Stocking The M-1A Rifle
The M-14 rifle has now been in military service for 54 years and looks like going strong for at least another decade. Afghanistan in particular emphasised the need for a longer range cartridge in a semiautomatic rifle and lead to the US Army’s adoption of the US Navy Mk 14 Mod 0 Enhanced Battle Rifle in its rifle squads. The US Marines use the very similar M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle which replaced its Designated Marksman Rifle and is now being replaced by the Army’s M110. This was made possible by the lasting popularity of the M-1A with civilian shooters in the States who bought it by the thousand and made possible a thriving and inovative accesseory industry.
M-14 stocks have changed beyond recognition since the 1950s walnut or birch USGI unit. The original M-14 stock was a very attractive unit that gave the rifle clean almost sporting lines when its magazine was removed, but wasn’t very practical. Some T-44 prototypes had straight line stocks and pistol grips, but traditionalism was a force to be reckoned with in the Pentomic Army and it ended up stocked like a sporterized Garand. The rifle had the facility to take a grenade launcher sight on the left side of its reciever, but optical sights, if considered, never made it onto the final product. Mounting scopes on the M-14 and M-1A has been so problematic that some target shooters have spot welded their bases to the receivers. The original stock made the full auto feature a waste of time and it was deleted from most service weapons.
Troy overcame this problem by putting the butt of their rifle slightly above the line of the bore. This makes an amazing difference, practically eliminating muzzle climb and making very rapid follow-up shots possible. The Troy MCS is built to take any AR-15 stock or pistol grip and can be adapted to take folding stocks which are not possible with the AR-15. Troy also cracked the optics mounting problem. Like other replacement M-14 stock manufacturers they went for a quad Picatinny rail set-up for maximum versatility. However, putting the butt higher meant Troy could use a full lenght top rail running at the same level all the way to the back of the receiver. This makes co-witnessing iron sights like the Troy battle sights and Magpul Gen 2 MBUS easy as is mounting magnifiers and NV systems. The Troy MCS is milled from two pieces of 6000 series Aluminium and takes about 20 minutes to fit with normal hand tools. The MCS weights the same as a USGI wood stock and traditional side mounted scope base. Unlike some front rails, the MCS can be fitted to any M14, M-1A or SOCOM-16 with any barrel length or contour. The bedding system completely eliminates the need for glass bedding which would otherwise need to be re-done every 1000 rounds or so.
.458 SOCOM – Turning Cover Into Concealment(TM)
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