...all but ONE M1A I've seen for sale used on the EE here and other boards has 200 or less rounds through it???

The one exception... had less than 300 on it.

You would be surprised at the amount of people who buy firearms, and never use them.  Aside from that, some of the sellers "may" be a little deluded.  For instance, the guy I bought mine from said it was "like new", yet when I got it, it was not like new.  Hell, he didn't even clean it before selling it to me.  But, it's got a lot of GI parts on it, and I've put 1500 rnds through without any issues, so I'm more than happy.  


If you're interested, I've got a "like new" M1A with less than"200" rounds through it for sale.

Good comments above but a throat erosion gauge is still a good friend to have.

Could be people used to the AR15/M16 buy a 30 cal rifle then find out its heavier, louder, and harder kicking? More expensive shooting too.

Quoted: Could be people used to the AR15/M16 buy a 30 cal rifle then find out its heavier, louder, and harder kicking? More expensive shooting too.

Sure... That's one take on it. Somehow I doubt THAT many guys do that though. I've seen probably 20 for sale in the last few weeks (here and other boards) and somehow, miraculously, they all have less than 200 through the tube.

HMMMMM  

I shot one for the first time the other day, and I didn't think it kicked that much at all.  Now the ammo the guy had was surplus so I don't know if that's week but it didn't seem to hurt any more than 5.56.  It definitely had more of a shove, but it was like delayed.  Not as sharp as a bolt action.  Obviously because it's an auto.  And it's heavier than most bolts, except heavy barrel precision rifles of course.  But I'm not a big guy and I can't see most guys having problem with the recoil of that rifle.  There are plenty of reasons why guys buy an expensive gun and not shoot it that much.  But I'm not going to go on about that.  I just wanted to put my 2 cents in about the recoil.  Although, you could be right, maybe somebody is not used to it.

M1A's are probably the most common " Safe Queen ". People spend $ 1500 on a rifle and are afraid to scratch it so they never shoot it and end up selling it later on down the road ...

Like Different said above... you should always ask for muzzle wear and throat errosion measures. If they can't tell you then you're taking a risk.

That said I will share my M1A purchase experience. I was searching for a Preban M1A that was under the price range for a new one. At the time the status of the AW ban was still in the air and I didn't want to end up spending way more for preban if by chance the ban was lifted. After months of searching I finally bought the preban M1A from a store in Oregon that had the gun up for sale on gunbroker.com. They said that the gun was sold to them by an older gentleman that shot it at the range once. It came and had a muzzle wear and throat errosion of zero. The bore was clean but everything else was dirty as hell. I believe it had been shot and never cleaned throughly. The oprod guide spring was totally rusted, the gas system and piston (pitted from carbon) were crusted, and all of the rifles "greased" areas were only oiled. It was still worth it because of the GI parts and the Winchester logo engraved barrel. Sometimes you take a risk and just have to weigh the pros and cons.

You wanna talk about a safe queen, here's my dumb ass purchase of my lifetime.  I bought one of those $2500 Steyr Scouts ( great rifle, 3/8 MOA all day long), and sold it because I found .308 ammo was too expensive.  I shoulda picked up that MP5 ($4000) instead....