My DA SOCOM shortie is absolutely one of my favourite play guns; for plinking, gongs or other reactive targets, or just plain making noise enjoyably it has no equal. Taking it hunting was on my must-do list, and I finally did it a couple of years ago.
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Glad I did, too; how else would I have been able to answer the question of what is the worst hunting rifle on the planet? Sorry, fans, but for hunting the M1A-pattern rifle sucks. Carrying that much weight for the comparatively miniscule payback of .308 ammo effectiveness is bad enough; add in the noisy action and it's hard to find anything good to say about it. Not just noise from shooting; it's noisy when you load it, noisy when you #### it, noisy when you work the safety...Jeez, it's noisy when you just carry it around. It's still terrific entertainment for any casual shooting; but I will never leave the house with plans to hunt with it again.
YMMV.
By all means, use it for hunting if you like. I think that if you are honest with yourself, you'll see that you are using an M1A to hunt with because you want to shoot an M1A, not because you actually believe that it is superior (or even equal) in any way to a bolt action...or almost anything else, for that matter. It's like riding cross-country on a motorcycle. It's cool, it's fun...but you can't convince anyone that is more comfortable than, or works better than, a car.
