor, the M1 Garand, gave our men in WW-II against a bolt-action Mauser?

Truly, yeah; the power of the ,.308 is generally NOT needed in most jungle situations, but then, if we take the ultra-anemic current C4 Carbine into the Greater Sandbox ,what have they absolutely learned there? That it's mostly useless and non-lethal! The fight does not stop near as as quickly as it should, when such an ambush usually requires a chopper strike call, with a GE Mini-Gun or some rocketry!

So in essence, every C4 comes with it's own special helo assist option.

When the Taliban etc. take to winging the 7.62 X 54R at us with a Ruskie SVD, or Snaiperskaya Vintovka Dragunova, [SVD] chambered in, huzzah; it's near-.308 ballistic clone, the 7.62 X 54R, we have to sit up (Metaphorically of course.... Keep your head DOWN!) and think about it all logically!

A rifle & cartridge that affords devastating hits on our boys from 500+ yds away . Then us, with our nicely Trigicon-scoped pea-shooters, instantly call for the one or two guys in the squad with the new, improved-version M14s. Which they rarely use on full auto, btw. but that's not necessary, and it's a LOT lighter and more transportable than a Barret M-rifle.

So OK: just go for comfort and portability, plus having a lot of extra ammo to waste in useless long-range shooting, sending an expensive and position exposing "fog of lead" downrange, instead of one or two well-judged and placed, and very lethal shots, from that "useless" .308.

Not to finally mention one last advantage: in sand, mud & snow, the M14/M1 will almost always perform, while the M16 and it's later offspring will mostly not. The Israelis learned this with their FNs and initial M16s, and therefore designed their own Galil Golani, as did Mr. Kalashnikof, whose rifle in 7.62 cal did not fail under duress.

He surely must have laughed at our pitiful plastic-fantastic mouse-gun rifle, which was solely designed to placate the whimpy shooters in our Army. Oh, and the profit seekers at Colt, who ran amok in the process with our tax dollars...

Well! That was a long-winded diatribe, huh? Still; I had to get my personal points and perspectives across. Sorry guys! I'll shut up now. At least for a while, or unless wittic comes back with some more non-objective rebuttals!

[GregW]

Back in the Day (roughly 1966) I was offered an M-16 to take on a River Boat ride but asked for something with a larger bore. A slide action 12 ga was proffered and accepted. Eventually I used slugs as a mud wall could stop the buck shot. I also carreid but did not use an old .45 Colt pistol. The old boomer was very effective under 15 yds or so.