Posted: 2007-02-26 09:15
Skinwehr wrote:I am going to ask you this: Have you ever held either of these two weapons, or fired either of them?
I have fired many variants of both.
The AK-47 is an EXTREMELY easy rifle to make. In the past I have manufactured AK-47 rifles from raw materials. A friend of mine just recently manufactured one from scratch and did almost all of the fabrication work with a sledgehammer and a grinder. There is enough good wood in a derilict kitchen table from the trash to finish all the AK's furnishings. Its a one weekend project, i'm serious.
The M-16, on the other hand, is a bit harder to build. I know people who have made them, but to me, it aint worth the effort. First off, you'd need a casting to start with. Otherwise you could mill a billet of 6160 Aluminum but it is still a lot of work. Either way, a machine shop is an absolute necessity. Of course, it's not economic at all to cast your own plastic for the sweet 16's furniture. You gotta mail-order all that. For all that precision fabrication, it's a piece of **** design.
The AK does have more recoil than that aluminum .22 "the sweet 16" but a good muzzle break will mitigate it away. It is BECAUSE the AK weighs more that it is easier to control. The muzzle climb is to the 2 O'clock direction so you cant the break slightly to the right to counter that.
You really cant say what an AK weighs with any degree of accuracy. It's like saying "A russian weighs 200 pounds." A Bulgarian milled reciever AK will weigh more than say an Egyptian stamped one. And a Chinese will weigh even less (thinner reciever material). And what about when they dress up an M-16 in all those battery operated gizmos to make it ridiculous looking for recruiting posters? They look like they would outweigh an underfolder AK.
An AK can be made just as accurate as an AR-15. The Dragunov is proof of concept that. Just that the AK is generally so hastly produced that it suffers in this regard. There is no design reason for the Kalashnikov action to be less accurate tho. Just the tolerances of slave-labor machinists.
Regardless, they are assault rifles. Most combat will occur at ranges between 50 and 200 yards - not 600 yards away. The AK will hit a pepsi can at 150 yards- no problem. I'd rather have the security that my rifle will go BOOM when I pull the trigger than know my grouping at the range is tight whenever my rifle manages to function.
As far as damage- 7.62x39 owns the speedy little .22. I have personally seen military 5.56mm rounds (SS109 ball) fail to penetrate the windshield of a (derilict) car. On the other hand, I have seen 7.62x39 (cheap-*** wolf ammo) go through cinder blocks and still kill saplings behind it. I know 5.56 dont go through cinder block. You could probably use an AK in lieu of a chainsaw to cut down trees.
A college professor I know has an AK which he has taken to the range just about every month for the last 15 years. During that time he has NEVER cleaned the rifle. He says you can blow soot out of the muzzle. You know what tho, he has NEVER had a stovepipe, jam, misfire, hangfire or any fouling related malfunction of any sort. And the thing still shoots decent groups.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of another rifle I would try that with.
If you were to sword fight with an AK vs. an M-16 by holding the rifles by the barrels and swinging them at each other, the M-16 will definitely be rendered unrepairable wheras the AK will most likely suffer only cosmetic damage. I have seen M-16 with cracked recievers and I have heard stories from gunsmiths where an M-16 falls from a workbench and the reciever breaks.
I'll conclude this rant with a link to a website that is written in Polish. I don't know enough polish to read it but I know it is an article about an abrams that was penetrated by a really lucky RPG shot. Może wszelki tutaj przeczytał język polski?
http://www.altair.com.pl/files/r1203_abrams.htm
Sounds like you know what you are talking about, a friand of me told me that the ak have more recoil then the m16 but I belive every thing that you just wrote ^^
