How to make my M305 more accurate?

BoatsNStuff

BoatsNStuff

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Picked up an M305 Shorty a while back and not satisfied with the groups I'm getting. I'm relatively new to all this so any advice on upgrades and modifications to the gun would be greatly appreciated.

The gun is stock, 2012 if that helps.

Thanks.
 
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There is ALOT you can do to these guns. M14.ca has great kits to up grade the gas system and they also have really nice stocks. I can get 2" groups at 100 with irons on my norc shorty.
 
Read the stickies at the top as they are rite full of very helpful hints that will help ya shrink the groups some
But unless you are willing to sink some major funds into it it still will only be a 1-3 moa gun so if your wanting sub moa your better off with a nice bolt gun if its teeny tiny groups your after.
But dont get me wrong the M305/M14/M1A Platform is a whole lotta fun to work on an a hoot to shoot :)
 
BoatsNStuff said:
I've got a nice bolt for tiny groups, these things are just fun. 1-3" groups is good enough for me.
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1-3 with a Norinco M305 is good enough for everyone. Hand loads?
Some guy selling one right now just posted that he get's 2 inch groups @ 100yards off hand with the stock iron sights and chinese surplus ammo.... :)
That's pretty spectacular shooting.

OP, I'd be tempted to buy the one on the EE that shoots 2 MOA offhand with irons. Might be the easiest way to accurize your gun..... :)
 
Best way....

Remove everything you can from the receiver and throw that stuff away.....buy american parts to to put back on the reciever
Just kidding(well no, not really), read the stickies first and foremost
 
BoatsNStuff said:
Picked up an M305 Shorty a while back and not satisfied with 5" groups at 100 yards. I'm relatively new to all this so any advice on upgrades and modifications to the gun would be greatly appreciated.

The gun is stock, 2012 if that helps.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

What you have is a semi auto battle rifle that was designed to do exactly what it's doing for you.
They are capable of better but without tinkering with it, that's what it was made to do.

Here's what you can do that I have personally noticed makes a difference for accuracy in the design.

Get good quality ammo (most important)
Do a trigger job to reduce the sear engagement and lighten the trigger (don't do it unless you know what you're doing)
Shim the gas system. Will make your groups more consistent (Or "unify" it. Fancy talk for weld it solid to the barrel...)
Put an optic on it (obvious considering the ability to shoot more accurately at distance with a scope...)

Astounding accuracy and M14 are not very close as the crow flies. For a semi auto battle rifle, it's one of the best rifles ever made in my personal opinion. But it's not a tack driving bolt gun.
A lot of people drop many hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands, to make them do what a $300 Savage bolt gun can do out of the box lol And even then their "results" are usually so negligible that I can't even attribute it to wether they have a US op rod spring guide or not. It's gets to the point of being borderline retarded in my opinion but to each their own eh ;)

I've never found much logic or any verifiable evidence or explanation for a lot of the other "upgrades" people say makes their rifles shoot 1/2 MOA etc etc....
 
Travis Bickle said:
What you have is a semi auto battle rifle that was designed to do exactly what it's doing for you.
They are capable of better but without tinkering with it, that's what it was made to do.

Here's what you can do that I have personally noticed makes a difference for accuracy in the design.

Get good quality ammo (most important)
Do a trigger job to reduce the sear engagement and lighten the trigger (don't do it unless you know what you're doing)
Shim the gas system. Will make your groups more consistent (Or "unify" it. Fancy talk for weld it solid to the barrel...)
Put an optic on it (obvious considering the ability to shoot more accurately at distance with a scope...)

