I have some helpful tips for those who would like to hunt with America's last great battle rifles. There's tons of accuracy information online, so I won't get into that. Instead I want to focus on what I did to make mine a great hunting rifle. I started with an M1A scout (formerly bush model), which is identical to the standard M1A except it has a light profile 18 1/2" barrel. Right off the bat you are loosing weight, and reducing the overall package size. I then replaced the front sight base with a threaded one. Now there is nothing wrong with the flash hider it comes with, but it's about 3" extra length which has no benefit to hunting. Mine is now a plain muzzle, but alternatively you could run a suppressor which does have benefits for it's size. I might run a suppressor on this eventually. The scout squad comes with a barrel clamped on picatinny rail for optics. Junk that thing. If you want an optic, buy a real mount such as the one from Sadlak. I'm using the peep sights as god intended. The only thing I did to the sights was paint the front my now standard bright orange. What you end up with is a trim rifle, but there isn't much you can do about weight. In my case I went with a big wood stock, and had it bedded for accuracy. Mine is 9 pounds 1 ounce unloaded. You can knock some ounces off with a synthetic stock. It will never be a light rifle. I have heard you can remove the metal butt plate and storage compartment, and it is a worthwhile loss of weight. I'm not sure I have the heart do do that. Just eat less, and do more push ups.
Moving on to more specific and practical matters, the first thing is the magazine. There's usually nothing stopping you from using the standard 20 round magazine. I found Springfield makes a 5 round magazine that sits flush with the stock, and that might be a good option if you like to carry your rifle one handed. You can't really carry this one handed with the standard magazine, the balance point is right over the magazine. I don't see any benefit to the 10 round magazines.
Finally what I found to be the Achilles heel of my rifle was the noise it made. Everything made a ton of noise. Starting off with just chambering a round. If you fill the magazine and drop the bolt it makes a twang you could hear a mile away. It almost hurts the ears if it wasn't so beautiful. Instead what I found to be best is to put a round directly in the chamber, push down on the next cartridge in the magazine to release the lock, and gently lower the bolt on the round. Then give a firm rap on the handle to snap the bolt over the rim and fully chamber the round. It's not quiet, but it's at least similar to anything else. I'm sure everyone knows to not drop the bolt on a chambered round due to the slam fire risk. I'm also guessing slamming the bolt over the rim isn't the greatest for the extractor, but for hunting it should be fine.
I found that my forward sling mount rattled a ton with a cheap sling. I found a leather sling works a lot better. The extra bulk keeps the metal from tapping on the stock. For extra protection I'm putting a bit of tape where the ring is mounted to the tab. This seems to keep the ring from rattling inside.
Then we have the safety. Some are good, some are bad. Mine was definitely bad. No matter what I did, even slowly moving the safety forward while catching it between my thumb made a startling crack. It made the rifle completely unusable for hunting. Luckily the trigger groups are one of the slickest designs ever. I took a careful look at mine, and the problem was obvious. The hook on the safety that captures the hammer was so far short it was pulling the hammer down considerably when the safety was engaged. After looking at it closer I realized there was no reason for this to be. The safety has two points on it. The hook captures the hammer from falling when engaged. The other is a tab behind the trigger arm, and it blocks the trigger from being pulled at all. So the hook seems to be a drop safety, and the tab seems to be the actual shooter safety. I see no reason at all that the hook has to contact the hammer ever. I've confirmed with others that the hook can be fitted to the hammer. Apparently this is a common problem, but usually the complaint is the safety is too hard to use. I took a small file and filed the hook of the safety a little, assembled the trigger group, and tried it. After three tries I had it perfect. The hook just barely clears the hammer, but doesn't actually touch. The difference this makes in use is amazing. Not only is it easier, the safety is practically silent now. It still clicks when you flip it off quick, but if you capture it with your thumb, this is probably the quietest safety I've used. It went from being the worst to the best. If nothing else, this is the most important mod you should do to your rifle for hunting. Links are below on how to take apart the trigger group of an M14.
With any luck this now perfect rifle will be killing a bear in one week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFP4s6zE96A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1KJkv7lo0
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Originally Posted by Kosh75287
