M16/AK bit

[2ndChapterofActs]

"Trust me, I have seen the physical affects of all three the M-16, M-4 and the Ak-47. Throw all those things you read away. THe 7.62 is still the deadlestt round within 200m, trust me it will rip flesh and bone right out of your body,, I have seen it first hand. THe M4 has alot to be said, it is a good weopon within 150m mostly because of it's small size so for close quarters it is perfect but alot of the guy say, and I have seen it, for myself, it does not have the stopping power needed in combat. Especially at distances gereater then 150m. Some of the guys have even picked up[ AK47s to use and just sling thier M4 over thier back. It;s like shooting a .22!!!! As for the regular M16 you get the distance because of the longer barrel, some of the guys here have added Scopes to thier standard M16 and have been hitting guys out at 500m in the head with no problem. And as for how either t! he M4 and M16 are doing. Well like in every conflict since they were invented! Clean it Clean It Clean it Clean it Clean it! If not it WILL jam at the worse time! It WILL JAM! And dont' leave your magazines loaded with a full 30rds, springs get really weak, especially in these high temps over here. And then they wont feed correctly! The AK47 of course hasnt had this problem. Oh course the enemy has the better WEAPON!"
_________________________________________________________________

This was posted by somebody a little bit ago and spawned some rather interesting discussion. I don't really want to be nocking too bad on anything that is said by somebody who is in Iraq but I am wondering where he picked up his information. A few of you may want to take a look at this bit of an email sent by my cousin. He is a Marine Sgt. and weapons specialist for a mortuary unit. Some of this appears to be direct contradiction to the above email. I asked him about the arguments put forth in this post as objectivly as I could. I would say his response was pretty even handded.

_________________________________________________________________

Nick,

Hey, sorry for not responding to all of your emails. Thanks for sending them...

Hm, the AK 47 vs M16 debate has been raging on (as you well know) for a long time so I'll give you my 2 cents (for what its worth).

You are right about the AK's inferiority when it comes to range and accuracy but its benafit with a larger round thus making it a bit more reliable in the dusty climate of Iraq

You are right about the M16's superior accuracy (800 meters point target open sight) but its deficit with needing constant cleaning with all the dust around here.

Now there are two lines of thought with the size of the round... the 7.62 is like getting hit with a sledge hammer and will mess you up, but the 5.56 is not to be overlooked. It is about speed and will travel through you with a nice shock wave causing a lot of internal dammage and/or bounce around in you if it hits solid bone. And lets be honest, a piece of straw can speed through a tree with enough speed.

The M16 (as you have pointed out) is manufactured with much higher standards than most AK's and since I've trained for 9 years with the M16 I would choose it over anything else any day of the week. As far as penetrating body armor, the majority of our opponents do not wear armor, but the squad has other weapons intrinsic to it (like the 240G) that will more than make up for any lack of individual stopping power of the M16. But this does not mean the M16 lacks penitration only a solid takedown round.

The M4 is much like the M16, just a bit smaller (and cutier <hehe>). About the only thing that is traded up for weight and size with the M4 is long range shots, but it wasn't really designed for such things so it doesn't really matter. The M4 is for close range combat and room clearning and I've never cleared a room 500 meters long on a reflex sight. The M4 will kill with the right sightline. It really is a good marriage, submachinegun and rifle all in one.

So, to say which is the best I am prejudiced to the M16, but that is my oppinon. I've never heard of service men picking up AK's unless it was out of absolute necessity. First, there is a very different sound when one shoots them so if I'm hearing AK fire from the side of me or behind me I am not going to think "that's just another one of my guys" I'm going to think "I'm being shot at from behind."

hope that helps,
J.J.

 

[mattw]

I dont know if it would apply in Iraq but I've heard stories of AKs in vietnam being made of inferior metals and actually melting from use.

