What really is the effective range of an AK 47/AKM?

[matchinson14]

Now I know this topic has been beat to death but I'd like to hear some fresh opinions as well as input mine since I'm new here. I've heard many say that effective range of the AK is only 200m or so. I find this to be very low. The Russian Army placed Ak effective range to be 400m in semi auto and 300m in fully auto; both of these acceptable accuracy was minute of man (practical and acceptable to me too). Now I understand that these estimates were in a factory under slow firing non stressful conditions. It is my opinion that effective range under combat in semi auto would be around 300m, and full auto would be 200m. Do these seem like reasonable ranges to you guys? The only AKM I've ever handled was a well put together non canted relatively new Wasr 10/63 and that was only out to 100 yards. I pulled off about 4 inch groupings. Also, a friendof mine from Israel is in their defense force as a reserve. He was trained with an AKM and said that, contrary to what people see in the movies, they are instructed to only shoot at targets in semi auto mode with the AKM for any target beyond 200m. Makes sense to me. What do you guys think?

 

[rcmodel]

I think the 400m effective range would only be realistic if somebody wasn't shooting back at you!
Yes, it really makes a difference!

300m on full-auto is laughable, except for advancing infantry laying down a beaten zone in front of them.

With no expectation of any individual solder hitting any individual enemy solder.

Russian battle doctrine was to drive up to the battle within 300m, riding in APC's.
Then Everybody Out Of The Pool.

And advance while laying down suppressing FA fire with no expectation of anyone actually hitting any individual targets.

Just a rain of bullets to keep their heads down till they could get closer.

rc

 

[CSC_Saint]

I have seen guys accurately engage people at ranges past 1000m with ak47's. I had a taliban fighter engage me from over 2000 firing from the hip managing to drop rounds all around my position. So factory specs, manuals and doctrine that says effective range dont mean much to me. Know your weapon through and through and you can do some ridiculous things with it.

 

[Sebastian the Ibis]

I think the 400m effective range would only be realistic if somebody wasn't shooting back at you!
Yes, it really makes a difference!

A couple years ago my uncle was over in the sandbox. His "guide" wanted to demonstrate his disdain for the folks living on the other side of the valley by taking some pot shots at them with an AK-47. The folks on the other side of the valley had a heavy MG. The "guide" quickly decided there were better ways to determine the effective range of an AK.

 

[Mosin Bubba]

There is a battle setting on the rear sights of both my AK and SKS. Pull it all the way to the back, and you are set for 300 yards. So I think that would be the Soviets' estimation of those rifle's effective ranges. 7.62x39 bullets starts dropping like a rock past 200 yards, so I doubt you could shoot accurately beyond that point anyway.

RC, do you have any sources of information about Soviet battle doctrine? That's pretty good stuff.

 

[Collector0311]

I have seen guys accurately engage people at ranges past 1000m with ak47's. I had a taliban fighter engage me from over 2000 firing from the hip managing to drop rounds all around my position. So factory specs, manuals and doctrine that says effective range dont mean much to me. Know your weapon through and through and you can do some ridiculous things with it.

Max range and max effective range have two very different meanings. I think you're referring to max range here. Firing from the hip being probably the least effective way of engagement.
There's a video floating around of a guy calling himself "Instructor Zero" where he engages silhouette steel at 300m with a 9mm. This still does not equate to "effective" rounds on target at that distance.

 

[rcmodel]

No, just what the Army was teaching me during the Cold War in the 1960's.

But you might find out something on about page 60 - 70 of this Army Field Manual.

http://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf

Rc

 

[matchinson14]

rcmodel, nice material. I still find it hard to believe the AKM can't consistently hit a man past 200m though; at least on semi. Auto forget it of course. I still think 300m on semi seems reasonable.

 

[illinoisburt]

Choice of definition of "effective range" is in order. If you mean getting bullets in the general vicinity of the enemy causing them to have to take cover, then yes the 300 and 400 yard ranges may be realistic in many settings. If however you mean a soldier consistently shooting and hitting enemy personnel from field positions with aimed fire during combat then the range is going to be substantially less. Probably more on the order of under 200 with semi-auto and definitely less with full auto after the first round leaves the muzzle. But then again this is likely true of most any combat rifle, AK or otherwise.

 

[goon]

I think you'd be in considerable danger from an AK or SKS fired with reasonable care, semi-auto, at 300 meters. I've fired both at steel targets at that distance. Honestly, I prefer the SKS when I actually want to hit something. Longer sight radius and somehow it's just better for me at putting lead on target. But the 7.62x39 round and the AK can still get them there. I'd call 200 yards on an upright man sized target a certainty with either. The best 7.62 AK that I ever owned shot about 2.5" to 3" at 100 yards from a rest with Ulyanovsk 123 grain FMJ, which was some of the better Russian stuff I've shot. With groups like that, you're still only talking a maximum of about 9" at 300 yards, and 9" is plenty good enough. If you get into 5.56mm AK's shooting good ammo, I shot groups around an inch and a half with a VEPR K when I owned it.

