Sunday, December 29, 2013

5 Reasons for the AK’s Legendary Reliability

Like the Mauser before it, the AK is a universal gun. And like the Mauser, the AK will be with us until something better supplants it. And “better,” in this case, will be defined by history and by nations, not necessarily by gun experts.

3 comments:

ebd10 said...

It probably didn't hurt that they had Hugo Schmeisser in custody and forced him to choose between designing weapons for Russia, or starving to death.

CP said...

Yes, beware of gun "experts", especially those who write on the internet. Be more wary of those who use the term "battle rifle". Be even more wary of those who bandy about the words "main battle rifle" and "stopping power".

Most of those don't know the difference between "tolerance" and "clearance".

Neither do they let on that, while they decry the supposed inaccuracy of the AK that the Army standard for accuracy of an M16A2, firing run of the mill ball ammunition, is about 2.5 inches at 100 meters. I'm certain that the standard for the M4 must be less.

Nor do they bother to mention that it takes an hour and a half to clean an AR, while an AK can be cleaned to similar standard in one third the time. Also apparently unknown to them is that the Russian Army qualification course for the AK is shot in full auto mode.

In other words, the AK was designed by an NCO for use by real soldiers in real war, while the AR was built by a desperate aerospace company try to get government money from a new pocket.

Anonymous said...

The Russians have a saying that is more like a proverb. "Never let perfect be the enemy of good enough." You see this in their weapons designs from the Nagant to the Ak 47 and 74. Their space craft also exhibit this philosophy. Compared to the futuristic appearence of US craft theirs appear to have been made by a local plumbers union. But they WORK. That is what is important. When you think about the inhospitable places these weapons are found around the globe it is evident that there is a reason for their popularity. The AK 47 is not called the Lion of the Desert for nothing. Compare the Russian tanks of WWII to the German designs. One was overcomplicated and harder to produce. The other was turned out like tuna cans. The Russians always believed in quanity over quality and the Red Army proved that against the supposedly unstoppable German Wehrmacht. Not to say that the Russian tanks and weapons were inferior. Just not as fancy. But again they worked.