Is red your favorite color?Is Labor Day your favorite holiday?Do you have a bumper sticker that says share and share alike? Well, whether you are a pinko, commie, or not, you can still like the AK-47.The AK-47 is what we're gonna talk about today.
Kind of the state of the AK and the AK as it compares to many other weapons.We might even throw in a little bit of SKS AK versus other weapons.In our climate today, in 2024, I should say more specifically in October in the year of our Lord 2024.
The AK-47 how does that stand up today on the American market?I'm also going to tie in some older episodes where we just compared the two platforms right the AR-15 and the AK-47 and the 7.62x39 and the 5.56.I'll tie all that in it'll be a mega
But there have been some changes with AK-47s and ARs as the market continues to develop and change.So I thought this would be an important topic.I'm going to throw in a rapid fire version of the bio here on Gunfighter Life.
where we talk about guns, gunfighting, tactics, ballistics, the right way with God at the center, Judeo-Christian values, and real-world first-hand experience.Blessed to have served in the military, law enforcement, combat veteran,
private contractor, competition shooter, lifelong hunter, guide.Blessed by God that he got me through all those things so I could share this firsthand training, knowledge, experience with you to serve you today.Let's dive into the podcast.
I should also mention real briefly, I have used both M16s and AK-47s in a war zone. the jolly old sandbox as nobody really calls it.Again this is not comparing both platforms that will be added on to the end since I've done that in the past.
However, I think it is a little bit of everything that looks like an AK is an AK.In fact, most AKs aren't AKs, they're AKMs.Either way, many, many, many, the majority of these AK quasi AKs on the market are not an AK.
First of all, unless you have an actual like war trophy bring back, I don't think any of them are full auto legally, unless you just happen to have one of those rare unicorns.So there's that.
but also very few are actual Russia Chinese made to that quality.
Some are, there are some really good Russian and Chinese and also Polish in there, really good AK-47s that are made to military standard to stand up to military style abuse that are absolutely as rugged and reliable as a legendary AK is.
Most of them are not that.Most of them look like an AK made for the American market, either put together improperly and or with inferior parts, and they are not as reliable.
I recently, this recently came to the forefront and kind of got me motivated to do this episode.I recently did a class with a lot of ARs and a lot of AKs.The AKs had way more malfunctions than the ARs.And we're talking broad spectrum, like nice,
decent and cheap on both ends and the broad spectrum most of the malfunctions were with AK-47s that's not because the AK-47 is unreliable it's because most of those American quote-unquote AKs are not AKs just because it looks like an AK does not make it an AK if you want that legendary rock-solid reliability
then you need an actual military quality
And I'm talking like Russian military, Chinese military put together for combat, for a war zone, not some cheap thing to sell to the lowest bidder on the American market and not something pieced together by some company to make a profit on how cheap can we put this thing out because most people are going to shoot it at a 25 yard indoor range to make a bunch of noise and look cool to post pictures on Instagram.
that could land you into trouble.And that is one of the major issues with the AK-47s on the American market in 2024.There was a time when these really good military quality AKs could be had for decent money.
talking about like Russian military quality trunnions components hammer forged chrome lined barrels like those kind of things and they could be had either as parts kits if you knew what you were doing that could be done right with barrels and
complete AK variants that were really good, really good quality, really rugged and really reliable.Those days have been gone for a long time.Used to be you could get a good cheap AK.
Unless you just happen upon one at a shop and somebody doesn't know what they have or something.I don't think that's the case anymore.You can get a good AK or you can get a cheap AK.Take your pick.
Now you might buy a cheap AK that runs decent for a while. Maybe.But again, my opinion, the days of cheap, good AKs have sunsetted.They are gone.For a lot of reasons.The Cold War's been over for a hot minute.
A lot of those came out at the end of the Cold War, unless they come across a big warehouse from a country we can import, which will be the second thing I, the next thing I get into.
Those days are over, that kind of golden age of people were getting SKSs and AKs and Mosin-Nagants for dirt cheap prices because it was a collapse of a giant Soviet empire.
Well, most of those guns I think that have been imported are probably already on the market.
There's not some, unless there's some crazy find somewhere, there's not a massive storehouse of an entire country's arsenal that's gonna come on the American market of AK variants.
So that golden age where you could get really really high quality aks or sks's for a dirt cheap price I think those have been gone for a long time You know, it is what it is.There was a time when you could get M1 garands for dirt cheap.
There was a time when you could get M1 carbines for dirt cheap.There was a time when you could get swedish 65 by 55 mausers for crazy cheap But those days are gone.That's how the surplus market works.
And I think largely the surplus market on good manufactured and good quality component AKs is gone.So again, you can get a cheap AK pieced together by somebody somewhere somehow, or you can get a really good top quality AK and they're still around.
Arsenal and the Galil things like that.They're really good quality a case you can still get but they're not cheap They're not cheap even adjusted for inflation like compared to an AR.
They are not cheap, which is something else We'll get into another thing that plays into this.
I said we get into is the import restrictions a Lot of countries we used to get guns from we're not really getting mass quantity of guns from anymore China Russia So
Sadly a lot of that has dried up and You can get a really good quality AK I think the best one on the market today is gonna be your Galil if you're talking about a practical fighting rifle and
If you want one that looks and smells like an old Soviet, you know, Red Dawn kind of AK, I look at an Arsenal or something like that, there is the Palmetto State, and they're still not cheap.They're cheaper.I don't know how good they are.
I haven't run them.I have been pleasantly surprised with PSA AR-15s.That's a whole different ballgame than a PSA AK-47.
I don't know to what degree and quality those are, just because they make a good AR, and I think they do, especially for the money, doesn't mean they make a good AK, right?
I think they make a good AR, I don't, not real hip on their, you know, daggers, their Glock clones.So just because they make one really good gun, or one really good family of guns, doesn't mean everything they make is good.
Kind of like Kel-Tec, Kel-Tec makes some really good guns, and they make some really, Just kind of shake your head scratch your head.Like what were you thinking like a bullpup shotgun?
No, thanks If you're ever thinking about like getting a bullpup Maybe just take a deep breath and go on a long walk and reconsider But especially a bullpup shotgun.Hey, that's a long rabbit hole a deep rabbit hole, I guess Let's get back to a case.
So there are a few really good a case, but we're talking decent money.We're talking $1,000.I Was looking at
Arsenal a K. I remember when I got an arsenal a K for six hundred and some dollars I think if my memory serves me correctly I Was just looking at them on the website and I don't think the reps website was a ripoff thing That's market value was like 18 plus eighteen hundred plus dollars for an arsenal a K Which I would consider one of the few like kind of military correct good quality a case eighteen hundred and something dollars
It used to be not that long ago that you could get, well, let's just say it's kind of done a 180.There was a time when a really good quality AR, there was only a few on the market.And really it was Colt was a really good one.
And then there was Bushmaster and you might've had Delton as your budget one, but a really good quality AR was more money than a good quality, cheap surplus AK 47 that you might get like a Wasser or something for $300, three something.
even a better quality like a Polish really good quality AK for cheap money compared to an AR that's done a 180 you can get a decent AR for four or five six hundred dollars that runs reliably and again I think a good decent AK is what, $1,000?$1,500?So we've done a 180.
The issue here, I think, lies in a misunderstanding.The AK-47s, for a long time on the American market, were not cheap because they were cheap to make or cheap to manufacture or easy to manufacture.They are not.
They were cheap because there was a collapse of an empire.The Soviet Union collapsed. And all its, whatever you want to call it, vassal states, hinterlands, crumbled away and they needed money.
And something they had a lot of and something the Soviets did very well was make small arms.So a lot of those went on the market.
So a gun that was really, really good and high quality was also really flooding the market and affordable because the Soviet Union collapsed and there was a bunch of countries selling off war surplus.
Again, that was an artificial devaluation of that firearm.They weren't cheap because they were cheap guns.They weren't cheap because they were junk.They weren't cheap because they were easy to make or cheap to make or easier to make than an AR-15.
Making an AR-15 is more like assembling parts. Making an ak-47 and I get this from like roundabout knowledge.
I've never made an ak-47 from parts But from what I understand, it's a lot more in-depth requires a lot more infrastructure and a lot more know-how and skilled labor than assembling parts which you could do with a very few minimal tools assemble an ar-15 and
So there's a lot more small mom and pop companies, right?How many companies on the American market are making AR-15s?More than I could remember.I remember, again, when it was like
Colt, then Bushmaster, then maybe whoever came after that, Delton and there was a few other ones, Wyndham.But there was a time when there was a very few AR manufacturers and then it just exploded.
I think a lot of that had to do with when our first assault weapons ban dissolved and then you started seeing these companies pop up.
But again, I think it's a lot easier to buy parts in bulk and assemble your own flavor of what the AR-15 is or build it yourself than it is for an AK-47.So that's why you see a good quality AK-47 costing $1,800 because they're not cheap to make.
