AR or AK?

Sunshine_Shooter

Established
What Ryan St. Jean said. A well made AR is as reliable as a well made AK. Going Piston doesn't improve the reliability, it just makes you reliant to a proprietary system. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as that proprietary system works.

Just by a quality weapon and train with it, and stop perpetuating fuddlore.
 

Low_Speed_Notper8or

Regular Member
The pros and cons of both are vastly overstated and decent versions of them both are fine fighting rifles. Pick the one you like better and train with it.

What Ryan St. Jean said. A well made AR is as reliable as a well made AK. Going Piston doesn't improve the reliability, it just makes you reliant to a proprietary system. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as long as that proprietary system works.

Just by a quality weapon and train with it, and stop perpetuating fuddlore.
True but I would say get a DI AR at this point.

With all the money going into ARs with the Global war on terror and with good magazines (pmags), we figured out how to make a reliable AR. You can buy a BCM upper, Aero completed lower, a pile of PMAGs and for under $1000 get a rifle that will run just as well as any AK.

The problem with the AK is either you pick a 7.62x39mm gun and deal with the ammo weight and lackluster ballistics of that(Hint, there is a reason most armies use SCHV rounds), or get a 5.45 AK where your ammo is hard to find and generally crappy or expensive and magazines are expensive and also hard to find. And these days to get a decent AK its just as if not more expensive then an AR.

Furthermore, any issues taht 5.56 might of had with reliability or ammo selection has been fixed. Its not 1993 anymore, you don't have to pay insane amounts of money to get a Colt AR and deal with surplus GI mags and m193 or m855. You can't buy an immaculate AK-74 for $300 and spam cans of 5.45 for pocket change.

As much as I love AKs, and it might be viable as cheap braced pistol without 922(r), the AR just wins in terms of economics and being a more developed platform here
 

Ryan St.Jean

Regular Member
This is the question I came to pose - Does a piston AR significantly close the gap reliability-wise enough to offset any advantage an AK platform might otherwise hold?

DI AR; ergonomics, aftermarket support, accuracy, availability

AK; reliability

Piston AR; ergonomics, aftermarket support, accuracy, availability, AND reliabity...?

Piston ARs are arguably not widely available nor are they definitely not standardized. One could say they are AR’s in physical appearance only.

Personally I stick with really common guns for a reason. They are proven and they work. An added benefit is that parts are widely available.
 

Ryan St.Jean

Regular Member
True but I would say get a DI AR at this point.

With all the money going into ARs with the Global war on terror and with good magazines (pmags), we figured out how to make a reliable AR. You can buy a BCM upper, Aero completed lower, a pile of PMAGs and for under $1000 get a rifle that will run just as well as any AK.

The problem with the AK is either you pick a 7.62x39mm gun and deal with the ammo weight and lackluster ballistics of that(Hint, there is a reason most armies use SCHV rounds), or get a 5.45 AK where your ammo is hard to find and generally crappy or expensive and magazines are expensive and also hard to find. And these days to get a decent AK its just as if not more expensive then an AR.

Furthermore, any issues taht 5.56 might of had with reliability or ammo selection has been fixed. Its not 1993 anymore, you don't have to pay insane amounts of money to get a Colt AR and deal with surplus GI mags and m193 or m855. You can't buy an immaculate AK-74 for $300 and spam cans of 5.45 for pocket change.

As much as I love AKs, and it might be viable as cheap braced pistol without 922(r), the AR just wins in terms of economics and being a more developed platform here


A decent AR will work just fine.

Personally I prefer the 7.62x39 AK (to the 5.45). Ammo, mags and parts are widely available. They weigh a bit more than 5.56/5.45 but I’m using it in a civilian capacity. My max load out, somehow if things got completely nuts, would be 7 mags. No week long LRS patrols with 20 mags on an LBE.

Personally I was disinterested in 5.45 when the ammo was available. Now that it is rare I am even less interested.

