7.62x51 NATO (.308 WCF) in the Springfield M1A

[geargnasher]

Check out M14 dot com, there's a whole list of "health checks" in a sticky thread that address the common problems and fixes. Seems that jams caused by cartridges hanging on the shoulder before the rim clears the magazine feed lips are common and usually related to not pushing the shoulder back far enough on reloads. We're used to sizing just enough to freely chamber, but apparently the spec between feed lip and barrel is set off of the SAAMI minimum. I need to read up on how to properly grease one myself, apparently oil is a no-no on the bolt and op rod raceways and grease is necessary for proper function.

Gear

[BruceB]

As stated much earlier on this thread, every single round is checked with a Wilson Cartridge Gauge as the final step in my loading process for auto-loading firearms.

My own M1A has now fired over 7000 rounds -mostly with cast bullets- and shows no problems whatever.

On the subject of lubrication, there's certainly nothing wrong with doing it by the book.

However, over the years my M1As and M-14s have run quite happily with whatever I happened to have on hand.... and in the Arctic cold of the Far North they functioned perfectly down to forty-below-zero with no lube whatever.... religiously cleaned to a BONE-DRY condition. I wouldn't want to fire hundreds of rounds through the rifle with no lubrication, but for the limited number needed then, it presented no difficulty or undue wear.

[geargnasher]

Hi, Bruce, thanks for weighing in!

I remember about you using the Wilson gauge, and also four or five different bullets with nary a jam.....there indeed seems to be a correlation there.

Did you have the issues with gauged case shoulders that Rick is describing?

Also, a newbie question, after putting cartridges in the magazines, do you tap them all the way forward so that the bullet tips contact the front wall, as they will under recoil?

Gear

[cbrick]

Ok, I've loaded many tens of thousands of rounds in revolvers, specialty pistols, single shot rifles, lever guns, bolt guns, 1911's but nary a round in an AR. I have little doubt that this will be only the very first of a lengthy learning curve.

So what I have learned so far is magazines, the dang things are important. I had checked the cycling with the 10 round mag, I also have two 20 round and a 5 round mag. All 12 pieces of brass cycled with the 10 round are creased enough I'll scrap them. I used one of the 20 round mags and cycled the same 4 different bullets (12 rounds, three each). Much improved results, the dinging the shoulders was still there but not nearly as severe. I held the two mags together and couldn't really see a difference so I got out the magnifying glass (an old guy tool for you whipper snappers) and looked close. The front of the lips on the 10 round mag are angled slightly down which would hold the front of the cartridge down as the feed ramps are trying to raise it causing the shoulder of the case to slam into the feed ramp instead of riding up over it into the chamber.

I'll tweek on them a bit more to see if it can be improved any and still feed properly. Right now though I'm gonna load up a few and go shoot my new rifle.

Question for those familiar with the Springfield M1A. All four mags I have came with the rifle, according to the Springfield web site the rifle comes with one 10 round mag. None of the mags have any type of marking on them to indicate the manufacturer, does the Springfield mag have a Springfield stamp on them? These could all be aftermarket mags, could all be Springfield, dunno.

Thanks Bruce, I'll very soon be looking into getting the Wilson Cartridge Gauge per your recommendation.

Thanks Gear, was you that got me thinking mags and not rifle.

Let the learning begin, anyone with further suggestions I'm all ears.

Rick

[BruceB]

Hi, Bruce, thanks for weighing in!

I remember about you using the Wilson gauge, and also four or five different bullets with nary a jam.....there indeed seems to be a correlation there.

Did you have the issues with gauged case shoulders that Rick is describing?

>>>> No, the whole procedure is boringly simple.... no problems at all in my rifle. I have an "X" die but have yet to use it much. Standard RCBS .308 dies work fine, as do their .308 small-base dies.

Also, a newbie question, after putting cartridges in the magazines, do you tap them all the way forward so that the bullet tips contact the front wall, as they will under recoil?

>>>>>No. I just load 'em up and stuff them into the rifle. Now that I think about it, I realize that I ensure the rounds are seated all the way BACK in the mags.... but the first round fired will move the whole stack forward under recoil.

