service rifle shooting

[toppkatt]

Question came up at the club about our M1 league. Some want to participate using their M14/M1A's. We shoot at 50, 100, 150 1nd 200 yards. When early on it became clear that some members of the league did not want the M14 to shoot against their M1's claiming they were more accurate and it wouldn't be fair. Now please correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the M14 an upgrade to the M1 with the main advantages being a select fire and a better gas system to improve reliability during combat. Nothing of the main changes can or did, in my mind at least, make the M14 that much better accuracy wise than the M1. I'd say the main difference would be in the ammo and in the shooter. Am I wrong? Didn't they compete head to head at Camp Perry for a number of years?
Enlighten me please.
Thanks

[Rover]

Having shot both in the Marines, I say tell them to just nut up and shoot!

(But, I'd prefer to use the M1.)

[ghillieman]

Rover is a Marine, Yutt!!!

Most Match M1A's will outshoot Match M1 Garands, that's why the military teams all went to M14's for service rifle.
Now the AR15 outshoots the M14 in every way possible, that's why everyone uses them now.

I ran a few fun matches years ago at the local rifle range. Never fails you will always have some one whine about wanting to change the rules to suit them better.

If I can offer some advice, if the range is 200 yards and they want to shoot Garands, register it with the CMP and make it an as issued match.

[Pat McCoy]

At such short ranges you will see very little difference in the two rifle. M1A is slightly easier to shoot as it is a .308 instead of 30-06, and has slightly less recoil. Also, I always thought the stock fit me better on the M14. I'll shoot my M1 against anyone shooting a M1A at those ranges, and not feel disadvantaged.

[Green_Canoe]

For an M1 league I doubt the difference in results for a given shooter will be measureable in two similarly tuned rifles. I'm not addressing how easy or difficult it is to tune the two rifles similarly. There's a reason ARs rule the high power game now. ;^)

[dschaller]

Not to mention glueing your elbows down on your mat, to the stock, etc......

[toppkatt]

Thanks for your input. Interesting reads.

[dulcmr-man]

At Desert Marksmen Rifle & Pistol Club in southern California we run a Garand match once a month from April through December. To compete for prizes one must shoot a Garand. However, we gladly accept competitors shooting almost anything that was once a US military rifle. The Garand, M14, AR15, 1903, and others are all welcome, but only the Garand shooters officially compete. Shooting something else is for fun only. We find that this increases the turn out at matches and everyone has fun. The most important thing for us is to encourage participation in our sport. Having fun pretty much guarantees repeat attendance and interest in the shooting sports.

[Jimro]

At reduced distances the M1A shouldn't have a marked advantage over an M1 Garand in 30-06, at least comparing rack grade rifles shooting ball ammunition. Accurized rifles shooting match grade ammunition the M1A might have a tad advantage.

The real reason why the target scoring rings were reduced in size from the 5V to the 10X was because the 308 Win is just better at being a more consistent long range cartridge from service rifles and that lead to too many shoot offs. Bart Bobbitt shot for the Navy back during the transition shot (I've been arguing with him for years, although he's right much of the time) most of the time with an M1 Garand in 308 (which is why you can still shoot Service Rifle with a 308 Garand, but not in the John C. Garand match). Those 308 Garands can really hold their own. The 30-06 match rifles, even with M72 was considered good if it consistently held under 2 MOA (Carlos Hathcock's famous M70 match rifle that was pushed into sniper service was a 2 minute shooter according to his memoirs).

So I would recommend that the club allow any service rifle to participate (and if the match format is NRA sanctioned report the scores for all competitors) but only give awards to the Garand competitors.

Jimro

[toppkatt]

Thanks for all the replies. Some more info on the league... The M1 league was started back in the late 50's early 60's (when returning GI's were familiar with the M1 from their service days) and a few years ago it was decided to add the AR's as a separate division because so many of the newer members got their training in the military with the M16 and they owned AR's. Plus it would increase the number of people participating. So it is now the M1/AR league. At the time, and still do, it was thought the AR's have a distinct advantage over the M1 rifles, so they shoot in a different section against other AR's. That said the rules for the league under the AR simply state it can only be in .223/5.56 NATO and only use open sights. What this means is, a match tuned AR can compete against the field/rack grade rifle. To this there was no up roar?!%*$. Really, seriously a well tuned AR verses an out of the box AR is just fine but shooting an M14 against an M1 is a problem? There is nothing about the type a gas system used in the AR class (DI vs piston) nothing about the type of open sights allowed. It just seems unfair and arbitrary to me. So thanks for your comments. They may go toward changing the rules in the future. After all what we are trying to do is get people to participate and as it stands, this keeps some from participating. Of course we could make a separate division, separate the M1's from the M14 shooters, but there aren't enough M14 owners in the club to make a lot of teams, maybe one team of three. They just want to participate in the shooting sports and promote comradeship within the club, but the current situation seems to be squelching this.

[Rover]

To quote myself, "tell them just to nut up and shoot!"