“what do you think?”
That w1n1 is a blog bot?
I have never in my life seen an AK do 2” 100 yard groups with steel case commie ammo, and I’ve seen a few AKs.
I don’t buy it. 4 to 6 inches is far more the norm, with 3.5 being exceptional for an AK (usually means it has a quality barrel).
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Bottom line, if it blows up yer skirt, git ya some. d;^)
I shot a 4in group with iron sights.
100 yards?
Didn’t know they would let you fire an AK at the pistol range....
Army Infantryman for 6 years by MOS. Also trained as an armorer and with soviet weapons. I am of the opinion that:
A junk AK is not that uncommon, a junk AR less so. A tuned AK and a tuned AR will both often out perform most shooter’s abilities. A precision (300 yard plus) AK is difficult to find but a precision AR can be fairly easy to find.
Neither is a good starting point for a sniper rifle (600 yards plus), much having to do with the round fired and the basic mechanics of either system.
The basic round fired in the AK, the 7.62x39, is inherently accurate - enough so that several benchrest rounds based on it are out there.
AKs themselves can be reasonably accurate, or junk - and that depends (like any other rifle) on both initial manufacturing quality and the care (or lack thereof) given to the rifle in between receiving it new and the time that the test is done. That is speaking of shooting from a bench - i.e. the accuracy of that particular rifle, when eliminating the shooter as much as possible.
Keep in mind that the AK was designed first and foremost to be reliable, NOT to be a tack driver. Semi-auto in general is less accurate than a bolt-action rifle (all other things being equal). It was meant to hit at minute-of-body at up to 300 yards, first time and every time...and most will do that. 4 MOA shooting mass-produced, steel-cased ammo is pretty lousy compared to a well-built and well-cared for AR or M16/M4 shooting match ammo or hand-loads, BUT IT DOES THE JOB FOR WHICH IS WAS INTENDED. You can’t expect a hammer to be a good screwdriver, and neither is a good wrench or saw. All that is required is that it doe the job for which it was designed, and the AK does that, in spades.
FYI, I imagine that a 7.62x39 round made to match standards, shot from a quality boltie with a relatively tight chamber, would be quite accurate.
The one I had was Russian. It was produced on the same line as the full auto version. It had a certified match barrel and custom trigger group and could only hit a broad side of a house if I threw it.
I traded it for optics to put on my 556 swat patrol.
I will throw in my 2 cents worth. Maybe one could average all our opinions and come up with something useful. Then again maybe not.
I have owned around a dozen of the AK’s, about the same number of AR’s and SKS’s. Maybe 5 or 6 Mini-14’s and not a single mini 30.
First of all, the AR is the gold standard. Nearly all are very accurate and a lot are extremely so. Next comes the SKS which is a pretty good shooter. I hardly ever shot them over 50 yards but they would usually do an inch or so at that distance.
The AK’s seemed to me to do a little better than everyone said but still not great. I would guess maybe 2 inches at 50.
The worst of them all were the Rugers. I wished so much that they would have been more accurate as I really liked them. Unfortunately I never had one that would do better than around 3 inches at 50 yards. They all seemed to do about the same.
I don’t own any AK’s but I have shot a few. I absolutely cannot use the standard AK sights - my old eyes just can’t do it. I do have a 1980’s vintage Galil AR-308 which is an AK pattern rifle that has a peep rear and post-in-a-ring front sight. No problem with that or any U.S. standard post with wings and peep rear either. That tiny U-notch AK rear sight will never work for me.
Anyone can get lucky. It appears James Reeves did.
After 24-1/2 years on active duty, I moved to a small town in western South Dakota. Spent 14 years working for a gun dealership that also sold parts and performed general repair and gunsmithing.
Numerous owners of Kalashnikov clones boasted about the accuracy of their rifles. When we asked what size groups they were getting, they (a) looked blank (as in, “What’s a group?”) or (b) changed the subject. Every time.
In the course of troubleshooting and repair, we asked many gun owners to fire a test target and bring us the results, to help us find out what was wrong, or make adjustments (for example, to newly-installed sights).
Kalashnikov owners never provided a test target. Not ever.
The virtues of Kalashnikov-style arms lie in simplicity, reliability, and durability (though the latter may not be as great as many believe). They are accurate enough for burst fire at close to medium ranges: great for mopping up enemy positions recently overrun in the armored assault. They do exactly what the designer intended, and that’s that.
They are found all over the place, not because of any particular strengths nor virtues, but because the USSR and other East Bloc nations produced them in huge numbers, then gave many away, to anyone willing to stand up and chant “We love Communism!” or “Death to America!”
Alright, big wall of text incoming:
I have one of the most collectible pre-ban Chinese AKS semi-clones, it being one of the rarest and most desirable models Polytech imported to the US back in the late ‘80s. It shoots 6” groups at 100m no matter what 7.62x39 ammo you run through it. Best results I ever got was with expensive brass cased Norma ammo and it shrunk groups to maybe 3” with one wild flier doing its own thing. It stays in the safe looking pretty.
But I also have a 5.56 Valmet M76 which is an AKM design and it has shot sub-MOA at 100m with match ammo from a rest and regularly prints 1.5” groups with ordinary M193 ball. It requires 55gr ammo only. Problem with the Valmet is that the very heavy and violent bolt carrier assembly likes to rip the case head right off of soft brass cartridge cases. Even if it doesn’t act up during a range outing by separating brass case heads, I always come home to clean out zillions of little brass dust fragments from the action that makes it look like I was using the rifle to pan for gold flakes in a stream.
5.56 Galils AR/ARMs like to do the same thing, which sort of explains why the few nations to adopt an AK design chambered in 5.56 NATO didn’t keep them in service very long... the IDF made a broken shell extractor a basic component of their soldier’s equipment, after all. Israel never adopted steel case ammunition. Finland never adopted 5.56 in their Valmet service rifles. Even when Russia moved to 5.45x39, they kept it based on the rugged M43 cartridge case to mitigate the problems discovered by everyone who tried to integrate a 5.56 small diameter case in the AK design.
Years ago I sold my Galil AR but kept the Valmet. Knowing today how Galil parts kits and mags were cheaply imported in big numbers I wish I’d done the opposite, but whatever. Because of this, I almost never take my Valmet to the range. Repair parts are practically unobtanium and mag prices are absurd even though I’ve modified other .223 AK mags to function in it.