Gnarly Russian Training

Russian weapons are what they are. Robust weapons with very violent operating systems that will slam rusty, pitted ammo into battery. Since they will slam almost anything into battery, they will cycle darn near anything. They were made to mass produce very cheaply, and be very reliable in the hands of those with little to no training.

Try taking the bullet guide out of your AK. I bet money that the round hitting the breach face instead of sliding into the chamber will unseat every round and jam the projectile into the casing. Actually, don't do that, it's not all that safe:o. Also, the gas system lets A LOT of gas through, basically able to pull damn near any ammo out of the chamber. Hell, you could pit the chamber and fire brass ammo, and I bet it would still rip the rim off of the casing if it didn't extract case in full.




With all that being said, an AK is a darn good weapon for the price... er well it was a good weapon for the price. These days... not so much. It is not indestructible, It is not rust proof (nor are most finishes on AKs of any comparable quality to most western weapons), and it will not survive being run over by a humvee unless you run over 2 inches of the muzzle and nothing else. They're decent rifles that fit in with Russian military doctrine. With that said, I'll take our version of the assualt rifle any day of the week if I have to go to war.
 
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Influence of the Mongol invasion on Russian society

A significant number of historians consider the oppression of Rus' by the Mongols to be the major cause of what is sometimes called "the East-West gap" - approximately 200 years delay in introducing major social, political and economical reforms and scientific innovations in Russia comparing to Western Europe. Specifically, the isolation from the West may have caused Russia's later non-involvement in the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and failure to develop a middle class.[6]Some argue that the yoke had a severe destructive influence on the delicate system of unwritten laws regulating everyday life of society. For instance, Valeriya Novodvorskaya mentions that the death penalty, long-term imprisonment and tortures had not existed in Rus' before the Mongols invaded the country. Over half the population of Rus may have died during the Mongol invasions.[7] However, Colin McEvedy (Atlas of World Population History, 1978) estimates the population of Russia-in-Europe dropped from 7.5 million prior to the invasion to 7 million afterwards.[8]

The period of Mongol rule over Russia included significant cultural and interpersonal contacts between the Russian and Mongolian ruling classes. By 1450, the Tatar language had become fashionable in the court of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Vasily II, who was accused of excessive love of the Tatars and their speech.[9] Many Russian boyar (noble) families traced their descent from the Mongols or Tatars, including Veliaminov-Zernov, Godunov, Arseniev and Bakhmetev. In a survey of Russian noble families of the 17th century, over 15% of the Russian noble families had Tatar or Oriental origins. [10] In the religious sphere, St. Paphnutius of Borovsk was the grandson of a Mongol baskak, or tax collector, while a nephew of khan Bergai of the Golden Horde converted to Christianity and became known as the monk St. Peter Tsarevich of the Horde.
 
Cheap is the magic word

Russian designed firearms are simple to manufacture and cheap to buy. I mentioned that I fired a full-house AK47 many years ago and was not impressed. Certainly not enough to diminish my trust in the M16. Also had a Russian made captured SKS (marked "CKC" in cyrillic) that I traded for a handgun because that rifle was simply not impressive. Popularity of various soviet firearms stems from simple economics - they are cheap - not extreme reliability. Few recreational shooters will steep their AK's in a mud pit then roll over it with a bulldozer to prove how wonderful their firearm can be; yet this is cited as rationale for owning a commie weapon.
 
Popularity of various soviet firearms stems from simple economics - they are cheap - not extreme reliability
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?

The M-16 I we used for qualification in ROTC jammed constantly, and yes we cleaned and lubed them.

I have fired many civilian AK and SKS, chinese, yugo, romania, russian, bulgarian, hungarian, etc and never had a failure.

My makarov is extremely reliable, every bit as reliable as other more modern guns I have owned.

My experiance with Russian firearms are that they are durable, reliable, accurate enough for intended purposes, yet crude and lacking refinement, such as the AK's poor sights, clunky selector/safety and the makarov's poor sights and heel clip magazine release.
 
Cheap is not the bottom line for popularity, if it's cheap and crappy, most people will avoid. Look at Jimenez/Davis/Jennings/Bryco, it seems like 95% of the people that have something to say about them, have something bad to say. If people ask on this board, "should I get one of these?" The answer will be a unanimous no. Some go so far as to debate whether it's better to have no gun at all, than relying on one of these "ring of fire" pistols.

