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Thread: Optic and Mounting Hardware for M1A Rifle

  1. #21
    Glock Collective Assimile Suvorov's Avatar
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    Mar 2011
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    Escapee from the SF Bay Area now living on the Front Range of Colorado.
    I have a big soft spot for the M14 and it's predecessor. Back in 1994 it was all I could do to get a SA M1A before the curtain fell on evil assault weapons (I didn't realize that in reality I was paying $500 for a bayonet lug). Thus started my relationship with the M14 pattern rifle. Shortly after getting the rifle I bought a Springfield Gen 1 scope mount. As everyone here already knows, it was a POS and good for about 10 rounds before needing to be re-tightened. In 1998 I sent my rifle back to SAA to have it upgraded to a NM rifle. In 2004 I purchased a Socom16 adding to my M14 family. As time grew I began experimenting with different optics and mounts on the two rifles before (fast forward to today) selling my Socom (and purchasing a PWS Mk216) and returning my M1A back to what it originally was meant to be before I caught the scope mounting bug.

    As far as scope mounts go, looked long and hard back around 2008 and went with the ARMS mount. I purchased the ARMS because it had the lowest profile by far of any of the quality mounts on the market and it's small size also made it lighter than the steel Sadlaks. The big issue with the ARMS is that they are very sensitive to receiver dimensions and if your Springfield receiver varies much from the military receivers then it will not fit right. As my NM rifle was built on a early 90s receiver the mount fitted well. I ordered it from Brownells in case it didn't fit I could return it but I lucked out and the mount fit perfectly. I never did try it on my Socom. Despite using the lowest profile rings I could find and the low profile of the mount I ended up going with a cheek riser. The first was a simple Black Hawk padded riser but that not being tacticool enough I purchased a fancy $70 one from TNVC. The problem with it was that scope's LOS was too low profile for the cheek riser and I had to modify that. In the end, I ended up with a rifle that was too heavy and cumbersome to shoot comfortably for me with a scope from the 4 classic positions. As I have yet to find a benchrest in the field (I am a wanabee Timmy after all) I decided it wasn't the route for me.

    So my conclusions here echo GJM's. The iron's on the M14 should be good enough for you to make solid hits at 400 yards. If I were to remount an optic I would go with a lower power optic and one that has as minimal parallax as possible to avoid the need for a cheek riser. I have often thought about putting a micro dot on my M1A and experimenting with that kind of set up (I still have the scope mount on it) but with the pending Kalifornia Gunmaggeddon and Hillary's theft of the election, all my money is going into ammo right now......

    This is what my rifle looked like when the scope was mounted....

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    Last edited by Suvorov; 09-19-2016 at 10:35 PM. Reason: attachements

  2. #22

  3. #23
    Glock Collective Assimile Suvorov's Avatar
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    Escapee from the SF Bay Area now living on the Front Range of Colorado.
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt C. View Post
    Very nice set up! I was thinking about going that way with my Socom before I sold it as I had tried and not really loved the "scout scope" concept. Obviously no fit issues with the ARMS mount in you Socom receiver? What kind of accuracy are you getting with that setup?

  4. #24
    Member
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    Feb 2011
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    N.DE.
    No issues with the mount although I know of one rifle that had ejection issues.
    I'm using Federal T762TNB1(130gr) and had some impressive 3 shot groups but 3+moa over a 10 shot string is a more likely.

    Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

  5. #25
    The 4 M14's I've had (still have 3, 2 LRB's and an SEI) all shoot better than 2 MOA wth M118lr, FGMM, or Hornady AMAX loadings. One is a relatively lightweight 18.5" barreled 9 lb rifle that I leave with irons but have scoped periodically for accuracy testing, 1.5 MOA with the aforementioned ammo. They will easily go 4 MOA+ with cheap FMJ, hunting grade soft point stuff like core-lokt, or M80 though. I used the Basset mount for awhile but found that it will shoot loose after a few hundred rounds. I would recommend the sadlak steel mount or steel airborne mount. The rifle has a fair bit of violent recoil and cheap mounts will shoot loose easily. I'll never claim that it'll outshoot on OBR or other precision oriented AR-10's, although my NM LRB might as long as the bedding stays tight. There is a certain trust in the reliability of the M14's operating system for me, although I have seen all the videos where they put mud in the action to choke it.

    Took a DMR class with my 18.5" a few years back and had no problem getting hits out to 600 yards with it, 100% hits on B-21 targets out to 400, 90% at 500, 75% at 600 and so on, shooting Hornaday TAP 155gr AMAX. Outshot the other students who were using 5.56 AR's for the same thing, and it was nice putting 500 rounds of duty ammo down that rifle's pipe without so much as a hiccup. Obviously wind calls starting getting pretty important past 400 or so with the .308, that was on a basset mount with a Leuopold VX-R patrol 3x-10x. Zero started wandering on me every few hundred rounds and had to re-tighten the scope mount, which is why I recommend the sadlak. The best optics mounting solution for the M14 is the LRB M25 receiver, or an AR-10

    I mostly keep the M14's going because I have the heirloom depicted below, which has the ultimak rail optic mount, which btw, seems to work pretty great for a red dot, although I would be nervous about using on a precision setup due to all the contact with the barrel.



    This is how the one I shot at the DMR class was configured (LRB M14sa Tanker w/ Criterion Chrome Lined 18.5" barrel and USGI Fiberglass stock):

    Last edited by LSW; 09-28-2016 at 12:01 AM.

  6. #26
    Site Supporter Jay Cunningham's Avatar
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    Feb 2011
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    Great info!

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