AK-47 How to make it more accurate?

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A 7.62x39mm AK will not be as accurate as a typical 5.56x45mm AR. However, there are some things you can do that will help an AK shoot as well as a typical .30-30.

(1) If it comes with a slant brake, replace it with a flash suppressor, quality AK-74 style brake, or (if nothing else) a barrel nut to protect the threads. This step alone can help quite a bit, and is cheap.

(2) Don't expect great groups with cheap plinking ammunition. Quality ammunition makes a difference if you're shooting for groups.

(3) Upgrade to an optic or at least better sights (though some people can shoot pretty well with the factory sights, with practice).

(4) Shooting from a rest is tricky with a 7.62x39mm AK due to barrel harmonics; you may have better accuracy shooting from prone or braced arms, or shooting from a sandbag under the receiver and NOT the barrel or forend.
 
I found that my AK had been abused slightly from another owner. Upgraded to a the tactical quad rail system, ordered a new gas tube housing with out the hand guard backing plates, removed the factory front sight post, added a nice upper scope assembly with 3 different configurations, 6-way adj. stock, and a 4 in. flash break.
Shooting an AK is just what it was built for, running through the jungle and close combat arms. AK's are not meant for sniper grade shooting, only close combat, less then 100 yards, end of story. You can develop a good shooting accuracy with your weapon by plenty of practice and learning how to repeat with the many minor flaws in the particular weapon of choice. Don't mean to come off as a guru of AKs, there are no two weapons alike in their shooting capabilities. Mine had problems, I just learned to work around what I could not fix or tweek out. Happy shooting, Maximo
 
A thick receiver and heavy type barrel shines in accuracy. Polytech AKs and Yugo M 70AB2 have been tight groupers.
 
I bought a set of Mojo peep sights for mine, which greatly improved my accuracy with the weapon. 3 inch groups at 100 yards with Brown Bear. I'm sure better ammo would have produced better results, but minute of pie-plate with an AK is plenty good for me.

WASR-10/63s come with the Tapco G2 trigger, which is quite nice, even compared to stock AR triggers. On mine I used aluminum shims and JB Weld to tighten up the magazine well and eliminate mag rattle. No effect on accuracy, but the gun is now nice and tight.

This site offers a number of at home fixes to improve upon the Romy platform.

I have since removed the Mojo sights as I acquired more accurate semi-autos and decided to let my AK be an AK.
 
I love how accurate I am with my AK and only wish I could do the same with the handguns I own. I'll never understand why people always say it isn't accurate.
 
I love how accurate I am with my AK and only wish I could do the same with the handguns I own. I'll never understand why people always say it isn't accurate.

because some of those people want moa accuracy out of a rifle and bullet that isn't moa... now... can a bolt action with moa accuracy be used in CQB or in rapit fire.. NO.

different tools for different jobs.
 
The best way to make a Romanian AK into a more accurate AK is to trade it for a milled Arsenal which came factory stock with a Steyr chrome lined barrel.
 
No, This is the real anwser wise asses!

Move your rear sight back as far as possible, and you will notice an much better grouping and greater distances, this is a tried and tru method that has been incorporated on the Newer AK's of today, so yes shooting better will help, but the AK's sights are too close together to be accurate enough at a distance, so move em back its not too hard.
 
The dealer is correct. The AK is not going to shoot anywhere near as accurately as an AR. Yes you can tinker with it but it's still not comparable for accuracy to an AR. However as many of these guys say, it's good enough for them, as well as the millions of commies, and taliban. They seem to prefer Toyotas and yugos too.
 
After taking the advice of several people that have already posted in this thread, I put an ultimak rail and CompML3 red dot on my AK and it is plenty accurate for my needs.

Out to 100 yards I am VERY consistent on where I want to place my shots. 150 I start to struggle and at 200 yards, speaking honestly, I'm not that great. :eek:

I am under no illusion that the accuracy problems are the guns fault and not mine. I'm just not that good of a shooter at 200 yards right now. That will come with time and practice as ammo prices continue to come back to a reasonable level.

I always laugh when people get in here and bash the AK and say it is innaccurate, etc.. Not to be said lightly or with any disrespect, but if the AK platform was so inaccurate, can any one explain all the deaths that have occured from it? I mean there has to be some explanation other than they got lucky?

