For about the same price I would buy a 308 calliber AR instead. Ammo might be a bit more expensive and heavier than 223, but it will defeat anything out there at 100 yards or even more.
With 223s stay above 55gr ammo. Lower will not actuate the weapon well. The first few times, breaking it in, I would use 60gr at least.
Do not get the Mini14 unless you plan on accurizing it... which is going to cost you about the same or more in the end.
A good foreign alternative in 223 is the Swiss (US built) SIG 556. It shoots better than the AR and has the AK actuation with even better reliability than AK. You can also get the Short Barrel version with silencer after a stamp tax of $200. This thing is bad a$$.
I have seen AKs in 223 jam badly. The AK47 (7.62) jams too. The SKS is better.
Well, it looks like I maybe need to look at more up-to-date weaponry...I have stayed too true to past preferences, it seems...
I have put literally thousands of rounds through my Romanian AK (WASR) without a single jam. I've fired US made and Russian import ammo. I've literally beat the living crap out of the thing and have yet to have a single instance of it not going 'bang' when I pulled the trigger.
Not one.
At about $350 a copy I can't see a better value for a SHTF rifle anywhere now.
Is it as accurate as an AR? Nope.
Is it a precision firearm? Nope.
Will it go "bang" every GD time you pull the trigger?
Yep.
If I were limited to only one weapon to pull out of my safe and head out the door with, it'd be one of my Romanian AK variants.
Hands down.
L
.308 AR mags can be hard to find. If you want something in .308, get a FAL or an M14/M1A. Both types of magazines are plentiful and relatively cheap, and in the case of the FAL, there’s a bajillion parts for them running around the US.
AKs in anything other than their original calibers (5.45 AK or 7.62x39 AK) do tend to jam because the action isn’t really suited to the profiles of the Western-style rounds like the 5.56 NATO without a great deal of modification to the magazine and feed path design. They do really well in .308, though that’s an uncommon combo for an AK.
If your AK in 7.62x39 is jamming, either you have bad ammo, or something is really, truly, totally screwed on your gun. They have such loose tolerances that you can literally bury one in river mud, come back in 15 years, dig it up, slosh it around in the river to get the mud out of the barrel, load it with fresh ammo and with no other prep proceed to pour rounds down the barrel like there’s no tomorrow. AKs are bullet hoses.
You can shoot an AK until the front foregrip has *literally* burst into flames from overheating, then dump 300 more rounds down it in full auto before the gas action finally carbons up and overheats. There’s a video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNAohtjG14c
You can’t do that with an AR-pattern rifle.
The SKS has limited firepower (10 rounds), if you fit a detachable magazine it becomes a jam-o-matic, and it takes forever to reload if you use a fixed 20 or 30 rounder. It also isn’t quite as robust and there are fewer parts for them.