Astounding accuracy and M14 are not very close as the crow flies. For a semi auto battle rifle, it's one of the best rifles ever made in my personal opinion. But it's not a tack driving bolt gun.
A lot of people drop many hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands, to make them do what a $300 Savage bolt gun can do out of the box lol And even then their "results" are usually so negligible that I can't even attribute it to wether they have a US op rod spring guide or not. It's gets to the point of being borderline retarded in my opinion but to each their own eh ;)

I've never found much logic or any verifiable evidence or explanation for a lot of the other "upgrades" people say makes their rifles shoot 1/2 MOA etc etc....
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hmmmmm...... no unifying hehehe that's for group hugs at clinics :D
nope, it's unitizing , which is welding the gas band plate to the gas cylinder..... making those a one piece unit , allowing stock to flex and come to a repeated resting point, and reduces the 2 piece gas cylinders effect on barrel harmonics. no welding things to barrels :D

use the stickies as a general guide, ask the guys here any questions you have. this is a good group here and you'll get some experienced answers.
there is no dumb questions :D
the stickies can help you to do the small easy upgrades that will produce results. 2 to 3 moa should be easily achievable, at home with simple tools and a couple affordable aftermarket parts (S&J hardware spring guide rod for one and the flash hider/sights)) from a box stock norinco unless it has some real bad parts that would need replacing.
 
Some easy things to fix: tighten oprod guide, replace spring guide with NM guide, tighten up the gas lock for a tight fit, trigger job and hand loading. This should cut your groups in half or better and get you to that fuzzy good 'nuff place. And if parts cost more than $50 for this then you're doing it wrong! There's much more you can spend but returns begin to diminish until you're swapping in a match barrel. By then you'll have a matted, mangy beard, dirty torn clothes, your wife won't let you in the house and everything you own is gone but your M14 will be the envy of every gun owner. I missed a couple steps in between but you get the idea. Have fun!
 
Could be a number of things you can check;

No offense intended here but have other shooters had the same results with your rifle?

-What ammo are you using?
-Look inside the end of the flash hider, does it look like bullets are making contact on their out?
-How's the trigger guard lockup? loosey goosey?
-Is the barrel indexing off causing the gas cylinder to make hard contact in the stock ferrule?
-Does your oprod line up with the gas piston? If not, is the oprod guide loose?
-Does your oprod saddle make contact on the side of the barrel? (bottom contact is normal)

To be honest, 5" isn't great but it also isn't horrible. Yes these rifles are capable of more, but bone stock, you're actually in the ballpark, try not to get carried away with "fixing" it and just shoot it!
You may find after a few range sessions and getting better shooting technique that the groups will shrink.
 
draw pressure, look it up and make sure your rifle is ok.
I just fixed mine that had negative draw pressure by bedding it.

quick replacements: spring guide, spring and sadlak piston. (i put the sadlak piston and treeline spring in mine yesterday...ohh man the action is so smooth i think the chicom spring was oversized or something. the piston is superslick), stock. Get a better stock.

But first thing you should check is the op rod alignment issue that most norcs have.

Learn how to do a trigger job and do it.

Put grease in right places.

look at the stickies and perhaps attend the clinics.
 
A lot of talk about trigger jobs here, this is something that should not be attempted by just YouTubing it.
Understand the the trigger system fully before removing any metal. Usually just a polishing is all that is needed to make it better.
Under no circumstances should material be removed form the hammer hooks, these hooks are a safety feature Mr.Garand designed into the system, polishing the hooks is fine, but do not reduce their length, this can lead to a double or more firing or worse, an out of battery detonation.
There are other, proper ways to lighten the pull and achieve a "glass rod" break.
Understanding is paramount before metal removal.
 
