FINALLY shot my M1A to-day.

May today have been the first of many enjoyable days with your rifle and loading for it. You may find this a good read on loading match quality ammunition for the M1A. Note his suggestions regarding powders and what he bases those suggestions on. Finally, the Hornady 9th Edition reloading manual has some good suggested load data for the M14. Scroll down this page to the .308 Winchester load data to see what Hornady suggest.

Again, best wishes for good luck and much enjoyment with the new rifle.

Ron

It'll take a while for the smile to wear off.

I blew up a brand new m1a scout squad easing rather than letting her fly (out of breach detonation)... hard lesson, but other than a few bloody fragments that hit my face, no harm to me (physical harm!).. thank god for winter clothes, knit cap, and safety glases.... let her reef home, its the only way.. I have two now, one of reconstructed parts and a sage stock and new stainless kreiger barreled receiver... fun to shoot, but be careful! they do have a few idiosyncrasies...

This is a military design in semi auto.
1. Dont ride the op rod
2. Pull the trigger, dont feather it or it will double.
3. Dont lube the piston.
4. Use the right primers and be sure your brass is resized well.

5. Don't put a round in the chamber and drop the bolt on it.

6. Do use a muzzle bore guide (or make one by drilling out the primer pocket on a 12ga hull) and coated cleaning rod

And congrats on your M1A/M14 Let's see some pics

I'd not get too concerned with bore wear at the muzzle from cleaning rod's rubbing of a bit of metal right behind the crown.

After wearing out four 7.62 NATO barrels in Garands and using solid steel cleaning rods without a guide, the rifling and bore was worn away a little bit. No copper wash the last 1/2 to 3/4 inch from the muzzle. Muzzle wear gauge and ball mic's showed the bore diameter had enlarged .002" from new size; groove diameter between the lands almost that much. There was enough clearance from metal to bullet that last few tenths of an inch to not rub off any jacket metal.

They still shot sub MOA in tests at 600 yards after 3000 plus rounds having been cleaned every 40 to 60 shots. They started out at about 1/2 to 2/3 MOA with handloads with new cases or commercial match ammo.

This is a commercial copy of a military design in semi-auto. But it still doesn't need to be gently handled.
"...CCI No. 34 primers (always!!!)..." Absolutely not required. Those are nothing more than magnum primers. Regular primers will be fine. Magnum primers are about the powder used and have nothing whatever to do with the rifle. Nothing is hurt if you do use 'em, but you don't need 'em.

When single-loading the M1A through the open breech, you should snap the cartridge into the magazine, so that the rim of the cartridge is beneath the feed-lips in the normal manner as if there were just one round situated in a normal fashion in the magazine.

Then pull the op-rod back until the bolt-catch clicks out of the way.

Then let the op rod fly forward without riding it forward.

The go-to "National Match" load for the M1A is 41.5 grains IMR 4895, and a Sierra 168 MatchKing bullet.

W.E.G. said:

The go-to "National Match" load for the M1A is 41.5 grains IMR 4895, and a Sierra 168 MatchKing bullet.

Click to expand...

There's a good reason for that, too. I've played with lots of loads using 168SMK's and I get the best results with that powder and weight. Below is sandbagged, sitting, at 200 yards, 8x scope on a M1A standard. Obviously, my zero was off a tad, but the group was there.

Very nice shooting @ 200 yards.

The "go to" M118 National Match load with 172-gr. FMJBT bullets produced by Lake City Army Ammo Plant was 42 grains of IMR4895, plus or minus a few to several tenths to get both muzzle velocity and peak pressure in specs. The average charge weight spread was about .3 grains somewhere in a 1.5 grains spread depending on the specific lot of powder in the several lots I checked charge weights in. Accuracy specs at 600 yards for all M118 ammo was 3.5" mean radius (15" extreme spread) but NM lots were at about 2" mean radius or about 10" extreme spread. If a Sierra 168- or 180-gr. HPMK bullet replaced the 172, any lot would shoot MOA at 600 or better.

M852 ammo used the Sierra 168-gr. bullet and early lots had the same charge of IMR4895 while Remington was operating LCAAP. When Winchester/Olin took over, they changed to a ball powder (WC 750 or WC8XX?) and also used it with loads with Sierra's 175-gr. HPMK bullet; both not as accurate as M852 with IMR powder.

Commercial match ammo from Federal, Remington and Hornady all shot better than any arsenal produced ammo. A popular handload was 44 grains of IMR4064 in new Fed 210M primed cases with a Sierra 168; shoot about 4" at 600 yards in well built M14NM and M1A rifles with commercial match and good arsenal barrels/ always more accurate than any load with IMR4895.