OKAY YOU GUYS HAVE IT ALL WRONG THE ACR IS LIKE THE BEST GUN EVER .IM NOT PUTING THE AK 47 DOWN BUT IM GETTING SICK AND TIRED OF EVERY ONE SAYING OOHHH THE AK IS THE BEST ITS SO COOOL AND RELIABLE OOWWW NO OTHER GUN MACHES IT . WRONG GET REAL THE AK IS UGALY OLD INACCURATE AND IS A PAIN TO SHOOT ITS ACUALY THE STUPEDEST ASSULT RIFLE EVER MEAD CHINA HAD TO MODIFY IT BECAUSE THE RUSSIAN AK BARRELE WOULD MELT BET YOU DIDNT KNOW THAT.OKAY HERES THE TOP TEN ASSULT RIFLES IN THE WORLD. ADAPTIVE COMBAT RIFLE(ACR) MADE IN USA. SCAR LIGHT MADE IN USA. COLT COMMANDO M4A1 CARBINE MADE IN USA. REC7 OR THE BARRET M4 6.8 MADE IN USA. LWRC M4 MADE IN USA. INFANTRY AUTOMATIC RIFLE(IAR) MADE IN USA. Z-M WEAPONES LR 300 MADE IN USA. SIG 516 MADE IN USA. M16 A3 MADE IN USA . LAST BUT NOT LEAST . THE BOFORS- AK5 ASSULT RIFLE MAD IN SWEDEN. SO THESE ARE THE TOP TEN MOST BEST ASSULT RIFLES EVER MADE IN THE NAME OF MAN KIND IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS JUST SAY THEM. THANK YOU FOR READING THE BEST WEAPONS LIST OF ALL TIME . U.S.A. WILL ALWAYS RULE.

This comment has sparked a hot debate! What do you think? 4  5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWAOgpR49U

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On a personal note if we’re gonna adopt a new rifle based on percieved cartridge performance I suggest we go with something in 7.62×51 NATO, so that way we can avoid any ammo hassles.

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However, anytime one starts putting caveats on things (such as “use a proper oil”, “run it wet”, “keep it clean”) a design has inherently failed in some way. All designs fall short of perfection; but the more caveats you have to apply, the farther from perfection it is.

My point about mags is that it’s taken 40 years and a lot of really advanced chemistry and engineering to get AR15 mags to work well. Kalashnikov got his design to work dead-reliable in 1943 with technology no more advanced than a simple machine shop. Are there tradeoffs in Kalashnikov’s design? Yes. Could many of his ideas be profitably incorporated into a clean-sheet magazine design? Yes.

My take on the carrier-tilt debate is that you are correct; the AR15 was not designed as a piston gun, and attempts to retrofit pistons into it are inherently kludgy. They can still work well if engineered correctly; but they aren’t as good as a clean-sheet design like the ACR.

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Mags: Plenty of companies make damn near bomb proof mags for the AR. Magpul PMag and the Lancer L5 come to mind

Dwell time: A carbine, combined with a Heavy Buffer, M16 Bolt Carrier and upgraded extractor spring with O-ring pretty much nips any extraction problems in the bud.

Charging Handle: Yeah, I’ll agree with you there. lol Updates in the manual of arms help in charging handle manipulation to keep your weapon hand on fire control, but those go out the window when reaction side transitioning

Pistons for an AR: Quite frankly, your time is better spent on the DI unless you’re running a shorty suppressed. Piston AR’s have issues with carrier tilt; and as prolific as HK would like their weapon to be, a man with way more experience than I said it best with: “People that think they need piston guns don’t shoot enough to actually warrant them. People that shoot enough to sanction them aren’t foolish enough to buy them”

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I respect your opinion and your choices. Your experiences are perfectly valid and I will not (severely) disagree with what they have taught you.

I will not disagree with you that the AK has all kinds of flaws. Some are accuracy-related (the stubby bullet, the slant-cut muzzle brake); many more are shootability-related (crappy trigger, crappy sights); and then there’s the battlefield tradeoffs… where you, as a technologically-savvy American in 2009 are very different from a Siberian peasant in 1949.

The AR may be dependable *as long as you keep it clean*. I don’t know what your battlefield experience has been; but I’ve spent some time on muddy shooting ranges and digging holes in all kinds of dirt; and I know how nasty the real world gets. I want my gun to work under less than perfect conditions. That’s not to say the AR *won’t* (there’s been some very good videos lately that indicate it will work even under pretty bad conditions); but I do think some things about it could be better.

