Thanks...you area evil man Mark!!! Making me fall in Love like that!!!
LOL...Ain't love grand??? In this case, a grand plus 500...
I bought the SOCOM-16 in it's stock configuration with a black synthetic stock and handguard. I still have it and it's being sent out for an RRM, (rigid rail modification). I'm going to "tac-out" the black stock. One of the beauties of the M1A/M14 is the ease of changing out stocks to suit your mood and shooting conditions.
The stock on mine is USGI birch. I bought it from West Texas Armory as part of a package deal, (I think I paid 35-bucks for it) - he also added the Harris stud. The brown handguard is from Springfield Armory. You can buy stocks in a lot of places - Freds being the most popular, but sometimes their speedy delivery is not so speedy...The sling is USGI, the mag pouch is a Spec-Ops "ReadyFire" and the optic is a Trijicon Tripower. There's a lot of "mythology" regarding the SOCOM - mostly generated by the M1A/M14 purists. Things like: "giant flame ball" "inaccurate" "unreliable" "loud" (that one always makes me chuckle, as guns tend to be loud), "useless beyond 100-yards" are some of the things you'll hear about the SOCOM. None of it is accurate. Yesterday marked 7,000 rounds, (in just over a year) and the gun has never failed. The only 4 failures I had were ammo and mag related.
I can hardly remember the guns I've bought and sold over the years - many I wish I could have back - some were flights of fancy. I can say however, that my M1A is my all-time favorite rifle. I shoot it more than anything in my safe and my only regret is that I didn't get into them sooner - I'd have a lot more of them. I looked at them, like I looked at revolvers in the 80's and passed so many by without a second look and now I guess I've come full-circle. I'm a bonified M1A and revolver junkie...
It was far better yesterday letting others shoot my SOCOM than shooting it myself.