Ballistics are an interesting discussion. For a civilian and honestly an LEO any fighting will be at pretty close distances. We are talking tens of meters not hundreds. Also the heavier 7.62x39s performance against cars is worth considering.

At the end of the day these discussions are mental masturbation. Buy the one (AR or AK) you prefer and that your friends carry. Get a bunch of mags, ammo and eventually a back up rifle.
 

DocGKR

Dr.Ballistics
Staff member
Moderator
Let's see--you are considering getting rid of the most ergonomic, popular, adaptable, and effective defensive rifle produced to date; one where there are plentiful stocks of parts, magazines, and ammunition for long term service in CONUS.....hmmmm, maybe not a wise idea. Keep the AR15's. While AK's are fine carbines, every qualified American should own an AR15. Perhaps more Americans have been trained to safely operate the AR15 than any other firearm. There are approximately 25 million American veterans who have been taught how to properly use an AR15 type rifle through their military training, not to mention in excess of 1 million American LE officers who have qualified on the AR15 over the last several decades. In addition, there are numerous civilian target shooters and hunters who routinely use AR15's. In many ways, the AR15 is the ubiquitous "Brown Bess" musket or Winchester repeating rifle of the modern era—a true firearm for the people of America. The AR15 is a highly versatile design that can be adapted for military, law enforcement, civilian self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and other sporting purposes--something an AK cannot match. If you want AK47/AKM performance in an AR, run .300 BLK. Yeah....keep the AR15.
 

Mack Bolan

Newbie
The AR15 is a highly versatile design that can be adapted for military, law enforcement, civilian self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and other sporting purposes--something an AK cannot match.

The aftermarket for the AK certainly isn't as big as it is for the AR, but an AK can be setup to do any of those things.
 

JLL2013

Regular Member
I think you can typically get more velocity out of a 7.62x39 than a 300blk. Might be wrong but I've seen 7.62x39 go through a car door that a similar 300blk round wouldn't.
But adding caliber into the AR vs AK debate is really a moot point when you can get an AR in 300blk, 5.56, 7.62x39. 6.5 Grendel, and everything else.

If you want AK47/AKM performance in an AR, run .300 BLK. Yeah....keep the AR15.
 

spinmove_

Member
Let's see--you are considering getting rid of the most ergonomic, popular, adaptable, and effective defensive rifle produced to date; one where there are plentiful stocks of parts, magazines, and ammunition for long term service in CONUS.....hmmmm, maybe not a wise idea. Keep the AR15's. While AK's are fine carbines, every qualified American should own an AR15. Perhaps more Americans have been trained to safely operate the AR15 than any other firearm. There are approximately 25 million American veterans who have been taught how to properly use an AR15 type rifle through their military training, not to mention in excess of 1 million American LE officers who have qualified on the AR15 over the last several decades. In addition, there are numerous civilian target shooters and hunters who routinely use AR15's. In many ways, the AR15 is the ubiquitous "Brown Bess" musket or Winchester repeating rifle of the modern era—a true firearm for the people of America. The AR15 is a highly versatile design that can be adapted for military, law enforcement, civilian self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and other sporting purposes--something an AK cannot match. If you want AK47/AKM performance in an AR, run .300 BLK. Yeah....keep the AR15.

I totally agree with you on all points. For the record I am NOT looking at selling out of the AR platform. I was merely curious as to what AK things an AK does that an AR does not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

shoobe01

Established
Somewhat aside: I have become leery of piston guns lately, as a group I work with does a lot of blank (and MILES) training. They have had a couple piston guns have catastrophic failures with (different) piston ARs running BFAs. Catastrophic to include launching the piston out the front of the gun.
 

DocGKR

Dr.Ballistics
Staff member
Moderator
The only piston AR types worth looking at are ones which have extensive, vetted use by major organizations/units.

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"The aftermarket for the AK certainly isn't as big as it is for the AR, but an AK can be setup to do any of those things."

Perhaps, but one AR15 can do all of those things, simply by popping two pins and dropping on different pre-zeroed uppers...
 
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