You don't just need an AR 15 wrench, you need to know how to press rivets, you need to know how to, you know, properly fit trunnions and things like that, that I don't know how to do.
And I consider myself a fairly competent gunsmith, but I don't know how to do that.Nor do I have the infrastructure for it.So you see a lot less companies popping out good quality AKs because they think it's harder to do.
And that's why they're so expensive.So again, to sum that up, we've seen almost a complete 180 where it used to be a good quality AR was going to cost you.
much more than a good quality AK now it's a 180 and you've seen where you can get a good quality AR for a fraction of the cost of a good quality AK-47. Now that is only part of the issue.
Much like the guns themselves, there was times when you could get spam cans full, those metal cans with the little old school, like sardine can keys where you'd open them up and there'd be fresh, straight up Red Army commie ammo.Crazy, crazy cheap.
from all kinds of countries.And it was crazy affordable.It was so affordable.And I'm not even talking about like the cheap, cheap made, like just to make it as cheap as you can.I'm not talking about like Brown Bear or Tula.
I'm talking about like it was a good quality com block ammo.Maybe not the most accurate, but pretty good military spec ammo for crazy cheap prices. An AR-15 ammo, 5.56, by contrast with its brass case and many of the other things, was more expensive.
That's no longer the case.5.56, 33.2 cents a round on AmmoSeek, that's the cheapest.And that's, again, October 2024, in the year of our Lord. Prices vary, they might vary in the next 10 minutes.But 32 cents around for 5.56.
The cheapest for 7.62 by 39 is 40.7 cents around.So the ammo is more expensive.The guns are more expensive.Again, this is not getting into which gun is better.Again, I've hashed that out and I will include that at the end.
But the market has definitely shifted. Gone are the days when you could get a really good quality Polish AK-47 and a couple of spam cans of ammo for cheaper than you could get a mediocre AR-15.Those days are gone.
And you could reminisce and have nostalgia sickness, but they're just gone.That's just what it is.
I don't know about this part, this is just speculation, but it could be that the war in Ukraine where both sides are using AK-47 and variants, many other things too, but both sides are using AK-47s and that's been on the news.
I assume I don't have television.Maybe that has driven some renewed interest and spark of interest of the AK-47 platform in America.I'm just, that's just a speculation.I don't know that that's true or not.
I'm not sure there is a good or bad guy in that fight, but the narrative seems to be in America that the Ukrainians are some kind of freedom fighters, standing up for whatever, and they have AK-47s, so maybe that sparked some kind of interest in it.
And that part is just, again, purely speculation.Okay, another big thing is that The AK-47, one of its big drawbacks is that it is hard to mount good quality optics and have them stay in return to zero when you disassemble and reassemble the weapon.
If you're not familiar with the platform, the top of the receiver is just a dust cover.It's just a piece of sheet metal. It's pretty flimsy, not really an issue for iron sights because all it really does, the gun will function without it.
You can take the dust cover off and the gun will shoot just fine.It's literally that.It keeps dust out of the gun.But that's kind of where you would mount an optic.Not great.
There are some variants like some SIG variants and things like that that are a little bit better.There are many different ways to mount an optic on an AK-47.None of them are great.None of them are as good as
what has become now the de facto standard flat top 1913 Picatinny rail on an AR-15.That's kind of, again, the standard.And that's not saying anything about both weapons platforms.I'm not saying that makes the AR-15 better.
But what I am telling you, as much as somebody who loves iron sights can, I will concede that optics are a giant force multiplier.In the last several decades, 50 years, 75 years,
The major advancements in firearms, and there's been some, the major advancements have not been in the gun platforms themselves, it's been in optics.Optics have been a giant force multiplier. I think a lot of that is owing to the GWAT.
When I did the initial invasion of Iraq, I had an iron sighted M16A2, iron sights, web sling.By my next deployment, I was one of the very early adopters before it was mass adopted.It's kind of one of the testers.
I was an expert marksman and I got the ACOG, Advanced Combat Optical Gun Sight from Trichicon.It is a force multiplier.Optics are a force multiplier. that is one of the kind of things that the AK does not do great.
I've had a Galil if you're just going to mount a red dot sight and that's good and that's probably your best choice in many applications that's fine not really a big deal but anything let's say more precise than that
The AK-47, there are ways to mount optics, I know.You don't have to write about this thing and that thing.They're generally more kludgy workarounds than just a flat-top, solid, mounted-to-the-receiver, flat-top AR 1913 rail.
So in 2024, where optics, where good optics are affordable and available and a force multiplier, that's kind of a big deal. And I love the AK-47.However, I'm not going to deny that.
That may or may not matter to you, but you don't get, you know, in a gunfight, in combat, you don't get a whatever they would call it, a handicap, right?Because you're running an iron sighted gun and the other guy has optics.It doesn't work that way.
I'm a big fan, even in 2024, of having backup iron sights on a fighting rifle.Yes, backup iron sights, but I will fully concede, maybe begrudgingly, but it's true that a good optic is a force multiplier, period, end of sentence.
And AR-15s, flat tops, do that better.That is something to consider.
I would also be remiss if I did not mention that even for non-gun people, even for people who are rudimentarily the most basic familiarization with guns, I think they have in the Western world because of the Cold War, because of propaganda, because of whatever, they see an AK as a bad guy's gun.
Now, I don't agree with that.You know, guns are not... Malamud say they're not evil by nature. They're just a hunk of metal.The AK is not any more evil or good than an AR-15 or an M16 or grandpa's lever-action rifle.
I, that is true, but I think we would be remiss to not mention or not believe that the AK-47 is seen as a bad guy's rifle.Ergo, if you have one, you're more likely to be seen as a bad guy.
If you're trying to run in and stop an active shooter, the cops see you with an AK, they may be more likely to perceive you as a bad guy than some other weapons platform.
just something to consider okay so i'm going to recap some things big things that are important for you if you're considering ak-47s in 2024 just because it looks like an ak does not mean it's rugged and reliable like an ak you have to get a good high quality
put together properly, and that's a big caveat, put together properly from somebody that knows what they're doing with the right parts.And that usually is going to cost you a lot of money.
AK-47 actually have that legendary rock solid AK reliability, and it can be done in 2024, but it ain't cheap.Going into another key point I want to reiterate, you can get a cheap AK or you can get a really good AK.
The days of cheap good AKs I think are long gone.Similarly, the ammunition that was once plentiful and crazy cheap, those days are pretty much gone.Now it's not crazy expensive, but it costs more than 5.56 ammo.
It's a big competitor in the intermediate cartridge world. Also, I think there's been a 180.There may have been a time where if when you were on a budget, it made a lot of sense to go with a cheap, good AK and a bunch of ammo.
But if a budget is at all in your vernacular, that has kind of flip-flopped the 180 in favor of the AR-15.Also in 2024, optics, good quality optics can be had and they are absolutely a force multiplier. ARs do that better.
I would briefly like to touch on the SKS.There was a time when SKSs were crazy cheap.I grew up poor in the South and SKS was the poor redneck poacher's deer rifle.
Not because it's a great deer rifle, because it's an okay deer rifle and they were crazy cheap and the ammo was crazy cheap.Ergo, if you were trying to put meat on the table cheaply,
SKS was kind of your thing, like a lot of deer went in the freezer with an SKS, because they were dirt cheap. But that's not the case anymore.
SKS's, I don't know if you've priced like a good premium, like, none of them are going to be new, but a good, really good condition, Norinco or Russian SKS.They're expensive now.
They're kind of moving out of that realm from cheap shooters to collector's items, which seems weird to say if you grew up when I did.But heck, again, there was times when war surplus 1903's
Or you know 1903 Springfield's or m1 Garand's Or m1 carbines they were a time when they were cheap surplus, I think we're moving out of the realm of those Good top quality SKS is
from being beater, shooter, trunk guns, truck guns, to being collector's items.I think we're moving into that realm.Nobody's making new, there are probably still countries pumping out AKs. I don't think anybody's pumping out an SKS.
I would love to see like PSA come out with a version 2.0 of the SKS.
I think in a lot of ways for a lot of out, not as a straight up combat rifle settle down, not as a battlefield rifle, but for a lot of just general application, the SKS is a fine and superior rifle to the AK-47.
Again, not for a battlefield rifle, but for other applications, it's a fine rifle.
I would love to see a version 2.0 of that where the receiver has a milled 1913 rail and can mount optics and not something with some abomination where it's designed to take detachable magazines.
The good, solid, rugged, included magazine that comes with it.I like that system for a lot of things.Again, not combat, but for a lot of things, it's a good system.I would love to see that come out.I'm not gonna hold my breath.
But again, I think the SKS is moving into that realm of a collector.And I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you have a really good premium, beautiful condition, Russian AK-47 variant, milled receiver, a really thick receiver, original furniture,
Is that even a shooter anymore?Now, it would be to me, I'm not a collector.If I have one of those, you might sell it and buy a couple of other guns that are shooters if you're coming at it from a shooting, martial, defensive application.
