I went back to the range today with my SA M1A Loaded to try some new loads... I completed the 1.5 MOA challenge in this forum a while ago with this rifle but just barely made it in the Plastic stock it came in. The load I was using was a generic H4895 40.5 grain load with Hornady match 168 grain bullets that I first tried and worked fairly well in the plastic stock from SA but not consistent results.
I decided to get a USGI wood stock to play with as I wanted to see if I could do the glass bedding but wanted to try it "as is" first.
Cleaned up the stock and played with shimming the action to get better tension on the barrel, first shots were disapointing to say the least.
Decided to try the IMR 3031 that was working well in the Norinco M14S to see what I could do and was getting mixed results over the last few trips, would get 3 groups under 1.5 then a 1.704 and a 1.8 group??
Still not bad but expected/ hoped for better so decided to do some load testing. 39.5 grains IMR 3031 was Horrible.....(.902 to 2.943)
39.7 seems to be the magic number though, 5 shot groups were .405, 1.355, 1.122, 1.322, and 1.310 average of .839
I think the rifle may have needed to settle in it's new stock though so will try the 39.5 grain load again. (notice the red neck cardboard shims in the front of the action to see if I could get better groups with more barrel tension!!)
I decided to get a USGI wood stock to play with as I wanted to see if I could do the glass bedding but wanted to try it "as is" first.
Cleaned up the stock and played with shimming the action to get better tension on the barrel, first shots were disapointing to say the least.
Decided to try the IMR 3031 that was working well in the Norinco M14S to see what I could do and was getting mixed results over the last few trips, would get 3 groups under 1.5 then a 1.704 and a 1.8 group??
Still not bad but expected/ hoped for better so decided to do some load testing. 39.5 grains IMR 3031 was Horrible.....(.902 to 2.943)
39.7 seems to be the magic number though, 5 shot groups were .405, 1.355, 1.122, 1.322, and 1.310 average of .839
I think the rifle may have needed to settle in it's new stock though so will try the 39.5 grain load again. (notice the red neck cardboard shims in the front of the action to see if I could get better groups with more barrel tension!!)
