New M1A "Loaded" model
- Thread starter Calfed
- Start date
Shot thousands of the Noslers....never lost a point due to the bullet. If it was out, "I" put it there!
The load I mentioned was a replication of LC M852 and seated to the same length. My rifle like 42 gr. of IMR4895 a LOT.
Hope yours will as well.
Randy
The load I mentioned was a replication of LC M852 and seated to the same length. My rifle like 42 gr. of IMR4895 a LOT.
Hope yours will as well.
Randy
I hit the range again today and used up the rest of that box of FGMM 168grs. The rifle seems to be holding at or under 2MOA. Shot three more 5 shot groups...1.61, 1.79, and 2.03" @ 100 yards. I got a couple of pretty tight 4 shot groups, but the last round out of the magazine was always a flyer. Weird.
Grayfox
US Veteran
I love the M1A! Its my favorite MBR. 
The bottom three I shoot mostly with mil-surp ammo I've stockpiled over the years. All are more than combat accurate.
I got the decked out top rifle a couple of years ago as a used standard model at a good price. Sent it back to Springfield for the National match treatment last year. I'm still working with loads, but results so far are promising.
The bottom three I shoot mostly with mil-surp ammo I've stockpiled over the years. All are more than combat accurate.
I got the decked out top rifle a couple of years ago as a used standard model at a good price. Sent it back to Springfield for the National match treatment last year. I'm still working with loads, but results so far are promising.
Hair Trigger
US Veteran
Great rifle, you're going to enjoy it. I love the sound when fired, hearing the rolling bolt cycle. I've got one I bought in 2012, also a Loaded, but mine has the black NM barrel. At the time, the Super Match guns had the stainless barrel, with a hooded rear NM sight and more (finer) windage adjustment. I was about to ask if yours is a Creedmoor, as the polished barrel is all that's shown on the website for the CM, and your muzzle device is like what the CM has today, instead of the traditional M14 type.
Late edit: One thing you might want to pick up for reloading is a Wilson case gauge. It's basically a small .308 chamber, the small groove in the top will show neck length range, a similar groove in the bottom shows headspace range. drop the case in, if it is tight, needs resizing, if case head is proud of the bottom, it's out of headspace dimension, if the mouth is proud, it needs trimming for length.
I made my own cheek rest, so I could get the cheek weld just right. It's a heavy beast, I can understand why the military moved away from the M14; you'd have to be Schwarzenegger to haul one around in the boonies for long with a full load out, but it makes a really nice bench gun or bipod shooter.
Shoot a box first, then see if the unsized cases will chamber after it cools. Case length is critical for proper headspacing on these actions, but usually a standard .308 die works fine. I have the standard as well as the small base die, but generally use the standard one. I use NATO brass in mine, either Win. or Lake City brass, once fired, and I can generally get 3-4 reloads per case before I start worrying about thinning above the case head. My best loads are H4895 at 41.5 grains, with Sierra Match King 168 grain bullets, or Hornady AMAX (now the ELD), but the Sierra flies a bit better, tighter groups. Varget is another powder that works well, I've used 42.5 grains of that; both loads will give you around 2600 fps. 178 grain is the heaviest bullet you should use, and H4895, Varget and BL-C(2) all work well there; expect a couple hundred fps less MV, but the bullets have a higher BC and seem to work better past 800 yards, if you ever go that far out.
Late edit: One thing you might want to pick up for reloading is a Wilson case gauge. It's basically a small .308 chamber, the small groove in the top will show neck length range, a similar groove in the bottom shows headspace range. drop the case in, if it is tight, needs resizing, if case head is proud of the bottom, it's out of headspace dimension, if the mouth is proud, it needs trimming for length.
I use a Fulton Brookfield Type DMR mount on mine. It sits as low as possible and not interfere with case ejection, and you can aim under it and still use your iron sights, up to about 250 yards. I have a Millett 6-25x58 scope with a 35mm tube, 2nd FP mildot reticle, but the adjustment turrets are graduated in MOA, makes the math easier when sighting for range. Longest shots I've made were about 750 yards, on 12" square steel plates, with consistent hits.
I made my own cheek rest, so I could get the cheek weld just right. It's a heavy beast, I can understand why the military moved away from the M14; you'd have to be Schwarzenegger to haul one around in the boonies for long with a full load out, but it makes a really nice bench gun or bipod shooter.
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I love the M1A! Its my favorite MBR.