 

[2ndChapterofActs]

yeah could be

I dont know if I have heard that but my dad was a Nam vet 69-71 and explained all about the change in M16's to me and such from 67 to the time when he was in. He was one of the first I heard say that the quilty of AK's have always been called into question because of the various countries making them. But I would think that the melting would be more so in Iraq then in Vietnam. After all most of the communist world was supplying AK's and other munitions to the north. Where you may get a crappy AK you could also get a good one. But in Iraq most of the main line manufactures of weapons prolly are not supplying the hostiles with good weapons. They are black market arms dealer stuff. The older the AK is the less its quility. I think there are prolly just not as many AK manufactures anymore. But I am no expert by any means.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

I'm going to concentrate on the reliability aspect of the discussion at hand.

I think some of the argument on reliability can be boiled down to machining tolerances. AK type rifles are built to looser tolerances. In general, they are riveted and stamped sheet metal parts with internals that are very simple, less well finished, and therefore cheaper. The simplicity and larger tolerances means that a given particle size might cause the AR trouble, but not the AK. The simplicity and larger tolerances also correlates to reduced accuracy.

The AR platform on the other hand usually strives to keep very tight machining tolerances and a more complex gas system which leads to a firearm with overall greater accuracy, more parts counts in which something might go wrong, but also offers repeatability in performance.

In an environment with a lot of airborne particulates like Iraq, someone will have to put more effort into keeping an AR clean because of the tighter machining tolerances whereas an AK type firearm has more reliability because it's looser tolerances don't allow gunk to jam the gun as quickly or as easily.

I've swapped parts out of an AK type firearm before (Saiga 12). Parts aren't usually "drop in". They might be slightly too big, small, or need some minor work to get it to fit. When I outfitted my AR with aftermarket parts, everything fit without any need to wiggle or jiggle things together.

 

[Tokugawa]

One day my fiend and I went out shooting, he with an AR15, me with a Valmet Ak 223. We had a big bag of bogus ammo to burn- shttty handloads, old crap you name it. His AR was a jamfest all day. The Valmet did'nt jam once. It would double, and triple, but it ate, burped and digested every junky dented soft primered cartridge that went in the mag. Not good for handloaders, tho, it spat the emptys over the hill.
This reliability did not come at the expense of accuracy either, I shot the best with it i have ever shot a military rifle. I am not much of a rifle shooter, but can remember shooting a full mag into about a 1 1/2 inch circle at fifty yards, over iron sights laying in the dirt. I know to some, this is bad shooting, for me, it's good.
Too bad we can't get them (or at least parts back up and sevice anymore.)

 

[TooTaxed]

As an ex-Special Forces civilian in Vietnam I used two AKs...a rather crudely manufactured full stock model made in China and a finely-finished Czech folding stock model I carried while riding in vehicles. The Czech was as finely blued and finished as any sporting rifle.

However, I found that the parts of the two rifles were completely interchangable! Word was that Russia furnished the tooling and machinery to the various countries.

I saw hundreds of AKs in the SF and PF camps, and never saw one fail from poor quality manufacture. They required far less care than our M16's.

 

[CentralTexas]

The magazine I'm holding

"Guns" dated July 1968 has an article "The Mysterious AK-47" that quotes Senator Charles Perry form "This Week", March 24,1968-
"US ARmy Ordnance tests in 1966 revealed appaling figures. During one set of identical tests, there were 112 malfunctions of the enemy AK-47 and 164 of the M-14. But there were 2,476 malfunctions of the M-16"

Article written by Army Major George C. Nonte said soldiers in Nam were picking up AK-47s and not using their M-16s. And ends up saying the M-16 is more accurate, less reliable, AK better in full auto mode but less effective range.
CT

 

[2ndChapterofActs]

