I have probably fired as many 7.62x39, 7.62x51, and 5.56 as anyone on here. The AK is a fine short range rifle, but isn’t in the same class as an AR in accuracy. The real question is, would you rather carry an 8 pound rifle with 200 rounds of ammo, or a 10 pound M14 with 70? In my quite humble opinion, the M14 is an overweight, clumsy handling rifle that shoots a fine cartridge. There is also a good reason why they don’t issue full auto weapons and it isn’t the machine gun ban. I have fired full auto rifles in 7.62, and it is a glorious uncontrollable waste of ammunition suitable only for cover fire.
The military used many 7.62 AR10’s in the middle east, as a longer range option. In other words, I’d rather have 200 rounds of ammo, a 5.56, and body armor for the same weight of a M14, 70 rounds and no armor, thank you!
I have a military quality AR that has had approx 4000 rounds, mostly my handloads through it, 0 malfunctions, it will keep all its shots in a 2.5 inch group at 200 yards. My AK is a custom, and a nice rifle, it is in my bedroom as we speak along with 6-30’s. It has had the same number (roughly) of rounds though it and no malfunctions. It will shoot the same group at 100 yards as the AR at 200. Current models are not the original Viet Nam era M16’s so forget about those horror stories.
I also have a habit of shooting and hunting in Africa with a .416 Rigby which I think qualifies as a man’s cartridge.
You are incorrect about the combat load with the M-14: I carried 7 loaded magazine plus one in the weapon for 160 rounds. (also carried two to four frags and occasionally a LAW, two canteens, K-Bar, med kit and plenty of body armor.). After a certain amount of physical conditioning, anybody can. The critical part of the M-14 is that always worked, every time no matter what the conditions were and when you hit somebody, they stayed down.
As I said to an army buddy at the time when he told me that the M-14 was "too heavy for Vietnam", all he had to do was ask and we would have sent him "a big strong Marine to hold his M-14 up for him".
Fired a bunch of “all of the above” myself.
My guess is that with no “new war” starting combined with the budget situation (meaning the military will suck hind t@# to every social program out there), I don’t see re-equipping the force with a new weapons platform.
For most people (the ones who don’t and will never go outside the wire), it doesn’t matter what they carry.
For those that do (and I humbly include myself in this group), we were issued at least 1 M-14 per squad, and in the semi-urban areas of Iraq we were operating in this was fine since we for the most part wanted a short weapon for build-up areas.
One other note - before we deployed, we had the M16A2. Once we were tapped to go, we got new M4’s, M16A4’s for Designated Marksmen, and M14’s where needed, all with optics.
We really did not feel under-armed.