The bottom three I shoot mostly with mil-surp ammo I've stockpiled over the years. All are more than combat accurate.
I got the decked out top rifle a couple of years ago as a used standard model at a good price. Sent it back to Springfield for the National match treatment last year. I'm still working with loads, but results so far are promising.
That is a fine stable of rifles, Gray
I've got a small supply of mil-surp ammo that I've accumulated over the years. Mostly Portuguese, but with some South African, German, and Australian too.
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Calfed,
Good shooting with irons! Are you shooting a Center of Mass hold or a 6 o'clock hold?
Regarding your Reloader 15 question, the burn rate is quite similar to the IMR 4895 that I shot so much of, so you would be OK to use it.
Going much faster or slower can easily damage your op. rod....don't want that to happen, they are expensive!!
Randy
Good shooting with irons! Are you shooting a Center of Mass hold or a 6 o'clock hold?
Regarding your Reloader 15 question, the burn rate is quite similar to the IMR 4895 that I shot so much of, so you would be OK to use it.
Going much faster or slower can easily damage your op. rod....don't want that to happen, they are expensive!!
Randy
I shot National match in the late 1980s and early 1990s with a Springfield armory super match. At the time the over sized stocks were not a thing, so the super match was just a National Match with a heavier profile barrel under the hand guard.
It was a solid 1 MOA rifle with issued M852 Match, which used the Sierra 168 gr Match King in an LC Match case, loaded to a velocity of 2550 fps.
With issued M118 it was a “carp” shoot. The older lots of ammo were ok, but by that time the tooling Lake City used for the 173 gr FMJBT bullet (a hold over from the M72 .30-06 match round) was worn and the bullets varied a lot. Consequently newer lots of ammo were often in the 2-2.5 MOA range and that didn’t work well when you needed at least 1.5 MOA to be competitive.
I did however get several thousand unloaded new in the box but very old stock 173 gr bullets from DCM and they’d shoot 1.25 MOA in my M1A.
It was a fairly common practice at the time to take issued M118 ammo, pull the bullet with a collet bullet puller and then seat a 168 gr SMK in its place to make what was called “Mexican Match. However, hand loading match ammo for the 7.62 NATO wasn’t technically allowed. It’s one of the things that drove my switch to the AR-15 and 5.56 as you could hand load your own competition ammo as there was no government match load for 5.56mm.
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Load wise the M1A uses a short stroke gas tappet piston design that is much more tolerant of slower burn rate powder than the M1 Garand (where using something like 4831 would create port pressures high enough to bend an op rod, unless you used an adjustable gas plug).
However it’s still a good idea to stay with powders in the same burn rate range as WC-846, and in the range where you find IMR-4895, IMR-4064 and Reloader 15. All three of those powders work well in the M1A for 168-175 gr match loads. BLC-2 and H335 are good choices for 147-150 gr ball loads.
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Be aware that case capacity can vary. The 7.62x51 military ball loads and the older match brass all used a thicker walled case designed to reduce the potential of head separating in M60s and other machine guns where head space could be generous.
In the past you could sort your brass by military versus civilian headstamp and be good to go. However, when Federal got the contract for the latest iteration of M118 Special Ball, using the Sierra 175 gr Match King, they also used their federal Gold Match case, but with a Lake City Match headstamp. These cases, like other civilian .308 cases have thinner walls and greater case capacity and you cannot use a load developed for them in a thicker military case.
Federal also started selling M80 brass with a Lake City head stamp that also shares the larger internal volume. The end result is that you now have to sort brass more carefully. IMHO that’s most easily done by processing the brass and then sorting by weight.
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Small base dies are not normally *required* with match or civilian brass, but there are situations where it can be beneficial.
You may find that brass fired in an M60 might not fit a .308 Win match chamber after being resized in a standard die and a small base die is necessary.
The other use for a small base die is if you shoot your precision handloads in multiple rifles. Returning the brass to factory dimensions ensures it will chamber regardless of what it was fired in.
Finally a small base die ensures the brass is concentric. It allows the case to rest consistently in the chamber which can help accuracy in situations where neck sizing isn’t an option.
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I currently own an M1A standard and it’s a decent utility rifle. I doubt I’ll rebarrel it or accurize it, but if it gets a new barrel it will probably be a Krieger or a Criterion.
Accurizing has its downsides as you create a rifle with tighter stock to action tolerances and one that you can’t remove from the stock after every outing in the rain, etc.