I traded off the 10-round mag that came with the rifle; a friend likes that size and I don't.

Right now I have some Taiwanese Type 57 mags (bought new from Midway), some Checkmate Industries 20-rounders (they supply current US military needs for M14 magazines) and some original US GI M14 mags as well. The Type 57s were made on US machinery that we sold to Taiwan way back when.

All these mags work perfectly. I don't recall ever disassembling an M-14 mag, but that's mostly because of the environments in which I lived. Dirt etc was just not a problem. Certainly, smoothing up the internals won't hurt. Be careful about changing feed angles etc.

Gear

Hope all this helps.

[country gent]

CBrick one thing I noticed shooting High power was evident in the rapids when shooting dedicated mags that I could never "see" the cause of. Occasionally you would get a pair of mags that 2 rounds and then the 8 didnt print to the same group, not alot but enough to cost points in the match. A few friends and I went together and bought a bunch of GI mags got together and shot 300 yd rapid fires 2 and 2 sorting mags and finding the ones that printed to the same or very close to each other. I ended up with 8 or so that all printed the same these were then IDed with mag set number and 2 or 8 according to order in the string. Mags make a big diffrence and when you get good ones cherish them and care for them. Your unmarked may be USGI surpluss. There were some forieghn coppies that had the lactch block formed in the sheet metal a few years ago. The better have the latch block spot welded on, the base plates are removeable and the mags can easily be disasselbled and cleaned or adjusted. Also Look at the sring guide in the op rod recoil spring, the nose on the back iss the front catch for the mags. If top edge is worn or low it may be letting the mag sit down a little more than normal. One of the NM mods was making that stamping a round rod the did 2 things to improve function and feeding. The spring op rod ran smoother with out the sharp corners the fit of the round rod could actually be closer. The nose was easier to rock out of mag cutout, and the rod was held in a more consistent position to lock the mags in the same place. I believe a company names Brooksfield made these op rods up years ago. Thiers were tin coated. I made mine up bu cutting the ends of standard rods and milling a slot in correct sized drill rod and welding together, a chamvered end on the front and nice polish . The steel liner positions the mag side to side the latch postions front to back and the latch and nose position hieght front and back. If the nose points top surfave is low or sagging the round isnt in quite the right orientation. I never see an mark on brass from either of my M1As chambering or extracting.

[cbrick]

Thanks Country, these mags have the latch block spot welded on. Just thought it odd that there is no name or identification of any kind. Nothing worn on this rifle or the mags, only a couple of hundred rounds total through it.

While the rifle functions perfectly I am a bit perplexed now. When I used the 10 round mag in the shop to hand cycle & check for feeding I got bad creases on the case shoulder. When I did the same with the 20 round mag it was still there and in the same place but much less severe. Today I took the rifle out and shot it using the same 20 round mag . . . Not a mark on the case shoulder in 30 rounds. Thinking it would be worse when shooting when I got home I loaded up more dummy rounds and hand cycled them, made the same ding in the case shoulder it had before but not when firing it??? Hhmmm . . . Ok, it is what it is. Guess I should shoot with the 10 round mag and see what it does while shooting.

BruceB is correct in recommending the CCI military primer #34 with the harder/thicker cups. Fired 30 rounds today and used Fed 210 primer, I have the #34 ordered but not here yet. Had 1 double tap, it was in battery with the bolt fully locked and no harm no foul except it's an eye opener. Won't load any more for the M1A until the #34 primers get here.

Tried grouping at 100 and once again I had to admit that I cannot see a 100 yard target nearly well enough to shoot groups with open sights. Big bummer. I guess there is a scope in this rifles future. I loaded 311365 200 gr with N-140 at 2 gr under Viht starting load for 190 gr jacketed, not good even for how poorly I was seeing the target. I also loaded the NOE XCB 165 gr bullet with N-140 at 2 gr under Viht load data for a 165 gr jacketed, groups were far better with this bullet, good enough to pursue further. All bullets today were air cooled CWW +2% Sn.