I actually outshot a guy shooting a scoped FAL at both 200 and 300 yards with the SKS (open sights). At the time, I was shooting a lot and he wasn't. It's the shooter as much as the rifle. FWIW, we were shooting 2/3 sized steel pigs at 300 yards and steel chickens at 200 yards. The chickens weren't too hard to hit, and the other guy gave up at 300 yards after I went 3 for 3 on the pigs. I was glad, because I looked like one hell of a marksman right then, but if I'd gone for 4, I might have broke my streak.

 

[rcmodel]

Again, the 'effective range' of a rifle shrinks considerably for the average soldier when they are taking incoming fire.

What you can do on a peaceful rifle range in the USA is not the same thing you can do when the 'targets' are shooting back!

That's my story, and I'm sticking too it!

Rc

 

[goon]

Yeah, the whole two-way range thing is a different story. But if we're going to go that route, the relatively good accuracy of an M-16 ain't gonna be so relatively accurate either. And if you happen to be that poor guy who gets shot at first by a well trained guy with an AK who can keep his breathing under control... not good.

FWIW, even on a calm day with everything in my favor, I can still easily miss a 9" balloon at 100 yards if I don't pay attention to the basics.

 

[stubbicatt]

2000 meters, fired from the hip? Well, you hear new things every day.

I saw a young man firing a WASR keep 7 rounds he fired that day at 400 yards in about 10" circle. He was young, good eyesight, coached by his dad who is also a demonstrated good marksman. That is just over 2 MOA by my reckoning.

Myself I have shot at a Tide laundry detergent bottle on a hillside at 300 yards from kneeling and hit that thing several times with a domestically built Yugo AK many years ago. I reckon that's a headshot, several times over.

Lastly, that same young man who shot on the steel ran 5 rounds over my CED chronograph. I no longer remember the velocities, but of the 5 shots 3 were the exact same velocity, and the other two were within 15 fps., IIRC. That was "Hotshot" brand ammo.

I reckon the quality of the ammunition shot in a rifle will have a bearing on its accuracy potential.

 

[kBob]

The old Red Star small format magazines in English the Soviets used to provide were available in my college library (Florida State). At least one article I used for back ground on a report of the RPG7 in college seems to have been plagerized by some guys that got published in Soldier of Fortune years ago.

The magazine one month described an Infantry competition among Soviet troops from throughout the USSR. One event was seven kneeling man target exposures at 300 meters to be engaged with one magazine on full automatic. They must have felt this was reasonable or they would not have tested for such and published results.

It amazed me how few college ROTC folks bothered to use this source of excellent know your enemy material. I also spent time looking at the large format color magazines in English that were like our old Life and Look magazines.

When the US army was still using bad and incorrect line drawings of the PKM and SVD there were excellent articles with both line drawings and photos of those weapons in Red Star. I saw photos of the AK74 and AKR (or whatever folks are calling the so called Krinkov now) before the US army even admitted they existed in those small format magazines. When I tried to point them out I was rebuffed.

WHB Smith or Hatcher (one or tother) had a table in one of their books showing the usefulness of the M43 cartridge on the battlesite or 300meter setting to demonstrate the concept of battle site zero. Basically with the sight on the BZ or 300 meter setting it was minute of kneeling man target from the muzzle to 400 meters.

One of the changes in rifle marksmanship that I found upsetting going from the M-14 to the M16A1 (actually my first was an XM16E1 but whatever) was the US army stopped teaching to hold at different spots for best effect at various ranges and went to center hold only. I found that doing the hold a bit low at 150 and a bit high at 300 helped my qualification scores even with the plastic wonder waffen dispite the training doctrine. I believe the Soviets taught something like that with their marksmanship program based on some illustrations I once saw in a Russian language magazine somewhere.

-kBob

 

[Robert]

OP, set some paper or steel torso sized out at ranges past 200y and do some real world testing. See what you can do as far making hits with in the center mass of the target. If you have the space put them out to 400y and try again.

 

[kBob]

oh one other thing......

In the US military the term maximum effective range for small arms is the range at which the average soldier can obtain 50 percent hits or better on the Known Distance range on a kneeling man target with sights set for that range.

That sight setting thing was a killer as the M-16A1 with M193 ball battle sight zeroed at 250meters was strikeing the bottom of a kneeling man target at 300 meters. Beyond that the long range aperature was flipped up. This actually only changed te zero from 250 to 300 meters and at 375 the bullet was again in the lower edge of the kneeling (type E) man target. That 460 meter Max Effect Range listed in the books required one to zero the rifle at that range, not an easy task with the M-16A1. I was amazed at the number of NCOs, even with marksmanship training commitees that incorrectly thought flipping the rear sight apperature actually gave one 460 meter abilities.

