Same story for me if I take one out of the stock. It takes a few rounds to settle back in. Yep, that's a lot of rounds. Had to look it up: Criterion says ~5,000 rounds is the life of a barrel for decent match accuracy. No clue if an accurate statement but someone had posted that some commercial throat leads were 'gentle' and might purposely gauge higher than a G.I. barrel. What's the muzzle wear on that barrel?Yah, I just checked again. I don't have anything to compare it to, and this CMP gauge my be a little off, but it's right at 4, maybe a bit over. It has been through a metric shit ton of shooting, I bought 500 rounds of PPU M1 150gr rounds when I got it and have reloaded them a few times. In addition a few spam cans of HXP and that brass is now on reload #4. I keep brass separate for each rifle so I have a rough estimate of round count. It's definitely above 3,500 for this rifle.
I just did my annual strip, inspect and clean on this rifle. Everything is in spec, but I suspect the mainspring will need replacing next winter. It's a bit compressed (20.25 inches last year, 20 inches today, about 600? rounds this year) compared to the measurement I took last winter, but still in spec. Re-peened the front sight grooves on the barrel as well, so it's nice and snug with no slop. That being said, next week I'll put 40 or so rounds through it to re-settle the action in the stock. After that, I'm thinking I'm going to go after 168s again with some LC68 brass I have. That brass is really good, heavier and thicker than most brass I have on hand and really consistent in all my bolt guns, so maybe it'll show me something different in the M1.
The accuracy of this M1 does frustrate me, especially compared to how the rest of collection fairs, but there is definitely room for improvement in my technique.
Re: Pembroke: Sounds good, I'm out in a burb of Boston but my parents live around the 2/495 interchange. I make the trip out to that area every weekend for HSC anyways...
IIRC the rule of thumb is if the spring is compressed to ~19" or lower it needs to be replaced. 20" supposed to remain in the OK zone, though the real spec is that via a 5lb weight the spring must compress to a length of between 16.75″ and 17.75″. I've had some pretty worn out springs in some of my M1's yet they all went bang and cycled fine. Any M1's I'm going to shoot a lot get an Orion7 spring lubed up with Mobil1 grease. ~$9 and free replacement if it ever rusts (it's stainless) or wears out (it won't in our lifetime).
Trigger pull? A decent trigger job is always a plus for better groups.
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