Bret4207
At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
The only "verboten" part of an M1A was the 20-round magazine and the OEM flash-hiders. Springfield Armory came up with a CA-legal muzzle unit very early in the Assault-Weapons goat-rope sequence. The short answer to that element--if the vents on your muzzle unit run parallel to the bore line, then the unit is a "flash suppressor" and is verboten. If the vents run at some direction other than parallel to the bore line, or are drilled round--the device is then called a "muzzle brake" or "recoil reducer", and is legal. GMBTA. When you try to legislate fashion statements, such idiocies are the outcomes.
I have had 3 of the M1A variants--one each rack-grade and NatMatch in the 1980s and 1990s, then a 3rd rack-grade in the early 2000s. With the closure of the local Inland Fish & Game Association ranges (site of the Burrito Shoots made famous by Buckshot), and the costs of running a self-loading 308 on the diminished income of my early retired years, I sold that 3rd rifle off as well. Maybe if I moved someplace with a decent range nearby I would get another example, dunno. I definitely like the critters, and had use of one at work for a couple years. One fool fleeing on an ATC with an AR-15 came real close to containing a couple soft-point from that rifle in 1991 near I-15 and SR-74 in the eucalyptus groves, but the AR-15 bounced free and landed on the ground. The fleeing meth cook elected to keep going and not pick up the rifle, which saved ammunition on my end.
Whut do "GMBTA" mean?