I dont baby any of my guns.

Kinda like these?

I think the whole point of an AK is that they are beaters, that applies to military style rifles in general, it amuses me to see folks babing thier AR's, AK's M1A's and other similar wepaons, when the damn things were designed from the word go to have the hell beat out of them. What I find the funniest is when the same guys who baby thier guns start trying to tell me how all of thier guns are reliable and none has ever jammed on them! Well no shit, a gun that has never been wet, never been covered in mud, never been dropped out of a truck, never been use to pound a tent stake, and it works, well color me impressed. When I was in the Army I was issued several weapons, and they had all been beat to shit and put back together god only knows how many times, and I can count the number of jams I had on two hands and still be able to hold my canteen, now that is reliable (and they shot straight for the most part as well).

I read that in a Small Arms review article on Arsenal's AKs

While I was in Germany, there was a detail doing some remodeling in the attic of thier barracks, and came across an old P38 that was still loaded, the SGT in charge of the detail called the MPs over and asked them what to do with it. There was much discussion on what to do with it, the MPs were much more familiar with pistols than the aviation types who found it, so they took charge. The MP Sgt who was there looked it over, worked the action and saw that it appeared to be in good order, then pronounced in a heavy southern accent "I know just what we need to do with this here gun". They took it down to the entrance to the Provost Marshals office the MP announces "y'all stand back now" (this is often followed by "hold my beer while I do this", but they were on duty), points the muzzle down into the clearing barrel and proceeds to empty the mag without a single misfire. I do not know what became of the pistol, or if the MP who decided this was a good idea got into any real trouble, but I do know that his happened, the NCO in cahrge of the detail was a clerk in the flight ops shop my father ran, and it was the talk of the office for days. This happened in the mid to late eighties, I seem to recall it being late eighty five or early 86 (it was cold I remember that well).

There was also another incident in the unit when one of the older pilots (who had been adopted by an american family in 1946, but had been born to German parents in 1944), looked up his "birth" family, and found out that he had no brothers or sisters, and that his father had been killed in the war, he had been a Uboat commander. His mother told him she had been waiting for him to come home and had saved some things for him, includign a full German Navy (KreigsMarine?) Officers Uniform with all of the decorations that went wtih it, as well as a fancy wooden box lined with red velvet, containing an MP40, that his mother wasn't really sure how his father had gotten, but had left with her the last time he had shipped out. I am not sure whatever happened to that either, but she gave it to him in 85 so who knows (I imagine it went into a smelter somewhere over there)? The thing that really amazes me is that the old lady had held onto that stuff for all of that time, and as I understand it, in post war Germany either of those items could have gotten her a stiff sentence, for mere possesion, but her husband had told her that if anything were to happen to him that she wanted his son to have them, no matter what. The old lady died three weeks later.

dude! that is the 'maadi' army! i can tell by their...er...helmets!

unlike those guys over the ar side that will argue for a week that their waxed-up ar colt is 'worth' more because it has some goofy  writing stamped on it...unlike those lunatics that really thik their 'fine cherman kraftsmanship' guns are all that...unlike the guys that think their sig is something more than a glorified ak...unlike the dweebs that go on endlessly about their ris/ras/rah or sir...i beat the shit out of my guns. the get taken out and they get run hard and fast. if they are lucky...they might even get cleaned twice a year.

i'll bet my .22 smallbore match rifle sees more rounds in a year's time than most of their sissy gas guns! hell...it even gets fed wolf ammo!

MAK-90

Quoted: I was thinking about buying something cheap like a WASR of SAR and putting a sidefolder on it after the ban. Then I would throw it behind the seat of my work truck. That would make a perfect Zombie/WWIII gun!

This is actually puts more of point on what I think. An AK is designed for just that type of use, so are all of the other high dollar "military style" guns. Of course the weapons I was issued in the Army didn't come out of my pocket, they were what we had, and the same rifles we beat the hell out of in training were what we carried with us on deployments ( I have heard gun show warrior cliam that when a unit is deploying to combat they get brand new guns, that is not true). A run of the mill AR would in some ways make a better truck gun that an AK, the reciever is less likely to rust, and the furniture is not likely to rot, but for some reason many people seem to think that thier $800 dollar Bushy or Colt is going to quit working if it gets scratched, I am here to tell you they won't. It has been said on these forums a thousand times, but take a close look at the rifles our guys are toting in Iraq, those guns get used and abused, and keep on shooting.