We're losing track of the real point of this thread... An ar-15 full of dirt, being made of aluminum, rapidly looses it's precision, accuracy, and reliability.
An AK47, being loosely manufactured by design, is inherently less accurate than some of the most floppiest AR's with thousands of rounds through them.
Why not just sacrifice a little of that from the get go, and maintain that remaining degree of accuracy?
Because, as you should know from dealing with so many of them, loose tolerances and barrel flex, coupled with a round that has the ballistics of a pig, leads to missed shots @ ~100m and beyond.
Particularly under duress.
the AK-47 persists for a reason.
It was mass produced by the Soviet bloc and its cheap manufacturing process and design handed off to other impoverished communist countries as a matter of affordability.
It never had anything to do with having a single bit of merit as an accurate platform.
The Soviet concept of war differed from the American in that they simply wanted to put an assault rifle in the hands of conscripts that wasn't necessarily accurate, but could be utilized with a minimal amount of training, to do nothing more than put vast quantities of lead downrange without so much precision as other professional armies.
It literally is a gun designed for idiots. This concept is continually vomited up by every AK proponent that has ever been conversed with regarding the topic.
The truth of the matter is that the AR is a superior design in almost every way.
-It is accurate to ranges the AK is flat out ineffective at.
-The hand controls and operation of the weapons functions are far superior for battlefield use.
-The platforms scalability is extremely superior to the AK.
Those who ahve to PAY FOR the maintenance of their own firearms know that you buy and AK and that's pretty much it.
So they're "dirty d**ks" and "sofa warriors" who revel in their laziness?
By the way, I have seen MANY AK's jam.
An AR-15, if it ever sees combat, will end up costing far more than it's original price in upkeep, and possibly your life. It is a novel concept, but genius still lies in simplicity.
An AK-47, if ever seen in combat, will end-up costing far more than it's cheap price tag when pitted against a squad with AR15's. It
will likely end up costing your life.
Did you ever wonder why the Russians took a dump on the AK47 and switched to the 74?
There's a lot to be figured out there.
A Swiss Pocket Watch does not belong on a battlefield. Period.
A "Swiss Pocketwatch"? Are you kidding?
Here is a fact for you:
In Fallujah, were both sides to be armed with AK47's, you would be, as a point of fact, taking away the advantage held by Marines in this conflict in the superior accuracy and scalability of the M16 platform.
You would be forcing them to close to deadlier ranges just to make their firearm effective.
The "Swiss Pocketwatch" you are referring to was the
very reason that the Marines were so combat effective in Fallujah.
When is the last time you heard of a unit being
investigated for an overwhelming abundance of headshots by the common rifleman in modern combat?
Let me make that answer simple for you.
Never before.
Having an AK in this fight would have been a terrible disadvantage for 1MEF.
~56" of ballistic drop and poor lateral ballistics out of the floppy-barreled AK47 would have made shot placement tragically poor, and cost Marines their lives, were they forced to use them.
This is a point in modern combat that highlights the effectiveness of the Stoner platform, that no dyed in the wool AK humper can seem to concede.
I've dealt with hundreds of both, and the user's thereof. When my life is on the line, AK.
Don't let me catch you @ 200m+. I
will hit you.
Your shot placement even with a nice Trijicon on that AK? Not nearly as dependable.
Don't miss.
Many a soldier has had that final thought while fighting with a jammed and gauled aluminum receiver...
Many a Fedayeen/Republican Guard/Al-Queda/Taliban has had their final thoughts whilst fighting retarded muzzle climb, barrel flex, fumbling with ineffecient controls/hinged mag-well, or their AK's true worst enemy.
Terrible inaccuracy.
Who do you think has had a higher deathtoll in modern combat ixtow?
Our trained rifleman of varying branches are superior warfighters at any effective combat range because of the M16.
The loss of life has become so prevalent to our enemy, because of our weapons platforms, that they choose to engage us in guerrilla warfare or with IED's to eliminate direct confrontation.
Our ability to engage perimeter threats or ambushes would fall significantly if we did not have the M16, but instead, the AK47.
When accuracy matters.
When hitting a briefly presented target @ 150+ meters the size of a cantaloupe is the difference between life and death.
When fidgeting, tremoring, shaking, or other signs of combat duress augment any built in inaccuracies in a weapon platform.
In any of these situations, you
need an M16.
If you are going to stick only the weapon up over the edge of a windowsill and spray it.
If you want to bury your weapons so the local UN patrols don't find it in your house, only to dig it up later.
If you make a habit of setting the rear sight aperture to "300" because you think it "turns up the weapons power level".
If you want to die a horrible death when faced with an M16 wielding rifleman.
If your key point of focus is whether or not the firearm will shoot when you are praising Allah and pulling the bang lever so that he may hear your cries.
In any of these situations, you
need an AK-47.
That said... This is about AK Pistols. Compared and contrasted with more conventional handguns, the only positives I can identify relate to style and social popularity. Uncool is my middle name, so I care not for that matter.
I believe the AK and AR pistols to be superior to other handguns as well.
The round choice, and nominal distance used in self defense engagements makes them worthwhile. Particularly, for home invasion stuff.
I think choice of ammo is important here, solely so you can get the optimal kinetic transfer to drop the threat to your life.
Those polymers should actually work pretty well, in my opinion.