Just some food for thought.The market has changed, and I think we need to deal with what is, not with what we wish was.
All right, guys, as aforementioned, I will include some other content talking about the major differences, benefits, pros, cons of both platforms and the cartridges.With that, with that, I really appreciate you listening.
I really appreciate everybody that steps up and supports the podcast.If you can't become a patron, you don't wanna support,
where you don't have $5 a month to support a podcast like this without the blasphemy, without the disgusting language, you know, Americans, small business, veteran owned.If you don't want to do that, I don't have the money to do that.Okay.
consider liking, subscribing, or sharing the content with somebody like, oh, I think my buddy John would like whatever episode you recently listened to and share it with them.Something you can do for free, but I hope you'll consider supporting.
With that, I'm going to plug in that other content.Have a blessed day.Gum Fighters.Welcome to Gum Fighter Life.Today's a special treat.
You may think if you just tune in and listen that it's easier to put out an old episode, but when you go back this far, back into a world pre-COVID lockdowns, back to a world where Donald Trump was president, way back when I remember paying for something, a flat, I believe, for 60 eggs, back when I was still the commander of a tactical team,
stop active shooters my day-to-day job and I did this a couple of times a year on the side to go back and remaster clean up the audio and do a bunch of editing on an old episode from January of 2020 in that far different world it honestly was more work than just recording a new episode but I thought this was a good episode
The AR versus the AK.I hope that you'll overlook some of the foibles in the audio quality and the fact that I said things like, um, a lot more back then as I was still, as I was still much newer at the podcasting than I am today.
I believe I recorded that on my iPhone.Who knows what was five or six or seven or whatever on my way driving to or from the range to do some training and uploaded it. but spent quite a bit of time restoring it, and I hope that you enjoy it.
I think a very good older episode that many probably haven't heard, because a lot of people probably don't go and scroll back to January of 2020, so maybe new for you.I hope you enjoy this episode.As always, I am your host, Michael Melito.
First and foremost, I am a Christian.That's number one in my life and everything that I do, and this podcast is no different, and I don't apologize for it. A little bit about me, my background.
One of the reasons I got into doing this podcast is because I wanted to put out the things that I've been blessed to be able to do in life with the real world experience.I joined the Marine Corps at 17, combat tours in Iraq.
I was an urban warfare instructor for the Marine Corps.I also worked for LAPD, working some of the nastiest streets in the country.Obviously carried a gun successfully and came back, by God's grace, alive for both those different endeavors.
I also served in the U.S.Army both full-time and part-time. I have an FBI firearms instructor, a bunch of other federal government agencies, three letters, certified instructors, anything from basic instruction to advanced weapons.
Let's see, hunting, hunted all over from gray squirrels on the east coast to the biggest elk in the country on the west coast.
And anything in between, anything from little tiny prairie dogs to wolves, I've hunted them all successfully by God's grace.And let's see what else, competition shooting. I did my first competition shooting in 1998.
I've competed in rifle, pistol, shotgun.I've been very blessed to win a lot of different competitions and a lot of different disciplines.
Enough about me that's just giving you the only reason I mentioned that stuff I'm very humble to have done all that stuff But I mentioned it to let you know that this podcast is not just an opinion on some Facebook forum or something It's it's based on we all have our opinions and our favorites and our biases and I do as well But it's based on real-world experiences and real-world combat.
I Currently still gunfighting is my full-time job and I just wanted to let you know that, that this is based on real things.
My current full-time job, I'm blessed to be the commander, the leader of a fairly good tactical unit where gunfighting is our bread and butter, our day-to-day job. I won't say what that is.
This podcast is no way affiliated with that and these Thoughts and opinions are purely my own and not anything to do with my job So I'll mention what that job is, but definitely part of my day-to-day life Now for the topic today's topic is gonna be a controversial one a classic one a great one the AR-15 versus the AK-47
As you might imagine from my bio, I have quite a bit of experience with both.Obviously I've been made to shoot one more than the other. I have used both in combat.I've used both platforms.
Obviously, I have a lot more formal training on the AR, because that's America's rifle.That's America's sweetheart.The AR-15, for good or bad, is as American as apple pie is.Eugene Stoner and Sullivan designed that weapon.
We think of it as some modern weapon, but think about this.It was designed in the 50s, adopted in the early 60s. It, you know, think about what else was around in the 1950s.We think of it as this new, you know, assault rifle design.
It was a civilian gun, first of all, adopted by the U.S.military, developed in the 1950s, and adopted in the very early 60s.Think about that. Think about the cars that were around in the 50s.
Great cars, but you don't still see them being driven today.But that's still America's go-to rifle for war, for police, for fun, more and more for hunting.That is, for better or worse, America's rifle.Now let's look at the AK.
Unarguably the most prolific battle rifle small arm of the 20th and going into the 21st century. Developed a little bit earlier in the 1940s, so about a decade older in design.
That is the worldwide, you know, when you think assault rifle, when you think, you know, military small arm, you think the AK-47. You know, from fighters anywhere around the world, the most common thing they're gonna be armed with is an AK-47.
And there's a reason for that.It is a great rifle.It does what it does very, very well.That is what it is.Designed by Russia, obviously.Designed by Kalashnikov, obviously.So, both very prolific.
They are the two, you know, small arms, for better or worse. Just as in America, the go-to rifle, you know, is the AR-15, is American as apple pie.
For the rest of the world, pretty much, that rifle, unless you went to like Belgium, then maybe it'd be the FAL or something.But for pretty much the rest of the world, that rifle is the AK-47.
It is, worldwide, far bigger, far more successful than the AR-15. Now, to understand both weapons, I think you have to understand why mainly.What was the thought process behind them?What were they designed for?Let's start with the AK-47.
The AK-47 was born right after World War II. You look at the kind of country that Russia is.Russia was the developer and adopter of this.Russia is an enormous country.
Their army is mainly conscript soldiers, meaning they're not super well trained professional fighting forces.And I'm not saying that to put them down.They're farmers.
They're shopkeepers that get pressed into service and there's nothing wrong with that.It's a very noble thing. This weapon was in satellite states.
Russia had a bunch of different things forming the Soviet Union from the far Asian people to all the way over to Belarus.It's a giant, giant empire and they had to arm all those different people speaking who knows how many different languages.
with a rifle that they could train somebody to use very quickly, very effectively, that weren't professional soldiers.
And we see how effective they did this because, I'm not saying this is a good thing, but there are 12-year-old kids in Africa that successfully use the AK-47 to put men in the dirt.That's how simple that weapon is to use.
It is as simple a repeating effective assault rifle can be.Like it is super simple.So it was designed for that purpose to arm large numbers of people in conscript armies with an effective fighting tool.And the AK-47 does that and it does it well.
coming out of World War II.Russia, we think of Americans losing a lot of people in World War II.Look at the numbers that the Russians lost.They lost a lot of people in World War II. And they didn't want that to happen again.
They wanted a very effective small arm.They came from the Mosin-Nagant.And effective, but that rifle's been around since the 1800s.An older school, older philosophy, big bolt action, full caliber design battle rifle.
With an effective range of 1,000 meters.But most engagements take place far sooner than that.So they wanted a more rapid fire and really
intermediate cartridge which will if you don't know what that term means we're not going to dive into that today but a cartridge that was effective at putting men down anywhere from you know 25 meters to 300 meters and the AK does that very well that's what it was designed for and I think it accomplished that goal the fact that we're still using it today in 2020 around the world
shows that it accomplished that goal very well.The fact that a young untrained child can use it and a Spetsnaz guy can use it that's very highly trained speaks very well of that rifle.
Now let's look at the AR-15 and when it was designed and what it was designed for.AR-15 came about in the 50s, the full swing of the Cold War.Who were we worried about fighting?The Russians.
The Russians had large numbers of people, I mean a giant army, especially with all their satellite states. looking at fighting Russians somewhere in Europe, somewhere in the world.So that's a huge army.We wanted a higher magazine capacity.
You've got to remember we came from the M1 Grand, which was a great rifle, a full power cartridge, 30-06, capable of getting good accurate man-sized hits, you know, out to 800, 1,000 meters if you do your part.
But that's great, but most engagements in modern warfare, I speak from personal experience, happen at way closer range than that.
And they happen at closer range than that than World War II, even in World War I. But, you know, sometimes change comes slowly, especially in the U.S.military.So it was designed to be a much higher capacity weapon.
It went from an eight round Garand to a 20 round is what it was designed for.The only reason they went to the 30 round is because, honestly, to keep up with the AK-47, because it had 30 round mags.But you're looking at
You know, being able to carry 30 rounds of ammo, getting good accurate hits out the 500 meters, and the original M16, you know, M, A1 and A2s, getting hits out the 500 meters, which is still much more than you need, and carrying 30 rounds of ammunition.
So, a light weapon capable of holding high capacity and ammunition much higher than was seen before. in a lightweight package it's still even with all that ammo weighs far less.
