A common statement I hear about 300 BLK as compared to 7.62x39mm, is that it’s too expensive and 7.62 is cheaper and more widely available in bulk. Gone are the days of the M16 and the old, crappy NATO ammo.Īnother major issue with AK ownership is ammunition. Today’s AR is not the same gun it was even ten years ago and that’s saying something. Sure, the AK is a generally more robust design, but it’s a machine that that is just as prone to malfunction as the next one. The trope I often hear is that the AK is more reliable than the AR, but that is relative to the individual gun. The lack of inexpensive, quality imports and good quality Western ammunition makes the AK-47 a less desirable gun for most consumers. The Russians can make all the AK rifles they want in their arsenals because their industry is set up around the gun where ours simply is not geared for its mass production. The hand fitting, pressing, stamping, and riveting makes the process less precise and subject to more hours of labor to achieve the end result. The methods of manufacture used on majority of AK rifles are archaic by our modern standards to the point that the AK has more in common with the M1 Garand than it does the AR-15. Unless it is adapted to our modern CNC technology, the AK is essentially a custom project, even for large makers. The consistency that the AR can be made with today is unrivaled. The AR lends itself to easy manufacture on most of our existing tooling, with the only thing lacking from most shops being a broach cutter for the magazine well. The reason behind this shift is the disparity in the number of imports and the lack of tooling and manufacturing experience here in America. A good AK today is at least a $1,000 proposition and a great one from specialty makers can run you well over $2,500. What was once considered the rifle of poor neckbeards and the anti-social prepper types has come out of the Obama era as the gun of the wealthy few. The AK, on the other hand, has seen a steady increase in prices. I wonder if at some point companies will lose money making AR parts due to the cost of machine time alone. The AR has such tremendous dominance on the consumer and LE market that the pricing floor is approaching rock bottom. The complete saturation of the AR on the American market has resulted in a decline in the general popularity of other rifles, including the AK. 7.62x39mm and 5.45x39mm (Josh Wayner for TTAG) If you had told me in 2008 that I could get a decent AR for $300, I’d have laughed at you, which I’m pretty sure counts as a microaggression today. The price of the AR-15 has dropped so far that I could chart it against the rising number of genders and likely find some sort of direct inverse correlation between the two. Many strange things have happened in the last decade, and things seem to be getting stranger. For some weird reason and I thought I’d never see a decent semi-automatic for under $1,500 again. I remember when the AK rifles began to go up in price around 2008. I bought my first AK for $300, which was a good price back around 2006. I remember back in the old days when I was perhaps sixteen or so looking at AR rifles and thinking I’d never own one. The AK used to be the cheap everyman’s utility rifle. The first thing we need to look at is the general state of the AK rifle and what you get for your money. The answer may not be as simple as you think due to a number of factors in the wider world. So the big question is whether you should buy a semi-auto copy of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s rifle.
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