Was finally able to get to the range today. Printed up some 25 meter battle zero targets. Loaded up some Taiwanese mags with some semi funky LC 76/77 ball, and some CBC ball. 25 meters is 27.3 yards so I set up at 27 yards. First shot was low, but centered. After adjusting the sights and firing a few more strings I got my 250 meter battle zero. Moved it out to 50 yards and fired at 8" bullseyes. Was keeping around 3-4 inches with a flyer here and there. I was having trouble with my glasses fogging up, and the poistion I was comfortable with seemed to be right on the edge of the distance/reading section on my progressive lenses and I was having a hell of a time keeping the sight in focus. I need to get a single vision prescription if I want to shoot irons at all or just give up and put some glass on it. It sucks getting old. Moved out to 75 yards and just basically did a function test with the remaining mags. Got one failure to feed where it stripped a round and hung up before it fully chambered. That was with the old suspect LC and other than that function was flawless. Happy with the trigger, happy overall with the rifle. Need to see if single vision glasses will help then move out to 100 yards which is  the limit at this range. Going to burn up some more ball and then maybe start tuning a load. I have 16# of 4895, and as soon as my wallet stops smoking I will get a supply of 168 SMKs and start the process.

I feel your pain with the eyeballs.  You could maybe try a NM rear sight.    The hole is smaller and may help you see the targets better.  I don't have a problem with the longer sight radius of a battle rifle yet.  But my AR carbine sight radius is best left for 50 yards and under for me.  I'm actually working on how I do by just target focusing and letting the front post be blurry.  That's kind of my next experiment.  To see how I might group doing that.  You could try that with the M14 too.

To eek out the most in accuracy from your M14-type rifle, fire a magazine or two from your rifle after it's been disassembled and assembled again.  This will seat the receiver / barreled action into the stock.  

ETA:  This is why I don't bother to field strip my M14-type rifles after shooting them.  Clean the bore with wet/dry patches, make sure the bolt raceways are properly greased and be done.

Also, some brand new M14-type rifles tend to become more accurate as they're "broken in".  The bolt lugs often "wear in" and make better contact with the receiver after firing a few rounds through the rifle.

As always, I recommend the excellent drop-in Sadlak Ind. NM op-rod spring guide, which has shrunk groups in my rifles by about 1/2 an inch.  YMMV, but others here have experienced the same improvement.

Finally, some factory ammo produces better groups than others.  I really like American Eagle match ammo loaded specifically for the "M1A".  The LRBs i've had built really like it.

Claude from RA parts has extensive experience building M14-type rifles when he was associated with Armscorp.  His statement to me about M14 accuracy was that a properly built standard issue rifle should print about 1.5 MOA groups or so with quality non-match grade ammo such as US M80 ball (DODIC A166).

As a M1A and M1 owner, I know about the maintenance drill! Not sure as of yet how or whether I am going to tweak it. Looking at a scout scope system, I think the Black Feather Scout Hand Guard is superior to the Sadlak Scout mount. I plan on visiting Charlie Maloney to have him lay hands and maybe do a trigger job.

Shop around and you can find some of the generic old Army Canadian Bull zero targets.

The upper X is the impact point for M14s, the lower for M16A1s.