You're looking at you know a six seven pound rifle versus a nine to ten pound rifle and even more disparity when you look at the complete loadout and how much ammo you can carry.
Also like it's important to note that it was a civilian company the AR-15 stands for Armalite Rifle 15 it does not stand for Assault Rifle.Armalite Rifle by the Armalite company designed
and it was adopted to 223 from really the older 222 cartridge and if you look at that in hunting application I mean that's a prairie dog cartridge that's a small game cartridge that's maybe a good coyote cartridge back when it was designed but not a full power cartridge by any means and the thought process behind that was not
It was not to be able to put a man down and drop him like a sack of potatoes.It was to get a man out of the fight.And the thought prevailing at the time was, wounding was just as good or better than permanently killing somebody.
Because if you wound somebody, then you have to take them out of the fight, and it takes medics to treat them.So you're still taking the man out of the fight.You're costing resources.
So as far as the army and the military is concerned, if you wound somebody, They were worried about, like I said, in the Cold War, fighting a uniformed combatant army that followed the Geneva Convention, that followed the rules of war.
Because that's what we had been used to.We just got out of two world wars.And you're fighting a uniformed Russian army, that's what we were worried about at the time, anyway, going to war with Russia.
And if you wound one of those guys, they abide by all the things that go with gentlemanly warfare, if there is such a thing.So wounding was the goal of that cartridge, the 223.
And we'll talk more about the cartridges later, but the idea was to be able to effectively wound as many people as you could.You know, the AR-15 obviously does that.
You know, the American military wanted to get good accurate hits out to 500 yards, which is a little bit farther than most people would consider good with the AK.
If you look at the way the weapon was designed, it was not designed to arm conscript soldiers.It was designed to have a more highly effective, highly trained fighting force.And you'll see that in the maintenance of the AR.
You cannot give the same amount of maintenance to an AR and an AK and expect the AR-15, M16 to run reliably.It just is not going to happen.It requires maintenance.
It requires some level of training just to take the thing apart and put it back together.Whereas the AK-47, you could literally never take it apart and put it back together. So it's a different philosophy.
It was designed to arm professional fighting force of American soldiers that have good logistics, good support.You know, they have armorers ready to fix weapons.So I'm not saying one is better than the other, but the philosophy was different.
They were designed for different purposes.And I think understanding that from the get-go will help you better understand and appreciate both weapons.They weren't designed for the same thing by the same people at the same time.
So you need to understand that when you're looking at both Next we'll get into cartridges The original cartridge as as far as I know at least the one that was first commonly fielded for the I don't know I'm talking about like Tesla's but the one that was first commonly fielded I believe the XM 193 For the US military for the AR 15
was adopted is a 55 grain bullet out of a 20 inch, you know, the M16A1A2 barrel coming out of there at right around 3,000, a little over 3,000, 3,100 feet per second.So you don't have to know what grains are.
It's an old antiquated unit of measurement from the old English system that we really only use for bullets now and powder, but in the ballistic world, but it's a grain. Think of a grain roughly as like a grain of wheat.
It's a small unit of measurement, but more is more.So a 55 grain bullet.That was the original loading.Going at 3,100 feet per second. So, the point of that is it's a very lightweight bullet.
Like I said, for hunting standards, that's something you would shoot a prairie dog with, and I've hunted plenty of prairie dogs with the .223 cartridge.
The .223 was adopted by the military and designated a 5.56 because we're part of NATO and NATO uses metric.So, if you didn't know that, now you do.
So it was adopted, it was loaded to a little bit higher pressure than the 556, but really they're very similar ballistically, at least downrange they're pretty similar.
You're not going to be shot at with one and be like, oh that was a 223, and shot at with another one and be like, oh that was a 556.So you're looking at a very lightweight, high velocity round. that has it's advantages and disadvantages.
The advantage to that is that it's a very flat trajectory.
The advantage to that is it gives you a very high muzzle foot pounds of energy because if you look at energy is mass times velocity squared so you get that bumped up velocity you get a lot more energy on paper.
And that gives you less recoil with less felt recoil generally with more muzzle energy downrange.So there's the advantage there's an advantage to a Lightweight high-velocity round.
The other thing is the lightweight is advantage in and of itself Like we talked about you can you can carry more so that you know an AR round compared to an AK round weighs less So if you say, you know, we're not machines even if with a machine there's a limit to how much some something can carry and
And do you want, you know, 120 rounds of .223 ammo, 5.56 ammo, or do you want 80 rounds of 7.62x39 ammo for the same weight?So there's an advantage there just in weight alone.And like I said, the AR was designed to wound.
If you're going to design to wound somebody, you know, if you hit them and you wound them with the AR-15, or you hit them and you kill them with a 7.62x39, it's kind of a win as far as the American military was concerned for both.
So that's the high velocity round.So let's look at the, in comparison, the contrast to that, the Russian round, the 7.62 by 39.7.62 millimeter obviously is bigger than 5.56 millimeter.It's a 30 caliber versus a 22 caliber.So a much bigger bullet.
You're looking at, in a grain weight, you're looking at a 55 grain bullet compared to 123 grain-ish is about de-loading for the general military cartridge adopted by the Russians.
There are different loads obviously, but the average one you're going to see is right around 123 grains.So it's far more than double the round that the US military adopted.
So you have a round that weighs more than twice as much and it's traveling at right around 2,000 feet per second, 2,100 feet per second. out of your general AK-47 right in that ballpark.You know, a lot of things make a difference.
Temperature outside makes a difference.Barrel length makes a difference.But let's call it 2,100 feet a second with a 123-grain bullet.So you have a bigger, heavier bullet that's moving about 30% slower, but it's twice as heavy.
So you have advantages to that, too. A big, heavy, slow bullet tends to fragment less, which means if you're shooting through barriers and barrier penetration, it's better.Also, a bigger, heavier, slower moving bullet generally penetrates better.
It does better through obstacles, and it just hits harder.
I know on paper, foot pounds of energy, a lighter, heavier, faster bullet, I mean a lighter, faster bullet will have more energy foot pounds on paper, but I've shot enough living things to know that a big, heavy bullet has its advantages in real world applications.
A big, heavy, slow bullet hits hard. Give it like a Ferrari going or what's even smaller than a Ferrari.
Let's say a Porsche going at 150 miles an hour Hitting a concrete wall versus a Mack truck going at you know, 45 miles an hour and hitting that same wall They do different things but both pretty much destroy a wall It's kind of just which one do you want and how do you want to destroy that wall?
A Few more things to touch here on the ammo I For your standard military loading for the AK-47 you're going to have a steel case and for your AR-15 M16 you're going to have a brass case.A couple of different advantages to those.
Brass case is reloadable.Steel case is cheaper to produce so you get kind of six of one half a dozen of the other there.Now yeah I'm speaking in generalities you can get
Steel case ammo for two to three usually made in Russia and you can get brass case ammo made for the 760 39 AK You could also get an AK in two to three and you can get an air 15 and 760 by 39 and make it even more confusing, but we're talking about the basic You know down and dirty military version of both.
I Another thing worth mentioning is if you look at both cases, the 7.62x39 has a pretty dramatic taper.
And if you think about that as the way the gun functions when the gun goes off, since it's more of a cone shape, that round only has to move backwards a little bit and it pretty much easily extracts out of the chamber, even if it's dirty or nasty or the ammo's cheap, whatever.
Because of the shape of the round just inherently when it starts to move backwards a little bit It just kind of comes right out of the chamber.Whereas an ar-15.
It's not a straight wall case, but it's much much straighter says So that if it does expand and that chamber is dirty or the extractor is not working properly It does get stuck in that chamber easier than a highly tapered case.
So some things to consider on the ammo there Let's talk about next some of the changes over the years So the AR-15, the M16, has gone through many changes.
The most common one you'll see today isn't even an AR-15 M16 type weapon, it's an M4 type weapon, a carbine.So you're dropping from that 20 inch barrel that it was designed for to that 16 inch barrel.
I don't know if you guys are super aware of ballistics But when you chop that barrel down you lose a lot of velocity because less powder is burned inside the barrel Which means you're giving up some of the potential energy of that cartridge so One second here folks.
I'm on a pretty bumpy dirt road So let me get through these bumps Okay paved road again, so another
You're dropping velocity, so you're kind of giving up some of that high velocity advantage we talked about earlier when you're chopping that barrel down four inches.
So you're dropping down generally into like the 2800 foot per second range with that same bullet Um, another change that has dramatically happened is the standard military loading anymore isn't even the 55 grain.
It's the 62 grain There's a couple of iterations.Uh, the xm8 55, I believe Uh, that's what I used when I was overseas deployed in combat.That's the green tip commonly referred to it's got a little bit different construction, but uh
But for all intents and purposes, you've you've bumped it up a higher grain weight from 55 to 62 And you've also again dropped that velocity down.
