AK47 for the Free World?

Scott Kenny said:
Have you seen the price of a SCAR? I can buy 4x good ARs for the price of one SCAR! Crud, I can buy 1.5 Colt ARs for the price of one SCAR!
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It's almost as if you purchase something in small numbers it's expensive per unit?

SCAR would be cheaper if it were bought on the order of several million. It was literally designed to have a lower unit price floor than an M4.
 
Kat Tsun said:
It's almost as if you purchase something in small numbers it's expensive per unit?

SCAR would be cheaper if it were bought on the order of several million. It was literally designed to have a lower unit price floor than an M4.
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Not sure about that, not with how big the SCAR bolt carrier is compared to an AR. That's one of the expensive parts to make...

Admittedly, I'm comparing civilian prices between ARs and SCARs. I'm sure a military order would be less than the civilian price, just due to the fact that someone bought a couple hundred thousand of them. But less than the US civilian price of an AR? I doubt that pretty hard.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Not sure about that, not with how big the SCAR bolt carrier is compared to an AR. That's one of the expensive parts to make...
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The upper receiver is an extruded aluminum one, and compared to an M4's need for milling or forging, it's cheaper. The cheapest possible rifle that could be produced using Western manufacturing bases is an extruded aluminum monolithic upper and an injected polymer lower.

If you were going to make a rifle to arm an actual army, and order 20 or 30 million of them as a result, you'd see significant savings between making M4s versus SCARs.
 
paralay said:
For what amount can a civilian legally buy an M16 or an AR15?
In Russia, a 5.45 caliber rifle corresponding to the latest generation of the Kalashnikov assault rifle costs $ 954
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I have such a weapon. Only for the cartridge 7.62x39. It's called AK-15. Or its hunting variant TR3. Competed with a friend. I have a 7.62mm TR3 with a Leapers optical sight. He has a Sabatti bolt-action sniper rifle with an ATN digital sighting system. At a distance of 500 meters, my TR3 was 1.7 times less accurate compared to the Sabatti. The result is not bad. All 5 bullets hit the boar's target at this distance.
 
I’ve had a TR3 carbine for a year now; it’s a civilian version of the AK‑15 assault rifle chambered for 7.62×39. It doesn’t have the ability to fire automatically. The rifling pitch (twist) of the TR3 carbine chambered for 7.62×39 is 320 mm, or 12.6 inches. This value differs from that of its combat prototype — the AK‑15 assault rifle (which has a caliber of 265 mm). The reason is that civilian hunting cartridges of 7.62×39 caliber do not have a steel core, they have a different ballistics, and a different rifling step is required for stable operation.

It currently costs 95,000 rubles / 1,102 dollars.
A Russian‑made AR-15 of 7.62×39 caliber costs at least 300,000 rubles / 3,481 US dollars.

Yesterday, I fired 100 shots. Distance: 100 meters. The red circle is the aiming point. Two hits on the first target at two o’clock — shooting at the adjacent target.
The first shot at the target from a cold barrel produced 1.3 angular minutes, not counting two gaps — the second and tenth shots. The tenth target showed a normal accuracy for an AK — 2.4 angular minutes. I am sure that the AK’s accuracy can be easily improved if we abandon the requirement that the weapon must function reliably in conditions of high humidity and low temperatures. To achieve this, we need to reduce the gaps between the stamped parts of the receiver and the bolt carrier.
 

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uk 75 said:
The AK47 and its derivatives became the weapon of the various countries and groups that challenged the postwar "Free World".
If you could pick a Western designed rifle that could have matched the AK47 which one would you choose?
It looks as if the M16 family comes closest.
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i would take the Daewoo Precision Industries K2
it based on M16 but build like AK-47
the K2 is capable of firing both 5.56×45mm NATO and .223 Remington ammunition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daewoo_Precision_Industries_K2
 
paralay said:
I’ve had a TR3 carbine for a year now; it’s a civilian version of the AK‑15 assault rifle chambered for 7.62×39. It doesn’t have the ability to fire automatically. The rifling pitch (twist) of the TR3 carbine chambered for 7.62×39 is 320 mm, or 12.6 inches. This value differs from that of its combat prototype — the AK‑15 assault rifle (which has a caliber of 265 mm). The reason is that civilian hunting cartridges of 7.62×39 caliber do not have a steel core, they have a different ballistics, and a different rifling step is required for stable operation.

