Who Has an M1A, 308?

Springfield, match grade. Can't stop smiling whenever I shoot it. Cleaning is easier than a Garand. I haven't found anything to dislike yet......

I have a Walnut stocked Springfield M1A "loaded." I trained with the M14 in the mid 60s and this is the closest I could get to that rifle. I don't miss the full-auto feature as it was pretty much worthless in the field. My M1A is somewhat heavy so has little recoil which makes it nice to shoot. Accuracy with good loads is about 1.5 MOA or 4MOA with surplus ammo. Certainly more accurate than my original M1. The only difficulty is crawling around to pick up my brass and the beating said brass takes in being pushed and pulled in and out of the action.

Springfield "loaded" here.

Dressed in walnut.

Just keep her greased and she will love you forever.

Enjoy shooting my M14 clones , great rifle , have a 22" and 18' barreled rifles , accurate and fun to shoot , only problem i ever had was my was extractor went out early on my squad scout(less than 500 rounds) , easy fix thou $20.. great rifles, wouldn't trade them for anything

I used to have a Springfield Standard M1A with walnut stock. Absolutely loved it. Terrific sights, great balance, and had a wonderful feel. It was also great fun to shoot. Why do I no longer have it if it's so wonderful? Because I couldn't afford to feed it as much as I wanted to shoot it. If I ever get rich, I will positively buy another one (if they're still legal to own by then, and IF I ever get rich).

I will probably buy an M1 Garand from CMP as the "next best thing" (less expensive rifle, and not as hard on the brass for reloading). M1 Garand, being the "father" of the M14/M1A, has many of the same great traits as the M1A.

Squeaky Wheel said:

M1 Garand, being the "father" of the M14/M1A, has many of the same great traits as the M1A.

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Since the M1 came before the M1A, don't you mean the M1A has some of the same great traits of the M1?

There is just something about an historic, walnut stocked rifle. The only thing I do not like about my M1A is it does not go "ping".

This is torture, it will be at least 4 months before I can afford to even look at any of these rifles.

Springfield Armory M1A loaded standard, wallnut stock. love to kill hogs out to 200-300 yards open sights with it.. I love this rifle, I used it 40 years ago as an M14.

I have a Scout model in blued, and a Loaded model in stainless, both with walnut stocks. I don't think the Scout comes in stainless, or I would have bought that.

Both rifles are very well built. I bought a case of the Checkmate mags in both blued and stainless from 44mag.com to keep them fed. They are supposed to be the best M1A mags built, and the quality on them is top notch, especially on the stainless mags.

The Loaded model went straight from the box to the safe and still hasn't been fired, while the Scout has only had maybe 50 rounds through it. I expect to break both of them out in the spring time and give them both a good work out.

I plan to keep both with only the iron sights.

I bought both of these about three months ago, and now I'm very glad I did. I only wished I had bought several more.

A friend of mine has a couple of the SOCOM's with the 16 inch barrel. They are LOUD!

I have 3 of them
An all out Match rifle

A general purpose shooting rifle. This is the one I hunt with

And a Bush rifle that morphed from this.

to this.


I like Spring Inc. and their products, they are a local manufacturer, the products are sound.
What I don't like. The cast parts they are now being forced to use as the supply of USGI stuff dries up.
Buy the base rifle and spend another $400 and those parts can all go away.
I have also added extended bolt latches and magazine releases to the lower rifles.
The upper two have Match sights and the lower rifle has Tritium front and large aperture rear.

I have two, an LRB made with new TRW parts, and a TFL/Armscorp made with SA parts. They are both solid, accurate, rifles.

I also like my Garand.

I have a National Match and a Socom. They are especially friendly to left handed shooters with the safty in the trigger guard and the bolt on the right side.

Accurate, reliable (never a FTF), and I love the traditional platform over a pistol grip arrangement. Best sights you could ever dream of.

After years of use with the open sights I decided to scope them both but wanted something reliable and easy to remove and replace without significantly changing the point of impact. I looked at all of the top shelf scope mounts, talked with various owners of them, handled them and was on the fence for over a year as too which mount would be best for me. I ended up with the Bassett Machine mount and could not be happier. I didn't really understand 100% on how ingenious the design was and how it worked until I intalled them which took only a few seconds with the special tool provided. If you end up with the M1A and want to scope it, don't forget the Bassett Machine mount as an option to consider.

My only complaint with the M1A is the weight.

I have a Scout Squad in walnut. If I had to pick just one rifle, that would be it. I love everything about it.

If I could afford to buy another I would. Instead I can get a couple of CMP Garands for the price of an M1A.

Springfield M1A loaded standard

There is nothing to dislike.

Its my alltime favorite rifle beside my Sig551

I got one that I really like.

Can be finicky with different magazines. Good to go once you weed out the ones it does not like. Don't tend to load any of them to full capacity, usually 1 or 2 rounds short of completely full for storage.

Started life as a SOCOM II, did not like all the extra weight. Sold rails, synthetic stock, etc. and acquired a brand new wood stock and hand guard from a guy that was wanting one of those collapsible stocks on his new full length rifle. Comes out to be almost exactly the same length as my civilian copy of a M4 with it's stock extended.

I have two SA preban Super Match M1A's. One is in a standard USGI stock, the other is in the heavy profile stock and has a Hart bbl. Both have ALL USGI parts, except the receivers. Fed with Federal Gold Match 168 gr, they both shoot way better than I can.

If you're thinking of buying one, go for an older one with USGI parts, much more reliable than commercial parts.

Rob

Miss Devine---



Devine, TX M1A. If Feinstein gets her way, we'll be going back to Texas for "Alamo 2".
-----krinko

I've got an M1A Loaded. Great rifle. Accurate to shoot with great sights and trigger. The only things I don't like about it is that it is kind of annoying to clean compared to more "modern" designs like an FAL and AR, and it is rough on cases. You can't get very many reloads out of M1A brass as it ejects quite briskly and will rip the case heads off after a while.

I have a Springfield M1A Scout Squad. The factory trigger is excellent and it's an all around great rifle.

any suggestions as to who has the best deal on one?

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Cost is the big downside. 'Deal' and 'M1A' are rarely used in the same sentence -- unfortunately.

^And this would be the only reason I don't have one.

SOCOM 16 - Shot way too high and had to go back for a taller front sight otherwise no problems, just horrible accuracy.

Standard in walnut - Came with a few major runs in the stock finish and a bent front sight ear, no problems, very accurate, but ruins brass by extreme stretching. After a rebarrel it should be a nice gun.

Loaded now in GI fiberglass stock - No problems, accurate, very happy with this gun.

Supermatch in walnut - Came with extreme slop in op-rod to reciever fit and extreme radial gouging in the chamber. Went back and got a new op-rod which is still pretty sloppy and the chamber was hogged out to remove most of the gouging. This gun was a real dissapointment, as was the SAI "fix". I plan to trade it off as sloppy workmanship just frosts me. Don't think I will buy another SAI anything after this.

The platform is great but I would seriously consider buying something other than an SAI, or I would buy a GI M1 Garand from CMP (SA Service Grade Special is my recomendation). It costs a lot less and is a high grade gun.