m1a and the 155 Scenar

[wi50]

Tomorrow my M1a supermatch will be here, it's got a 1 in 10 twist barrel. Most of my shooting with it will be at my 700 yd range here at the farm, and hopefully get in a 600 yd high-power match now and then.

The only .308 bullets I keep around are the 155 Lapua Scener, and the other day I picked up some 175 SMK's to try because I knew the M1A was going to be here.

For some of you seasoned M1a shooters, do you see any problem running the 155's? I have Varget, RL15 and IMR4064 on hand, with the powder shortage, I'd like to use the 4064 as I have lots of it and I use the Varget and RL15 for some loads in my other .308 and 6br.

I do have some loads loaded up for my bolt gun with 46 gr of Varget and the 155 Scener in Lapua cases, would this be to hot for the M1a? Guessing it's a bit hot.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: m1a and the 155 Scenar

I foresee no trouble. The varget 46.0/150/155 load is a tad snappy, but the M1A will digest it, at elast until you have teh IMr4064 loads up and running true. The 155's will work out to 600yd, but the heavier ones will work better beyond 300yd. 175, Rem/Win Brass, WLR, 42.2gr IMR 4064. Sierra maxes this bullet out at 44.0gr, but I'd be leery of going above the 42.2 specified when loading for the M1A with the 175's. Same load may also work OK with 150/155/168; the arsenal match/ball loads all used the same recipe with the different bullets. The M1A likes its brass full-length resized, and the magazine likes OAL's not much beyond 2.810.

Slamfire was not an issue for me. Make certain your primers are seated flush or lower, but don't get to the point where you're straining to seat them. I learned not to bother with match primers for semi's, they work just as well with WLR's as they do with 210GMM's.

If you don't have the gas cylinder wrench in addition to the multitool for the plug, get it, and first time you loosen the plug, if its really tight, hold the cylinder firmly in a padded vise to loosen the plug, don't overstrain the stock. They're not indestructible, not cheap and they WILL break through the magazine well, I know this from experience. Then, when you tighten it, don't gorilla it. The threads are fragile, they are a failure point, they are designed to be tightened, then loosen by themselves so they need retightening every 60-80 rounds. Too tight, they strip, and you're out a cylinder and/or a plug, the rifle's down, and may not be up again until after significant time and money have passed through your hands. Best indicator that the plug is overloose is vertical stringing.

Bedding is another failure point. Best left assembled except for that once a year, get out the gas residue, cleaning. Keep the rifle dry unless you get caught in a downpour in the middle of a match stage. Make and keep a weatherproof sleeve with you whenever you have the rifle out of shelter. Learn the trick about popping the Oprod loose at the rear and removing the bolt without taking the rifle out of the stock. An M1A-experienced Highpower shooter can demonstrate if you need that sort of thing. Trigger groups work fine clean or dirty, that combat worthy design has served over half a century with the Garand and M14, and it shrugs off everything but being encased in concrete; only remove the trigger group during that once a year cleaning.

There's more of course, but the other folks will chime in too, I'm sure.

Greg

 

[learjet]

Re: m1a and the 155 Scenar

my m1a prefers scenars to 175s. 45g varget in a winnie case was the sweet spot for scenars. both were plently accurate, w a slight edge goin to the scenar load, but the 175 loads brass hung up betw the oprod and my sadlak scope mount from time to time. i went as high as 42g varget w the 175s, if i went any higher i got no additional velocity, and the gun just felt like it was beatin itself a bit. ive used the scenar load to 1k often enough

every m1a ive seen is different, way different. u may have to experiment a bit more than normal to find what urs likes