The rack grade M1A is about a 3 MOA rifle and the barrel on the “loaded” model is slightly better at about 2 MOA.
The thinner bladed National match front sight helps, IMHO, as does the hooded National Match rear sight which allows 1/2 MOA elevation adjustments.
Back in the day the Garand style rear sight on the M14 and M1A (mostly made from Govt contract parts at the time) allowed for 1 MOA adjustments in elevation and windage. In the process of accurizing an M14 or non National match M1A or Garand, we’d drill the receiver for a spring and ball bearing and mill the windage knob flat and then carefully put 8 equal depth detents in it to create a 1/2 MOA windage adjustable sight.
The hole in the receiver is now standard and you can get NM rear sight kits with the knob, spring and ball bearing and National match sight hood and install them without any milling work.
We would also modify the rear sight by turning down part of the boss on the rear sight axel to allow room for a spring to keep pressure on the same face of the threads in the sight base without reducing range of windage adjustment.
We would also bed the sight elevator to the sight base for minimal clearance to improve consistency at long range. We’d also peen the sight cover slightly to ensure it put downward pressure on the sight base to prevent the sight from rocking at long range adjustments.
All of those changes are worth doing if you want maximum accuracy with iron sights. Back in the day, I had no trouble holding 1 MOA 10 shot groups with a suitably accurized rear sight.
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We’d also glass bed the action in M14s, non match M1A and M1 Garands using steel or aluminum filled bedding compound for durability and fixtures to position the action in the stock to get the required and desired degree of downward pressure on the barrel. You can find those fixtures at Brownells. Glass bedding removes most of the horizontal stringing.
We’d bed the actions with minimum clearance with just a single coat of release agent so you’d have to hold the action by the sight ears and wack the stock with your palm to eventually get it loose. Once an M1, M14 or M1A has been bedded, don’t take it out of the bedding unless you absolutely have to. I’d remove mine once a season, at the end of the season for a detail strip and clean. That’s it. Every time you take it out of the stock it creates wear on the bedding. I’d also refresh the bedding in mine every other year using a Dremel to remove an 1/8” bedding in the high wear spots and then rebidding those areas.
We’d also unitize the gas system on the M14 or rack grade M1A. On the M1 we’d bevel the rear of the gas piston body to create clearance from the hand guard, stake the gas cylinder at the proper location and then select a gas cylinder lock that would keep it there with the correct amount of tension. We’d also ensure the operating rods and pistons were straight and within spec.
On the M1 Garand, we’re remove the metal support in the front hand guard to free float it and then permanently attach the front hand guard to the middle barrel band, which in turn was permanently attached to the barrel. We’d then shorten the rear hand guard slightly so it did not press against the front face of the receiver. Never pick up an NM Garand by the front hand guard, and if in doubt, just never pick up a Garand by the front hand guard.
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The wood M1A stocks are dipped in pure tung oil and it’s an original military finish, but it’s not as water proof or sealed as it needs to be for maximum stability.
I’ll wipe mine down with pure tung oil and cheese cloth daily for a month or so until the pores in the wood are sealed. I do this to the inside of the stock as well (do it before you bed it if you plan to bed it).
It creates a slight shine on the stock but it’s still a correct military finish. I’ve encountered collectors who have a fit about it and have encountered others who would downgrade a 1903 because of it, even though that’s what the soldiers who were issued one would do with it, until the finish was completely smooth. Over time it also creates a reddish tone in the stock.
The important thing is the stock becomes waterproof and stable in terms of moisture content.
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Well written and full of great information, thanks for the trip down memory lane BB57!
Did you shoot at Perry?
My current M1A Super Match is a double lugged receiver on a new Obermeyer 5R barrel with all of the match tricks my retired AMTU armorer did for the USAMTU shooters.
Gun shoots!!!
Randy
PS.
Your comment on shooting reloads had to have been from shooting Leg Matches where you HAD to use the issued ammo, could be M852, M118, or god forbid M80!!!
Did you shoot at Perry?
My current M1A Super Match is a double lugged receiver on a new Obermeyer 5R barrel with all of the match tricks my retired AMTU armorer did for the USAMTU shooters.
Gun shoots!!!
Randy
PS.
Your comment on shooting reloads had to have been from shooting Leg Matches where you HAD to use the issued ammo, could be M852, M118, or god forbid M80!!!