Only 30 rounds fired today but I used the bore scope to dispel another old wives tale. Shinning an LED light directly into the gas port and looking at it under 25X magnification showed it is perfectly clean, no lead and no lube fouling in the gas port.

Gonna cast up several different bullets, prep some brass, ponder a scope & mount and wait for the right primers to get here.

Rick

[country gent]

cycling when the rifle is fired is much diffrent than by hand. Under firing the action hits the stop harder and forward faster leaving less time for the round to drop droop or move around. Recoil also plays a part in this. My pre 64 model 70 match rifle in rapids is a good point gripping the bold handle and working the bolt slowly it will occassionally jam. lift the bolt with 2 fingers under it fast and hard closing it with the thumb only hard and fast it never jams and rapid groups are much better. Also make sure your rounds are seated all the wau back in the mag. I always tapped thebacks on my leg to ensure this.My last rebarrel was a krieger 1-12 with no rough chamber cut. A reamer was ground by Dave Manso to put 16655 sierra palma bullets touching from .030 under mag length. That barrel is a real shooter, but the special throat is a short lived proposition as it wears it gets longer. What you might try for grins and giggles is find some .010-.012 soft shim stock and bend a small u up to fit inside the cutout on the mags and super glue this in the cut out. Will raise the front of the mag slightly allowing you to see if it helps.

[popper]

Try micing the distance between the lips on mags that work vs ones that don't. Had to bend the lips on my AR10 mags to make them work. Keeps them from diving. Actually made them ~20 thous. wider at the front.

[xtphreak]

Look at a Bassett Machine mount
Bassettmachine.com
Simple, comes with a wrench for REPEATABLE MOUNTING TORQUE
Look around at reviews on some of the expensive ones
I likes my Bassett

[sdcitizen]

Factory Springfield magazines have the Springfield Armory logo stamped on the floorplate. They are manufactured by Check Mate Industries for Springfield. Good magazines for sure, but double the money of the exact same mag that is stamped CMI. I have never experienced any dent or dimple on the shoulder of loaded rounds that have gone into battery and ejected by hand, there is a small mark to be sure now that I look, but certainly no dent. Its a loaded M1A.

[geargnasher]

Just an update, I finally got to shoot some cast through my Springfield this past weekend and was quite surprised at how well it did. Test loads were 30 grains of IMR 4320 and bullets were some Lee group buy 311041 copy cast and well-aged from air-cooled clip-on WW plus 2% tin and sized .311". Fired three of those and added two more grains to make ejection and lock more reliable. Took it to the range and shot several 5-shot groups under 2" at 100 yards just resting the rifle across my range bag and trying not to shiver/shake in the 25 mph freezing headwind. I was shooting mostly to check function and brass damage, so the groups were a bonus, will do more of these for sure to test accuracy and will advance the powder charge incrementally as well. Function was good except for the cases whose shoulders were so badly caved-in from the feeding process that the bolt wouldn't lock without a little "forward assist", this happened only with one magazine and only from rounds fed from the left-side column, apparently cartridges from that column are hitting the top of the forward vee-groove in the side of the magazine as they are pushed forward by the bolt and getting severely gouged from the shoulder up into the body a bit, deforming the shoulder enough that it won't quite go home under power.....glad they didn't slam-fire!! The feed lips on that magazine look identical to the other three I have, can't figure out why the shoulders are hitting on this one. Cases were SS tumbled and spotless going in, coming out they look like they were dumped in a gravel parking lot and driven over with a tank: Rims dinged badly, multiple deep scrapes/scratches, and some wrinkles/dents remaining in the shoulders even after firing. These cases MIGHT still be reloadable but will require file work on the extractor grooves to even fit in a shellholder again. NOT happy about that, will shoot some factory ammunition through it to compare case damage. I have two people telling me that from mild to full-house loads their M1As don't tear up the brass and they load it multiple times, I'd sure like to see that because this machine is only fit to feed a scrap bucket so far. Yes, I disassembled, cleaned, de-nibbed, and lubricated the magazines and the rifle has been stripped, cleaned, and lubed per "De Manuel".

