I’m a pretty good shooter. Not SEAL Sniper good (not even close) but with iron sights I could reliably (10 for 10) reach out and touch stuff to 400 meters or so. Age has brought that down to roughly 300 and then maybe at 8 out of 10. I just can’t see well enough to shoot much further than that. In a year or two I guess it’ll be down to 200 with iron sights. Now with a scope attached I can extend that to 600. The scope doesn’t improve my shooting ability so much as it compensates for aging eyes.
A man aught to be able to defend himself out to 600 meters, don’t you think?
I am (or recently was) a 1 Minute Of Angle (MOA) shooter when supported in the prone position. My National Match M1A is a 1 MOA weapon. My Czech made ammo is probably 2 MOA (vertical mostly). [1 MOA is equal to 1 inch at 100 meters, 2 at 200, and on and on].
I got good at shooting over a long, long period of training and firing. My father first taught me at age 7 and we would go target practicing at the KD (Known Distance) range on Ft. Ord; when Ft Ord existed (and for that matter when my father existed). I owned my own single shot 22 at age 11 and shot a lot at my uncle’s farm in Missouri when dad was in Korea or Nam. At 15 I was on the rifle team in Junior ROTC at Christobal High School in Coco Solo, Canal Zone. I was in the Army at 17 and by the time I was 18 I was on the Battalion rifle team at Ft. Kobbe in the Canal Zone. Every day we’d load up weapons and quality ammo and drive out to Empire Range. All I did was shoot! Short notes are: I’ve been shooting for 63 years and have been shooting an M14 or M1A (same/same) for 50 plus years. Additional short note: you can get pretty hammered on Panama Red during the half hour drive from Ft. Kobbe to Empire Range of a morning.
I need a scope to shoot well. Now getting a good cheek weld with optics attached was something I had been battling to achieve, without success, for a couple of years. I’ve used a folded towel, aftermarket cheek pads, and even tried to place the thumb on my firing hand vertically and rest my cheek it to gain some semblance of a cheek weld. I tried placing a folding towels under the forward portion of the stock assembly (under the barrel) and then placing my non-firing hand over the top of the rear portion of the stock to rest my face against.
No matter what I did the entire shooting experience was ridiculously complex, uncomfortable, and unrewarding. Being able to reliably regain the same sight picture from round to round (on my kick like a mule 7.62) was beyond the capability of my equipment. Something had to change. One thing that wasn’t going to change was the hobby I’d been working on for the last 60 plus years.
Here’s the problem space: below is a picture of an M1A (not mine) with optics added. Note how far vertically the eyepiece of the scope is above the shoulder stock of the weapon. It’s at least 2 inches above where the rear sight sits.
Now, here is a picture of an M1A (SOCOM edition I’m guessing by the length of the barrel) with an after market cheek rest added. Three things of note: 1) that cheek piece is not going to stay where you place it. A couple of rounds down range and you’re into a 5 minute drill trying to getting it set again. 2) The ‘eye relief’ (distance from your eyeball and the scope) is well away from where most scopes are made to function. 3) When you place the butt of the weapon in the hollow of your shoulder and then attempt to grasp the narrow portion of the stock you’ll find that the cheek pad gets in the way of both your shoulder and your forearm on your firing hand.
Enter the Archangel stock. Not only were the thumb wheel adjustable cheek riser and length of pull assemblies perfect for obtaining and keeping both a repeatable sight picture and a solid cheek weld; the hand-grip on the stock mimics to a great degree the pistol grip type assemblies found on the AR varietals. With a shoulder pad that absorbs a good amount of recoil and a forward stock assembly outfitted with a Picatinny rail, I can see why folk in the M1A community were scrambling to get one. They are so popular that Springfield Armory now outfits one of it’s models with this stock. Here’s a model with the model:
So I took the plunge and retooled my M1A with the Archangel stock
A couple pleasant accessories: M1907 two piece sling assembly, fold away bipod with extendable legs and 1.25 inch wide sling rings.
Here is how the beast turned out:
It’s nice to know that if there is a threat in my environment it can be removed from a safe distance.