- The AR15 magazine has a ‘kink’ in it, because the magwell was originally designed for a straight 25-rounder (which didn’t work, so they went to a 20-rounder); but you need curve in it to feel 30 rounds reliably.

- There’s not enough bolt overtravel; so there’s less time for the next round from the magazine to get up into line with the bolt. This is one of the reasons why AKs will feed happily from 40 or 50-round magazines, while ARs have trouble with more than 30.

- Jim Sullivan, one of the original designers, has said that there’s not enough dwell time between the gas hitting the bolt carrier and the bolt unlocking. This is one of the reasons why ARs are prone to failing to extract; the bolt tries to go back while there’s still too much pressure in the case and it’s stuck to the chamber walls.

- The charging handle position on the AR is equally bad for both right and left-hand shooters. You need to break your position to operate it.

I won’t even bother to list the limitations of direct-impingement gas systems, since you’ve mentioned the advantages of piston conversions. However:

- the system wasn’t originally designed for a piston. The retrofit pistons are notably flimsier than many designs originally built for pistons.

- The system was designed for a ‘pressurized reciever’ to operate the bolt carrier. This means there’s comparatively little space for dirt & crud to get out of the way. An AK will jam up if it’s full of dirt too; but it’s less likely to.

There is no perfect gun, there is no ‘totally reliable’ gun. The best we can do is design to probablilities of functionality and reliability. In the end, it’s the nut behind the trigger that does the job.

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I am a Marine who’s been to combat and has used both systems and I’ll be the first to say that a Stoner design (AKA M16, M4A1, AR) is far more comfortable and shooter friendly than the clumsy AK47. I know its all to preference, but inexperienced “gun nuts” always bash the AR design and go apeshit over an AK. And its always the uneducated response of “its more reliable.” Perhaps you could make that arguement in Vietnam, when the AR was in its infant stages. But todays AR is totally dependable and with the new piston configurations its just as dependable in performance as an AK. The facts are this: AR design is user-friendly, easier to reload, lightweight, modular, extremely accurate and now reliable. The AK is very “clacky” (anyone who’s fired one knows that I’m talking about that obnoxious sound the bolt makes) inaccurate, has too many parts that can snag (aka not ergonomic) and has some weight to it. Personally I say the AR is superior. Now I’m looking forward to the ACR coming out. It can shoot with water and sand in it which is optimal for mission performance, plus its mostly of polymer composite which is fantastic because it will expand less and wont burn your hands from overheating.

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If you are going to make claims, then site the source.

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The army experimented with .14 caliber rifles; but one of the problems they had was that water would persist in the barrel due to surface tension, instead of draining out. There are some practical lower limits to bore size for guns used out in the muddy, dirty, wet Real World.

For the sake of reliability alone, I’ll take the moderately large bore, heavily tapered 7.62×39 any day. The gun needs to go bang before we worry about what the bullet will do when it hits the target.

My experience with steel-cased 5.56×45 jamming up in a lot of different guns (even an XCR with it’s AK-ish mechanism) has really soured me on the reliability of the cartridge design.

5.45×39 (also really about .22″, just like the American cartridges, in spite of the different nominal size) is pretty darn well designed, all things considered. Kalashnikov didn’t think much of it compared to 7.62×39 tho; and I think he may have some good reasons. I’m surprised the Russians didn’t go to a nice round number like 6mm bore or even 5.5mm… it’s not like they need compatibility with out reloading components.

Still, I’d rather whack the enemy with something 6mm or bigger; and if operating by myself or in a very small unit, I’d rather hit with something 7mm or bigger. I think .276 Pedersen was one of the best cartridges ever designed. A .22 may be adequate; but I want some measure of extra insurance.

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A lot of the 5.56 vs 6.8 controversy is propaganda and hype. Anybody who disagrees should test this for themselves. In fact, I hope nobody agrees and everyone goes out to test it for themselves. I’m not suggesting that any of the rounds larger than 5.56 are flawed, but I am suggesting that the 5.56 is more than capable of doing the job for which it is intended.

Perspective from a practitioner of combat arms with over 17 years of military experience and practical application. Take it or leave it, but never let charts or rumor mill dictate your decision making ability.

On a final note: I like the ACR, but I like the M4 as well.

