Travis Bickle
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Upper Lower Middle Alberta
Alright,
Photobucket finally un-f*cked itself lol
There has been a lot of threads lately about the Norinco M305's and what can be expected from them in stock condition.
I took mine out the other weekend with the intention of posting this thread to clear up some misconceptions and hopefully steer newcomers to the rifle either away or much closer to her
First off, the M14 is not a precision rifle
It is a battle rifle, it is a damned fine battle rifle.
It will shoot accurately enough to hit a man easily out to 600 meters with irons.
That's what it was designed to do.
If you're looking for a precision sub MOA tack driver (especially out past 300 meters) just save some time and money and get a solid bolt gun in .308Win or .300 Win. It will save lots of time and lots of money vice starting with a rifle that was never intended to be a precision rifle.
Moving on to capability and expectations/cool pics
My rifle:
2007 Norinco M14S. The rifle is in stock condition except for the following slight mods to it:
-The rear sights did not work on mine, I bought a set of used M1A rear sights and replaced the entire rear assembly.
-The Op Rod guide came very loose after a few trips to the range, I held it in line with the barrel and had a buddy do two quick tack welds to stick
the f*cker to the barrel real solid
- Replaced the Chinese wood with a discount Boyds unfinished wood stock I refinished myself.
- Front sight post was way too tall, I was at 30 something clicks from bottom before my POI and POA was on at 100 meters! I hand filed the f*cker
down fith a file to get my POI to POA at 10 clicks from bottom then set the 100 mark on the dial to that setting.
You can see my two targets at 100 meters in the distance 8"x12" black squares on white paper.
That's it! Other than that she is a stock condition out of the box Norc M14.
There are lots of parts out there for the rifle. Tons! USGI, custom, tactical etc etc etc Most are available, most are very expensive. From personal experience, almost none of these things will improve any noticeable amount of accuracy in these old war horses. National match parts on a chinese made battle rifle might shrink your group from 1.5" to 1.3345" or something lol but my groups can vary on good days and bad days between 1.5" and 3-6" lol So don't read into match parts too much as far as depending on them to improve the guns accuracy in some magical way.
The one thing that is gauranteed to make your rifle more accurate is the ammunition you feed it and how much you practice with it/learn to understand the sight system in detail.
I used two types of ammo to demonstrate this.
Cheap MFS steel cased .308 Win & some nice quality Federal 168gr .308 Win
Target is a black square 8"x12" All groups fired from prone at 100 meters using an old sandbag for a rest.
The first group with MFS to check my zero.
A little off and rusty lol 5 shot group, readjusted rear sights and fired another.
A little better tightening up now and shaking out the dust lol The cartridge case is a standard .308 Win for scale/comparison
Another group with cheap MFS ammo:
You can see that even with the cheapest ammo they are relatively accurate for a battle rifle.
Now some groups switching to the quality Federal .308 Win.
That was another 4 shot group, the lower hole was two rounds almost keyholed, I like to think they were consecutive but I doubt it lol
And here is the best group of the day. I only had 3 rounds of the quality Federal ammo left so I focused and shot a 3 round group:
So in summary you can see exactly what these rifles are capable of in stock condition with nothing but minor hack job mods to tighten up some of the very minor defects in them. Again, you can drop all the cash on all the National Match parts or U.S.G.I. parts to swap out or
$500-$1000 ninja stocks but they really aren't going to improve the rifles accuracy in any relevant way.
The single most important thing you can do to improve the accuracy is to use quality ammunition or better yet precision handloads learn the sights well and how they work and practice!
These groups are by no means exceptional, my niche in shooting is basically milsurp rifles with irons, I guess you could say it's pretty much all I shoot lol but I do not consider myself a great or even good shooter. I would say I am average experienced/skilled at best.
They are awesome battle rifles. Very accurate for what they were designed to do. With iron sights, good ammunition or handloads and a lot of practicing, you can expect on average anywhere between 1" - 4" groups at 100 meters out of the box depending on your skill with the sights and shooting in general.
The M14S Norcs are exceptional rifles for the price you will pay for them. They come this way essentially out of the box. The only problems that might need to be addressed are like I said, the rear sights might be N/S, front sight post might be too tall, op rod guide might come loose after a few sessions. All of these can be fixed easily at home with minimal tools and very little to no cost.