In contrast, when someone asks, "should I get a Tokarev?" The response would be a near-unanimous "Heck yeah, you should!" I like inexpensive firearms, the most I've spent in any gun is $240. I could get a brand new Jimenez .22 for $119 or a .380 for $189, so if cheap were the bottom line, I'd have one already, or two. And yet, there is not a chance in the world I would ever get one, unless it was given to me for free, and even then, I'd probably use it as a trade-in for something else, best to do that before it gets a chance to get broken. And yet, I, and many here, have no issue at all with getting a used, 50+ year-old Tokarev and almost no one regrets their purchase. If these guns were bad, then even low prices would not afford them the popularity that they have.
 
The M-16 I we used for qualification in ROTC jammed constantly, and yes we cleaned and lubed them.
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I admit that M16s are a little more finicky of a design than AKs... however in a professional army with trained armourers and soldiers an M-16 is just as reliable. What I'm really saying is... I'm not sure ROTC rifles would be the best examples of a well kept rifle. The ROTC unit probably obtained them from the military after they had already been rode hard and put away wet, and I would be willing to bet that their tenure at ROTC wouldn't see the same quality of maintainence that you would get from the Army or Marine Corps. There are a few things that will cause an M-16 to jam besides being dirty. Most of them are easy fixes. AKs are less prone to jamming because they could slam a square peg into the round chamber from spring tension alone. BTW, I have seen many an SKS that was a jam-o-matic. I'm not talking about bubba'd conversions either.

Cheap is not the bottom line for popularity, if it's cheap and crappy, most people will avoid. Look at Jimenez/Davis/Jennings/Bryco, it seems like 95% of the people that have something to say about them, have something bad to say. If people ask on this board, "should I get one of these?" The answer will be a unanimous no. Some go so far as to debate whether it's better to have no gun at all, than relying on one of these "ring of fire" pistols.

In contrast, when someone asks, "should I get a Tokarev?" The response would be a near-unanimous "Heck yeah, you should!" I like inexpensive firearms, the most I've spent in any gun is $240. I could get a brand new Jimenez .22 for $119 or a .380 for $189, so if cheap were the bottom line, I'd have one already, or two. And yet, there is not a chance in the world I would ever get one, unless it was given to me for free, and even then, I'd probably use it as a trade-in for something else, best to do that before it gets a chance to get broken. And yet, I, and many here, have no issue at all with getting a used, 50+ year-old Tokarev and almost no one regrets their purchase. If these guns were bad, then even low prices would not afford them the popularity that they have.
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I agree with this post 100%... as long as you accept that there are cheap, reasonably accurate, reliable firearms to be had but they usually aren't as wonderful and great as some make them out to be. We've all heard the unreal stories about an AK. They never jam. You never clean them. They never rust. They never malfunction. You can run it over with a tank and it will still fire. While I think they were excellent firearms for the money (before they went up drastically), don't turn them into something they're not. I've seen them jam, you can not throw one in salt water for 2 years and then pulll it out and fire it, and a tank will flatten the stamped reciever. Great weapons, but just as everything else they have their limitations.
 
I agree with this post 100%!

I agree with this post 100%... as long as you accept that there are cheap, reasonably accurate, reliable firearms to be had but they usually aren't as wonderful and great as some make them out to be. We've all heard the unreal stories about an AK. They never jam. You never clean them. They never rust. They never malfunction. You can run it over with a tank and it will still fire. While I think they were excellent firearms for the money (before they went up drastically), don't turn them into something they're not. I've seen them jam, you can not throw one in salt water for 2 years and then pulll it out and fire it, and a tank will flatten the stamped reciever. Great weapons, but just as everything else they have their limitations.
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There are other reasons folks buy Russian-made or -designed weapons I haven't seen mentioned yet, including the relative novelty of them, the historic significance of them, and the simple I-don't-have-one-of-those factor.

I happen to have an CKC :p and a Mosin-Nagant 91/30, and will, no doubt, add other Russian/Soviet weapons (including possibly a handgun or two) as time goes on. They are fun to shoot. They are reasonably accurate for their intended purpose.

Works of firearms artistry they ain't!
 
Who ever said the Russians were smart? How about the political intelligentsia in America for almost 40 years? Can you think of another reason that we spent countless hundreds of billions of dollars building nuclear weapons, trying to improve our submarine design and funding CIA operations to learn about and de-stabilize the second most powerful regime in the world post WWII? Regardless of the eventual outcome of the Cold War, at the time it was very real and very scary.

I think ignorant is more apt than offensive.
 
I remember watching.......

I remember watching one of those reality tv shows that shows fights and different police videos and seeing soome of the training those guys go through and it looked extremely painfull.
There being hazed by kicked and punched over and over to build tolerence to pain.
 
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