The AK47 Designed by wounded WWII vet Mikhail Kalashnikov of Russia—still alive, and still a hero of the Motherland—the Avatomat Kalashnikov or "automatic Kalashnikov" rifle is known ubiquitously as the AK47. Just as the AR is an iconic symbol of the American military of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the AK has become the avatar of "the evil empire." Though the AK47 was superseded by the similar AKM in the Russian military circa 1963 and in the 1970s by the 5.45mm AK74, appearances are sufficiently similar that they are all collectively known as AK47s by the general world public. Your true AK fires the 7.62x39 Russian cartridge, though they've been produced in many calibers including the American 5.56mm. Designed from the get-go for cheap mass production, AK rifles have been manufactured in many nations, often Third World countries. After the Cold War, semiautomatic versions started flooding into the United States from Communist countries at dirt-cheap prices, as did their military surplus ammunition. This made them fun "plinkers," and they've been bought by the millions by ordinary Americans. The AR15 lends itself to accessorizing for maximum performance. This Massad Ayoob Signature Model Elite came from the Sabre Defence factory in Tennessee with match trigger, telescoping stock designed for cheekweld, EoTech holographic sight plus backup iron sights, Ergo grip, ambidextrous fire control lever, match grade barrel, Giles sling, and more. The AR15 lends itself to accessorizing for maximum performance. This Massad Ayoob Signature Model Elite came from the Sabre Defence factory in Tennessee with match trigger, telescoping stock designed for cheekweld, EoTech holographic sight plus backup iron sights, Ergo grip, ambidextrous fire control lever, match grade barrel, Giles sling, and more. Mechanically, the AK is a much clunkier weapon than the AR. It was built to be utterly reliable when filled with dirt and muck, and carried by an ignorant peasant who never bothered to clean or lubricate it. Its reliability under such circumstances is indeed legendary. However, that reliability and reduced dependence on maintenance was achieved largely by very loose tolerances in the mechanism, and that impaired accuracy. While you'll rarely find an AR15 rifle that groups worse than two inches at 100 yards, most military AK rifles will shoot a group twice as big at best, and many will go to six or eight inches. Trigger pulls are generally very rough. The sights are small and hard to see, in comparison with other contemporary military rifles. The AK47 is heavier than it looks and does not balance well. The 7.62x39 AK has relatively poor ergonomics. In addition to the generally mediocre trigger pulls, the rifle is slow and awkward to reload in comparison to an AR15, and has an extremely awkward safety, in the form of a huge lever on the right side of the receiver. It goes from "safe" to "fire" with a loud clanking sound, which became known in Vietnam as "AK clack." That sound saved many American lives when it alerted troops to the fact that an NVA soldier or Viet Cong guerrilla was about to shoot them, and allowed them time to respond and kill their enemy with a burst of M16 fire. (On the AK mechanism, that lever is up for "safe" and down for "fire" in the semiautomatic clones, with the "full auto" position on the true AK assault rifle being in between. This too saved the life of at least one American fighting man, a friend of mine who was a plank-holding SEAL in Vietnam. A VC spun on him, sweeping his AK47 as if to cut him in half with a long burst of full auto fire, but only got off a single shot that missed. My friend recalls seeing a puzzled look on the man's face when his AK stopped shooting, giving my friend time to unlimber the 12-gauge shotgun he carried in the jungle and blast the enemy to doll rags. Taking the AK47 from the hands of his dead opponent, he discovered that it was set on semiautomatic, the lowest position on the AK lever. Apparently, as he snapped that lever down to turn on my friend, the VC had pressed the lever down from safe, past full auto, and down into semiautomatic mode.) There are AK rifles, and there are AK rifles. Those with stamped and folded sheet metal receivers generally offer the poorest quality and accuracy. Better are those with milled steel receivers, such as the Bulgarian AK models. In the past, the best of this breed were such modified AK designs as the Finnish Valmet and the Israeli Galil. Today, I think the best AK47 rifle to be had is assembled by Arsenal, Inc. in Las Vegas, Nevada. Their guns are remarkably accurate for an AK, have very good trigger pulls, and are built around milled steel receivers manufactured to their specifications in Bulgaria. The single nicest in my opinion is a .223 caliber model "built to size" and weighing only a little over six pounds. A classic example of a "sporterized" bolt-action military surplus rifle. This 1916 Spanish Mauser's issue stock has been roughly reshaped to "hunting" style; bolt handle has been turned down to allow 3-9X variable power Bushnell scope; and rifle has been rechambered to modern, popular .308 Winchester cartridge. A classic example of a "sporterized" bolt-action military surplus rifle. This 1916 Spanish Mauser's issue stock has been roughly reshaped to "hunting" style; bolt handle has been turned down to allow 3-9X variable power Bushnell scope; and rifle has been rechambered to modern, popular .308 Winchester cartridge. It is ironic that after all those decades of Soviet theft of American technology, the single finest AK47 is "made in America" at that bastion of capitalist decadence, Las Vegas. It seems even more deliciously ironic that Russia's Izhmash (Izhevsk Mechanical Works) in Russia, which owns the patents for the AK47, is crying foul over the fact that license fees are not being paid to them by other manufacturers of AK clones. Somewhere, I suspect, Ronald Reagan is chuckling softly... While a fine arsenal rifle assembled in the US may cost you $800 or more new, you can still get a Romanian WASR for $400 or less. Many AK47 fans in this country favor the affordable Russian-made Saiga. If you own an AK clone with the typical crummy trigger, consider the excellent aftermarket trigger kit from Tapco (www.tapco.com). SKS
