Morning folks,
I plan on using my M1a to shoot high power silhouette this fall at Tucson Rifle Club. Home of the 1st US National Championship. Does anyone use they M1A for silhouette? If so what loads do you use? And what holds do you use? 6 o'clock, spot on.
Thanks

Are you going to shoot it open sight as standard rifle or as Semi-auto military classification?
Varget and 168"s.
I used 6:00 as the sight covered most of chicken for poa.

open sight. most likely standard class. but not sure. does the 168 take down the rams?

You probably would not want to shoot a heavier bullet in a semi-auto,it may cause damage to your rifle.Don't worry much about losing rams till you hit a few.
Let us know how you do.
Pa used to have a State Championship for Semi-auto Military rifle Silhouette.It was discontinued when Greg at NRA refused to record any type of long run records or national records for that classification.And we wonder why the sport is in decline.

There is a guy that shoots open sights up here in Montana. Wes is his name. I was amazed that he can even hit the rams, I can barely even sight on them (open sighted). So if you ever get up here for the Iron Man maybe we'll get you two paired up.

does the 168 take down the rams?

My 142's do and Kathy shot a 38 with a 6.0 mm something or other. Biggest bullet I know of is a 115 but the 107's take them down too. You need about 1200 ft lb of energy to take them, I think.

If you have a 11 twist barrel, stay away from the long bullets.

"open sight. most likely standard class..." There is a separate class for the High Power Semi Automatic Military Rifle. The score books have a separate section for these rifles. As to hitting the animals with iron sights, the problem is the same as with a scope, get a good sight picture and trigger pull. The 168s will definitely knock down rams, but some shooters use 175s on the ram line to reduce wind drift. Can you ring a ram with a 168? You bet, but hitting the rams, turkeys, chickens, and pigs is the central problem. Local ranges, Northern California, have "named rifle silhouette" matches, so there are plenty of opportunities for iron sight shooting. Adds another layer of fun to the proceedings.