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Very nice…..mine is a James River Armory
I have a JRA BM-59. It’s one of the last ones they made and as such doesn’t have the winter trigger or the slot in the stock to let the rear swivel rotate 90 degrees. The stock is essentially a modified Garand stock as used on the BM-59SL.
I have a BM-59 winter trigger and at some point I will inlet the stock for it and install it. I may also inlet the groove for the sling swivel. Like the M14 it was also designed to top off the magazine with the magazine in the rifle via a stripper clip guide on the receiver.
I actually prefer my BM-59 to my M1A as it’s a bit more compact and the Tri-compensator muzzle device is actually very effective at reducing recoil. It’s much nicer to shoot than the M1A, particularly in rapid fire. The attached bipod is also very practical. The magazine design is also excellent and more robust than the M14 magazine.
It’s interesting that the US government spent over 10 years (1945 to 1958) refining the M1 design into the M14, while Beretta’s chief designer Domenico Salza and Vittorio Valle designed the BM-59 in about 18 months, creating a rifle that was a lot less expensive to produce and gave up nothing to the M14 performance wise.
Beretta had been producing M1 Garands on Winchester tooling sold to Beretta after WII and prior to the outbreak of the Korean War. With the development of NATO, Beretta and Breda were viewed as the likely suppliers of M1 Garands to NATO countries in Europe and selling the Winchester tooling to them fast tracked that. Unfortunately that left the US short of producers for more M1 Garands for use in Korea, which is where the International Harvester and Harrington Richards Garands came into the picture.
The cool thing about the BM-59, and in particular the BM-59E and BM-59SL is that the design was a modification of the M1 Garand and had a very high degree of parts commonality which made it easy to make on Garand tooling with minimal retooling and minimal additional machining.
The very high parts commonality also meant that an existing M1 Garand could be converted to the semi-auto BM-59SL or select fire BM-59E with very few new parts and fairly minimal machining of the receiver and stock.
That left potential, and often cash strapped military customers with the option to:
- buy a new BM-59 in six different fixed and folding stock configurations in either semi or select fire versions, with fixed or detachable muzzle devices;
- have existing M1 Garands modified to one or more of those configurations; or
- do a budget priced modification of existing M1 Garands to the BM-59E or BM-59SL configurations.
The Italian military updated many of the Garands it had obtained from both US surplus assistance and through new Beretta production, so it’s common to see BM-59s with a mix of US and Beretta marked parts.
Never shot at Camp Perry, it was always a lack of time and or a lack of money. I stopped shooting in part because of the politics around the state team spots. It got old consistently beating the existing state team members but never getting a spot. I switched to tactical rifle shooting as that started being more of a thing and it was a lot of fun.
You are spot on with the leg matches. I never had to shoot M80 but some of the M118 lots were horrible enough that I don’t think M80 would have been much worse, at least on a reduced course of fire.
For general purpose shooting I feed my M1A and BM-59 a more or less clone of M80 Ball but using Hornady 150 gr FMJs and BLC2 loaded to 2800 fps. I buy them in 2400 round bulk boxes and load them into military match brass. They’ll do 2-3MOA in most service grade barrels, are comparatively cheap to load and are reliable.
Most of my match grade loads are shot in my precision bolt rifles. I still use the 168 SMK for shooting out to about 800 yards, and use 175 gr RDFs for shooting out to around 1200 yards.
Gene L
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I carried on of the heavy SOBs in 1967 in the army. I now own a standard grade which mine weighs 10 pounds, for some reason. It's about a 3 MOA rifle with me shooting it, maybe 4. Best I can do. When I was in the army we used raw linseed oil on the stocks.
Another version of Mexican Match was we would take M80, pull the bullets and re-seat 150 SMK's, which is what you were essentially making on your own.
The M 80 Match we made would keep everything in the 10 ring with about 4 X's on rapid sitting. A 200 no X still beats a 199-19x!!
I used that a lot in offhand and on sitting Rapid fire, then switched to either M118 of a proven good lot or M852 for 300 rapid fire prone and slow fire 600 prone.
Randy
The M 80 Match we made would keep everything in the 10 ring with about 4 X's on rapid sitting. A 200 no X still beats a 199-19x!!
I used that a lot in offhand and on sitting Rapid fire, then switched to either M118 of a proven good lot or M852 for 300 rapid fire prone and slow fire 600 prone.
Randy