Thats what my dad said. In 67-68 the M16 really was havin problems. He said this was due to the fact that the M16 was still in need of serious testing and was way to huridly prpared for the conflict in southeast asia. but then he said that by the time he got there in 69 that even the soldiers who liked AK's were gettin rid of them for the M16's. In a two year period the US military had rebuilt and reissued the M16. It was a fine weapon by that time. Now the AK as mentioned no doubt just performed well throughout... as long as it was of Czeck manufacture. But when it comes to Iraq you have over 30 years more service of the M16 and testing. There is no doubt in my mind that the M16 is an awesome weapon. I think it is safe to say that the two are just different. Each weapon has its drawbacks and each its shining moments but also in many cases it is the operator not the weapon that makes it. A US Marine with his M4 or M16 can take on an AK any day. This has more to do with training and more training. When a soldier knows his weapon and that weapon is as fine a weapon as the M16 I don't think there is much debate on the outcome. The entire Somolia thing I think showed that. The US Rangers and Delta operators were packing AR's for the most part and did a whole lotta damage. They gave a lot better then they got. I have often wondered if this fixation on the AK being better then the M16 is another myth that came out of Vietnam. Again each weapon has their drawbacks and advantages but over all as weapons I would say they are pretty even handed. It is the operator that changes things.

 

[TooTaxed]

One problem with the M16 in Vietnam was that if not cleaned frequently in that humid climate, light rust spots would roughen the chamber and result in case jams. The AKs had crome lined bores...I think the chamber also.

My first batch of AK ammo was picked up off a battlefield after being exposed to the weather for awhile. There was a bead of corrosion around the case mouths where the steel cases had been crimped. When I got a stock of fresh stuff I test-fired the cruddy stuff before disposing of it...and found that it wouldn't chamber completely. I had to hammer the bolt closed with a block of wood. But the cartridge fired...and chambered the next cruddy round normally! Same with subsequent rounds. I always had to hammer the bolt shut on the first round, but the rest of the mag would chamber and fire normally. I was highly impressed... I doubt that any American service rifle, manufactured to close tolerences, could duplicate that without jamming...certainly not the M16.

Could we be building to tolerences tighter than they should be for combat? Even in arid Iraq, I suspect that we experience case jams due to small amounts of grit in the chambers...

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

I call bull????? on the claim that an AK has "melted" from continued use. Not only does an AK have a chromed barrel, but also it is made from (more or less) the same steels that other firearms are made of.

Perhaps if you had 8 or 10 drums and just blasted them off one after another, the barrel may begin to fuse, but under normal conditions, there is no chance of an AK, or any other rifle for that matter, "melting".

AK's are fantastic and brilliantly designed firearms and will out-last most other rifles that have been designed to replace them.

 

[jefnvk]

Not only does an AK have a chromed barrel, but also it is made from (more or less) the same steels that other firearms are made of.

Can you guarantee that all the third world manufactuters of the guns, they never cut corners on the guns they made? My guess is that most shops probably didn't have the QC that American shops did.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

Can you guarantee that all the third world manufactuters of the guns, they never cut corners on the guns they made? My guess is that most shops probably didn't have the QC that American shops did.

Are you saying that 100% of US firearm manufactuers have never ever cut corners before? Any company in the world can and might cut corners. US companies aren't immune to that. I've had junky US made stuff and junky foreign made stuff (non gun related). Anywhere where you have a human being who is a tightwad and wants to squeeze every dime possible out of their products no matter the cost, increased productivity at the cost of quality, you're going to have problems with cost cutting and corner cutting.

I would doubt an AK would melt despite some ingrained hatred for the Kalashnikov or anything from a current or former communist nation. The wooden furniture would burst into flames and combust LONG before anything metallic on the rifle would melt unless it was made of bismuth or tin, which isn't the case.

With that out of the way, AKs are the old 4x4's of the firearm world. They're rough, take a lot of dirt, need little maintenence, and keep on trucking. AR's are akin to sports cars that can go faster and farther, but need their oil changed, fluids checked, and can't take as much dust, water, and mud before they seize up.

Clearly two different design purposes. Given ideal battle conditions, they should be similar. Given real battle conditions, the AK might do better if one is short on downtime to clean their firearms and encounters are close. Within a few hundred yards, the AK has enough accuracy to hit what you want it to. Farther than that, it might depend a lot more on luck. A properly cleaned AR should perform fine in real battle conditions, but proper cleaning might not be feasible in battle conditions.

The entire argument on which rifle excels where is a "what if A" or "what if B" situation. It isn't going to be resolved anytime since each situation is different.

