AK47 vs. M16
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Cmu_Sniper
New member
Dont know what basis you intend to use for comparison. For hunting or target shooting, AR will take it. However, Battle rifle for war, the AR cant touch the AK. 
RockyMtnTactical
New member
How is that relevant? He was a weapons designer, not a ballistics expert. He designed the AK in 7.62x39 originally because the Russians told him to, not because it was his favorite caliber or anything.
Forwardassist
New member
I guess that is why so many former Soviet countries are shifting to the AR. Not because it is cheaper to them but because they like the ARs performance over the AK. To Paraphrase an Iraqi solider "AR is for a professional military, while the AK is for the insurgents". While the AR is not perfect it does have several advantages over an AK. If the AK rifles are so wonderful then why don't the most elite special forces units around the world use it over the M4?
Jermtheory
New member
as for us civy's(without NFA goodies)...
an AK?
a semi-auto AK?:barf:
for me,the AR is more practical for any application(hunting,plinking/sport,defense/"SHTF",etc).if the AK was FA and i lived in the city...i might want it for "SHTF".although i would probably still prefer an select fire AR.
here in the country(VA mountains),the only thing i would use a semi-auto AK for(100 yard deer gun),could be accomplished just as well with my 30-30 Marlin.
an AK?
a semi-auto AK?:barf:
for me,the AR is more practical for any application(hunting,plinking/sport,defense/"SHTF",etc).if the AK was FA and i lived in the city...i might want it for "SHTF".although i would probably still prefer an select fire AR.
here in the country(VA mountains),the only thing i would use a semi-auto AK for(100 yard deer gun),could be accomplished just as well with my 30-30 Marlin.
.351winchester
Moderator
Here's how I see it. Almost an apples and oranges comparison, between the two most prolific weapons of their type. Both have glaring pluses and minuses over the other.
As a fighting tool, the AR is immeasurably better suited and user friendly. I mean fighting other than battlefield, large scale engagements, which rarely happens anymore.
But there is a lot to be said for the AK's simplicity, durability, and reliability. It is affordable to most anyone (WASR 3 .223's are less than 400. OTD), and really should be purchased instead of perpetually saving for an AR if one really cannot afford one. This is the better SHTF weapon, that can tread the world over with gross neglect of maintenance. It's controls are extremely outdated, and the magazine insertion process sucks. Rocking is nothing new to me, but found I had to get it in just right (too delicate). I love that you can still get drums for these cheaply, if only to skip a reload. But anyway, the AK and all about it is an excellent bang for your buck. 5.45x39 is a cool round and one of the cheapest rifle cartridges to be found.
I bought my WASR after a lot of thought, to be my one and only gun. Plinking was primary, obviously. But for HD, SHTF, and maybe deer hunting with a 5 rounder, still think it was a pretty good choice, all my personal priorities considered.
Fortunately I can now have as many guns as I choose to own and pay for, but still intend to get a replacement AK, in addition to an AR and .308 MBR, plus a rimfire and Scout.
Both great rifles. Have one of each if at all possible, with spare hi-caps and at least a case of surplus ammo each. Would personally prefer the up to date controls of the AR, but an AK has it's own positives.
Wish I would have grabbed some (one at least) of the Romanian AKM "G" model parts kits when they were less than a buck. With the tools, all you need is a reciever flat, some rivets and compliance parts. I wouldn't count on anything I made running right, but would be a more interesting project than building a model airplane or something.
FWIW, I would prefer these in semi in any case, if selective fire would only set it to burst or auto for fun target shooting. FA is for SAWs, and rarely for covering fire or spraying concealed targets from a rifle or sub if so armed. Accurate, aimed individual shots win fights, FA keeps heads down. In SHTF, ammo would be too precious a commodity to not make each and every shot count. IMO. That said, I think a .223 might take 3 hits anyway so...
As a fighting tool, the AR is immeasurably better suited and user friendly. I mean fighting other than battlefield, large scale engagements, which rarely happens anymore.
But there is a lot to be said for the AK's simplicity, durability, and reliability. It is affordable to most anyone (WASR 3 .223's are less than 400. OTD), and really should be purchased instead of perpetually saving for an AR if one really cannot afford one. This is the better SHTF weapon, that can tread the world over with gross neglect of maintenance. It's controls are extremely outdated, and the magazine insertion process sucks. Rocking is nothing new to me, but found I had to get it in just right (too delicate). I love that you can still get drums for these cheaply, if only to skip a reload. But anyway, the AK and all about it is an excellent bang for your buck. 5.45x39 is a cool round and one of the cheapest rifle cartridges to be found.
I bought my WASR after a lot of thought, to be my one and only gun. Plinking was primary, obviously. But for HD, SHTF, and maybe deer hunting with a 5 rounder, still think it was a pretty good choice, all my personal priorities considered.
