Springfield Armory M1A SOCOM 16 308 Review

Watch the video Here

 

The Springfield Armory M1A SOCOM 16. Let’s check it out. 

 

I’ve been wanting an M1A for about 25 years and I’ve had friends that have owned them. I’ve shot a number of them. I just love them and I’ve never owned one so I was really excited to get this SOCOM 16. I really like the compact size.

This is from the original M14 and what a grand rifle. On this table we have two legends. We have the M1 Garand which World War II fame and then on beyond through Korea and years after that just a man’s rifle.

I mean this is the ultimate battle rifle according to George Patton and this is the M1A Springfield Armory which this is the semi-automatic version of the M14 which was inspired by the Garand very heavily. The first thing we’ll do is make sure the gun is unloaded. We’re going to remove the magazine, check the chamber.

It’s empty. Springfield Armory started building rifles in 1974 from surplus parts and from there that was the early beginnings. Now of course they make all the parts there at Springfield Armory.

This is the SOCOM 16 with a 16 and one quarter inch barrel and this is the smallest. They do make a scout model which has an 18 inch barrel and then the standard M1A is 22 inches. These have been employed in the U.S. military since 1959 and are currently being used in Afghanistan because one of the problems has been that distances were well over 300 yards contact distance and so the M14 was much more suitable for longer range than the M16 or M4 and so these are still being currently used.

In fact it’s kind of a revival of the M14 with the U.S. military. Now the M1A is a gas piston system and because of the 16 inch barrel Springfield Armory designed this gas system specifically with the 16 inch barrel and I had no hiccups whatsoever. I mean it just functioned very well.

You would expect for it to have a little more recoil but they’ve incorporated a really good muzzle brake to mitigate that so really it’s very shootable out at the range. Now the noise is a little bit louder because of the shorter barrel but so you want to make sure you have some ear protection but really it was a pleasure to shoot. It shoots very smooth, very flat for a .308. Of course it does have the box magazine and Springfield Armory includes a 10 rounder.

You can get 20 rounders from Springfield or from other places. The one thing about the magazines is they can run up to about $50. Actually a little more on the Springfield Armory 20 rounder and of course there are surplus mags out there as well.

Got on Brownells and they were out of the the standard parkerized finish but they did have some stainless steel magazines and these were $29.99. The way you insert the magazine is you actually rock it in. So you put it at the front and then it closes and you make sure you hear that little click. To remove the magazine there’s a small little paddle.

You just press in and pull straight out. Reinsert, up, click. Your safety is right here right in front of the trigger guard.

Bring it back and that engages your safety. When you want to take your safety off you just push it out. To show the operating features let’s remove the magazine.

Grab your charging handle, pull it back, release. That puts a round right in the chamber. Now you’ll notice the camming action of the bolt.

It actually twists and rotates. Right here and here are surfaces on the receiver that hold that into place. So it’s going to be a really strong lock up in the chamber.

And then as the bolt comes back you can see it unlocks and pulls back. It’s a very beefy bolt and of course it is in .308. The SOCOM 16 was introduced in 2004. So it’s been around for about 12 years and has a really strong track record.

I know that the SOCOM CQB, which has a really modular stock system, it’s a really beautiful rifle. But I just really wanted to go with something a little more traditional even though I wanted to go with a shorter barrel. One of the big differences with the M14s was the process that it made for the upper receivers.

It was really expensive. And so they do a cast alloy steel and it’s an A1S1 8620. It’s a very strong steel.

These guns have been proven. They’re just excellent rifles. The barreling is again 16 and a quarter inches.

It’s 1 and 11 twist and they are carbon steel. With this size you would expect the recoil to be pretty heavy. But one of the great things about this rifle is this muzzle brake.

This really tames the recoil. It makes it just a pleasure to shoot. You can see the small holes that go all the way around.

It does incorporate on the front sight there is a tritium little post right here that makes it nice. Gives you a little bit of light in low light situations. Here on the rear we have an aperture sight.

Very similar to the Grand and you have your adjustment knobs here and here so you can change elevation and windage. There’s also a guide for stripper clips. Bring it back and of course it holds open on the last round.

But this allows you to put stripper clips in here. Now there is a scope mount right here. It’s already drilled and tapped.

So you can add just a scope mount that’ll go over and that will take away your ability to use stripper clips. But it allows you to use regular scopes. This is your operating rod and it is attached to your gas system.

This is a piston system that runs all the way underneath. We’ll take a little bit of a look at that when we break the rifle down which is really simple to do. But it just forces this back and it’s just a really clean operating system.

Now with the last round bolt hold open of course you can remove the magazine no problem. Bring it back and then close it. Now you can hold the bolt open with this little lever right here.

So bring the bolt back, engage your stop and it’ll keep the bolt open. To disengage that just pull the bolt back a little bit and the spring pops and you can let it go forward. It does come in this OD.

It comes in a black and it also comes in an FTE. And you know it was a very hard decision honestly. It has a nice checkering right here at the pistol grip plus the checkering that goes right here at the fore end of the rifle.

With that being said you can see the picatinny rail in a forward position which allows for a scout setup with a long eye relief scope or with standard red dots. The handguard material is a thinner type polymer than the stock. And I think originally with the rifles, even the U.S. military rifles, they started replacing the handguard with a fiberglass handguard.

Now as far as trigger pull, make sure the gun isn’t loaded. We’ll take our Lyman trigger gauge. 5 pounds 15 ounces, 5 pounds 12 ounces, 5 pounds 15 ounces.

Now that’s pretty consistent and I was doing it earlier. It’s a nice crisp break. Just a little take up right here and then boom.

And I mean it is crisp. Reset. Right there and that’s super quick.