 

[2ndChapterofActs]

I was gonna say the melting bit does sound a bit far fetched and there are multiple stories about how AK's have been burried and dug up later and worked fine. The tolarencing bit is very true and that isn't just rifles. I have a degree in tecnical drafting and it works the same way with the tolerances in machine parts too. I am pretty sure that the m14 for example would have similar characteristics as the AK. JJ mentioned that could be from the hevier round. But i am in no way debating the toughness and duribility of the AK. But I would imagine that most AK's that are really cool are well manufactured. But the swaping of parts is also a common thread with AK's. The m16 was just built to be an m16 if you get my drift. this is the case with many many richer nations. Many of those H&K's people always google over are similar to the m16 as in they are expensive to make and need cleaning and such. but the US has the ability to equip its soldiers with all the nesisary kit needed in the field as well as the funds to keep the 16's going and performing at a high rate. to say taht the enemy has a "better weapon" is purly a matter of oppinion. And lets not forget this either... although there is all this talk of dust and grit and therefore breakdown of the AR, in the desert with long shots wouldn't the 16 be a better weapon? of course one would say that "it has to work first" but if a US soldier is taught propper care of his weapon and follows through then there is no reason it shouldn't work. i wouldn't want to have to blame operator error on the weapon. thats a pretty childish thing to do. and somebody mentioned the advance being hauled up because of one or two people in a bunker. now that was said as a way to nock the 5.56 round but that just sounds to me like somebody wasn't thinking tactics. Again blaming operator error on the weapon is a cop out. and issues like that are very much percieved thanks to the media. the way the coverage of the Iraq deal is even if all our guys had AK's and something like that happend the news would focus in on the failures. If you were thinking weapons instead of hearing about jams and dust clogging out we would be hearing about crappy manufactuing and bad accuracy. Dispite the no jams and good feeding.

 

[middy]

What kind of momentum does a 5.56mm round have left at 800 yds? It's probably pretty pathetic. Does an assault rifle really need this kind of accuracy? That's why we have designated marksmen, after all. Give them M14s and let them take the 500 yd + shots.

I think the AR platform needs to be replaced with something more like the AK. Looser tolerances, gas piston, heavier bullets.

 

[2ndChapterofActs]

Perhaps middy but that is still effective range. these weapons will kill long after their effective range is up. Your talking maybe 2 miles or so. I remember looking in national geo. once and seeing a picture of a kid who was shot in the head just because somebody was firing an AK into the air miles from where he was.

 

[jefnvk]

I will say that the melting sounds a little extreme, but not unreasonable.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've heard stories of AKs in vietnam being made of inferior metals and actually melting from use.

Meh. I'm very skeptical of such claims. I've shot comblock AK-47 clones extensively, and found them to be nearly impossible to damage even with abuse and misuse. As I just pointed out in another post, Russian steel is actually first-rate. Superior, in fact, to the steel that came out of Springfield and Rock Island in the early years.

I still say that any firearm that needs to be cleaned daily on the battlefield to avoid malfunction is

PER SE DEFECTIVE

 

[Cosmoline]

Are you saying that 100% of US firearm manufactuers have never ever cut corners before? Any company in the world can and might cut corners. US companies aren't immune to that.

Good point. I would point to the early Springfield 1903's--NONE OF WHICH are safe to shoot because of substandard receivers. I would also point to the M-1A's that have gone KABOOM.

Most of what people think are "third world rifles" are really excellent rifles that merely made their way into third world hands through arms dealers.

 

[AZ Jeff]

Does an assault rifle really need this kind of accuracy? That's why we have designated marksmen, after all. Give them M14s and let them take the 500 yd + shots.

I think the AR platform needs to be replaced with something more like the AK.

Have you passed along this doctrinal revelation to our military training planners?

 

[Cosmoline]

The VC and NVA tried to a generation ago, but our "doctrinal planners" were too busy counting beans. It appears they're still not overly concerned about the reliability of our rifles. And they're more than happy to blame the soldiers who forget to clean the poor AR daily if there happens to be a jam.

 

[AZ Jeff]

The VC and NVA tried to a generation ago, but our "doctrinal planners" were too busy counting beans.

