I just returned from my home range after a super, most successful range session after building this rifle at the Petawawa, ON 21 Apr 2012 M14 Clinic that ChalkRiver organized as my pointman. 
A pic at my home range, here's the rifle on the bench:
Looking downrange at my home club! Many of you got to play with this stock and it's paint job!
So it was put together and indexed with over 14 sets of eyes to ensure their approval that the parallels used to index the barrel and receiver were not lying. Life is good. We took about 1/2 hour for this operation. You can see by the pics that we had a couple of CGNutters UP on the workbench to counter the enormous torque we placed on that receiver in order to ensure a top dead center indexing job.
Here we are screwing the barrel on the M1A receiver (hey, where's Seafury? I gotta show this rifle to him) that I just bought from the EE Forum here of a fantastic CGNutter "RR" from Alberta- Biggest THANKS for the smooth deal and the Jan 1989 made Springfield Armory M1A.
After assembling the rifle and hoping to test fire and sight in the Italian M1 Garand rear sight, I was anxious to get it out all this week, but I had FOUR rugby games and ONE practice that goes until 1800 hrs on Tues and Thurs; so a range visit was out of the question. Well tonight I got it sighted in and this is how it went:
1) Center the rear sight base on the vernier... hash lines on the rear of the sight base (go and have a look)
2) Center the front sight using an allen key 2.5mm for you Norc types and 3/32" IIRC for the USGI front sight screw... then tighten it down
3) Shoot a couple of shots at 25" and adjust your sights accordingly. I like to center my rear sight base and tweak the front sight over (opposite direction of the point of impact). Keep shooting until the POI lands in the center, also keep tweaking that front sight over.
4) GOOD, that is your 300 yard/meter ZERO... turn the elevation knob and LOWER the rear aperture while counting klicks, bottomed out yet? Then write this down in your sniper notebook - get out and buy one, make one up if you don't have one YET.
5) With a flat blade screw driver and your rear sight aperture bottomed out, loosen off that rear elevation knob and rotate it until the 300 yd/m hash mark lines up with the index mark on the left "wing" of the rear sight crown... use WhiteOut or a white grease pencil or a white crayon from you kids' crayon collection to highlight these factory engraved hash marks/numbers.
6) Tighten/snug up that elevation pinion screw while rear sight aperture is bottomed out
7) Raise the rear sight aperture all the way to the top, tighten / snug up that elevation pinon screw again.
8) Good, now lower your rear sight elevation knob to 100m hash mark and shoot at 100 m target. Tweak the rear sight elevation knob until you are satisfied that the 100m / yd zero is matched up and happy with the 100m/yd hash indentation/marking/engraving on the knobs/receiver relationship.
9) Always remember that the 25m/yd zero is almost identical to the 300m/yd zero. Write that down in your sniper notebook... tattoo that rule on the end of your dxc(ouch that hurts)... no wait, better not.
10) And finally remember that your 50m/yd zero is almost identical to your 200m/yd zero.
Here are some pics of the rear of my M1A receiver.... You like that paint job? It's described in the FAQ section of my Sticky(ies) in this MBR forum.
BTW, my 100 m zero is exactly 5 kliks from bottoming out! How's that for nice and LOW?? I love it with the low cheek weld. I abhor "chin welds". 
Have a look at the pic:
Now about that TRW bolt that many of you got to play with.... I mic'ed my fired brass and with that USGI TRW bolt and the USGI SA barrel, the dimensions were: 5 thou, 5 thou, 6 thou, 5 thou all above the 1.630" SAAMI Go gauge. Decent for a USGI barrel. Life is good.
Cheers,
Barney
PS: thanks to the M14 lovers at the Petawawa M14 clinic who lent a hand and also moral support during this rebarrel operation.
A pic at my home range, here's the rifle on the bench:
Looking downrange at my home club! Many of you got to play with this stock and it's paint job!
So it was put together and indexed with over 14 sets of eyes to ensure their approval that the parallels used to index the barrel and receiver were not lying. Life is good. We took about 1/2 hour for this operation. You can see by the pics that we had a couple of CGNutters UP on the workbench to counter the enormous torque we placed on that receiver in order to ensure a top dead center indexing job.
Here we are screwing the barrel on the M1A receiver (hey, where's Seafury? I gotta show this rifle to him) that I just bought from the EE Forum here of a fantastic CGNutter "RR" from Alberta- Biggest THANKS for the smooth deal and the Jan 1989 made Springfield Armory M1A.
After assembling the rifle and hoping to test fire and sight in the Italian M1 Garand rear sight, I was anxious to get it out all this week, but I had FOUR rugby games and ONE practice that goes until 1800 hrs on Tues and Thurs; so a range visit was out of the question. Well tonight I got it sighted in and this is how it went:
1) Center the rear sight base on the vernier... hash lines on the rear of the sight base (go and have a look)
2) Center the front sight using an allen key 2.5mm for you Norc types and 3/32" IIRC for the USGI front sight screw... then tighten it down
3) Shoot a couple of shots at 25" and adjust your sights accordingly. I like to center my rear sight base and tweak the front sight over (opposite direction of the point of impact). Keep shooting until the POI lands in the center, also keep tweaking that front sight over.
4) GOOD, that is your 300 yard/meter ZERO... turn the elevation knob and LOWER the rear aperture while counting klicks, bottomed out yet? Then write this down in your sniper notebook - get out and buy one, make one up if you don't have one YET.
5) With a flat blade screw driver and your rear sight aperture bottomed out, loosen off that rear elevation knob and rotate it until the 300 yd/m hash mark lines up with the index mark on the left "wing" of the rear sight crown... use WhiteOut or a white grease pencil or a white crayon from you kids' crayon collection to highlight these factory engraved hash marks/numbers.
6) Tighten/snug up that elevation pinion screw while rear sight aperture is bottomed out
7) Raise the rear sight aperture all the way to the top, tighten / snug up that elevation pinon screw again.
8) Good, now lower your rear sight elevation knob to 100m hash mark and shoot at 100 m target. Tweak the rear sight elevation knob until you are satisfied that the 100m / yd zero is matched up and happy with the 100m/yd hash indentation/marking/engraving on the knobs/receiver relationship.
9) Always remember that the 25m/yd zero is almost identical to the 300m/yd zero. Write that down in your sniper notebook... tattoo that rule on the end of your dxc(ouch that hurts)... no wait, better not.
10) And finally remember that your 50m/yd zero is almost identical to your 200m/yd zero.
Here are some pics of the rear of my M1A receiver.... You like that paint job? It's described in the FAQ section of my Sticky(ies) in this MBR forum.
BTW, my 100 m zero is exactly 5 kliks from bottoming out! How's that for nice and LOW??
I love it with the low cheek weld. I abhor "chin welds". Have a look at the pic:
Now about that TRW bolt that many of you got to play with.... I mic'ed my fired brass and with that USGI TRW bolt and the USGI SA barrel, the dimensions were: 5 thou, 5 thou, 6 thou, 5 thou all above the 1.630" SAAMI Go gauge. Decent for a USGI barrel. Life is good.
Cheers,
Barney
PS: thanks to the M14 lovers at the Petawawa M14 clinic who lent a hand and also moral support during this rebarrel operation.
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