The overall length of the rifle is 37 and a half inches. It weighs 8.8 pounds. It’s not light but it’s lighter than the 22 inch barreled brother.

We’re going to be taking this out to the range even farther and get some distance. I was shooting only about 100 yards and just doing the initial review and getting just a really good feel for the rifle. But the accuracy is excellent even at those ranges and then beyond.

Now as far as accuracy, HPR 308 168 grain match ammo. We were shooting at 100 yards with the Leatherwood Hilux 2×7 and getting really good groups. This is my first group.

Brought it down and this is my last group. Shooting five round groups. So I feel pretty good about it and once we really get some distance out there we’ll find out how well it’ll do.

There’s a sling attachment on the back and right on the front. Now one really unusual feature that was carried over from the M14 is the butt plate and it actually comes up. It’s hinged and this would ride on the shoulder of your soldier so when he’s firing fully automatic he could control it a little better.

And that’s just a pretty cool little thing or if you’re shooting rapid fire probably wouldn’t hurt. It’s not super comfortable but if you had a strap on like a backpack or whatever you could ride that on it. Right here is for your cleaning kit and it was a little tough getting out so I’m gonna use a little tool.

It pops open. There are two holes here. One of them is nine inches deep so it’s pretty deep into the stock and this is to put your cleaning kit.

Some of the M1A models especially the competition models have just a regular rubberized butt pad just to mitigate recoil but again with that muzzle brake there’s just not a lot of recoil. Snaps back into place. Drop that down.

We’re going to field strip the rifle and of course we’re going to release the magazine. Check the chamber again and it’s empty. Now engage your safety.

Take your trigger guard and just pull it down and so it comes out just like the Garand and then you can just pull this right out. Look at how beefy that trigger group is especially if you’ve been messing around with AR-15s. I mean that is incredible.

Very solid and that says a lot about the durability of these rifles and we have our hammer right here and then sear. You can see the trigger guard how it comes down and this is how it locks into the stock and there’s your mag release but this trigger group comes out really fast and easy and this is what holds your action in so be careful. Turn the rifle over and then right here the stock is retained so pull the back up and it’ll come right out and that is how simple field stripping is.

Here you see your operating rod spring. This operating rod is actually attached to this and goes all the way up. Your gas piston is in here and it forces back.

It’s a pretty solid system all the way around. Now this gun obviously can be taken down further but for time’s sake we’re not going to do that today but I’m really thinking about doing that in an upcoming video and going through all the different details but this is just what you need to do to field strip it and you should be able to clean it from that. Now with your stock in hand just take your upper receiver place it forward this way and then lock it down.

Take your trigger group making sure that your trigger guard is all the way forward get it into place and then just snap it down like that and you’re good to go. Now I was using one of the Leatherwood Hilux 2×7 long eye relief scopes. There’s not a lot of options out there but I’m going to tell you Leatherwood Hilux makes excellent scopes for the money and this is just a great little optic and then we have the this is the Aimpoint and this is the Comp ML3 and this is something that I’m reviewing right now and this does have a cover as well that goes over it does come in black as well and so really if you want magnification you know something with like a long eye relief scope but this really was designed to go with no magnification in a red dot like this and of course the Aimpoint specifically for this rifle and this is just an excellent optic.

To get the correct eye relief though I picked up one of the Voodoo Tactical cheek rest and this is just really adjustable it’s really great it goes on the rifle it looks great but you know you get a little better cheek weld with this than you do just on the basic stock itself. As far as the magazines go I definitely would recommend going to Brownells. These magazines are great and I know their Parkerized are also.

They do have pro mags I think they’re like $19.95. I’m a little leery of that I’ll probably try some but I’ve not had all that great of experience with pro mag but these mags seem to be great and these are checkmate mags. You know whether you’re using the iron sights or you’re going with the scout configuration the long eye relief scope or with the red dot they all held up well. I noticed that I was shooting HPR 308 match ammo and it just the accuracy was on top right up front the balance of this rifle is right here under the magazine you get a good feel for it points really well it just feels good to carry it.

It’s definitely heavier than you know an AK-47 or the AR-15 but again you have a lot more punch coming out the end of that barrel and so it’s really nice. The aperture sight’s a little more expanded with this model because it is made more for close quarter really up to about 300 yards but you can definitely with the 16 inch barrel get way beyond that and so again we’re going to be testing it but scope options you know you can put a side scope mount on here if you want to use a traditional scope. I really like the long eye relief scope and I also really like the red dot and that aim point just is just a beautiful optic in itself so the whole package really did well and I was just glad to have a lot of different options and that’s one of the things about this rifle is that you have so many different options you can go with and there’s a lot of different accessories parts are readily available as well so and Springfield Armory stands behind their stuff so it’s just really a great rifle.

Springfield Armory has been doing a fantastic job on these again since 1974 they’ve just taken a really legendary rifle and continue to make it better I mean what more can you ask. Now I have a tech mat here in the M14 style one of the things I love about these is it of course it cushions on your bench it’s made from rubberized material and it has a schematic of the rifle so I can see where everything goes especially when I’m doing any kind of disassembly of the rifle cleaning and things like that has a list of the parts and everything so tech mat is really cool and you know especially if you have a rifle as iconic as the M1A. Now even though the M14 had one of the shortest records for an issued rifle to the U.S. military other than the Craig Jorgensen this has been the longest running U.S. military rifle in history even more than the Garand, Carbine, even the M16.

The M14 has been in service in the U.S. military again since 1959 and continues to be in service even today. So the Springfield Armory M1A SOCOM 16 thumbs way up.

 

Be strong, be of good courage, God bless America, long live the Republic.

 

-Don