Ar-15 vs aks-47

[shdwlkr]

Artful
If I had a AR15 it would have an 1in7 twist or I wouldn't own it. The slower twist would remind me to much of the 75 I had to take care of a very long time ago. Thanks for the warning

[Larry Gibson]

Actually, match ARs with 20" barrels having 8" twists are the accepted "standard" for match bullets up to 80 gr. A 7.7" twist is considered best for the 85 gr match bullets. The 7" twist is really only needed for the 90 gr match bullets and the really long M856 tracer.

Larry Gibson

[Artful]

Actually, match ARs with 20" barrels having 8" twists are the accepted "standard" for match bullets up to 80 gr. A 7.7" twist is considered best for the 85 gr match bullets. The 7" twist is really only needed for the 90 gr match bullets and the really long M856 tracer.

Larry Gibson

True provided you buy a long barrel - I see lots more 16 inch barrels than 20 these days.

[tankgunner59]

I have 2 Mosins, 1 AK and 1SKS and had planned to get an AR platform. Then disability hit me like a bad check. So the plan is still there when and if the funding ever comes up. I have decided that when I get one it will be chambered for the 6.8 SPC.

[Artful]

I have 2 Mosins, 1 AK and 1SKS and had planned to get an AR platform. Then disability hit me like a bad check. So the plan is still there when and if the funding ever comes up. I have decided that when I get one it will be chambered for the 6.8 SPC.

Tankgunner59 - check out this thread - you might find it interesting
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-bigger-bullet

[sawinredneck]

I have 2 Mosins, 1 AK and 1SKS and had planned to get an AR platform. Then disability hit me like a bad check. So the plan is still there when and if the funding ever comes up. I have decided that when I get one it will be chambered for the 6.8 SPC.

Loved, and still do, my SKS, but wanted something easier/faster to reload, even with a 30rd mag, stripper clips aren't the future! I seriously looked at AK's, but they were just unreasonably priced IMO. I settled on a DPMS LR-308, because I wasn't heavily invested in 7.62x39. As you are, it might be worth it to you to look at an AR built for 7.62x39. Just my .02

[Rem1903a3]

Check out a Sig 556r if you ever get the chance ,add a Acog ,finest carbine ever .

[David2011]

My first AR-15 was a gift to myself in "celebration" of Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House. During that time I bought two EOTWAWKI rifles as well, back when new, never issued SKSs were available in crates of 10 rifles with their manufacturing documentation. While I don't consider myself a prepper I just wanted something to shoot the other cartridge that would likely be available in a crisis situation. Never owned an AK but have an AR that will shoot with the best varmint rifles with my handloads. For some reason that rifle will only shoot 3" or a little bigger with factory 55 grain FMJ but with Sierra 53 grain MatchKings it has shot under 1/2" at 100 yards and correspondingly well at 200. I don't expect that of any 7.62x39.

[Combat Diver]

My latest build for myself last month. Then built two basic carbines for son and wife as back ups to their other ARs.



Still have two Green Mountain 18" SS barrels (1:6 & 1:5) to build for long range, 3 carbines for the grandkids and a 6.8 SPC for hunting. Have taken several from the 14.5" 5.56mm Mk262 but going to step up to a bit more power.


CD

[garym1a2]

I dont care for the AK47 so much but I have a Russian made AK74 and it is a very good Rifle, with the left side scope mount its easy to scope it. You just have to watch the ammo as some of it is not good quality. Evan AKs should be kept clean and lubed. If I needed it for SD against herds of Zombies it would work. I had it jam once in a 3gun match. I could not open it by hand. But a simple bump on a wall and it cleared. With the AR when it jams you have to use the mortor technique or tools.
If I had to hit the woods with a rifle it would be my 14.5 inch M4 still as its light and very reliable, so is my M&P sport. It would be too heavy to carry my 20 inch Hbar.
As all most people shoot with ARS are 55 or 62 grain bullets why such a fast twist as a 1:7? I like 1:9 for best all around with these bullets. I never had a 1:12 AR so I dont know how they shoot.

[Adam Helmer]

The Question of M-16 versus AK-47 was decided in Vietnam. Our "Matel 16" did not ever beat the AK-47. I was issued an M-16 in July 1965 and knew that "Woodchuck Round" was a waste product of the Military Industrial Complex. All hype aside, give me an M14.

Adam

[Multigunner]

I've test fired the AK, the AR and the Mini-14 based Mini-30 in 7.62x39 and of the three I found the Mini-30 the most handy and easy to bring to the shoulder quickly to fire fast and accurate shots.
I've never liked the looks of the Mini-14, and I'm sure it has drawbacks I'm not aware of.

For pin point accuracy at close range, when only a tiny bit of the target is exposed from behind substantial cover or a hostage is used as a shield, out to 150 yards or so a sight line that's close to the bore line is to be preferred over the high line of sight of the modern assault rifle and its civilian clones.

For fixed or pre zeroed elevation sights and ranges past 150 yards out to 400 yards the high line of sight is best, requiring minimum hold over or hold under depending on ranges.

The high sight line is better for most military applications while the low line of sight is best for a police patrol carbine.