But still, somehow, it shot some very respectable groups for my first time loading for it with some old scrap bullets and under the freezing/windy conditions.

Bruce, methinks your WDWW alloy is too hard for the light charges of 4320 and may be why it didn't hold very good groups for you.

Gear

[BruceB]

First, you can add me to the pair of gents whose rifles don't damage the brass. I get many reloadings with each case.

I do find that when a loaded round fails to seat completely in a Wilson cartridge gauge, it's almost always a minor burr on the case rim. This is doubtless caused by the extractor, when it snaps over the rim on chambering a round. A needle file makes short and easy work of such burrs. (A cartridge gauge is used on every single round I load for my semi-autos.)

Re: 4320: I had so many candidate powders and bullets that I really didn't do exhaustive work with details like varying alloy hardness. I simply took the quick-and-easy route by minimizing the number of variables. Hence, ALL the bullets in that looooong effort were water-dropped WW, and all were sized at .311".

My major purpose lay in developing load data that other riflemen could use to develop good recipes for their own rifles.

I'll be very interested to see what you and others might discover as we continue to explore the whole subject of the M1A with cast loads. Medical factors will now keep me on the sidelines, but I'll sure be cheering y'all onward!

Your initial results don't surprise me a bit, and you ALREADY have a functional and useful load for plinking and practice. From here on in, it's fine-tuning.

Ain't it great?

[cbrick]

No torn up brass with mine while shooting, did ding up shoulders fairly bad when cycling by hand with a different mag though. No such problem while shooting. The only dings in the brass after shooting was from hitting the ground and nothing serious, some very minor dings on the case head I assume from the extractor. I also used air cooled CWW +2% Sn largely because I already had a 40 pound pot of it ready to use. Bullet was the 165 Gr XCB. I got nothing to report on groups yet because it's more obvious than ever that I can no longer use open sights, there is a scope in this rifles future sadly. The groups it did shoot weren't all that bad considering how poorly I saw the sights/target. I used powder in the same burn rate. Varget, 4320 and N-140 are all about the same burn rate. Primer was Fed 210, a standard large rifle primer. Cycling was flawless.

I have ordered and received per Bruce's advice both the Wilson case gage and the CCI #34 primers. Haven't loaded any more, need to order a scope mount before I can do much. I am curious about the difference in primers with #34 being a mag primer. The load is light enough pressure shouldn't be a problem but it could effect burn rate & grouping.

Rick

[BruceB]

[QUOTE=cbrick;3080441]No torn up brass with mine while shooting, did ding up shoulders fairly bad when cycling by hand with a different mag though.QUOTE

I'm wondering if the cases are still being dinged BEFORE firing, and then getting the dings ironed-out by the pressure in the chamber when the round fires.

With regard to scope mounts, which have been a considerable problem with the M1A, I'm hearing VERY good things about the Bassett mount. It sells for (I think) a tad less than $100..... when we have over a grand tied-up in the rifle alone, that's tempting to me. (ME, who once swore that there would never be a glass sight on my M1A... funny how aging eyes change our perspectives!)

[cbrick]

Ok, based on recommendations from Bruce and xtphreak I ordered the Bassett Picatinny original mount which now sells for $149.50 ($159 with shipping). The original is a bit higher and says open sights can be used. Springfield now wants $300 for the steel mount, before Christmas it was $200.

I once swore that I would have glass on nothing but . . . Aging and 30 years with diabetes might have combined to change my "outlook" (pun intended ). I now have glass or a red dot on everything I shoot, revolvers and rifles.

Rick

[cbrick]

I'm wondering if the cases are still being dinged BEFORE firing, and then getting the dings ironed-out by the pressure in the chamber when the round fires.

Possible of course but when cycling the action by hand it wasn't just a ding in the shoulder, it was also a crease like it tried to cut the brass. No sign of that with fired brass. Someone else suggested that hand cycling would do that while it doesn't happen when firing. AR's are a new handloading experience for me so it's something I'll have to keep an eye on. Also when shooting I used a 20 round magazine and when hand cycling I used the 10 round. Need to test the 10 round when shooting.