So be aware of that Yes, you're getting a bigger heavier bullet, which has its advantage over the 55 grain But you're giving up that velocity and you're still nowhere near in the ballpark of the AK standard 123 grain on that now you can also bump the
You can also bump up that 123 grain.I have a couple of 154 grain AK loads at the house that I really like, soft points.But that's some of the changes that the AR-15 has gone through over the years.Different barrel contours.
It's gone from a pencil barrel in the beginning, which was lighter weight, to the Marines kind of wanted to go to the A2 profile, which is much heavier.So you kind of give up some of that weight advantage over the AK that you had in the beginning.
We've gone through those iterations of much heavier thicker barrel even on the m4 the barrel is shorter But it's still thicker than the original m16a1 barrel.
So it's gone through those changes Everyone from your standard 20 round magazine to your 30 round magazine fairly early on So you have that?We're talking about again your your your average basic AR-15 M4 type.
There are so many different variations of the AR-15, the M16, literally there's an entire podcast, the AR-15 podcast, to literally just about that platform of rifle.So we obviously can't cover that in this one episode.
And the AK has gone through less changes.Oh, going back to the M16 AR, one of the big changes is going from fixed iron sights, because optics weren't a thing back in the 50s the way they are today.
They existed, but they weren't a common, everyday thing on a battle rifle the way they are today.
It's gone from the carry handle regular iron sights, which are great sights, to the removable carry handle or just the straight flat top upper letting you mount optics, whether it's a red dot or a low power variable optic or your basic 3-9 scope for hunting.
Whatever the optic is, it's kind of gone through that change.Your average AR you'll get today will not have fixed carry handle iron sights.It'll have some kind of flat top Picatinny rail on it.
The AK has gone through some different changes as well, but the same basic AK is pretty much the same from a couple of different versions of the AK.Mostly what we call today the AK is actually the AKM.
I won't get into the difference in that, but you can still get your basic wood furniture, you know, iron-sighted AK and it's still a damn fine
Fighting weapons still a good fighting rifle It doesn't lend itself as nearly as well to the AR for modifications.It's a lot harder to get a good repeatable Holding zero mounting system for the AK.I'm not saying you can't do it.
You certainly can But that is what it is
So which one's better I guess that's the reason you tuned in right the AR versus the AK And obviously we're not going to settle that today that really depends I'll tell you from personal experience that I have had catastrophic failures both in combat and in training with the AR-15 M16 and not cheap variants either like these are all the ones I can think of were actually
military or government issue of the Colts or the FNs, which are a good quality weapon, but just the inherent design flaws of that weapon.I've had a couple of catastrophic failures, meaning that you couldn't fix it on the fly.
You couldn't just do remedial action, tap, rack, bang.Like, something catastrophically broke in that weapon that made that weapon be out of the fight.I've had that.I've never had that with the AK.I've never had that with an AK at all.
And to be fair, I've had a lot more training time and trigger pulls behind an AR than an AK, but it's, I think, common throughout that you get more of those kind of failures with an AR.
And you may, you know, say, oh, I've never had one with an AR, well, I don't know how much you shot, but if you shoot eventually, you will.Just from the nature of it, the design of that rifle, you're blowing that gas back.
in into the moving parts of that gun and the gun is just Yes, they can be very very reliable weapons But they need to be taken care of more and cleaned more and maintained better than the AK and I don't think anybody will argue that So there is that
The AR is more ergonomic.So the way the controls work, you know, if you're running on a clock in a competition, there's a reason in three gun, all the champions use the AR pattern rifle.It is faster on the clock.It is faster to do mag changes in.
You can get really fast with both, but you know, when you have to do less, you can do it faster.You can complete the task faster, the less steps there are.
And for that reason, running it on the clock, reloads, things like that are faster because it shoots a lighter bullet.
Just in general, I don't think anybody will argue that the AR-15 is going to have less recoil, which means your shot recovery time, your shot, you know, whether it's transitioning from target to target or your time putting multiple hits on target is less.
So there is that for the AR-15 and M16.The AK hits harder.I don't think anybody will argue with that.Some people might, but the AK hits harder.So do you want more rounds on target quickly or do you want less rounds that are more effective?
Which one do you want?Do you want to be able to carry more rounds with less weight or do you want the rounds that you fire to be more effective? Terminally speaking for terminal ballistics.You know, what are you trying to do?
Do you envision yourself in a scenario where you can't maintain a weapon or where?You do have to I'm not saying you should never maintain your AK.
You certainly should clean them and keep them up But there are plenty of really neglected AKs in Africa in the Middle East and other places in Asia and the world that have been running just fine for decades You're not gonna see that with AR-15s
So if you envision yourself in some kind of a long-term scenario in an environment that's fairly abusive to the gun without any kind of maintenance regimen, you know that might lead you towards the AK.
What I'm trying to say is it really just depends.If there were a clear winner, which one is better, if one was amazingly awesome at everything, the other one was junk, then we would only have the one.
We wouldn't be, this debate wouldn't be raging on for decades.The point is, they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and they're both good.So a couple of things tying into this.What do you want the rifle for?
Because there are scenarios where either one would be better.
If you told me that, I'm just making up a scenario here, if you told me you were going to drop me off on some alien planet, I don't know what it is, there's some kind of hostile alien creature there, don't know what it is, could be alien dinosaurs, could be alien zombies, no idea.
You don't know if it's going to be jungle.You don't know if it's going to be desert.You don't know if it's going to be a forest.You don't know what kind of environment it's going to be in.
We're going to drop you off with a knife and a case of MREs and a crate of ammo and a rifle of your choice.It has to be an AR or an AK.Which one are you going to take?I take the AK for that.If you told me that
Today, in your city, there's going to be an active shooter.We don't know how far the distance is.You could have to do room entries and stop that active shooter.
We don't know if it's going to be one active shooter or five active shooters, like a Columbine-type situation.You might have to shoot a hostage shot.
You may have to shoot across a long thoroughfare or from one building to another, maybe some kind of counter-sniper-type thing.We don't really know.We just know there's going to be an active shooter today.You have one rifle in your car.
in your truck, whatever it is, you can choose the AR or the AK, which one's it gonna be?For that, I choose the AR.So assuming I've had training on both and I've zeroed both and I could pick the optic or whatever, I would pick the AR for that.
It's better tool for the job on both cases.So that's up to you.See if you can afford it, get both, train with both. Also tying into that, what's your personality?What kind of man are you?What kind of gunfighter are you?
If you're a lady gunfighter, what kind of lady are you?What kind of gunfighter are you?Are you the kind of person that just wants to buy the rifle and pick it up and train with it and use it to the best of its ability?
And when you're done, put it down.If you forget to clean it, whatever.The rifle is what it is.It does what it does.And it does it all the time.And it does it well.
And you're just gonna no fuss pick up a rifle and it has to do what it needs to do and it needs to do it I'd say get the AK if you're the kind of guy that wants to squeeze every advantage out of his weapon and You know if I get my highly tuned precision You know Daniel defense AR and it's not running reliably then you know what?
I'll identify that in training and I will drop in a super high-speed titanium nitride coated bolt and I'll switch from CLP to
this fancier gun grease and that'll fix the problem and with that it'll run reliably for 200 rounds at a time and I know after that I have to clean it but in those 200 rounds It's perfectly fine and serviceable and reliable and I'm gonna replace the extractor every thousand rounds every 5,000 rounds, whatever it is I'm gonna do that and I want to drop the fanciest, you know 1 to 8 power scope on it and see how far I can get hits out to you know
whatever 800 meters with the right loaded ammunition and the right zero gun and I want to spend my time and effort getting the highest tuned precision thing and I'm gonna tinker with it then I'd say the AR is the way you're leaning that's the kind of personality that you are like I said it really just depends on you which one is better you know for what and for who I guess are the big questions the other thing I'll close with for this is
They're not the only two rifles in the world.Everybody, you know, it seems like, like I said, it's America's rifle.Everybody in America, oh, go to the AR.Well, like I said, what are you gonna do with it?
If you're mostly a hunter, mostly a farmer or a rancher, I would say neither one of those.I would say look really towards the, you know, Ruger Mini-14.They call it the ranch rifle for a reason.You know, if you're mostly gonna hunt and stuff with it,
I'd say the Mini-14 or the Mini-30, you can get it in either one of those calibers, the AR caliber or the AK caliber.
I'd say if you're gonna do mostly hunting and mostly pest control, varmint control, and you might occasionally want it to pull double duty as a defensive gun in a defensive shooting type environment, that Mini-14, Mini-30's a great gun.
I use them on duty, I use them as a law enforcement officer, even when I had the option of choosing between that and an AR.
Even a full-auto m4 carbine I had a choice and I sometimes would pick the mini-14 but depending on the mission So it really depends on what it is Don't think that they're the only two rifles.
You're gonna be traveling a long long distance for For whatever reason with the ammo you can carry on you and you want a defensive type rifle Maybe you want the FN p90 ps90.Maybe that's what you want and
It really depends, don't think they're the only two rifles that exist.You said you're going on a hiking slash trail riding trip with horses in the backcountry of Montana, Wyoming.