Fortunately I can now have as many guns as I choose to own and pay for, but still intend to get a replacement AK, in addition to an AR and .308 MBR, plus a rimfire and Scout.
Both great rifles. Have one of each if at all possible, with spare hi-caps and at least a case of surplus ammo each. Would personally prefer the up to date controls of the AR, but an AK has it's own positives.
Wish I would have grabbed some (one at least) of the Romanian AKM "G" model parts kits when they were less than a buck. With the tools, all you need is a reciever flat, some rivets and compliance parts. I wouldn't count on anything I made running right, but would be a more interesting project than building a model airplane or something.
FWIW, I would prefer these in semi in any case, if selective fire would only set it to burst or auto for fun target shooting. FA is for SAWs, and rarely for covering fire or spraying concealed targets from a rifle or sub if so armed. Accurate, aimed individual shots win fights, FA keeps heads down. In SHTF, ammo would be too precious a commodity to not make each and every shot count. IMO. That said, I think a .223 might take 3 hits anyway so...
I've read reports where the velocity of the 5.56 at 200 meters or less actually produces more damage than the 7.62. When you push the distances further, that starts to change because the 7.62 carries better further.
As an urban combat rifle, I think the M-16, AR is CLEARLY superior. You really aren't worried as much about dirt, etc. It is a flatter shooting round. Less kick, faster on target.
The AR is much more versatile. A simple upper receiver change, and you can fire the 6.8 which is better than the 7.62.
It is much more expensive. I trained with it. So I'm partial to the AR platform.
With the price of ammo, I'd consider an AK, or a 7.62 upper receiver though.
As an urban combat rifle, I think the M-16, AR is CLEARLY superior. You really aren't worried as much about dirt, etc. It is a flatter shooting round. Less kick, faster on target.
The AR is much more versatile. A simple upper receiver change, and you can fire the 6.8 which is better than the 7.62.
It is much more expensive. I trained with it. So I'm partial to the AR platform.
With the price of ammo, I'd consider an AK, or a 7.62 upper receiver though.
TheManHimself
New member
I would suggest to the folks who think 5.56x45mm isn't a lethal enough round, to talk to some of the smelly bearded men who get shot with it... if it's as anemic as you claim, there should be plenty of 5.56 survivors to interview... no?
.351winchester
Moderator
The footage of the Columbian bank robber/hostage taker taking one from an AUG at about 7 yards made me devoted to the ctg. until my recent interest in longer range shooting and more efficiency from a short barrel.
IZinterrogator
New member
Alright, let's take a look at the weak point of any weapon, the magazine. Grab up the nearest AK mag and the nearest AR mag you have lying around. (Oh, you don't have one of each lying around since you don't own one of each? Then what's your basis of comparison? Why are you posting on this thread?) My AR mag has six weld points on the front and six on the back. My AK mag has 11 weld points on the front and 14 on the rib running down the back. The catch in the front of the AK mag has five welds holding it on and six holding on the tab on the back. I'm not an expert, but the AK magazine seems like it would hold up better to hard use. Plus, the obvious failure point would be the tabs on the front or back holding the magazine in the weapon. So, if the welds there break, the mag won't be held in the weapon, so you throw it away. If you break a weld on the AR mag, you can probably still seat it, but it won't feed properly due to bad feed lip geometry. So you say the AR is the problem when it is actually the magazine. The HK high reliability magazines for the AR solve this issue by using a line of weld down the spines instead of spot welding.
Next, let's look at the feed lips. The AK design appears to have been bent over and welded to the side of the top of the magazine. So we have feed lips that are doubly strong, and made out of steel in most cases to boot. Now, let's look at our AR magazine again. Single ply aluminum, you say? Correct. Much thinner and less durable, making it easier to bend and distort them. Oh, but you have the super high-speed, used by Delta Force, impervious to nuclear waste, made out of Kryptonite (okay, steel) HK high reliability magazines I mentioned previously? Good. Load one with 30 rounds, take it outside to the sidewalk, and drop it feed lips first. Go ahead, I'll wait. What? Your feed lips bent and it won't feed a round correctly now? Well, duh. Once again, the geometry of the AR magazine requires single ply construction at the feed lips, and steel bends, just like aluminum. Your AR is now a club.
