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I've seen videos from Afghanistan showing US troops finding AKs buried that date from the Soviet invasion in the late 1970s. They were covered in rust and looke
by Ancapistani 4y ago
I've seen videos from Afghanistan showing US troops finding AKs buried that date from the Soviet invasion in the late 1970s. They were covered in rust and looked terrible - but were 100% operational even in that condition. Run a rod through the barrel to make sure it's clear, insert a magazine, and it still runs.
For what it's worth, the "AR family" of rifles (AR-15, M-16, M-4, etc.) actually surpass AKs in terms of field reliability and use in hostile conditions. They're built to tighter tolerances, but with the dust cover closed there isn't really any way for sand/mud/dirt to get into the action, so they continue to work.
The AK takes the opposite approach - looser tolerances and plenty of room in the action to allow foreign debris to stay out of the way and let it continue to function. You can take the dust cover off an AK, turn it upside down, and smack it a few times to knock all the junk out of the action.
AKs tend to work better with no/minimal maintenance, and are much easier to field strip and restore to operable condition. ARs require more maintenance but are easier to make (and keep) accurate, and require a bit more in terms of training and tooling to maintain under use.
I've always found it interesting that AKs are relatively easy to manufacture in rough conditions, but that ARs are easier to manufacture in the US. I can build a working AR lower receiver in the US with tools I have laying around my home (drill press, rotary tool, etc). I can't do the same for an AK because I don't have a spot welder to attach the rails. The fact that what qualifies as "easy to make" is so different depending on the environment.
- mrguyorama 4y ago>I can't do the same for an AK because I don't have a spot welder to attach the rails Harbor freight sells the simplest possible welders for like $150. Would that be sufficient?
- brodouevencode 4y agotbh I'd be scared of a Harbor Freight welder
- snapetom 4y agoA friend of mine needed a chainsaw to chop up a tree branch in her yard. She told her dad she was going to Harbor Freight to get one and he emphatically said, "NO" and bought her a decent one.
- davidro80 4y ago
- bad416f1f5a2 4y agoDad’s hate “Chinese crap tools?” Say it ain’t so! The average person that says “I need a chainsaw” will likely be well served by renting one from a home store, or buying a cheap one from Harbor Freight. They’ll probably use it a dozen times at most. Is your cheap chainsaw going to hold up as well as the Husqvarna my dad has been using since the late 80s? Absolutely not. Do you live on a 70 acre orchard? No, so a consumer grade tool will do.
- Spooky23 4y agoI bought a harbor freight drill press, and the metal pole that holds the drill up cracked the 3rd or 4th time I used it. Just buy the cheap chainsaw at Home Depot, it costs like $10 more.
- snapetom 4y agoI was helping a buddy with his car once. He bought a breaker bar from HF and it started to bend on the second wheel we used it on. Like, dude, you had one job...
- MertsA 4y agoA good question to ask when considering Harbor Freight is "when this thing breaks, am I driving back to Harbor Freight or to the hospital?". They do have some decent quality tools nowadays, not to mention the heaps of consumables where quality isn't exactly a critical factor. Their Icon tools come with a lifetime warranty and they seem to be similarly uncaring about "misuse" in an effort to mirror SnapOn's reputation. They will even accept the phone number alone for proof of purchase instead of having to keep track of a thermal printer receipt that will fade away over time like how Lowe's handles warranty exchanges if you don't have the same credit card it was purchased on. I love Harbor Freight but you'll never find me using one of their chainsaws.
- adrian_b 4y agoA spot welder is not the same as the better known arc welders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_welding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_welding
- mrguyorama 4y agoI thought "spot welding" might be used as a reference to just "tacking" a part with a commodity welder. Anyone know/think why the AK-47 was built/designed that way?
- sbierwagen 4y agoSpot welding is universal in sheet metal construction. A typical car is a stamped sheet metal frame held together with hundreds of spot welds.
- trasz 4y agoMy guess is 1. Because that technology is used absolutely everywhere, eg in cars, and 2. Because it's quite easy: take a transformer, replace the lower-voltage side with a few turns of a _really_ thick wire, connect the other side to mains and make lots of amps flow for a few seconds through two pieces of sheet metal pushed together.
- sbierwagen 4y agoHarbor freight does indeed sell both: https://www.harborfreight.com/120v-spot-welder-61205.html https://www.harborfreight.com/120v-spot-welder-61205.html Most AK home builders use HF spot welders, or the somehow even cheaper Amazon clones.
- buildsjets 4y agoBesides the fact that HF does sell spot welders, you can substitute a rosette weld for a spot weld, and do it using any fusion welding process like MIG, TIG, Stick, or even oxy-acetylene. With practice they are nearly indistinguishable from a spot weld. https://garage.eastwood.com/tech-articles/perfect-rosette-or-spot-welds/ https://garage.eastwood.com/tech-articles/perfect-rosette-or...
- arprocter 4y agohttps://youtu.be/l9RqKA7jh9o?t=55 https://youtu.be/l9RqKA7jh9o?t=55 They'll still run without the recoil spring, although probably not great for the bolt carrier/rear trunnion
- spamizbad 4y agoIt will be interesting to see what happens as 3D printed firearms continue to develop. I know it’s a big boogeyman with “ghost guns” etc but the military applications could be revolutionary: possibly your small arms printed on-the-fly to fit a specific mission. The days of stamped steel and milled/forged aluminum firearms may soon be behind us. A Growing number of modern weapons rely heavily on polymer lowers.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoMaybe. I doubt you could 3D print a barrel though.
- HideousKojima 4y agoYou can, sort of. With electrochemical machining you can make a barrel at home for under $200 in tooling (plus the 3D printer). Basically you 3d print a mandrel for the rifling, and run copper wiring through the grooves of the mandrel. You then run electrified saltwater through the tubing and it will cut the rifling. It's stupid simple to do, and the people who have tried it have gotten results comparable to factory barrels. So probably won't win a shooting competition, but definitely good enough.