Idaho Sawtooth wilderness you might run into some unsavory characters you might need it for defense But you're mostly gonna use it for hunting and putting food on the table, and it has to be a rifle You know you might go with your old-school lever-action 30-30.
You know Marlin 336 or your your Winchester 94 you know whatever that rifle might suit you better for that and Depends on what you're gonna do.You may go with a scout rifle, old school bolt action.
Don't think that they're the only two rifles that exist.I guess is in closing.There's a lot of other good platforms out there and I obviously can't go through them all.There's so many variants of both too.
You can get an AK that's built to be a lot more like an AR and you can get vice versa.You can get ARs in all different calibers.You can get AKs in different calibers. You can get AKs that take AR furniture.I mean, you can mix and match, I guess.
So it really depends on, like I said, what kind of person you are, what kind of personality you are, and what your mission is.But I would say, at the very minimum, if you're a gunfighter, you need to train with both.
You never know what weapon you're going to have at the time.Obviously, you want to be able to pick and choose your weapon and control the situation completely, but that's not the world that we live in.
Like I said, there was times in Iraq, a real world example, where my AR-15, it wasn't an AR-15, it was an M16A2, it literally went down, catastrophic failure.It would not work until I got it to an armor.I literally picked up an AK-47 and it worked.
And I was happy with the trade.It was a crude weapon, but it always worked.I never had one let me down. So there's a real world example.
You need to know both and train with both, know the manual of arms for both, and then make a more informed decision.Which one do I want?What's the mission?What do I want to do with it? Yeah, so I guess that's it in closing.
I hope you have enjoyed this episode.You always get naysayers and people that have drank the Kool-Aid from one firearm or the other.It's gotta be the AK.It's the best battle implement ever devised.It's gotta be the AR.The other thing is junk.
You get both camps. I would say if you're going to trust your life on something, don't do it based on emotion.Do it based on your training and your experience and use the right tool for the job.Like I said, I've trained with both.
I've got a lot more trigger time behind an AR, but there's a lot of missions where I would choose an AK over it.So, what's your mission?What kind of person are you?
Are you going to make sure before you go to bed every night that the AR is well-oiled and well-lubed and taken care of?Is it going to stay in a climate-controlled environment in a case?Then, you know, that is what it is.
Are you going on contracting work over in Iraq, you know, where you don't know if you're going to be able to maintain your weapon or what kind of ammo you're going to be able to get?
So the mission really depends, and that depends on what kind of rifle you should pick.
I hope that you never need to use it in real world But if you do we have the right tool for the job and I hope that God blesses you with another day I also thought it would be good to tie into this episode The five five six versus seven six two by thirty nine a little bit more in-depth.
Look at those two rounds All right, get ready for some controversy today's episode may be more divisive than most other cartridge versus episodes and
Today, we are comparing the top two intermediate cartridges of our time, for right now, and since the Cold War, really.So, Cold War, 1960s, and on.I know the Cold War started before that, but we started using this cartridge.
The other one predates it.You may have guessed by now, we're talking about, in one corner, the Red Army cartridge, The 122-123 grain, 7.62x39, the Red Army cartridge.First in the SKS but most notably by far the AK-47 platform round.
And in the red, white, and blue corner, from America and adopted by NATO, the 5.56 slash 223 cartridge, at most commonly 55, 62, and now the heavy hitter 77 grain. This is going to be a controversial episode.
I'm going to come at this from, hopefully, a fair and objective point of view.Now, obviously, I'm American.I have fought for this country.I have been to war more than once. for this nation.
I fought with an M16, the first time for the invasion of Iraq with an M16A2, and then later, with my last deployment, up to the M16A4 in the United States Marine Corps Infantry.
However, I consider myself pretty unbiased in this in that my M16 and that round had a catastrophic failure right in the middle of an invasion.Catastrophic failure meaning like it couldn't be fixed.It wasn't a tap rack bang scenario.
It wasn't a double feed.It wasn't even a bolt override.It was a had to go to an armorer.Gun was broken. And I carried NAK for a time during the war.We'll call it a more specialized assignment.
Operating in Baghdad, I was very blessed during the war that God kept me safe.I don't know if blessed is the right word to describe this, but I had a very unique opportunity to be in Baghdad just before it collapsed.
During the invasion we let's say got there early and operated out of a safe house I don't think is saying too much with some other people and I carried an AK for a short time and I really liked that weapon so and I've got experience with both since then and I know enough about ballistics if something's better if a rounds better I
I don't like to trust my life to things based on what's cool on Instagram or based on sentimentality.
I think we all have our own biases and things like that, but if you think that I'm just going to be, because it's American all the time, saying that the 5.56 is better, I'm not.For some things, I'll be honest, I think it is better.
For some things, I think a 760 by 39 is better. With that said, with that preamble long and drawn out and all the caveats, because I know this is probably going to be a controversial episode, let's get into the topic du jour.What does that mean?
That's the topic of the day.That sounds good.I think I'll have that.Let's talk about these two cartridges.
Both intermediate cartridges, neither won the first intermediate cartridge, I'd say neither won the first successful warfighting intermediate cartridge, but the two dominant ones again since the Cold War and into today.
Intermediate meaning it is somewhere between I'm using the traditional term of intermediate.
It's in between a full-powered rifle round contrary to what the media or you may May have been told if you just got into guns recently the air the 5.56 is not a very powerful round compared to most traditional rifle rounds even compared to like a 243 which is a very a
I would say on the minimum end of the scale for deer hunting, it's much less powerful than a .243.Or the 7.62x39 is far less powerful than its full power counterpart, the 7.62x54R.It shoots a lighter bullet at less velocity in both cases.
it's an intermediate it's between or let's say below a full-powered rifle round 7.62x51 NATO or 7.62x54R Russian and it's well above traditional pistol rounds whether that be 45 ACP or 9x19 9mm it's far more powerful than that but far less powerful than most traditional
Full-powered rifle rounds.It's an intermediate round.
Both of them are with different philosophies the and I should say from what I know by the testimony of two or three witnesses a matter is established from what I from what I understand the Red Army traditional rifle cartridge for a long time since World War one and before the main Infantry rifle cartridge to 7.62 by 54 are that's a full power rifle cartridge
They wanted an intermediate rifle cartridge.They saw the distances that engagements realistically were happening.
See this on pretty much every side and starting in World War I they had these rifles marked out the Russians and Martians, which I think, a little aside, is an ingenious term of measurement.
Marked out to like a thousand Martians or even farther and us in the American military and the Brits they had these really long distances marked out on the rifles and Then they realized in World War one and World War two that engagements usually happen a lot quicker and a lot closer than that especially in urban warfare, which is a mainstay of modern warfighting and they looked at the common engagement distances and
And they started moving more towards and mass issuing more semi-automatic and submachine gun type weapons.
The Soviets looked at this and they developed a cartridge, same caliber, same 7.62, which in the Russians is a little bit different than ours, should be .312 diameter bullet. but you know, close enough to .308.
And they said, let's keep this bullet diameter, let's shorten it, make it more compact, let's make it good out to reasonable ranges, 300 meters.And they made the 7.62 by 39.
Now if you are familiar with European designations on cartridges, after the X, the number is the length of the case in millimeters.54 is quite a bit more than 39.And that has to deal with your cartridge powder capacity.
It's far less powerful, but still pretty potent.You look at that 39 versus, and it's not the same because pistol powder versus rifle powder is different, but to give you a rough idea, versus a 9x19 versus 54, you got the 39.It's right in there.
It's an intermediate cartridge, and they did a good job. It has proven itself so effective that I would just be guessing at the number of nations that adopted it.
Now part of that was due to the Soviet Union, but we still see countries today that haven't been part of the Soviet Union for a long time using 7.62x39.Why?Because it works.And it works well.Most engagements are 300 meters and in.
It's not such a big and heavy cartridge that you can't have 30 round magazines with it and carry a full combat loadout.And it's effective.It's effective at those ranges.
It's effective, again, first came out in the SKS, which is a fantastic rifle, but most notably in the AK.So that pairing was very effective and has been and continues to be effective.Now let's look at the cartridges of the World Book.
I like to keep, that was a gift from a patron.If you want to become a patron and support the podcast, There should be a link in the show notes.
Anyway, I'm going to go to Cartridges of the World, and I'm going to try and keep it pretty fair and go to similar sources.I don't want to favor one even inadvertently over another.
This manual, the Cartridges of the World, lists a military load, 122 grain.You'll often see 123 grain.It's academic difference, really, at 2329. 122 grain, 2329 at 1470 for foot pounds of energy.All right, now let's talk about the 5.56.
And I know there are differences.I know there are differences between the 5.56 and .223.I'm very aware of that.But for today's discussion, let's say for downrange performances, the differences are academic.
In the real world, it really makes no difference.Make sure you can fire appropriate ammunition out of your rifle.If you blow yourself or somebody else up inadvertently, it's your fault, not mine.Now, let's talk about
the 5.56, because we went a different route.