Hope someone finds this usefull!
Cheers!
Photobucket finally un-f*cked itself lol
There has been a lot of threads lately about the Norinco M305's and what can be expected from them in stock condition.
I took mine out the other weekend with the intention of posting this thread to clear up some misconceptions and hopefully steer newcomers to the rifle either away or much closer to her
First off, the M14 is not a precision rifle
It is a battle rifle, it is a damned fine battle rifle.
It will shoot accurately enough to hit a man easily out to 600 meters with irons.
That's what it was designed to do.
If you're looking for a precision sub MOA tack driver (especially out past 300 meters) just save some time and money and get a solid bolt gun in .308Win or .300 Win. It will save lots of time and lots of money vice starting with a rifle that was never intended to be a precision rifle.
Moving on to capability and expectations/cool pics
My rifle:
2007 Norinco M14S. The rifle is in stock condition except for the following slight mods to it:
-The rear sights did not work on mine, I bought a set of used M1A rear sights and replaced the entire rear assembly.
-The Op Rod guide came very loose after a few trips to the range, I held it in line with the barrel and had a buddy do two quick tack welds to stick
the f*cker to the barrel real solid
- Replaced the Chinese wood with a discount Boyds unfinished wood stock I refinished myself.
- Front sight post was way too tall, I was at 30 something clicks from bottom before my POI and POA was on at 100 meters! I hand filed the f*cker
down fith a file to get my POI to POA at 10 clicks from bottom then set the 100 mark on the dial to that setting.
You can see my two targets at 100 meters in the distance 8"x12" black squares on white paper.
That's it! Other than that she is a stock condition out of the box Norc M14.
There are lots of parts out there for the rifle. Tons! USGI, custom, tactical etc etc etc Most are available, most are very expensive. From personal experience, almost none of these things will improve any noticeable amount of accuracy in these old war horses. National match parts on a chinese made battle rifle might shrink your group from 1.5" to 1.3345" or something lol but my groups can vary on good days and bad days between 1.5" and 3-6" lol So don't read into match parts too much as far as depending on them to improve the guns accuracy in some magical way.
The one thing that is gauranteed to make your rifle more accurate is the ammunition you feed it and how much you practice with it/learn to understand the sight system in detail.
I used two types of ammo to demonstrate this.
Cheap MFS steel cased .308 Win & some nice quality Federal 168gr .308 Win
Target is a black square 8"x12" All groups fired from prone at 100 meters using an old sandbag for a rest.
The first group with MFS to check my zero.
A little off and rusty lol 5 shot group, readjusted rear sights and fired another.
A little better tightening up now and shaking out the dust lol The cartridge case is a standard .308 Win for scale/comparison
Another group with cheap MFS ammo:
You can see that even with the cheapest ammo they are relatively accurate for a battle rifle.
Now some groups switching to the quality Federal .308 Win.
That was another 4 shot group, the lower hole was two rounds almost keyholed, I like to think they were consecutive but I doubt it lol
And here is the best group of the day. I only had 3 rounds of the quality Federal ammo left so I focused and shot a 3 round group:
So in summary you can see exactly what these rifles are capable of in stock condition with nothing but minor hack job mods to tighten up some of the very minor defects in them. Again, you can drop all the cash on all the National Match parts or U.S.G.I. parts to swap out or
$500-$1000 ninja stocks but they really aren't going to improve the rifles accuracy in any relevant way.
The single most important thing you can do to improve the accuracy is to use quality ammunition or better yet precision handloads learn the sights well and how they work and practice!
These groups are by no means exceptional, my niche in shooting is basically milsurp rifles with irons, I guess you could say it's pretty much all I shoot lol but I do not consider myself a great or even good shooter. I would say I am average experienced/skilled at best.
They are awesome battle rifles. Very accurate for what they were designed to do. With iron sights, good ammunition or handloads and a lot of practicing, you can expect on average anywhere between 1" - 4" groups at 100 meters out of the box depending on your skill with the sights and shooting in general.
The M14S Norcs are exceptional rifles for the price you will pay for them. They come this way essentially out of the box. The only problems that might need to be addressed are like I said, the rear sights might be N/S, front sight post might be too tall, op rod guide might come loose after a few sessions. All of these can be fixed easily at home with minimal tools and very little to no cost.
Hope someone finds this usefull!
Cheers!
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