What's wrong with the AK? I'll tell ya.

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Badger Arms

Badger Arms

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I have never been a believer in the AK-47. It's no secret to those who have read my posts that I'm not a big fan of the M-16 either, but that's a whole different can of worms.

What got me started was watching that Discovery Channel "AK vs. M16" show that was talked about in an earlier thread. I was enthralled by watching high-speed video of the AK-47 firing. You could SEE everything shaking and rattling with the recoil. There were numerous harmonics, shakes, torques, rattles, jumps, clanks, etc. Each and every one of these little jolts jumps the rifle off of target and beats the crap out of different assemblies in the gun. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the AK will shoot itself apart. I'm saying that this is NOT the way to design a gun.

The reason? The AK-47 allows the recoil forces to be transferred in several stages and in different directions.

Watch this video first: http://www.bsg-dornier.de/schiessen/filme/hsp/kalashnikov.mpg

1) the recoil of the bullet firing is transferred in a direct line through the bore axis and above the shooters shoulder pushing back.
2) the counter-recoil of the propellant gas pushing the bolt carrier group back this motion being in a line slightly above bore line pushing forward
3) the bolt carrier smacks the rear trunion on the receiver (SOMETIMES!) again transferring its energy in the opposite direction of (2).
4) the bolt carrier jumps up striking the top of the rear sight housing twisting the muzzle up.
5) the action spring accelerates the bolt carrier forward.
6) the bolt carrier assembly smacks into the forward end of the receiver pushing the gun forward in the same axis as (2) again.

Now, things happen too. The rear sight jumps around, the magazine jumps back and forth, the weak hand slips back and forth, etc. That's just the action. These forces torque the barrel, gas block, front sight, and all of the loose rattling parts all over the place. There is NO WAY we can attain accuracy. I’m speaking of accuracy not only in terms of single shots but controllable, predictable bursts that one can effectively keep on target.

What are the solutions? There have been three approaches to minimizing adverse kinetics of full-auto weapons.

1) The M-16 addressed the off-bore-axis problems by utilizing an in-line stock and in-line recoiling. It also addressed the problem of the bolt carrier striking the rear of the receiver through an [eventually] successful buffer system in the stock.

2) Prior to this, the MP43 (Do I have the model right?) solved the problem through the Constant-recoil principle where the bolt carrier doesn't smack anything at the rear. This allowed for a constant force on the shooters shoulder instead of the herky-jerky movement of the subsequent AK-47.

3) Even earlier, many designs utilized the recoiling barrel to spread the forces out over a longer period of time. The M-2 50 caliber and Johnson automatic come to mind.

4) The Russians now have a gun that has a counter-weight system that is very complicated but seems to work.

Some ideas. Why not have the entire action connected loosely to the buttstock. Have two recoil springs. The primary one acting much like the AK-47 return spring except utilizing the constant-recoil principle. The second spring to allow the operating system of the gun to recoil free of the shooters shoulder. This second spring should be stronger and only needs to soften the peak recoil forces. It only needs to travel about an inch at most. Add to this an in-line recoil system and recoiling barrel to minimize disturbance.

The end result is a gun that will stay on target during full-automatic bursts. Rather than a gun that jumps and scatters bullets, we would have a rifle that acted like a laser-beam cutting whatever it was pointing at to shreds. Rather than pointing the burst, we can aim the burst and/or walk the fire onto the target without the gun working against us. What do you think?
 
What's the MP43?

The Beretta AR70 and Sig 550 all have the return spring around the op rod. This would make room for some sort of recoil buffer behind the bolt carrier. However, those two rifles have nothing but empty space back there. I wonder why they changed the return spring in the first place.

Here's a relevant article on the "counterpoise" system for ARs. Interesting that it says "constant recoil" only works for open-bolt firing.



http://www.ccfa.com/article.htm
 
I didn't have any trouble keeping rounds where I wanted them with crappy combat pickups in Kuwait. It's not like you are trying to shoot the National Match course for leg points on full-auto. :rolleyes:
 
good points, Badger

but remember, all those features of AK did'n appered for nothing.

the notorious smack of the bolt group against the receiver is the result of over-povered gas drive, required to attain extreme reliability when gun is fouled inside. For some reasons top brass in the russian army didn't liked the SVT/FAL type gas regulators in the hands of the recruit, who sometimes hardly speaks russian and spent most of his 18 years life in the high mountains, watching goats.

the amortisatored butt is a funny thing in the hand-to-hand combat, which is a must requirement for any russian weapon - i can imagine such a gun bouncing off the enemy's head into your own face after the buttsroke (note that soviet field manual officially stated that AK intended to fight enemies "with fire, bayonet and buttstock").

the constant recoil will require a longer receiver (heavier gun), and a spring in the butt (as in case with M16 or MP43/Stg.44 ) will disallow the side-folding butt versions, required for paras.

the balanced designs, like the AEK-971 and AK-107/108 , aren't too complicated, just 3 or 4 details more, than in AK, especially when compared to the gem of the over-engineering, the Nikonov AN-94.

