I had a Romanian and Yugoslavian AK. I sold them because they were inaccurate and ACTUALLY they jammed more than any of my 4 separate ARs did.
This brings up an interesting point. Now, I don't want to turn this into AK vs. AR...but,
What if the AK's reliability factor was de-emphasized? Say it wasn't as reliable as people thought, or it's superb ability to sustain massive abuse and dirt/mud wasn't as important?
It all comes down to - what is good enough? When the rifles are clean...which is more reliable? Each has been torture tested 1,000's of rounds. When the rifles are soaked in pure mud and sand, which one is better? Probably the AK. But, there are two things to note. 1] the AK isn't unstoppable, dirt and grit can prevent the bolt from closing 2] such tests are meaningless, since when will you subject your rifle to the equivalent of opening the action, and intentionally throwing a handful of sand and grit in there? If you did, whether intentional or unintentional - your firearm handling is irresponsible and dangerous. These are fantasy tests. Is it worth giving up accuracy and ergonomics to have a rifle that *might* not choke just in case someday you're in a firefight and you just happen to accidentally fill the action with mud and sand? Jeesh!
Another thing to note is combat loud out. How many rounds and how many magazines can you carry? If a rifle platform can shoot the full load out, take a 2nd load out, and shoot that without requiring cleaning and without jamming - that's good enough. If you're going to reload or "find" another X number of magazines, chances are you have time to clean your weapon.
Also, you have to compare apples to apples. Most AK's are not anywhere near mil-spec. The better AK's are the Arsenals, the Chinese, and of course, the Russian (saiga or vepr). These have superior fit, and construction. The guns built by kits are not as good. Polish, Yugo etc...mostly came over as kits, and were built by monkeys over here. I'm sure a well-built, close to milspec as possible AK is a damn fine reliable rifle. Those Romanian rifles are ROUGH. Even the best ones are pretty rough. A MAK-90 (which was criticized as being the junk AK back in the day) is like Cadillac compared to the Romanian AK's. People on the Internet CONFUSE bad construction, with wear and tear. When you see a beat-up AK on the news in the hands of some insurgent, it has wear and tear - but chances are, it was a well-built mil-spec AK. When you see a rough commercial AK, that's because it is probably a factory 2nd. There's no excuse for canted sights, bent piston tubes, mangled magazine wells, crooked catches and trigger guards ...etc.
Same goes with AR's. There's about a bajillion makes out there these days. Tons of generic parts. Lots of junk. The closest to milspec is Colt. AR's are a whole lot more reliable when they are assembled correctly. Gas tubes need to be indexed correctly, same with gas blocks. The quality of the bolt and the carrier is a huge factor. Even the trigger control and small parts are totally different from a top grade AR to a generic junk AR. The better ones have heat treated hardened steel, where others have pot-metal.
The only negatives of the AR comes with the carbines. They are over-gassed. This puts more stress on the bolt than was originally intended. So, rather than having a bolt that could survive 20,000rds or more, carbine bolts usually give up the ghost around 6,000rds +/- a few thousand. AR magazines are a little cheesy too. But, they're a compromise. It's much lighter than an AK mag. The only problem is that most AR mags are quite stiff on 30rds, and cycling that first round into the chamber you'll notice a really slow carrier going into battery.
That's about it. I've seen AK's jam. They aren't immune. Nothing is. Which is why people should get away from this mentality that they can just buy reliability. It is better to learn to clear a jam, and it is better to not be lazy and to clean your rifle, regardless of what it is, after every single shooting session.
A well oiled machine will treat you better.
just buy a G3 its blow back operated better chance of not jamming but it would jam to if not cleaned ...