So, the AR is a piece of junk due to its magazine design, right? Wrong. AK magazines were designed for hard use by an army that has no supply system except for our old Communist friends that lavished them with nothing but ammunition after their initial supply of rifles and mags were shipped in. The AR was designed for an army that has a working supply system and can replace magazines with ease. Here's the problem: no one knows that AR magazines were designed cheap because they were supposed to be disposable. Why should a company commander spend money on magazines when the ones in his arms room look just fine? Answer: they won't. I know this because in over nine years in the same unit, I have never seen new magazines unless they came with new rifles, like when we swapped our M16A2s for M4s. However, the supply source code for AR magazines is PACZZ, meaning that it is nonrepairable and nonrecoverable, as evidenced by the ZZ at the end. So these magazines are being used far beyond their usable service lives (Pat Rogers can tell you the actual service life, I don't remember at the moment), since no maintainer will inspect them for servicability. It is the responsibility of the user. Most users don't know that magazines have limited service lives, hence the perpetuation of the problem. Also, the user is only required to slide the magazine into the well to check for ease of insertion and check the spring tension and follower movement during maintenance. Both will pass with a broken but unloaded magazine, which is what you will have when conducting maintenance. No checks of the welds are required, and the problem will only manifest itself when the magazine is loaded. Also, no checks of the feed lips are required. You will find out that your mag is tango uniform when you are locking and loading. This is usually too late. However, I have developed a simple solution to mark defective magazines that I find, whether at the qualification range or during maintenance. You stomp it flat and bend it in half. Sooner or later, your company commander will realize that he is low on mags and order new ones.
So, in addition to checking your AR springs and followers, check your welds and your feed lips. Stop thinking your AR magazines are as durable as your AK mags and inspect and replace them on a regular basis, even your high-speed low-drag HK magazines. You'll find that your AR is just as reliable as an AK. How do I know? Well, I spent more time inspecting mags and ammo in Iraq than I did cleaning my M4 during two tours in Iraq. Yes, my AR was full of carbon, sand, and dust on a regular basis. Rarely lubed, too. I admit it, I'm a lazy slob. Yet my M4 never failed to fire. How odd. Could it be because I bought my own brand new magazines from a reputable manufacturer to take with me the second time? Or because I pored through about 40 magazines before I found the eight I trusted the most to take the first time? Could be. They weren't even HK mags, they were regular aluminum 30-rounders with Magpul followers and Ranger plates. Both times. And I took care of them, so they took care of me. So stop blaming the AR for unreliability because you won't feed it properly.
Once I take my new Yugo AK out for a spin, I'll comment on its accuracy. But while I've shot an AK before and it was reliable, we were just having fun blasting away and not really trying to test its accuracy. I can't and won't make any comments on its accuracy until I have tried it out for that purpose.
Lesson over. Go take your weapons to the range and give them a fair test or log out and go back to playing Counterstrike, whichever you prefer.
Edit: If this post offended you, then you probably don't have the knowledge or experience to be posting objectively on this thread. Go back to Counterstrike.
Next, let's look at the feed lips. The AK design appears to have been bent over and welded to the side of the top of the magazine. So we have feed lips that are doubly strong, and made out of steel in most cases to boot. Now, let's look at our AR magazine again. Single ply aluminum, you say? Correct. Much thinner and less durable, making it easier to bend and distort them. Oh, but you have the super high-speed, used by Delta Force, impervious to nuclear waste, made out of Kryptonite (okay, steel) HK high reliability magazines I mentioned previously? Good. Load one with 30 rounds, take it outside to the sidewalk, and drop it feed lips first. Go ahead, I'll wait. What? Your feed lips bent and it won't feed a round correctly now? Well, duh. Once again, the geometry of the AR magazine requires single ply construction at the feed lips, and steel bends, just like aluminum. Your AR is now a club.
So, the AR is a piece of junk due to its magazine design, right? Wrong. AK magazines were designed for hard use by an army that has no supply system except for our old Communist friends that lavished them with nothing but ammunition after their initial supply of rifles and mags were shipped in. The AR was designed for an army that has a working supply system and can replace magazines with ease. Here's the problem: no one knows that AR magazines were designed cheap because they were supposed to be disposable. Why should a company commander spend money on magazines when the ones in his arms room look just fine? Answer: they won't. I know this because in over nine years in the same unit, I have never seen new magazines unless they came with new rifles, like when we swapped our M16A2s for M4s. However, the supply source code for AR magazines is PACZZ, meaning that it is nonrepairable and nonrecoverable, as evidenced by the ZZ at the end. So these magazines are being used far beyond their usable service lives (Pat Rogers can tell you the actual service life, I don't remember at the moment), since no maintainer will inspect them for servicability. It is the responsibility of the user. Most users don't know that magazines have limited service lives, hence the perpetuation of the problem. Also, the user is only required to slide the magazine into the well to check for ease of insertion and check the spring tension and follower movement during maintenance. Both will pass with a broken but unloaded magazine, which is what you will have when conducting maintenance. No checks of the welds are required, and the problem will only manifest itself when the magazine is loaded. Also, no checks of the feed lips are required. You will find out that your mag is tango uniform when you are locking and loading. This is usually too late. However, I have developed a simple solution to mark defective magazines that I find, whether at the qualification range or during maintenance. You stomp it flat and bend it in half. Sooner or later, your company commander will realize that he is low on mags and order new ones.
