They took weapons used in wars and compared them to each other and one part of the show dealt with the AK47 and M-16. It compared them both in several catagories and while the M-16 won for accuracy and weight, the AK won on lethality and simplicity. What amazed me is that they had 4x6 pieces of pine stacked up two boards high and two boards deep and the .223 would not penetrate them while the 7.62x39 had no problem. Just imagine trying to hide behind a small tree to no avail because bullets are penetrating it. One thing that I don't like about the AK though is that it flexes a lot under fire due to the violent action of the bolt striking in both directions and this affects accuracy. They showed the rifles being shot in slow motion and you could just see the front trunion and barrel shaking up and down. Maybe Hesse/Vulcan should take note because of their welded trunions.

Yeah I watched it and was going into it thinking it would be a bias show against one of the rifles.When it was finished I thought they did a very good job on the program and I found it to be just about right in its assessment .A very good program for those who want to argue on the AK vs. the M16 . Both was built to do what there Armies intended them to do .Thumbs up on the show.WarDawg

pine boards how thick and how far apart?

just looking for ideas for another ammo test, winter is coming and a warm ak is happiness.

I believe that they were 4X4's actually stacked up back to back, and yep the 7.62 went clean through. I felt that they were using kidd gloves for the AK though, they went on and on about the reliabilty of the Ak, yet I noticed on the war footage of the VC/NVA soldiers (not the reenactors that they also showed) at least two times Vietnamese soldiers clearing jams on thier AK's, one was pulling the bolt back to clear a round and continued firing. the other was whacking forward on the bolt handle in what looked like an attempt to feed a round into a dirty chamber. Of course these are probably just Colt propaganda films, because everybody here knows that an AK will fire with a reciever full of wet cement and a chamber full of gravel. I could not believe the poor accuracy of the milled rifle the guy at Piccatinny was firing, at two hundred meters using iron sights he was only able to get one round out of five on the paper, while the M16 put all five into center of mass, I don't care if you are shooting atomic warheads if it can't hit a man at two hundred meters you aren't going to be around long. I am sure somebody who saw this can accurately tell us which variation they were using. I also found it amusing that at the beggining of the piece they discussed how well the M16 fired on full auto and how poor the AK's accuracy is on auto, but at the end of the piece they go on to say that the M16 is designed more as a rifle while the Ak was designed more as a cut down machine gun, and theat they both excelled at what they were designed for, seems to me that for it to excel as a light machine gun it would need to be accurate and controllable on full auto and the AK is not (not in thier evaluation or in my experience).

I was quite impressed with one clip they showed of what appeared to be an NVA regular in a firefight, fighting from a ditch, his rifle (what appeared to be a very nice milled reciever ChiCom) was covered with huge clumps of sticky mud, and he was still laying down full auto as fast as he could change mags.

I do think that they hit the nail on the head as far as the usefulness of the AK, that in the hands of well trained and equipped troops it will be sorely lacking, but in militaries were they do not have alot of resources and most troops are untrained conscripts who couldn't hit a bulls but with a bass fiddle anyway they are perfect, the fact is that they need less cleaning than the M16 (they do still need to be cleaned though). I also feel to be truly fair they should have mentioned that the russians and most other eastern European countries gave up the .30 cal round decades ago in favor of a round with similar characteristics to the 5.56.

Did you see the clown on the AK jerking that trigger? No wonder he couldn't hit jack.

I also think that they should have used a muzzle brake on the ak to be fair. But still with all the flex in the rifle it kinda makes you wonder how reliable the rifle really is under full auto conditions. Won't it tear itself apart eventually, especially a stamped receiver?

I heard about the show too, and I was told they used two different guys for the accuracy test at 200 Meters! Gee, lets really throw some variables in there! I agree, if you can't hit man sized targets at 200 with a rifle that has been sighted in (but we don't know if they did or not!) and on sandbags in a controlled environment, you shouldn't be on TV demonstrating the efficacy of a rifle system. I do look forward to fnding the DVD or TLC tapes of this show though, as the slow motion stuff really interests me. I think Russia had some issues in the early days with guns shooting themselves apart, but I think it is painfully obvious that there are millions of AKs out there that are 50 years old and still doing there jobs in hotspots around the world.
Once they figured out proper riveting techniques I think any factory built gun would easily outlive it's barrel, and provide many years of good use (even with poor maintainece!).  It is freaky to see the harmonic vibrations twist the gun about, but like a good bridge or skyscraper that is designed for the stresses, it can last a long time.
-C

Found it on DVD and VHS at

shopping.discovery.com/

It was $26.79 shipped for the one with the Mig and AK-47 (they have the other two available too!)

Ship date is November 7th.

-C

I would assume that the guys who were firing both weapons were at least competent marksman, the test firing was done at Piccatinny, using Army owned weapons. It has been a few days since I saw this but I do remeber somebody firing a weapon with thier finger so far through the trigger gaurd it lokked like they were wearing the rifle as a ring, I doubt that makes for good marksmanship.

As far as how Ak's stand up to full auto fire, they do eventually beat themselves to death, some are made better than others, but after alot of FA use they end up with major problems. The stamped models end up with wallowed out FCG and trunnion rivet holes, Milled recievers after much abuse start to develope stress fractures in the same areas. THese weapons were never developed to be fine examples of craftmanship, they were engineered to give the common peasant/conscript more firepower than a Mosin Nagant, that is all. AK's were not dedisgned to be tack drivers, or submachine guns, the Soviet Union already had weapons to perform in these roles, the Soviets liked the idea of the SKS rifle better, but eventually adopted the Ak because it was cheaper and easier to manufacture, plus it was designed to use high capacity magazines, which at the time was seen a good feature but was not yet considered esential (remember the Mosin Nagant's and Mausers only held 5, the Garrand held 8, and even the Enfield only hel 10). The AK was actually ahead of its time, it had many features that were not considered important until a decade later, such as the detatchable 30 round mag, ability to be manufactured in primitive conditions etc.. It is a great testament to Kalishnakovs design that it is still considered an acceptable design today. The AR15 was designed twenty years after the AK. Many people wonder why so many countries used SKS's long after the Ak was invented, the truth is that SKS was considered by the military experts of the day to be vastly superior. Many Eastern countries believed the AK would be most useful in a roll similar to the way we used the M1 Carbine in WWII.

Its been afew days since I seen it. But to my memory, they used an M16A1 and an AK47.Both which was used against each other in the day.So to me both was the proper rifle to be putting against each other.And also from my memory they was being test fired in a tunnel at 200 yards, at a  target siloet of a man.Truthfully the results are the typical results fired from both rifle at that range. The M16A1 groups was spread out several inches and maybe a foot or to but all 5 or 6 rounds was hits.The AK47 in my memory didn't never hit the target at that range.The front site post at that range would be about thew same as the target or maybe even bigger than the target.I would like to see it again to pick up on things I might have missed.Cheers WarDawg

i wish i could have seen it i wonder if it will come on again?

Just order it from the site I linked to above... it sounds like it will be a keeper in the video collection anyways.
-C

It was actually a REALLY cool show...Not only did they compare M-16 -vs- AK47, they compared Sherman -vs- Tiger Tank, Mig17 -vs- Saber....and a few others.   There were 2-3 shows back to back.  I ment to tape it but got watching it and F-ing forgot!!!!...I guess the 5 beers did not help

More penetration does not equal better stopping power.

In fact, it means the 5.56 is dumping its energy in the boards.

If I had to choose being shot in the abdomen with the 5.56 M-193 ball or the 7.62x39 M-43 ball, I would far perfer to take a hit with the M-43.