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It’s noteworthy that the AK is designed such that many of the parts can be 1/16″ of an inch out of tolerance (i.e. make-it-with-a-hacksaw tolerances) and it’ll still feed & fire until the end of days. Even a garbage-grade Romanian AK will work fine. (Tho you might find it hard to hit things… the Romanians sometimes have crooked sight towers).

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You need to start with what you want your cartridge to do. Is low recoil and rapid fire the desired criterion, or lots of striking power? How much? Is a 7gram bullet (~107gr) about right, or more or less? 2400fps might be quite adequate for an urban rifle; do you need 3200fps for mountainous terrain?

The closest I’ve come to being shot at is with a paintball gun. I gave good account of myself by virtue of aimed fire; but there is value in ‘reconnaisance by fire’ or ‘suppressive fire’, where a .22 would work as well as a .50 since most of your shots won’t be near the target anyway. Remember that small-unit tactics (and the logistic concerns of them) will be notably different than individual tactics.

Once you get past those issues of what we want the *bullet* to do, *then* we can worry about mechanical design.

I am of the opinion that most american cartridges are designed first and foremost for the hunting field or the target range. They’re mediocre for military purposes. Contrast Russian and American cartridges:

– 7.62x54R has a rim and a heavily tapered body. The rim means headspacing is less of an issue, so you’re less likely to get casehead separations. The Russian manufacturing industry couldn’t hold tight tolerances in 1891, and the designers knew it, so they compensated. The heavily tapered body means feeding and extraction are much more reliable under adverse conditions (steel-cased ammo, dirty gun, corroded ammo, sloppy construction of gun or ammo, gun held at a wierd angle or upside down… all the things that *will* happen out in a real military world).

7.62×39 is rimless for better feeding from magazines or belts; but still is heavily tapered for reliability. This is why steel-cased ammo works fine in 7.62×39 or x54R, but tends to jam up most every other cartridge design. Fire some steel-cased ammo in a revolver and compare the extraction force required to the force required to extract brass cases… it won’t happen every time; but sometimes it’s substantially harder. Steel cases aren’t self-lubricating like brass is, and don’t spring back after obduration in quite the same way, so they’re harder to push in and pull out of the chamber.

– 6.5 Grendel is a target cartridge and nothing but. It has a steep shoulder and a straight body, which may allow you to pack more powder into the same action length, and may improve accuracy, but it’s hell on feed reliability because the cartridge shoulders are bouncing off feed ramps and the top of the chamber on the way in, and that case is trying to tear itself apart linearly as it fires with the casehead opposed to the steep shoulder. Sure, it works… but does it work when situations are less than ideal?

Those are the extreme examples, but I hope I got the point across. Heavily tapered cases are more reliable out in a world that is dirty and unpredictable. They don’t pack quite as neatly for logistic purposes (which may be why the 5.45x39mm round is straighter-walled and has a different casehead from 7.62x39mm.. I’d really like to know); but they are reliable.

Designing the gun is a discussion as big as all this. All I will say at the moment (because my time is limited) is, get ahold of an AK and an AR, put them side by side, and take them apart. See how the parts move, see how far the parts move, consider how long it would take for them to travel in their paths, consider where dirt would go if it got into the works, consider the feed paths of the cartridges, consider how the magazines lock up and the way they rattle and the way the ammo feeds even when the magazine is pushed in some wierd way. (Do this with dummy ammo!)

M. Kalashnikov was as brilliant in his own way as Saint John Moses Browning himself. He designed with the limitations of Russian weather and manufacturing in mind tho. He started out as a shot-up tanker fighting the Germans, and not a hunter from Utah. Is the AK perfect? Far from it. However, for its design critera, it’s a brilliant design. Everything is made for cheap construction and high reliability.

If you’re willing to assume a higher cost of production for the rifle, and assume a more highly trained operator (also much more expensive), you can make different decisions. Keep in mind that the US bought AKs for the Iraqis from Bulgaria for _$65_ each. Colt gets substantially more than an order of magnitude more money for each M4 or M16.

I should shut up before I start pointing out the problems with the M16. Suffice it to say that the AR18 cured many of the AR15s biggest problems, but the Army rejected the design in 1968 because they’d invested $9 million in the rights and tooling for the AR15.

I keep contemplating the perfect assault rifle in my head, and it keeps changing as I learn more and more about all these factors. I don’t want to put down something here that I’ll look back on later and say ‘that was asinine!’, because in the end my opinion likely doesn’t matter.

Get yourself a subscription to Small Arms Review. It’ll teach you more in a few issues than you ever thought.

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