AK47 - please help me define / find one

Ignition Override said:

Wanderling:
You'll probably like the M&P Sport II. Bought mine 'nib' about a year ago.
It works fine, and with my 20-rd. Pmags (I don't need/like larger mag ergos) has been a 100% perfect operation. The trigger is pretty crisp, just slightly tighter at the break than my SAR-1 or nib Saiga rifles.

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What's the good place to get these mags ? I don't really like the 30rd mags, they make sense for a combat automatic weapon but are imho an overkill for a semi auto one, my 17 rd mag on G17 seems to last forever (I hate the spray & pray shooting). Also, any particular brand that's reliable ? TIA

I actually read a lot of the "5.45 vs 5.56 vs 7.62" comparisons on both the US and Russian forums lately, and I think both sides suffer from the "not made here" complex. Which comes in two flavors: "not made here = junk" and "not made here = superior magic." Pretty funny to read, actually, as they often sound as mirror image of each other.
I claim no experience with either of them, just trying to sift through all the BS and extract what seems like genuine info. Tons and tons of BS...

So, here's a few things picked on the Russian language forums that I think sound like they could be true:

- Regardless of the design ballistics, the Western produced ammo generally has superior quality vs the Russian ammo (I assume they mainly mean commercially available, but looks like military grade as well). People on the Russian forums claim to have achieved very similar accuracy in AK-74 vs AR15 using the US made ammo, at least in shorter ranges. Using Russian ammo, the accuracy seems to drop quite a bit, since the consistency is worse round to round. Also, the 5.56 simply has a wider availability of various rounds suited for different applications.

- The Soviet 5.45 cartridge design was optimized for accurate feeding in the fully automated mode, and the lower powder charge seems to have been selected in large part due to the concerns with barrel overheating and overall wear in the sustained automatic mode. I read this reasoning more than once. No idea if this is true but it does make sense.

- To achieve a similar ballistic performance vs 5.56 while having a lesser energy round, the Soviets designed it to be less stable (apparently via creating a void towards the end of the bullet) so that it would start tumbling once it hits the target. The military ammo is also designed with a hard steel core - something that is probably not available for sale here. It's hard to say whether it's better or worse than 5.56 - there's copious amounts of BS and wild speculations and rather suspect personal anecdotes trying to support any claim.

My personal impression after reading all of it was that a military grade 5.56 NATO round when shot from at least a 16" barrel will slightly outperform a military grade 5.45 x 39 round shot from an AK-74. As in, it will hit harder and create a nastier wound channel. But the difference is likely small. And with commercial loads, it's really a crap shoot.

- Some person on some forum, claiming to be a Russian Special forces with Chechnya experience, said that the reason they prefer 7.62 is "because we can shoot". He went on to explain that this round has much less forgiving ballistics, and is more sensitive to the shooter's mistakes, so for an average conscript soldier, the smaller caliber round with a flatter trajectory and less recoil / flinch factor is a better choice. But the special forces often had to use their rifles in forests or against vehicles, in short - distance ambush type situations. For them the superior penetrating ability of 7.62 was more important.

- There was at least one person who claimed that 5.45 was proven to have better penetrating ability when shooting through thick brush than 5.56, but no proof provided.

Anyway, to me this seems to indicate that these arguments over these three calibers and rounds are largely a waste of time.

Sorry for one big blob of text, this site seems to have a problem with iPhone browsers.