The Gentleman Adventurer

In this post, we continue our “compare and contrast” series on the AK-variant and AR-variant rifles.

In 1947, Mikhail Kalashnikov introduced the Avtomat Kalashnikova Model 47 – usually shortened to the AK-47. The AK-47 was cheap and easy to produce, relatively easy to use and maintain, and fired an intermediate-powered round (the 7.62 Soviet) that had reasonable stopping power out to 300 meters. Although the rifle was groundbreaking in its concept, it was simple in its design and borrowed from a number of other firearms, including the M1 Carbine, of which Kalashkinov was a fan. In Kalashkinov’s own words:

“A lot of Russian Army soldiers ask me how one can become a constructor, and how new weaponry is designed. These are very difficult questions. Each designer seems to have his own paths, his own successes and failures. But one thing is clear: before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good appreciation of everything that already exists in this field. I myself have had many experiences confirming this to be so.”

But the AK-47 had some problems. The machined receiver was heavy, inaccurate under automatic fire, and actually suffered from a number of reliability issues. In 1959 the gun was partially redesigned with a lighter, cheaper, stamped receiver. The improvements increased the rifle’s accuracy, decreased its weight, and greatly increased its reliability. The new model was named the Avtomat Kalashnikova Modernizirovanniy – “Kalashkinov’s modernized automatic rifle.” Almost every “AK-47” in use in the world today is in actuality an AKM.

The AKM (which we will be dealing with for the remainder of this series, since the AK-47 is not in production) was lighter than a battle rifle, easy to use, and easy to maintain. It was also easy to shoot, and the open leaf-style sights were the same as those used on the Mosin-Nagant and SKS rifles, which made them a natural transition for Soviet troops. The rifle was in turn quickly adopted by all of the Warsaw Pact nations, as well as China and several Middle-East nations. To this day, the AKM and its variants remains the single most-produced firearm in history.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the AKM was intentionally designed to be easy to mass-produce. In the words of one man, the AK was “designed to be built by peasant laborers for peasant soldiers.” Today, the cost of producing an AK-103 (one of the AK-74 variants currently used by the military – to be discussed later in this column) is just a little over $100.

Undeniably, the second reason for its adoption across much of the world has to do with the clout of the empire that was backing it. It’s fairly unlikely that most of the Warsaw nations had much of a choice in adopting the Soviet design. Much of the current proliferation of the rifle has to do with the surplus that became available after the Cold War. That is not to take away from the effectiveness of the AKM as a killing weapon. It has certainly proven that in battlefields the globe over.

In 1974, the AKM was replaced with the AK-74. The AK-74 used a smaller intermediate cartridge (the 5.45x39mm) and featured a number of important design improvements. Notably, a chrome-lined barrel with a 1:8 twist rate, redesigned front sight base and gas block, and an improved system for recoil management. In fact, the AK74’s distinctive muzzle break combined with the smaller cartridge managed to eliminate almost all felt recoil.

While there are a number of reasons for the change in cartridges (which will be discussed later on), one of the results was increased accuracy. Specifically, the 5.45 was a flatter-shooting cartridge that maintained a more consistent trajectory out past 300 yards. Following its first action in the 1979 Afghanistan conflict, the AK-74 became the main infantry weapon for the USSR and Warsaw Pact nations. Today, it’s the AK-74 its variants – and not the AK-47 or AKM – that is used by the militaries of former Soviet republics, as well as Mongolia, North Korea, and Vietnam.

In the next article, we’ll take a brief look at the history of the M16 and its variants before moving on to some apples-to-apples comparisons.

I don’t write a lot of “versus” columns. At least, not when it comes to firearms. I think most of firearms choices boil down to personal taste, use, and aesthetics, and I will certainly not begrudge another man his war bag provided the equipment is functional and of reasonable quality. But today, I want to talk about what I would consider to be one of the “big three” of gun rivalries, coming in right behind “9mm vs. .45 ACP” and “semi-automatic vs. revolver.”

That’s right – today we’re going to tackle the two most famous assault rifles in the world (or at least in the United States): the M16 and its variants (including the M16A1, M16A2, M4, and the whole host of civilian AR-15 variants), and the AKM and its variants (including the various AK models produced by countries all over the world). I wanted to write this article for a couple of reasons: First, I get this question a lot – especially since the semi-completion of my recent AR-15 project.

The second reason is that, like any other great gun rivalry, the discussion between the two is often clouded by anecdotal evidence, misconceptions, bad science, and personal investment. I’ll start out by saying that I don’t have a horse in this race: I have both, I like both, and I hope that we will be able to take as unbiased a look as possible at the subject.

To appropriately compare the two types of rifles, we first need to understand their purpose – and to do that, we need to consider the history behind the concept of the assault rifle.

World War II was fought primarily with a class of rifles called “battle rifles.” A battle rifle usually defined as a magazine-fed rifle chambered in a true .30 caliber round – such as the 30-06, 7.62 NATO, 7mm Mauser, or 7.62x54r. These are relatively large bullets weighing in between 150 and 200 grains and moving at speeds exceeding 2,500 feet per second. Such rifles can, in the hands of a trained marksman, be used with precision at ranges out to 1000 yards. Examples of rifles in this class include the M1 Garand, Mosin-Nagant, German Mauser, and the FN FAL.

The battle rifle has much to commend it. It is powerful enough to be used at long ranges and will punch through almost any infantry body armor. Because such rifles are heavy, they are also usually capable of increased accuracy at long ranges.

But on the flip-side, battle rifles were also long and heavy. The sheer weight of the ammunition limited the quantity that an infantryman was capable of carrying. During the Second World War, military scientists found that the majority of firefights took place at ranges of less than 300 meters and that the victory generally went to the side capable of getting the highest volume of fire downrange – not necessarily on target. Too, the recoil of battle rifles often proved to be too heavy to allow for rapid follow-up shots.

World War I had already taught us that, at least in the bad-breath distances of trench warfare, something with increased firepower and decreased recoil was needed. The result had been the sub-machine gun. A sub-machine gun is a fully-automatic weapon with a stock and fore grip (like a rifle or machine gun) that fires a pistol-caliber round. Such weapons include the famed Thompson Sub-machine Gun (or “Chicago Typewriter”), chambered in .45 ACP.

Although used extensively in World War II, sub-machine guns had a few important shortcomings – namely that the pistol caliber cartridges were only useful out to about 100 yards, and often proved ineffective for penetrating rapidly-improving body armor. A compromise was needed: A rifle that offered the fire rate and ammunition volume of the sub-machine gun, but still retained some of the stopping power and reach of a true rifle.

Ahead of the curve, Nazi Germany developed the Sturmgewehr 44 (literally “storm” or “assault” rifle). This rifle shot the 7.92x33mm Kurz, a shortened version of the standard German rifle cartridge. This allowed for an important compromise between the shootability of the sub-machine gun and the reach and stopping power of the rifle. The assault rifle was born*, and it wouldn’t take long for other nations to follow suit.

In the next article in this series, we’ll spend a little bit of time looking at the AK-47, its variants, and their history in a little more detail.

*Note: The Russian Fedorov Avtomat was designed in 1915 and was actually the first true assault rifle, however the StG44 was the first one to enter large-scale production.