In general, what i'd like to see is an AK-74M with polymer recoil buffer and improved safety (Galil style), as well as better ammo tolerances (Russian GI ammo is known for somewhat loose tolerances, resulting in not too good accuracy)
 
Mr. Kalashnikov was every bit a design genius as Eugene Stoner. The AK-47 does everything it was desingned to do for the Russian military. It's cheap and easy to manufacture, it is easy to opereate, it will take more abuse than probabally any other standard issue military weapon and still function, and it kills and wounds humans. If you use these weapons in the environment for which they are intended they are quite effective.

Many I have heard say the ergonomics of the weapon suck. If you consider this is a Russian design used by Russian soldiers who would be required to fight in the Russian environment the 'design flaws' aren't flaws at all. The two most common stated flaws I have heard are the short buttstock and the narrow grip. Well if you consider a Russian soldier would be in a heavy coat and wearing thick gloves during the winter time the short stock and narrow grip make perfect sense to me.

I agree with you Badger that the weapon has many design flaws in the perfect world, but this thing wasn't designed for the perfect world but rather the real world. I'm not a fan of these weapons either but I will give credit where credit is due.

Shabo
 
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The only thing wrong with *my* AK-47 is it isn't select fire. :)

The problem I have is the metal stock on the Ak and even on my Uzi is they are angled down, instead of in-line as mentioned on the AR as well as the MP5. Regardless of how the gun cycles, not having everything in the frame and stock tranfer the energy horizontally into the shooters shoulder is going to cause muzzle climb on full auto.
 
Add to this an ... recoiling barrel to minimize disturbance.
Click to expand...

Y'know, I firmly believe that there's a reason that every successful military self-loader on the planet has been gas-operated (with a couple delayed-blowback mutants thrown in...)
 
Oh yes, of course.....it all makes sense now....the AK simply can't be the world's most successful military small arm in the history of military small arms.....

Got it......and Bumblebees cannot fly either, at least according to the laws of physics and all the principles of engineering and aerodynamics........

hillbilly
 
Man - that is a GREAT video! I don't suppose anybody has any others like that of other guns in action with the topcovers removed - like an FAL, AR (well - hard to remove the topcover), etc?
 
we were asked what we thought......i think people get the drizzles at times trying to find \ fix a problem that doesnt exist .
 
WHEW!!!!!

The combination of that livin' large title, and subsequent "explanation" sent me scurrying for something stronger than my coffee this fine AM. Of course I gave up that sort of thing up years ago....

:)
 
Well, first off... we don't get anywhere sticking stubbornly to sixty-year old designs and not listening to new ideas. The Mauser was also the most successful military small arm of its day. But it's day passed. Eventually the AK's will to. No harm in wondering what will replace it. (Getting another superpower to hand 'em out like candy in every third world heckhole might be another story though.) :)

Anyhow.. I tend to think that most of Badger's flaws are indeed problems -- but they were relatively minor problems given Soviet doctrine, and I expect they were consciously accepted to meet the more important --to them-- goal of cheap, easy manufacture. Remember the weapon came right out of WWII, where everyone was hollering "Production, Production" for half a decade. The ability to stamp out three AKs for every M1 or so likely was a contributing factor to the Soviet brass to go with the design as it was.

One last thing.... don't a recoiling barrel make it a PITA to mount a bayonet, due to changing the weight of the bbl? The local museum has a Johnson "tent peg" bayo marking that problem. Solvable problem, of course -- have a full-length barrel sleeve and mount the bayo on that. Of course, THAT leads to the problem of getting mud and crud stuck inside the bbl sleeve during use in dbshabo's Real World. Of course, you could always argue an army doesn't need a bayonet anymore, though I'd bet a next century's TR would come along at the last minute and say "yes you do, kluge on one there." :)
 
I have to agree with dbshabo above...

I personally don't like the AK but that's more from aesthetics than anything else. Just doesn't do anything for me (now a good FAL, M1, even an SKS is different...personal tastes)

Badger -- Speaking as a former engineer (then I got into a line of work that I could actually make money at), your analysis just doesn't hold up. Not the technical part...that was good...but the design tradeoffs part.

