Briefly... a few weeks ago a church member called up and asked what I knew about M-1 rifles. We talked a bit and later that afternoon he came over to show me a nice SA 2.5 M-1 that had been rebarrelled with a SA 4-64 barrel. It was in a normal rebuild type stock and showed indications of match preparation. The bottom and side of the exterior of the barrel as the chamber area, etc. was polished bright. It had a standard rear sight and a NM front sight and a single slot gas plug. The trigger group has been match prepared.

Today I went over to his house and we shot his new to him rifle. With the windage centered and the rear sight at 12 clicks, the rifle was dead on at 100 yds. using a six o'clock hold. He had a little problem seeing the sights. He asked me to fire the rifle. One clip later, eight shots were centered in the bottom of the ten ring and the top of the nine ring using WRA 52 M-2 ball. All in all, he has an excellent rifle!

I had my SA 5.9 M-1 LEAD rebuild along. It has a SA 8-64 barrel and a saw-cut gas cylinder. It is as received from the CMP back in 2000. I had not fired this rifle since 2010. I had 15 rounds of Greek HXP-68 in my shooting bag. We clipped this up and I ran it through my rifle. Firing w/o sandbags simply using a sling, etc., those fifteen rounds when into a nice three inch group formed in the nine ring w/ two rounds in the ten ring and three rounds in the top of the eight ring. As I have to shoot left-handed, I had to roll out of my position to load the second clip. I figure my CMP M-1 did pretty well, especially in comparison to the other rifle.

Lastly I sighted in my deer rifle, which is a nice Remington 1903-A3 that a gunsmith in Colorado converted into a 03-A4orgery. My vision has gotten to the point that I can no longer consider it responsible to use iron sights to shoot game animals in the varying conditions found in the field. I figured a 03-A3 configured to mimic the 03-A4 of the WWII era would nicely serve me for hunting. We targeted the rifle with Greek HXP M-2 ball. It took only three shots to get the rifle zeroed at 100 yds. Five shot groups of HXP produced numerous groups of less than two inches. A check w/ Winchester 150 gr. soft-points showed that the rifle was properly sighted in for hunting as POI with the Winchester ammo was identical to the HXP. In this area the longest shots I may have will be possibly 200 yds. Most everything is heavily wooded. If my vision was anything like it used to be even five years ago, I'd just load up my M-1 and and go hunting. Happily the 03-A4orgery will allow me to continue to hunt deer using the Springfield rifle that I have known and loved since 1980.

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