[Combat Diver]

Biggest drawback for the Mini 14 is spare parts. Has to come from Ruger and good luck getting a spare bolt. No issues with the AR or AK.


CD

[Larry Gibson]

True provided you buy a long barrel - I see lots more 16 inch barrels than 20 these days.

Even with a true "CAR" length barrel the above mentioned loads stabilized are stabilized in the same twists. The abundance of 16" barrels is simply a continuum of what the military is using.....the M4 series with 7" twists to stabilize the long tracer bullet......and is not indicative of what twist is actually required for stabilization of the bullets normally used......the 55 to 77 gr bullets........

Larry Gibson

[Rainier]

Seems like the OP is asking which people prefer, the AR vs. the AK in case theres a Zombie apocalypse. That being the case, the M16A1 was a fine rifle as far as this young and dumb 17 year old kid was concerned but it does have one shortcoming, IMO, a .22 caliber bullet. Flash forward a few years and the young and dumb 17 year old choose the proven 1950's technology - the M1A was the answer! Until... Armalite commercially introduced the AR platform in .308 - Oh my, all bets were off. The AK never did, nor ever will, feel comfortable for my frame and the 7.62x39 sure is a fine round for what it is but I prefer the .308.
As sawinredneck points out, an AR platform in .308 seems to be the best of the non-belted world for some of us. Just to recap, you get; box fed magazines, .308 Win / 7.62x51, in an updated version of Stoner's AR rifle, commercially available - not a hard decision for me. Outside of an MG42 (that would just be fun to have!) or an M60 I'm puzzled why people consider anything besides the AR-10 or the M1A for Zombies - but I’m easily puzzled.

[Artful]

Even with a true "CAR" length barrel the above mentioned loads stabilized are stabilized in the same twists. The abundance of 16" barrels is simply a continuum of what the military is using.....the M4 series with 7" twists to stabilize the long tracer bullet......and is not indicative of what twist is actually required for stabilization of the bullets normally used......the 55 to 77 gr bullets........

Larry Gibson

http://laissezfirearm.info/tracer.htm

One of the first questions that new owners of AR-15A2s ask gun geeks like myself is just how in the heck the military decided to settle on rifling with a 1-in-7" twist rate, since it has been reported to cause premature barrel burnout.



Figure 1: (L to R) M193, Hirtenberger SS109, LC M856, Sierra 80-gr BTHP

Well, the answer is the L110 tracer round (American designation M856), which was adopted at about the same time as the European SS109s, American M855, and Canadian C77 steel-core rounds. This projectile required the special attention because it's very long for a .223 -- 1-3/32" by my Starrett. It stands 1/32" taller than the Sierra 80-grain bullet that was the impetus behind the 1-in-8" twist barrels now in favor with match shooters faced with the slow-fire 600-yard stage of the NRA DCM Service Rifle course. As shown above, a major difference between the last two is that the Sierra bullet is sufficiently streamlined up front as to require seating the bullet so far out that the cartridges will not fit into the magazine as there is not enough surface area to grip prior to that point, and thus they must be loaded individually into the chamber. The front portion of the L110/M856, on the other hand, closely follows the profile of the standard ball bullet, with the cannelure (the notched or grooved area into which the mouth of the cartridge case is crimped) appearing approximately the same distance from the top of the projectile as the standard ball rounds, which means that the bulk of the actual tracer section is contained within the hull.

The L110/M856 was designed to deliver an 800-meter visible burn, an incredible requirement considering the initial mass of the bullet (one I pulled weighed in at 60.6 grains). Given our current state of the art in chemistry, this calls for a large percentage of the original package's weight to be tossed overboard during transit. Physics then obviously demands an increasing level of deviance in the projectile's path from the 62-grain ball rounds that it was intended to emulate.

As I have never read an article that actually documented the degree of variance, I decided to test it myself.

I unfortunately did not have a M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) on hand to test the bullet's intended performance out to 800 yards, so I selected my sole 1-in-7" twist AR-15 upper, a 16" lightweight-barrel Colt, and placed it on my Eagle match lower, which has a crisp 4.6-lb trigger. In order to lessen the effects of simple sighting errors from the equation, I stuck a 3X9X40mm Nikon scope onto the carrying handle via an ARMS mount and Burris steel Zee rings.



Figure 2: The Test Vehicle (notice the silhouettes at 200 and 300 yards?)

I managed to stumble across twenty rounds of '86 Lake City M856 at a Fayetteville gun show a few years back, and used these for the test. They had an orange tip on the bullet, a ring-crimped primer, and were headstamped with the NATO cross-in-circle emblem followed by LC and 86 at 7 and 5 o'clock respectively. I have more tracers on hand, but they came from different case lots, dug out from the cheap, mixed (nominally Israeli) piles of dirty, stomped-on, and often de-linked .223 ammo that appeared in the wake of Desert Storm.

The SS109 ammunition I chose for comparison was Austrian Hirtenberger with green lacquer on the triple-staked primer and bullet tip. This particular round is headstamped 83 / 5.56 / .223 at the twelve, four, and eight o'clock positions. The case I purchased has proven astoundingly accurate (the first ten shots out of my super-heavy-barrel Eagle AR went into 2.65" at 200 yards), and its cousins are still available on the commercial market. I paid 20 cents a round at a Raleigh show, a truly schweeet deal these days.