You missed my point, as it had NOTHING to do with reliability. The issue being questioned by the other poster was the inherent accuracy in US military rifles that is missing in the Soviet pattern weapons.

The other posted contended that the accuracy our rifles possess is not needed, and that the AK's accuracy is all that's needed.

It was that contention that prompted me to suggest he share his revelation with our military training staff. Obviously, he knows more about what level of accuracy is needed than does our military.

 

[Cosmoline]

"Our military" didn't really choose the AR-15. It was chosen by a cadre of brass and politcos after some great song-and-dance numbers by the salesmen--usually involving the quashing of a rabid pumpkin attack at the range.

 

[crucible]

As a former Marine and a vet of the First Great Sandbox Playground War, I wouldn't hesitate to take the M16A2 and it's variants into combat and put my life on line with it again in any climate. It's a reliable, accurate weapon-even in difficult conditions (internet warriors and pontificates aside). Anyone who questions it's accuracy must have gone to the Army's rifle training circa the 70-80's; Marines are all rifleman and can shoot accordingly (as well as clean them). I don't belive that anyone wouldn't want a bit more power from it, but that aside, it's a proven MBR.

I have nothing against the AK either as it too can be a fine weapon; during DS, I "liberated" a folding stock AK in and carried it in my vehicle because I could. It surely was a doggone compact (when folded) bundle of firepower, and quite handy. (Later I purchased a jewel of Egyption quality manufacturing MAADI-and I'm being sarcastic. As roughly machined as it was, it still fired anyway.)

Pick the one you fancy, get proficient in it, and leave the genitalia-size and quality debates to the Internet commandos.

 

[2ndChapterofActs]

True true,

And that 1903 bit... um not to be too pissy to our country men but 1903 wasn't exactly first world! America did have its rise to power too <grin>. Back with the melting. I would have to agree that stories about the AK melting down sound a bit far fetched but I suppose it could happen. I remember reading a book that I think was entitled "A Warriors Tale" about a green beret Sgt. named Frank Miller. Who recieved the MOH for an act of bravery in Vietnam but one of the stories he relates in that book was that he once covered the retreat of his recon team with an M60. He fired the thing so hard that the barrel began to melt down and his bullets were flying everywhere. This of course was not uncommon for many weapons of any make when fired that long. He had to change his barrels out when he got the chance. But before people begin to use that as futher AK bashing note that the M60 being used by Miller was fired for a long time. He stated that. And also mentioned that most machine gunners wouldn't be using the weapon in Nam that hard as he did on that retreat through the jungle. But melting can happen. The M60 was designed to fire a sustained rate longer then the M16 or the AK or any AR for that matter. So if it melted down i wouldn't be surprised if the AK or M16 would. And that cutting corners bit... yeah US companies cut corners just like any company but i thought that was pretty well qauashed with the idea that the M16 is just simply held to higher standards. There will always be manufacturing defects in anything but that isn't the rule of thumb. And it would also be unfair then to assume that ALL AKs are poorly made but not to assume that many or most that are made are not held up to the standards of the M16. In such as the conflict in Iraq though, the M16 dosn't have to have the duribility that the AK does. After all if our troops have email and in some cases air... i doubt very highly that they can't clean their rifles because the nessisary stuff to do it isn't around. Also I think that many people who have faught with the M16A2 in tight spots will tell you that it takes more then just a bit of dust to clog it. But then again i suppose it wouldn't hurt to be cleaning your weapon all the time anyway AK or not. There are stories even outta nam that go the other way where the AK was the one that malfunctioned not the M16. I recall one that I read about where an NVA soldier and a US GI came pretty much face to face and both pulled the trigger at about the same time but only the M16 fired. The trooper later said, "I guess I cleaned my rifle last night and the other guy didn't!" and lets not forget that dispite popular oppinion the US serviceman performed extremely well in southeast asia mostly with his weapon too. I doubt the NVA could tell our top people something that many of the grunts and their GOOD officers were already complaining about.

 

[Cosmoline]

Crucible--how often did you clean that fine assault rifle? What was the longest period you left it uncleaned after firing?