- snapetom 4y agoLol. Holy crap. I've been out of the AK making game for too long and didn't know about this. I'll have to look it up.
- Ancapistani 4y agoLast I checked, you could mostly find references to ECM in reference to the FGC-9. I played with when it was first published, and successfully made a rifled barrel blank. I’ll probably do it again at some point, to comply with the NFA for some other projects I have in my backlog - smoothbore pistols are considered “Any Other Weapons”, but even rudimentary rifling is enough to make it “just a pistol”.
- 4y ago
- icegreentea2 4y ago> The fact that what qualifies as "easy to make" is so different depending on the environment. You can actually see this in the AK itself - you don't even need to compare it to the AR. The original AK was always intended to be stamped metal construction, but they couldn't get that working reliably, so they used milled receivers for basically a decade until the AKM model was released.
- formerly_proven 4y agoWell the AK doesn't do so well - despite legendary lore saying very much otherwise - once the debris isn't dry sand that can just fall out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX73uXs3xGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX73uXs3xGU
- jakearmitage 4y agoAs much as I appreciate InRange, I feel there are more field-accurate tests around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjpIP5ShH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjpIP5ShH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-kE_wbGLhE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-kE_wbGLhE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxvrhb7ayW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxvrhb7ayW8 And pretty much any of the stress tests that Rob Ski does.
- sbierwagen 4y ago>I've always found it interesting that AKs are relatively easy to manufacture in rough conditions, but that ARs are easier to manufacture in the US. I can build a working AR lower receiver in the US with tools I have laying around my home (drill press, rotary tool, etc). I can't do the same for an AK because I don't have a spot welder to attach the rails. Worse than that: AK receivers have to be stamped, rails welded on, then heat treated. A soft AK receiver will run for a while but eventually waller out all the pin holes. The gun will get more and more rattly until it can't completely chamber a round, at which point it will blow up. The heyday of the stamped sheet metal gun was, of course, WW2. The Sten, MP 36, M3, and postwar AKM, CETME, G3, etc etc. The central planners were staring down the barrel of total war. They were thinking they would have to arm every single man, woman and child in the country. The Brits made four million Stens, at about $150 each. For that, you want as few machining operations as possible, but you can spend on the tools themselves, since they'll be amortized over huge production runs. Therefore you see heavy industrial processes with specialized tools: 100 ton presses stamping out 20 receivers at a time, specialized heat treat ovens to make up for the downsides of metal stamping, complex assembly jigs, etc. The AR pattern rifle is unattractive for super-mass production. Milled receivers with curved surfaces and finicky blind holes. But it's not a stressed component, so you can make the damn thing out of plastic if you want, and none of the dimensions are safety critical, since the barrel is self headspaced with bolt lugs built in. (The US could put complex features into the barrel because they could trust their subcontractors to build interchangeable parts-- the Sten had magazine feed problems the entire war because of contractors going off spec and the Soviets had innumerable problems with QA. If you can't trust outside firms then you have to build everything in house) This means when you shoot out the barrel in an AR, your unit's armorer can put in a new one. If you wear out the barrel in an AK, you throw away the gun-- headspacing is a factory operation, and the Red Army isn't going to waste time transporting trash. Official doctrine on the US M3 was to provide no replacement parts. The whole gun was welded and riveted together. You could clean it, but otherwise it was a disposable unit. Heavy industrial processes are cheap, but not amendable to field repair.
- kazen44 4y ago> the Sten had magazine feed problems the entire war because of contractors going off spec and the Soviets had innumerable problems with QA. If you can't trust outside firms then you have to build everything in house) Another good thing to point out, is that both the sten and especially soviet weapons were being produced in rapid numbers by mainly unskilled workers in semi finished factories behind the ural (in the soviet's case) or in small workshops by local machinists (in the sten's case).
- rascul 4y ago> For what it's worth, the "AR family" of rifles (AR-15, M-16, M-4, etc.) actually surpass AKs in terms of field reliability and use in hostile conditions. They're built to tighter tolerances, but with the dust cover closed there isn't really any way for sand/mud/dirt to get into the action, so they continue to work. That dust cover is a big gotcha. You have to remember to close it after firing, and sometimes the spring wears out and it doesn't even stay closed anyway. Another problem is the carbon buildup from the direct gas impingement system if you don't clean it enough, and there are some tough to get spots. > I can build a working AR lower receiver in the US with tools I have laying around my home (drill press, rotary tool, etc). I can't do the same for an AK because I don't have a spot welder to attach the rails. Interesting. I'm familiar with the process of building up an 80% AR style rifle, and a 1911 handgun. I know there are 80% AK-47 blanks available but I never looked into what it would take to build one.
- zhengyi13 4y agoYou generally need at a minimum: * riveting tools to mount the trunnions to the receiver, * welding tools to attach the rails to the receiver, * a bunch of jigs to place various holes in the right places in the receiver, * ...and a 12(?)-ton press: you'll be pressing the barrel into the front trunnion, and you may be using the press (and an appropriate jig) to press a steel flat into the proper shape for a receiver. There are at least a couple companies out there that offer AK build classes that will walk you through all this, and then transfer the results of your work to your local FFL.
- Ancapistani 4y agoThe only thing that can’t be easily substituted with fairly common tools is the spot welder. I’ve thought about making one from an old transformer (or was it a microwave oven?), but didn’t pursue it. I only had a few AKs, and have mostly abandoned the platform since the dirt cheap ammo for it has dried up. It’s easier and more practical for me to reload for NATO cartridges.
- technothrasher 4y ago