Every good design, prior to actually putting pen to drafting paper, goes through a "What am I trying to achieve" analysis. From what I've read, Kalishnakov was NOT trying to create a weapon that is the highest in accuracy, best in durability and reliability, lowest cost to manufacture, simplest to operate, ease of maintenance, highest rate of fire, etc, etc. In fact, those things are often polar opposites.

I'll just betcha that durability, reliability, cost and maintenance were preferenced over everything else. With that, you make your choices and everything else is what it is. End of story. It's called practical product development.

Cool video and analysis though. You obviously know your stuff.
 
That was a very interesting video. Prior to watching the video..I thought that one of the main reasons for the lack of accuracy in the AK was the thin barrel, poor trigger, and short sight radius.

Clearly the Gas system is overpowered and could use a gas regulator.

As far as the rear sight jumping upwards...it appears to me that this is caused by an large wave impulse traveling through the gas tube and then transferring to the rear sight.

By moving the rear sight to the rear of the receiver (as on the Galil and Valmet) this problem could be alieviated.

The Bolt Carrier does indeed appear to have some vertical motion however the upward motion of the bolt carrier doesn't coincide with the rear sight's upward motion.
 
Interesting discussion.

I'll have to side with the folks who are defending the AK. You can't lose sight of the goal when designing a firearm (or any product!). The goals here were (apparently); reliability, cheap manufacture, reliability and... reliability. No gun is worth a damnif it won't run in muck and sand and the freezing winters of Russia.
Kalashnikof was a combat veteran and a mechanic, not some ordnance department theorist with a wall full of university degrees. He knew what he wanted.
You don't need durability if the rifle is cheap to manufacture (hence the metal stampings).
You don't need extreme accuracy either. Combat ranges are generally well under 200 yards, and any AK will hit a man-size target at that range. If you want to kill someone further away, you call over a sniper, a heavy machine gun or the artillery.

If you "tighten" the rifle up, the costs rise accordingly. And those tighter specs mean it won't run in combant - read that Miller/Lynch thread about M16's that wouldn't function in Iraq. I don't think the average Iraqi soldier is overly fussy about cleaning his weapon, but he doesn't have to be. His weapon will function in combat conditions and that single fact makes it a great design!


Keith
 
keith..pretty well said. about the only thing i disagree with is that while you may not need durability out of the AK..you get it anyway.
 
Mr. Kalashnikov was every bit a design genius as Eugene Stoner.
Click to expand...
BAH! I’ve heard this too many times. I’m of the opinion that Kalashnikov was a Soviet fabrication. They took a war hero with mechanical and organizational skills and put him in charge of a project. That project merely refined and redesigned an existing German design with elements from other existing weapons most notably the M-1 CARBINE! The AK-47 is nothing more than the StG-44 reworked and refined with a larger cartridge. It’s painfully obvious when you look at the two and examine the history behind the AK’s development. The AK is a prolific weapon that deserves a place in history but let’s give credit where it’s due. The bolt system is nearly pure Garand. The bolt carrier itself appears to be a reworked StG-44 carrier. The layout of the weapon is pure StG-45 as is the shape and location of the sights, the geometry of the gas piston. Heck even the reinforcement ribs on the magazine are similar.

The Soviet team went so far as to copy the design concept of the 7.92x33 cartridge as they did with the 30 Mauser (now 30 Tokarev), the 9mm Ultra (reborn as the 9x18 Makarov), the .223, 50BMG, and probably others. Well there's nothing wrong with that and the Genius was in the execution, sure. The Russians were on the Receiving end of the original assault rifle and saw its effectiveness. Of course they'd want a gun just like it.

Y'know, I firmly believe that there's a reason that every successful military self-loader on the planet has been gas-operated (with a couple delayed-blowback mutants thrown in...)
Click to expand...
Not true. I’ll list several: M-9 Beretta, M-1911, M-11 Sig, the M-2 BMG, and that’s just current issue American stuff. Going back we see the other successful Browning Machineguns as well as the Johnson 1941 which was ‘almost’ as good as the Garand. The reason more of these haven’t been designed is because there are workable systems out there that dominate the market and are, frankly, better weapons than what recoiling barrels have offered us. I’d like to see the better mousetrap built and ignoring a concept because it hasn’t been fielded that many times lately is counterproductive.

Oh yes, of course.....it all makes sense now....the AK simply can't be the world's most successful military small arm in the history of military small arms.....
Click to expand...
If you read my initial post, you will note that I didn’t say that the AK is a bad weapon, only that there is something wrong with it and that problem has solutions. I’m exploring options and alternatives here, not fishing for sarcasm.