I'm just sayin... :scrutiny:
 
I suspect that most deaths attributable to the AK resulted from close range or a high volume of fire, something that has probably been true of most military firearms since the matchlock. The overwhelming majority of soldiers worldwide are not marksmen. There are only a handful of countries that really stress marksmanship. The rest basically rely on spray and pray and even among the countries that do believe in aimed fire, you can bet that almost none of the soldiers are shooting with MOA accuracy in the middle of a firefight.
 
I suspect that most deaths attributable to the AK resulted from close range or a high volume of fire, something that has probably been true of most military firearms since the matchlock.

I won't argue that, it obviously is just as relevant in regards to the AR as well. My point is the AK is plenty lethal and plenty accurate for what it is designed to do. While there may be a select few that fight all their battles from 300 yards and further, I believe most ground infantry battles are probably a bit closer in proximity.
 
You want an accurate AK? Get an AK-74 or Saiga in 5.45x39. Mine will shoot a little under 1.5 MOA.
 
A check on Youtube could illustrate the comparison.

Watching the well-known show from the Military Channel (etc), for example "The Ten Top Combat Rifles", or whatever the proper title, shows the AK barrel's flexing with the high speed camera.

pitty920's comments reminded me of "Tech sights", which sells peep sights for $45 and $60. SKS owners report much-improved shooting.
 
I love how accurate I am with my AK and only wish I could do the same with the handguns I own. I'll never understand why people always say it isn't accurate.
Man, you took the words right out of my mouth! To "make" the AK more accurate simply realize it is a really big, really heavy, really reliable, accurate enough PISTOL.

Same for the M-1 Carbine.

Al
 
I can shoot 5 inch groups without a scope. I might do a little better with open sights on a different rifle. Try using one of those Russian side mount scopes made for AK rifles. My eyes are still pretty good, but I am noticing that these scopes help out a lot in accuracy as I get older. Being able to use the exact aiming point with a scope helps out quite a bit as the AK sights aren't the greatest in the world when combined with aging eyes.

Ammo may help accuracy as well. I have heard that the mass produced eastern block ammo does have some variations in powder weights. Handloaders may get a great load that helps accuracy as well. Just remember that this is not your super accurate Winchester/Remington/Savage/Mossberg etc. bolt action hunting rifle with a nice 3x9 scope.
 
4 inch grp at 100 yds is common . It kills a man easily . 8 inch grp at 200 yds is common. It hits a man easily as well.
 
...;)....

The doctrine was built around a suppression system to get the soldier close enough to use the grenade. Mobile fire power to keep heads down till Ivan put the granate45 in your hole. We had some nice milled Chinese AK's in '67 that had very good accuracy to 100 yards and a bit more but where the excelled was 25~30 yards laying down suppressive fire in the assault to grenade range. Translations of training pamphlets stressed this doctrine.



Cheers
ee27d9b6.jpg
 
I won't argue that, it obviously is just as relevant in regards to the AR as well. My point is the AK is plenty lethal and plenty accurate for what it is designed to do. While there may be a select few that fight all their battles from 300 yards and further, I believe most ground infantry battles are probably a bit closer in proximity.

I think those of us who like to shoot often develop unreasonable expectations for how accurate a combat rifle should be. We sit at a bench with perfect lighting, well rested, shooting scoped rifles off of sandbags at a measured 100 yards and are generally able to shoot 3 MOA or less. We feel that a really good rifle/ammo combination might shoot 1 MOA or less and that one that shoots 4 MOA or more pretty much sucks.

A soldier in combat on the other hand will be shooting from an improvised position. He's probably scared to death and has just completed a flat out sprint with 100 lbs on his back. His heart's likely beating at 160 bpm or so, sweat is streaming down his face into his eyes and he hasn't had any real sleep in the last 48 hours. Bullets are flying at him and he's probably lucky if he's shooting a 3 foot group at 100 yards.