It currently costs 95,000 rubles / 1,102 dollars.
A Russian‑made AR-15 of 7.62×39 caliber costs at least 300,000 rubles / 3,481 US dollars.
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Whoa! That is way high for what should be a mass produced rifle.

Last I checked most AR15s are less than that by a third or so. For the base rifle, not the rifle-with-all-extras like scope etc.
 
muttly said:
Kind of hard. The AK is kind of a medium, the AR a light and the HK or FAL is a heavy.
They are different beasts. If you go by numbers made I would go with the AR.
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AR-15 with a supersonic .300 Blackout or 6.8mm SPC II.
 
The "westernized" AK is the Tavor.

Long stroke piston with a cleaned up BCG and injection molded polymer receiver. Only that it is a bullpup.
 
perttime said:
In Finland, Valmet designed the RK 62, based mainly on the AK-47: machined receiver, built tighter, aperture sight on the receiver cover, tubular stock...

RK 62 was used as the basis for IMI Galil.
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I like the RK-95 myself, which I think borrowed back some improvements from the Galil (but don't quote me).
 
So last week I attended the Tanks, Trucks & Firepower show near me in Warwickshire. At lunchtime they did the firepower display. It started with a 9mm Glock, before working up through calibres and/or gun size before moving onto artillery (both towed and self-propelled) and finally a Chieftain tank.

Of all the firearms, after the assault shotgun (can't remember which one), the AK47 was by far the loudest. Significantly louder than the M16. We were standing roughly 150ft from the operator, and my eardrums were protesting, whereas I felt I could listen to the M16 all day without putting fingers in ears. Living in Britain and not being exposed to guns ever it was interesting to note the variation in volume.

The 90mm gun surpassed everything however, even the Chieftain's 120mm. Then they drove the Chieftain through a double-decker bus because tank.
 
I can't remember. Looking back at my video I started recording too late and missed the name. Its self-propelled, but what nationality I don't know.
 
jeffb said:
I like the RK-95 myself, which I think borrowed back some improvements from the Galil (but don't quote me).
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RK 95 has a skeleton stock, much like the Galil, a rear sight with 2 apertures, much like the Galil, and a muzzle brake that makes it bounce less. Also, there is a means to tighten the receiver cover, which helps keep the cover mounted rear sight in place more precisely.
 
Some shade in old comment about Chinese AK's. The Norinco Mak-90 is an excellent AK, speaking from experience. Love a Chinese blonde. Like most AK's, it's never going to be a sub-MOA tack driver but they're far from junk.

The closest Western alternative to an AK, performance, simplicity, reliability wise, is simple. A dimensionally conformant 16" 5.56 AR15 with a midlength gas system and a twist rate optimized for 62 or 77gr ammo. No polymer receiver. Free-floated chrome lined barrel. Keep it lubed and it will run clean, dirty, cold, hot, perfectly happy. The old fudd myth about AK's being phenomenally reliable and abuse-proof and AR15's being finicky precision instruments is complete BS, exacerbated by some very bad advice about minimal lubrication that was common in the Vietnam era.

They're both great rifles that achieve similar objectives through very different engineering philosophies.
 
GreenBullet said:
They're both great rifles that achieve similar objectives through very different engineering philosophies.
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The AR is the opposite of large scale manufacturing.

When Colt was getting hung up on building M16s and Congress called a pause they lashed out at the USG. No money feeding in means no hiring machinists, and Colt were barely making profit. Machining is only good for Armalite when they only needed to make a small quantity of examples for T&E.

In contrast the AKM was racking in bounds of "profits" after the 500k stamped, though in fairness they did have cheap labor to offset the toolmaking costs.

The AR got kept because its intended replacement is too far forward tech wise (SPIW), it was a relatively new thing and Congress is not going to fund another competitor even after all of its supposed shortcomings in Vietnam (well and the M14 is worse, so they don't want to get burned one more time), and the other bundle of money is going in the pockets of tactical missiles and armoured vehicles. If there was an actual incentive to make an improved AR to compete and outclass G3 derivatives and AKs then the Stoner as we knew it would look more like an M16A2 upper but with metal forming lines on an AR-18 lower.

Well 70s Colt birthed a lot of things, even the 703 and various CARs so I wouldn't be surprised if they tampered with the Stoner TDP and made one that's still locked in a collection somewhere.
 

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