Instead of taking the .30-06, which we had, or shortly after that, the 7.62 by 51 NATO round, the .308, for all intents and purposes, again, put the right ammo in the right gun, but instead of making a shorter version of that, which would have given us something fairly, or much more similar to the Soviet round,
We decided to go away, let's say for the time, pretty radically different way. For all intents and purposes, prior to this, these very high-velocity, small-caliber rounds were known as varmint rounds.
And that's really where they exist today in the civilian market aside from ARs and stuff.If you look at really small bore, high-velocity rounds in general, Outside of this arena, we're talking about hunting, you're talking about varmint rounds.
And it still is a fantastic varmint round.Instead of just getting a similar diameter bullet and making it a little bit less powerful, they decided to go with a much smaller diameter, you're talking .22 caliber.
Initial loadings, I believe, in .55 grain.We just mentioned the Soviet round in .122 grain, which is already quite a bit lighter than their full power round, but this,
55 grains now when NATO settled on it that went to a 62 grain but even so 62 grain that's for for rough math right that's about half And you might think, well, that's quite a bit less powerful.Well, hold your horses.I said high velocity.
Whereas the Russian kind of idea was to take a similar diameter bullet and a little bit less weight and a little bit less velocity.Americans, let's get a small diameter bullet and push it to really high velocities.
So, we look at, this lists military load in the cartridges of the world.55 grain, full metal jacket, boat tail, at 32.50, and with an energy of 12.90.So again, 55 grain, 32.50 at 12.90.
I do believe these are gonna be out of a 20 inch barrel per the M16.Today the M4 is much more common.You're gonna drop some velocity there, but let's stick with these numbers for a minute. And I mentioned that NATO settled on the 62 grain.
This doesn't list the 62 grain military load, but it lists the 62 grain commercial load, which should be fairly similar at 62 grains, 3,000 feet a second with 1239.
Now if we look at the most energy of both those loads, 1290 at the 55 grain, it's still less than the load we quoted for the 760x39, which came in at 1470.So if you quantify energy with foot pounds, right?
Force equals mass times the velocity squared.Then just on pure power, the Soviet round gets it.It's more powerful.You can argue with that and fill a fit, but if you quantify that the way that physics quantifies that, then the Soviet cartridge wins.
I didn't say more effective, so settle down.I said the most energy, foot pounds.And that's comparing that load
to a 20-inch barrel, you're gonna lose quite a bit of velocity, which the 5.56 depends on, going to a 16-inch barrel, which I'd say today is far more common.
The Marine Corps still sticks to their 20-inch barrel, and I think there's a lot of good reasons for that.But most of the rest of the military, the Army, and things like that have gone to the M4, the 16-inch barrel.
And the AK-47 has basically always been, let's call it for argument's sake, a 16-inch barrel.
I looked up two sources outside of that one of them being Wikipedia and Pretty close if you drop down just for arguments sake to the 16-inch barrel You're looking at around 28 and some change for that most common today NATO round the m8 5 5 62 grain So you are giving us some velocity going to the more common 16-inch barrel and you're obviously by that
as you're gonna give up some energy and some power.That's how that works.So if we look at pure power, most powerful cartridge, the AK round's gonna get that, right?
The 7.62x39 is gonna get that, and that makes sense, and that bears out what I've seen in real life.Round for round, the 7.62 is more powerful, round for round.Now let's talk about the philosophies of this.They're quite a bit different, right?
A bigger, heavier, much closer to traditional rifle bullet weight at a moderate velocity.That's kind of the AK philosophy.The 5.56 NATO philosophy is let's get a lightweight, small caliber projectile and push it really fast.
which is going to give us our lethality, our effectiveness.Lethality is probably not the right word because I don't even know that that's what's most important on a battlefield.You want to take an enemy soldier out of the fight.
Killing them or not is kind of inconsequential to you.Out there to murder people, you're there to win a confrontation.Come out on the winning side of that.We talked about power.I think the 76239, just however you want to measure that, gets that.
Now let's talk about power to weight ratio.And the clear winner there is the 5.56.I think that was the main reason they were looking at this round.You could carry more ammo with less weight.
And if you've ever been a soldier, a Marine, rucking, humping, tremendous amount of weight as we had to, it sucks.It's miserable. If you can lighten up a little bit of that weight, I think that greatly increases combat effectiveness.
The heaviest part of a round is the projectile, especially when it's made of lead.There are other components, the brass or steel, and the powder and the primers, but lead is heavy, right?
And there's some new lead-free rounds and things like that, but the projectile weight adds up.7.62x39 ammo is heavier, and the magazines, for that matter, without getting too much off topic, are heavier.
So a 30 round mag of 7.62x39 weighs more than a fully loaded mag of 5.56.This should come as a shock to no one.So power to weight ratio.
You start strapping a soldier, a marine, a comrade down with whatever, body armor, helmet, radio, a couple of grenades.
You know first aid gear all that stuff adds up adds up quick Let's say the allotted amount that a soldier can move freely with and carry combat effective amount of ammo Let's say it's 50 pounds and I'm just making up a number.
Let's say 50 pounds of that is allotted for ammo Well, you can carry a lot more ammo in that 50 pounds if it's 5 5 6 versus 7 6 2 by 39 so again power to weight ratio is I think that clearly goes to the 5.56.
Again, that's a big reason I think they adopted it.You can carry more ammo, certainly more than the 7.62 by 51, the NATO round that preceded it.All right, now let's do a deep dive into a couple more of the aspects of these cartridges.Recoil.
Now, neither one of these is what you would call a heavy recoiling cartridge.I will concede that.And some people, because of that, will go, you know, 7.62x39 recoil is nothing.But it's not nothing, it's something.
For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.If you have more energy going out of the front of the barrel, you have more energy coming back into the shooter, you, or whomever that shooter might be.
And I don't care how good you control recoil, and you can control recoil very well.If you reduce the recoil, you can shoot a given target size, all other factors being equal and generally not,
Assuming you're up to the task and your body mechanics and your fundamentals are good enough, you can get repeated hits on a target or shoot multiple targets faster with less recoil, and that has real-world advantages.Let me give you an example.
I'm gonna use an AR for this.You could easily just use an AK in both calibers.But let's say you have an AR, and they do make ARs chambered in 7.62x39 and 5.56.Let's say you have two guns.
Other than the chambering, mostly, they're gonna be different, right?But mostly identical.Same weight, same barrel length, same optical sight.You got an aim point on top of both.Both are zeroed to the exact same target you're shooting at.
We're gonna even negate that Say you have a man-sized target, 300 meters.How fast you can get four hits on target, if you have good fundamentals and can take advantage of that recoil, if you reduce the recoil, you can do it faster.
And you don't know all the time on real-world targets.It's gonna be the first round or the second round or the third round that changes that person's behavior.
That behavior being them trying to kill me or my friends or my colleagues or my comrades, depending if you're on the other side, right? So if we're talking cartridge to cartridge, there's less recoil in the 5.56.
Let's talk about another aspect, trajectory.This is another thing, like you can get mad about it if you want, but the 5.56, 55 grain, 62 grain, is gonna have a flatter trajectory than the 7.62x39.
Now 7.62x39 is not bad out to 300 meters, but it's not as flat as 5.56. And you can shoot long range with calibers that have really arching trajectories, like a .300 Blackout.
If you know the exact distance, and you're on a static range, and you know your holdover, and you can dial it in on a scope.But if we're talking about battlefield conditions, like you got multiple people popping up on a battlefield.
One's at 50 meters, one's at 175, and one's at 285.And you have to engage those targets.Sometimes it's a whole silhouette, sometimes it's just a head and shoulders.Sometimes it's just a head.
The ability to have a flatter trajectory and a longer point blank range, meaning I can aim at the center of that given target and hit it somewhere in the acceptable area, is going to be flatter, therefore longer distance with the 5.56 than the 7.62 by 39.
So you got that going for the 5.56.Let's talk about some other differences. If you talk about cartridge dimensions, I think there is a clear advantage to the 7.62x39.It's a highly tapered cartridge, which means that aids greatly in extraction.
Going back to what I briefly mentioned during the war.As Marines, we were just kind of relentless about keeping our guns clean.
Well, if you're in Iraq during the invasion, and it's a literal sandstorm going on, and you go to use your rifle, and you rip the back of the cartridge that's in your chamber, it will not extract.It will not do it.You can't get it done.
No matter how many times you run that bolt and that extractor over there, it strips it out, and the force of that round in the chamber is greater than the force of that extractor pulling it rearward.
No matter how many times you repeat and do that, that round will not come out.
because if you look at a 5.56 round there's a lot of surface area in that chamber and it's not exactly straight all the way to the bottleneck but it's much less taper than the 7.62x39.