Well, first off... we don't get anywhere sticking stubbornly to sixty-year old designs and not listening to new ideas… don't a recoiling barrel make it a PITA to mount a bayonet
Click to expand...
Well, now, the bayonet is a concept older than 60 years. I think it’s time came and went with the last bayonet charge around 50 years ago in Korea. I’ll admit that butt-stroking still has its place though.

From what I've read, Kalishnakov was NOT trying to create a weapon that is the highest in accuracy, best in durability and reliability, lowest cost to manufacture, simplest to operate, ease of maintenance, highest rate of fire, etc, etc.
Click to expand...
True, and I agree with you. These things are indeed difficult to accomplish and the Kalashnikov TEAM did a great job of ADAPTING the German and American designs to their own excellent battle rifle.

Alright, everybody, read my next post for some morning-clarity background.

Note: Edited to replace "StG-45" with "StG-44" and to replace "Luger" with "Mauser"
 
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I don't like the AK's; I like the HK90's.

With that off of my chest, I do give credit where credit is due: Whether we may agree on how good or not-so-good the AK is in concept and execution, it most definitely got the job done, efficiently and inexpensively.

And as I submitted earlier this morning, the video is excellent...and makes me wonder:

If Kalishnakov had been able to see such a video, don't you think he would have recognized a few flaws and made a few changes to improve his design?

Alex
 
Why should anybody try to build a better gun? Well, because one frankly doesn’t exist and hasn’t for years. The balanced recoiling automatic rifle exists in only two current examples I’m aware of. There’s the Russian design that is said to be too complicated – and I tend to agree with that statement. There’s also the Ultimax 100 light machinegun.

The concept is the same as the fire hose. You point a fire hose at something, pull the lever, and water comes out. Initially, that water pushes you back and the front of hose up therefore shifting the spray all over the place. The AK-47 and, to a lesser degree, most other modern designs operate on the principle of opening and closing the lever hundreds of times a minute therefore the hose is in a constant state of jumping around. You just can’t hit what you’re aiming at that way. I chose the AK-47 because I saw the video and it illustrated my points, not because I wanted to pick it apart.

Wouldn’t it be better to have a bullet hose that operated in the balanced stage of the fire hose? That is, if you could point the stream of bullets at individual leaves on a tree, soldiers in a distant formation, or shadows in a grove you think might hide the enemy? You could have the advantages of the accuracy and firepower in one package. The German MG-42 (also with a recoiling barrel) had such accuracy and wreaked havoc on American and British troops.

What I listed were possible solutions and ones that had already been tried and tested.

BTW: Garand had access to high-speed video of his rifles and was able to examine them in detail and use this information to refine his design to the point they were refined when they entered production.
 
First -- I really like where you're coming from. The goal you're shooting for makes perfect sense.


However, I have to admit I think it's a little disingenuous to compare pistols and heavy support weapons to issue rifles on the recoiling barrel thing. The manner in which they're used are entirely different, and some of the potential disadvatages of a recoiling barrel -- mostly durability/reliability concerns when 19 year olds are rolling in the mud -- don't come in to play. An M2 stays mounted on a rig. A pistol doesn't have a long barrel sticking out that can act as a lever to bugger up the action if it's torqued.. which it will be. Or partially cycle the action and cause a misfeed at a Very Bad Time if it bangs muzzle first into the ground.. which it will. Or be subject to stoppages with a barrel recoiling inside a forearm sleeve if said sleeve gets filled with gunk... which it will.

Not that these aren't solveable problems, again.. just that saying an idea will work on a rifle 'cause it works on a 1911 or M2 is apples and oranges.

On the bayonet thing... no argument that it's an old concept. If you want to argue that it's totally irrelevent anymore, I might even be persuaded to agree with you. Doesn't change the fact that old habits die hard, and it's gonna be a tough sell to the folks actually putting up the money for production. Heck, folks have been making the "bayonets are obselete" argument since the original '03, right? :)

besides, if we peon civilians can't have bayo lugs on our rifles anymore, it *must* mean they're good for something delightfully dangerous :neener:

All that said... I'm curious to see what alternatives you come up with. I know another guy doing R&D who's considering similar principles -- might well result in a great design! :)

-K
 
Hate to interrupt.

Ok, so the ak series has a overpowered gas system which beats the devil out of the bolt & carrier.

So, why hasn't anyone created a aftermarket gas regulator/tube thats just a drop in replacement? Not saying it'd fix the basic design assumptions of the AK series, but I bet some people would rather like not feeling the impact.
 
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