OK I'll be the spoil sport. If you just wanna' be shootin' up the countryside without concern for actually hitting anything accurately then by all means, shoot the heck out the rifle. But if you think that some day you might want to hit accurately past 100 yards then I would recommend not exceeding those standards that I quoted from the FM 23-8.
I used to shoot the daylights out of my old standard model, I've probably put 10,000 rounds through that rifle and probably half of those rounds were shot during just a handful of shooting sessions where I fired off as many 20 round mags as possible as fast as I could. The result; while the rifle is still pretty accurate and precise (on target and tight groups) the precision varies quite a lot. I can go from sub-MOA at 100 yards to 4" groups using the same ammo during the same range session. The barrel has micro-cracks every where. Those cracks were caused by overheating the barrel and they cause the barrel to foul very easily which results in changing the precision of the rifle. Not to mention that those cracks will eventually cause the barrel to fail completely (as in splitting).
Oh and by the way, just to clarify; the M14 was developed to replace the BAR, not the Springfield Armory M1A. There is a big difference in quality and metallurgy.
From FM 23-30, the Army's basic field manual for the Browning Automatic Rifle dated 1940;
Q. What is the best rate of fire? A. Semiautomatic fire at the rate of 40 to 60 shots per minute.
Now I don't know how that rate of fire relates to our current definitions for rate of fire (cyclic, rapid, semi-auto, or sustained) but I suspect that it is actually the equivalent of the semi-auto rate which is based on accurate hits and not barrel life. If they had listed a sustained rate of fire it would be a far lower rate. But with that being so, I also believe that the BAR could still hold a higher sustained rate of fire than the M14 since it had a heavier barrel. In addition, the BAR was designated as an "automatic" rifle as opposed to the M14 which has always been designated as a "semi-automatic" rifle. That means that while the M14 (not the M1A civilian rifle) was used as a replacement for the BAR it wasn't designed to perform the same function; namely, a fully automatic weapon. Therefore, the M14 platform was never designed to be used in a full auto mode on a regular basis.
Everybody has a right to do what they want with their rifle but at least make an informed decision before you go out there burn it up.