The AK is renowned for its reliability for many reasons but part of that is because of that massive taper in the case.I like that.That's a good design feature.Anything that can aid in extraction and therefore aid in reliability of a cartridge
is a good thing.So for cartridge dimensions I think that kind of goes to 7.62x39.Also there's something to be said for a heavier projectile.I talked about power and clearly the 7.62 is a more powerful round but if you look at doctrine
It's not uncommon to be taught in the Marines and the Army to shoot a target multiple times, especially after, you know, the global war on terror, whatever you want to call it.
I don't know that you could quantify this and you can disagree and that'd be fine, but I would say round per round effectiveness.
You're talking about like torso hits on a military-age male, I would say that round for round, the 7.62 is not only more powerful, it's more effective.Even though it's going at a lower velocity, it has much more mass.
You're talking about double the mass of the projectile.And also, that aids in barrier penetration.Now, you may say, well, NATO's common round is the
what we call penetrator round, light armor piercing, got a tungsten tip on it, and you can kind of get around it that way and aid the 5.56 in barrier penetration.
But if you're comparing apples to apples, if you were comparing that to a armor penetrating round in 7.62x39, I still think it would win.So, if you're just talking straight ball round to ball round,
You're talking about barrier penetration, whether that be just a Toyota Hilux with a couple of radical Islamic terrorists in the back of it, or a light armored vehicle on the plains of Mongolia, right?
The 760 by 39, I think, gets a nudge because of that. Here's where we get into some grey area.We as America have embraced the 5.56 223 for a long time and we have some really good rounds now for it.
Not just the military rounds but for a lot of things civilian rounds are really good and in some cases better.
I would never advise you if you're protecting your home with a 5.56 or get your truck gun, maybe have a magazine of the armor piercing stuff, but do not have that as your go-to defensive ammo.There's much better choices.
You got a lot of really good soft point ammo.Spear Gold Dot makes a round for the 5.56. A lot of R&D over decades has gone into that round.I'd say more so than the 7.62x39.
You can get some good soft pointed rounds and stuff for the 7.62x39, but not to the extent I think that you can the Black Hill 77 grain, kind of known as the heavy hitter in the AR world.
So you get a little bit of advantage there, just commercialism and capitalism and R&D.I think you get more of that in the 5.56.Even with that though, if you're talking about a medium game hunting round for deer size game.
I talked about this a little bit in the 30-30 versus 760x39.The 760x39 and its regular guys, you're talking about the dirt cheapest, what most people have, 122, 123 grain Tula. Wolf ammo, it's a poor choice for medium game hunting.
Sure, you can do it.Maybe your Uncle Ned's barber one time shot a deer out of his truck with 123 gram full metal jacket, 7.62x39.That doesn't make it a good deer round.
But if you are judicious about ammo selection and go to some of the rounded, soft point, really good
more gear towards hunting in terminal performance ammo, the 7.62x39, is a good choice, and it can be a better choice, I think, than even the best of the 5.56, and I know that's gonna make people angry because a lot of people hunt and have their kids hunt with .223s and ARs, and you can get really good bullets for that, as we already discussed, and I did a whole episode on hunting with the AR-15, but talking to somebody that's killed a lot of big game animals and has been a professional big game hunter and guide,
Again, you made the platforms the same.You gave me a Howa Mini Action, which is a bolt-action rifle primarily made for hunting, and you said you're going to go out and deer hunt.You can either have it chambered in 7.62x39 or .223.
I'm going to take it in 7.62x39.So for that, I think the 7.62x39 gets it.All right, so in summation here, what do I think is the best in 2023 battlefield cartridge? Not weapon, we're leaving weapon out of this, we're talking about cartridge.
Right, because I can get a really good weapons platform, I can get a Galil Ace in 5.56, and I can get a Galil Ace in 7.60x39.And let's just run with that, let's just assume that was my option.Battle field weapon.
I, argument's sake, feel the need to go fight to become a private contractor again and go fight, go to war. I'm gonna pick the 5.56 for a battlefield.
If that's my only thing, not like I'm getting dropped behind enemy lines as a paratrooper and I have to scavenge ammo, but like I have a legitimate logistical supply chain.That's not part of it.
Just which one is a better cartridge for a modern battlefield?I'm picking the 5.56.I'm picking it because it's got a flatter trajectory and it's got less recoil and I think I can get faster first, second, third round hits on target.
Also, the weight, right?If I can carry the same amount of rounds with less weight, sign me up.So for battlefield implementation, I think the 5.56 is superior.Now, let's look at this.I'm a prepper.I'm a survivalist.I don't apologize for that.
Continuing to breathe air is nice. If I'm talking about like a one gun, and this would not be it, right?I've talked about this before.
If I was picking one long gun to bug out and start peeing in radiators or fight bad guys armed with chainsaws under an overpass, pick your apocalyptic movie.If I was picking that kind of scenario, like a survival prepper tool.
I had to choose one of these cartridges.I wouldn't choose either one to begin with.I would choose a shotgun, and I've talked about that a lot.And if I was not choosing that, I'd probably choose my SCAR-17 if you said it has to be a rifle.
Because I think 7.62x51 NATO is probably the best all-around cartridge for tactical and hunting and all that stuff.A best crossover.
But out of these two if you said you have to pick a 5.56 or a 7.62x39 for for survival scenario and you don't really get any more specifics for a survival type scenario I'm gonna go 7.62x39 if you give me those same two galil aces
And I like the Galil Ace.I've got quite a bit of practical experience with it.For a while, it was my go-to truck gun.
And one of the reasons is because I was in charge of a pretty cool assignment in the military where I had a pretty big area of operation in Idaho, the upper part of Idaho, in between the Washington border and the Montana border.
and a just plain government issued ride.And that was a good truck gun because there's a lot of big animals out there.And again, if I had to choose one of these to hunt and put food on the table, 7.62 by 39 gets the nod.
Also, round per round, I think it's more effective.Do I have to carry less ammo?Yes.But if I don't have a supply chain that's supplying me with more and more rounds, again, I go back to I think that round for round, changing an adversary's behavior
Round for round, the likelihood is better with the 7.62x39.And if I don't have a supply chain, which I wouldn't in the apocalypse probably, right?Applying me with truckloads of ammo and stripper clips, it's gonna have what I have.
I'm probably gonna go 7.62x39.I think it's a better crossover cartridge.It's better at that medium-sized game.I would hopefully have some rounds tailored for that.Know my dope, know my zero, all that stuff.
But I think for an all-around survival round, the 7.62x39 gets it.
In summation, trying to come at this objectively, soberly, looking at these two cartridges and giving you an honest, it's still an opinion, but an opinion of mine based hopefully on facts and real world stuff.
That's my summation of these two cartridges.I hope you enjoyed that about this podcast.If you want to support, you can scroll down to the Patreon link, but also, I don't often mention it. There's a gear shop.You can go to goodshepherdtraining.com.
Again, goodshepherdtraining.com.If you don't want to just become a patron and be part of that insider tribe, but you want something tangible for your money, I get that.There's a gear shop at goodshepherdtraining.com.
Stuff for both this, Gunfighter Life podcast, and the Alpha Male podcast.So, you might want to check that out.Again, that's goodshepherdtraining.com.With that, the tactical tip of the day.
Whether you're talking AR-15s or AK-47s, you have a front sight post, right?It's not like a lot of traditional bolt action hunting rifles.You have quite a big height over bore, meaning the sights are higher.
by quite a bit than the barrel of that gun.The front sight will have a section below the front sight.You can make a very crude up-close CQB aiming device by taking an obnoxious color
of, let's say, duct tape, bright orange, chartreuse, bright pink if you want to go that route.And you can put a section of that on there.
That way, if you're really close, down and dirty, right, crude aiming of that in urban warfare CQB distances, you can use that as a very crude front sight.Don't worry about its relationship to the rear sight.
At very close distances, it makes very little difference.And getting rounds, especially a first round hit on target quickly, is important.
Also, if you don't want to do that, the duct tape can also do a really obnoxious color of white fingernail polish followed by, again, bright pink, bright orange, chartreuse fingernail polish.There you go, a manly use for fingernail polish.
Making the bottom of that front sight post a bright color so you can index on it quickly.
Now, if you want to take a more precise shot, when you go to get a proper sight picture, you shouldn't be able to see it anyway if your front sight is properly aligned into your rear aperture.
Whether it's a peep sight for the M16 or the more traditional notch sight of the AK47, you shouldn't see it, so it shouldn't interfere with your more precise shooting.
But it can help you quickly drive that muzzle towards the target and get rounds off quick and with an acceptable amount of CQB accuracy.So that's your tactical tip of the day.Tactical verse of the day.
Tying into kind of our topic today, Leviticus 19.You shall do no injustice in judgment.You shall not be partial to the poor. Nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.You should be fair in all your dealings.
It brings to mind another verse.You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light.You shall not have in your house a differing measure, a large and a small.
You shall have a perfect and a just weight and a perfect and a just measure.Be a man.Stop judging based on emotion or what you want or because somebody gives you a bribe or any of those things. with fair and honest judgment.
With that, men, thanks for listening, and have a blessed day.
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