So obviously I think the AK has more than enough accuracy for it's intended purpose, but the M16/M4 has far better sights and optics mounting options and I think that's a big advantage.
 
heres my take on it. i like accurate rifles. you can preach to me all day that under field conditions a guy cant take advantage of a 1moa accurate gun but ill argue that. Even if you are only capable of holding a gun well enough to shoot 5 inch 100 yard groups, if your given a gun that is only capable of 4moa your going to shoot a much larger group then you are with a gun that shoots 1moa. You have to figure gun error and shooter error seperately and not combine them. If a gun shoots 4moa it means the bullet may land anywhere in a 4 inch circle for point of aim. So say it hits on the outer edge 4 inches from the point of aim now you combine that with the average shooters error under pressure which we will say just for argument is 5 inches. Now you have the possibility of being 9 inches from where you wanted to place that bullet and that could easily be a miss. Now take the 1moa gun and do the same and your only 6 inches away and have a much better chance of a good hit. Accuracy is our freind even at a 100 yards and dont be fooled into thinking otherwize. Another senerio when its a big advantage is in heavy brush when trying to snake a bullet through a hole in the folige. Dont get me wrong i like aks. there amazing guns for the reliability they have but theyd be a far more amazing gun if a guy could be guranteed one would shoot at least 2moa.

Ill got this route. I own a ar in 762x39 an ak and used to have to mini 30s. the mini 30s went. they are no more accurate then the ak and not as reliable. My ak runs cheap wolf ammo forever without cleaning it. It never misses a beat. My ar running wolf will usually go about 500 rounds before it gets so clogged up it wont run and maybe will have one failure to feed somewhere in the the first 500. As a civilian even in a survival situation i will never need to shoot anywhere near 500 rounds it will probably be more like one or two rounds and i will have long boring days to clean my guns. Bottom line is if one had to go it would be the ak. the ar shoots moa with good loads and 2moa with wolf and i wouldnt be willing to give up that precision to insure i can take on the whole arab region of the world in one battle. Bottom line is in a situation like that your probably going to be dead before you can swap clips anyway.
 
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Theres more involved than just the gun here, ammo, and more importantly, the shooter, which I think is usually the weakest link, also play roles.

I also think a lot of this is just over talked instead of over shot. If more actual shooting was going on, it would require less discussion. There is usually more talk about the problem, than there is work done to resolve it, especially from those who complain.

The problem here too is, many of those joining in the fray are not talking about the same thing. You have everything from casual recreational shooters to dedicated target shooters trying to discuss something that is covering a lot of ground, along with a lot of perceptions and expectations, both in the guns themselves and how they are used.

More often than not, those that complain about one gun, have no real experience with it over what they say is better, which they tend to have a lot of experience with. If you switch things around, and put some time in, I think you'll find things rarely get worse, and the gaps begin to close.

Another thing I have noticed a good bit at the range too is, those who have trouble shooting the AK, many times, dont do all that well with the AR or anything else. Again, as almost always, we're back to the weakest link.
 
I think those of us who like to shoot often develop unreasonable expectations for how accurate a combat rifle should be... We feel that... one that shoots 4 MOA or more pretty much sucks.

A soldier in combat... improvised position... scared to death... just completed a flat out sprint with 100 lbs on his back. His heart's... at 160 bpm... sweat is streaming... into his eyes and he hasn't had any real sleep... Bullets are flying at him and he's probably lucky if he's shooting a 3 foot group at 100 yards.

So obviously I think the AK has more than enough accuracy for it's intended purpose...
It does does it? Although I personally would say that the gun should be MORE accurate to help offset the human warfighter conditions cited, this begs the question: what assault rifle combination is LESS accurate than an AK?

Exactly... It's a big pistol that shoots bad ammo reliably so the inaccuracy is built in, with love, from Communist countries the world over FOR the world over. For the OP: learn it, live it, love it back. If you say they're for suicide missions I won't argue. But at least they, and their ammo, are cheap and look tacticool.

Al
 
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A check on Youtube could illustrate the comparison.

Watching the well-known show from the Military Channel (etc), for example "The Ten Top Combat Rifles", or whatever the proper title, shows the AK barrel's flexing with the high speed camera.
That video is largely bunk, if it's the one I'm thinking of. Most of the movement in the slo-mo video, if you look closely, was the cleaning rod bouncing. Yes, the AK does have a little more barrel flex than some rifles, and it becomes noticeable if you try to benchrest it off the barrel, but that video doesn't do it justice.

A more pertinent observation is that the clown shooting the AK was slapping the trigger like he was shooting marbles, and could barely even get on a B21 at 200 yards; a rack-grade AK should be able to put every round in the magazine on a large pie plate at that distance, assuming a rest and using halfway decent ammunition. Using that technique, he'd have done about as badly with a Garand. The other guy shooting the M16 wasn't too hot a shot, either, but at least he looked like he was trying to stay on the paper.
 
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