Methodology

I began each series at the selected distances of 200 and 300 yards by sighting-in the rifle. It rested on a sandbag that touched the front of the magazine well, to reduce the upward pressure on the barrel. Firing the Hirtenberger ammunition until an acceptable zero was acquired on the left-hand member of the pair of targets placed at each marker, I then pasted the resulting holes and fired an "official" five-round SS109 group. After permitting the the barrel to cool down for ten minutes, I then switched to the M856 for a five-round group on the right-hand target. After recording the results, I then pasted both targets and began the second relay at each distance. To ensure that the scope did not shift under recoil, I fired a final five-round group on a clean target with ball at both ranges.

The Results

200 yards:
Ball Target One - 4-5/8"
Tracer Target One - 11-1/8" (one miss)
Ball Target Two (second relay) - 5-1/16"
Tracer Target Two - 9-1/2"
Final Ball Target at 200 yards - 5-1/2"
300 yards:
Ball Target One - 7-3/8"
Tracer Target One - 18-1/8" (two misses)
Ball Target Two (second relay) - 10-1/16"
Tracer Target Two - 22-3/4" (three misses)
Final Ball Target at 300 yards - 8-9/16"
Shown below are pictures taken during the first series fired at each distance (I set out with only six snaps left in my 110 Instamatic, so sue me). Reverse-color pasters were used to make the hits more obvious.



Figure 3: 200-yard Ball Target One



Figure 4: 200-yard Tracer Target One



Figure 5: 300-yard Ball Target One



Figure 6: 300-yard Tracer Target One

As the photos show, the raw group-size information is a bit misleading. The M856's shot noticeably to the right at both ranges (approximately 4 inches at 200 yards and 6-10 inches at 300 yards), in addition to being about 7.5 inches high at 200 yards. I don't have a chronograph, and thus speculate -- admittedly perhaps wrongly -- that what occurred is due to the much-greater bearing surface (as illustrated in Figure 1, the amount of surface area that actually comes in contact with the rifling) of the M856 combining with the lessened case powder capacity to reduce the initial velocity sufficiently to permit the operator to rotate a bit and move the barrel slightly upward under recoil. The fact that the rounds dropped back down to an acceptable elevation at 300 yards bodes ill for anyone hoping to hit anything other than dirt at greater distances, as diminishing weight and an inefficient projectile profile that is not very wind-resistant team up to further slow the bullet, allowing gravity (which thus has a longer period of time to work on the tracer vs. the ball round for the same amount of distance traveled) to do its thing.

So what are the implications of my results? Well, if I was a militia type, I'd rag on the round for its dubious fire-control capabilities at ranges past 300 yards. But I'm not, and the only use I have for tracers is to stick two or three at the bottom of each magazine in order to alert myself when I'm about to run dry (as suggested by Peter Kokalis). Since the L110/M856 is an iffy proposition at even 200 yards, I'd be happy to switch to the older and cheaper American M196 tracer, but here's a final bit of nastiness: the tracing compound used in these projectiles appears to have a much shorter shelf-life than the cartridge as a whole, yielding reliable ignition for maybe fifteen years or so. I recently picked up a pristine twenty-eight year old box of Twin Cities M196 at a show for five bucks, and experienced a 70% failure rate, with the "successes" igniting at wildly varying distances. Criminy!

Anyone know if Hornady plans to expand its "Vector" line to rifle calibers?

(As soon as I can get more of the M856s in, I'll repeat the above testing procedure but fire twice as many rounds at each distance, and add an initial stage at 100 yards. See you then.)

Ah, going back to my link I now see it was the 80 grain they used.

[Love Life]

believe it or not, but the 5.56 does a pretty good job of killing bad guys.

here is another secret that just might blow your minds: Operators who operate daily clean their weapons quite frequently.

Only mouth breathing retards neglect their weapons.

[Love Life]

Believe it or not, but the 5.56 does a pretty good job of killing bad guys.

Here is another secret that just might blow your minds: Operators who operate daily clean their weapons quite frequently. You fell in the mud? Ok, now dump your canteen on the weapon to wash mud off. Liberal application of CLP to critical parts, and carry on. Next patrol base you will clean your weapon while your buddies post security and gripe about not having jalapeno cheese in their MRE.

Only mouth breathers neglect their weapons.

[StanleyMcGregor]

AR-15 rifles are lighter and have a higher rate of accuracy than the AK-47, but the AK-47 is considerably cheaper and more dependable in comparison. Both are extensively used by the military and police, as well as for general purpose hunting rifles and self-defense. Both are assault rifles.

[Jack Stanley]

If it's just a matter of what I prefer . After having two versions of the AK and two of the SKS I still prefer the AR for accuracy primarily . The others were fun to blast with when ammo was MUCH cheaper than what it is now . But that fun wasn't enough to make me want to keep the 7.62x39 around after the surplus dried up and costs matched AR ammo .

Jack