Rick

[BruceB]

[QUOTE=cbrick;3080494] I ordered the Bassett Picatinny original mount which now sells for $149.50 ($159 with shipping).

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dang.... shows how badly out-of-date *I* am!


QUOTE " Aging and 30 years with diabetes might have combined to change my "outlook" (pun intended ).QUOTE]

>>>>>> Thirty years with diabetes. Egad. I was diagnosed in April '98, and since then have lost my left leg and the front third of my right foot to the disease. Not fun, not fun at all.

My eyesight has certainly diminished, but my handguns are still used with iron sights only. That may have to change, too. Garand, Krags and Lee Enfields are still "sort of" usable with irons, but the writing is on the wall.

The M1A does OK with irons, but here again the train is leaving the station.

Any particular recommendations for scopes to withstand the slam-bang of autoloading rifles?

P.S.: Hand-cycling rounds into my M1A doesn't mark or dent them in any way. I have about four different types of magazines, and this holds true with all of them.

[Lindenwood]

Hello all. Long time lurker, and even donated to the site a while back beceuase it seemed every other time I went a'Googling for an answer about reloading or casting or unique bullets I found it on this site.

Anyways, I have been through this thread a couple times. I have a DPMS LR308 and experimented with some handloads of LVR powder**. After reading this thread, I figured Id start with some 150gr FMJBTs (only cheap bullets I have around right now) over 41gr down to 35gr, and they all cycled just fine. The 35gr loads ran 1989fps with an ES of 103. I have always been a curious handloader but largely was motivated to pursue this for my wife, who enjoys shooting this rifle for groups, but naturally as a new shooter isn't a fan of the recoil (even with a limbsaver). I am going to try some 26-30gr loads using dacron next to see how those function. I also have another 8lbs of 4320 that I will compare later.

On another note, I worked up to 20gr of Universal which I would certainly consider on the maximum end. Primers looked about like other full-power loads and extraction wasn't noticably harder than with lighter charges, but I will probably settle on 19gr for the future. 18gr averaged 1828fps with an ES of 38fps over 5 rounds. The 20gr load averaged 1962fps with an ES of only 7, and 4 rounds went into 1.05" at 100 yards, prone, with an unmagnified optic (the first of 5 was just shot into the berm before I decided to see how they grouped). The report was very quiet, roughly like a .44 special from a big revolver (a "boof"-like report with minimal crack). If I had a bolt-action that allowed my wife to manually cycle them without sitting up (from prone), Id probably shoot a **** ton of these hah. But, manually cycling the AR is kindof a pair when prone and with the promising results I had using rifle powders that will actually cycle it and get about the same recoil I don't really need to bother with pistol powders much.


**So far it has been similar to BLC2 in performance though I havent pushed it very hard--44gr under a 168gr AMax loaded to 2.805 got me about 2393fps with a 71fps ES, with only mild primer deformation. The moderate primer appearance and high ES suggest it is indeed toward the lower end of typical loadings. Worked up to 46gr before I got my replacement chronograph (didn't notice any change in accuracy) but the primers still looked noticably less flat than even the factory 7.62 loads I started with.

Thanks a bunch for doing all this work, Bruce! Guys like you make this by far the best reloading and "ammo tinkering" forum on the web.

*edit*

Any if anyone is curious, I had to put an adjustable gas block on my 308 carbine to keep it from denting brass on the shell deflector. I did open it up all the way before testing the reduced loads.

And as far as optics go, I run irons on handguns, but my eyesight is pretty terrible. The 1x prismatic optic has been the best of all worlds for me as far as fast close-range shooting while maintaining some degree of precision. It is a 3moa dot etched onto the glass. I can see some of the blur due to my astigmatism, but by comparison a red dot looks like a pair of comets flying through my scope :P .

[tomme boy]

Cbrick, look into the Russian LR primers. Their mag primers are not mag like our are. Mag to them means thicker cups. Thats the way it they used to be anyway. Might be worth checking into