This was one of the reasons that the sight on the A2 with its easy range adjustments was one of the most requested by the troops modifications along with better ammo and barrels.

-kBob

 

[itsa pain]

I do not know if debates on the range of said combat gun mean anything when no one will stand in the open rugged terrain at 300 yds while you set up a bench and take fouling shots like in a prarie dog town. with bullets flying around and guys behind cover what can you hit. most of the time fire is called in

 

[arspeukinen]

My max range with open sights is 200m. Can't see targets farther than that anymore...
Mechanically, 300m is nothing to an AK/SKS with proper ammo.

 

[strambo]

In the US military the term maximum effective range for small arms is the range at which the average soldier can obtain 50 percent hits or better on the Known Distance range on a kneeling man target with sights set for that range.

KBob is on the right track. We can't possibly come up with a Max. effective range number until we define what the term means to the person asking the question.

If an AK is capable of 4 MOA mechanical accuracy, then that would be roughly 16" at 400 yds, lets say 17" at 400m. So, a perfect shooter could place 100% in an 18x40" torso target. So, the max effective range in that scenario would be determined by the shooter in question's skill and desired hit percentage to be deemed "effective."

300m is probably reasonable for the average (but trained) shooter to get a 50% hit rate with the crappy irons, maybe 400m with a better RDS mounted.

I had an AK as a contractor in Iraq and was dinging 12" steel at 100yds every time from the kneeling rapid fire (1 shot per second), with a Trijicon reflex sight easy. So, for me based on that, it would be way over 200m, I never had a chance to shoot it at distance though.

 

[Slamfire]

I know Larry Moore ran accuracy tests with shooters, whose capabilities ran from novice to NRA Master Class. I forget the results, but I would expect the novices were just as bad with any rifle. I have pulled targets for novices, some, at 600 yards, could not stay on a 8 foot by 8 foot target (with Colt HBAR’s).

I am of the opinion that the Soviet AK47 was very pragmatically designed. The Soviets recognized that it takes lots of training for novices to even have mediocre shooting skills, and they did not have that time when they were losing millions of men to the Germans. One of the oldest members of the gun club had only 20 rounds of familiarization before shipping off to Iwo Jima. He was issued a new carbine, one that he had to zero in combat!. My Uncle, a 101 Airborne veteran, he had eight rounds of familiarization before dropping into Normandy. Such a lack of training even extends to the peacetime US Army. Even with lots of time, when our Armies deployed to Iraq, we had people (Private Jessica Lynch for one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch) whose firearms training so lacked, she did not clean her weapon in theater, she did not understand how to clear a jam when the gun jammed in combat. She said, on television, “it jammed”, end of story, gun broke, game over. With enough GI’s being killed in a 360 degree war, the US Army gained renewed emphasis on “weapon familiarization”, that is, shooting enough rounds so the troops know what direction to point the thing, operate the controls, and how to keep the gun running, even if it jams. But, even almost a decade later, troops were not trained to a high degree of marksmanship.

Here, in a combat zone, GI’s are training at what looks to be 25 meters and the maximum distance at the range was 100 meters.







So given that even rich nation states don’t train their shooters to high marksmanship skills, weapon inherent accuracy is traded off for other considerations. Some of them are cost, reliability, simplicity, etc. The AK47 and the M16 have all the accuracy needed for cannon fodder, the AK47 is so rugged and reliable, that pre teenagers in Africa are merrily killing people, with guns they don’t know how to clean or clear.

Their maximum effective range?: probably squirt gun distance. Who needs a target rifle for that?

 

[goon]

Kind of an aside to this situation, but I will say that years of familiarization with firearms was a huge help in the Army. The told us in Basic that the M-16 was different from other rifles, forget everything you think you know, yadda yadda...

But when it came to clearing malfunctions, I already understood the concept from having grown up with a 10/22 in my hands. Clearing a malfunction came so quick to me that I didn't really even think about it - I just knew what had to happen to get the rifle firing. There's an awful lot to be said for familiarization with your rifle.

 

[akarguy]

The leaf sight says 1000m... So there you go.

 

[nathan]

.22 LR goes a long ways on open fields. 7.62 x 39 can do some damage to someone a long ways even if its dropping fast like a brick.

 

[locotonyf]

Look up the ballistics and trajectory for your preferred ammunition and decide for yourself.

 

[200Apples]

.
While shooting my X 39 bolt carbine, iron sights, to 100 yds at a local outdoor range, I wanted to see if I could lob 5 rounds out to 600 yds and come close. While I did not ring steel, I did see dust clouds everywhere in the dirt immediately around the steel's mounting pole. Had the muzzle pointed rather high. That was a fun few minutes of nonsense.