So, in addition to checking your AR springs and followers, check your welds and your feed lips. Stop thinking your AR magazines are as durable as your AK mags and inspect and replace them on a regular basis, even your high-speed low-drag HK magazines. You'll find that your AR is just as reliable as an AK. How do I know? Well, I spent more time inspecting mags and ammo in Iraq than I did cleaning my M4 during two tours in Iraq. Yes, my AR was full of carbon, sand, and dust on a regular basis. Rarely lubed, too. I admit it, I'm a lazy slob. Yet my M4 never failed to fire. How odd. Could it be because I bought my own brand new magazines from a reputable manufacturer to take with me the second time? Or because I pored through about 40 magazines before I found the eight I trusted the most to take the first time? Could be. They weren't even HK mags, they were regular aluminum 30-rounders with Magpul followers and Ranger plates. Both times. And I took care of them, so they took care of me. So stop blaming the AR for unreliability because you won't feed it properly.
Once I take my new Yugo AK out for a spin, I'll comment on its accuracy. But while I've shot an AK before and it was reliable, we were just having fun blasting away and not really trying to test its accuracy. I can't and won't make any comments on its accuracy until I have tried it out for that purpose.
Lesson over. Go take your weapons to the range and give them a fair test or log out and go back to playing Counterstrike, whichever you prefer.
Edit: If this post offended you, then you probably don't have the knowledge or experience to be posting objectively on this thread. Go back to Counterstrike.
Jermtheory
New member
tried the PMAGs?
sold the AK a long time ago.
honeslty though,i do regret it...even if it would be collecting dust,while i shot AR's.
sold the AK a long time ago.
honeslty though,i do regret it...even if it would be collecting dust,while i shot AR's.
Good post IZinterrogator. Doesn't matter if you are an AR or an AK person. We can all agree that AR mags are downright flimsy compared to AK mags. It again goes back to their design philosophy.
AK: Magazine should be as durable as as the rifle and last a long time. Making exessive numbers of spare magazines takes up precious materials and machinery that could be used for making other war materials. Make them nice and beefy so we can get away with using weaker materials if we have to.
AR: Durable enough for a tour of combat and lightweight. If it breaks, oh well. We can stamp them out for $5 each using recycled soda cans and ship them with the next lot of ammo.
AK: Magazine should be as durable as as the rifle and last a long time. Making exessive numbers of spare magazines takes up precious materials and machinery that could be used for making other war materials. Make them nice and beefy so we can get away with using weaker materials if we have to.
AR: Durable enough for a tour of combat and lightweight. If it breaks, oh well. We can stamp them out for $5 each using recycled soda cans and ship them with the next lot of ammo.
IZinterrogator
New member
Not yet, too many servicable aluminum mags lying around. Probably will get a few when the current ones die under my boot.
But can we agree that AR reliability or lack thereof is almost completely magazine related in a quality AR? There's the catch.
89% of Soldiers recently surveyed said they were happy with their M4s, yet 19% of Soldiers had experience a jam in a firefight. So 8% had jammed in a firefight, yet were still happy with the weapon. That 8% probably realized what was to blame, the magazine and not the rifle. The other 11% probably didn't have a clue since they had done their maintenance exactly according to the TM and it had jammed on them anyways.
Very good post IZinterrogator. Your post reminds me of the sand torture recently done comparing the M4 to the three major competitors. While the M4 had 800+ stoppages out of 10,000s of rounds what is less specified in the analysis is that about a quarter of the stoppages where traced back to the magazine. Probably after all those round fired the mags springs started to wear out, and maybe the feed lips bent. As you pointed out that magazine is a weak link in the AR system.
IZinterrogator
New member
Arabia,
It would not suprise me at all if the Army had used the HK mags for the three competitors and regular old aluminum mags for the M4. After all, the competitors were made by HK or used by SOCOM, while the M4 most likely had to use the mags that came with it from Colt. If the aluminum mags are not downloaded by two rounds, they are much less reliable due to shorter mag body length. I tried sticking six of the HK magazines in the bandolier that came with my MOLLE Rifleman's Kit issued to me by the Army, and the flaps holding the magazines in wouldn't close on the HK mags because they are too long. What a shock!
It would not suprise me at all if the Army had used the HK mags for the three competitors and regular old aluminum mags for the M4. After all, the competitors were made by HK or used by SOCOM, while the M4 most likely had to use the mags that came with it from Colt. If the aluminum mags are not downloaded by two rounds, they are much less reliable due to shorter mag body length. I tried sticking six of the HK magazines in the bandolier that came with my MOLLE Rifleman's Kit issued to me by the Army, and the flaps holding the magazines in wouldn't close on the HK mags because they are too long. What a shock!