Bought 2 of these beasts. First one was a skiff gun,cheaped out on that though(too nice). 2nd one I pimped out a bit. Bought an archangel M14 stock,spent about an hour hand fitting it to rifle. Shazaam! Went from a 6" mutt to under 2" @100yds.(irons). Bought some goodies from M14.ca to complement new stock- "tactical" scope rail,to stiffen barrel & dampen the harmonics a bit. A proper scope mount-not the cheap aluminum import. Mounted a vortex 2×7 scope(cruise around in grizz country). Changed out the recoil spring guide & spring,recoil buffer etc. Shimmed the gas tube as well. That's about it,all for under $1000(not including scope i had laying around). Head space is in tolerance;brass miked out ok. As for overall accuracy- very impressed 1 to 1.5 moa @ 100yds.☺ Not bad for a "knock off" import. Unfortunately the bullets on the lighter end give a bit better accuracy-150g BTSP. Other than that ITS A HOOT!
 
jonh172 said:
A lot of talk about trigger jobs here, this is something that should not be attempted by just YouTubing it.
Understand the the trigger system fully before removing any metal. Usually just a polishing is all that is needed to make it better.
Under no circumstances should material be removed form the hammer hooks, these hooks are a safety feature Mr.Garand designed into the system, polishing the hooks is fine, but do not reduce their length, this can lead to a double or more firing or worse, an out of battery detonation.
There are other, proper ways to lighten the pull and achieve a "glass rod" break.
Understanding is paramount before metal removal.
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I agree, no one should attempt a trigger job without a serious unnderstanding of what they are doing. The ONLY correct method of adjusting trigger pull/break IS to shorten rear hammer hooks or to increase, alter the spine dimensions. Polishing ect is to clean up creep and make the two stages clean and positive.
But again, Inexperienced folks should not attempt and Certainly do not use that video floating on Youtube LOL
There is a shop opening soon and the guy doing the trigger jobs is trained by me :D (M14Doc)
 
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I just have to echo what these guys are saying. I recently started my first M305 build. Took it to the range when I first got it and put 60 rounds down the pipe, just to see how she functioned out of the box. I then had the guts tuned up by Barney( man did I learn lots from him, more knowledge more confidence to tinker).Upgraded the stock to a M1A dark wulnut, replaced spring guild with M14.ca`s, replaces flash suppresor with USGI FS and put on a scope mount from M14.ca, I have a cheap china optic on it at the moment but thats the last purchase for this project......I think lol even with the cheap optic I would says she shoots as good as the next tuned up 305!

Really if you want something a little better go for the Match Springfield M1A.....my dream!!
 
before a doing any of these things, try spending a few hours with a press or various factory loads ( anything under 180 grains) and you might be seriously impressed- these rifles are set up for 150 grain moving at roughly 2700 fps, but that doesn't mean you can't improve on them substantially- case in point- I have 4 of the longer standard variety, and each one prefers different bullets, ( all 165-168 grain) different cases and/ or different primers and powder charges- just standardizing on the 168 grain smk, rifle a will work on as little as 42 grains of 748, whereas rifle c won't feed on anything less than 43.5-44-and the other 2 might be within those parameters or not
 
t-star said:
before a doing any of these things, try spending a few hours with a press or various factory loads ( anything under 180 grains) and you might be seriously impressed- these rifles are set up for 150 grain moving at roughly 2700 fps, but that doesn't mean you can't improve on them substantially- case in point- I have 4 of the longer standard variety, and each one prefers different bullets, ( all 165-168 grain) different cases and/ or different primers and powder charges- just standardizing on the 168 grain smk, rifle a will work on as little as 42 grains of 748, whereas rifle c won't feed on anything less than 43.5-44-and the other 2 might be within those parameters or not
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this is good advice to follow....... but after you have tightened up some of the Chinese lack of QC.
do the little simple tweaks.... tighten oprod guide, replace junky sights, ensure decent stock fit, clean her good and grease her appropriately. this establishes a base line to judge your rifle and ammo performance.
in my experience, these rifles really like the federal 150gr power shok hunting ammo and when I was building professionally, it is all I used for testing customer rifles
it's a good starter ammo to see potential.
I'm not a believer in the "deal with the ammo first" method as far as "accurizing' an m14.
deal with the little things on the rifle that take away from shot POI consistency and then start playing with different ammo or fine tune reloads
my 2cents on that one
 
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