Durability test would be welcomed.

The durability of an AK is a thing of beauty.  I have YET to fully clean my almost 1 year old SAR-1 and it has YET to have a failure.  And that is with feeding it different bullet weights and types.  

Saw a video awhile back of a couple of guys mistreating their ROM AKs....putting them in the mud and standing on them...bump firing a 30 round mag and tossing them into a pool of water.....never missed a lick. AKs are probably one of the toughest guns made when it comes to abuse. You can drag an AK thru the mud and dirt and it still works...Id never try that with my AR.

When stress testing your latest AK keep in mind the thread from a couple of years ago, about the guy who was bragging about how tough his AK was compared to an AR, reached down picked up a fistful of sand and gravel and poured it into the reciever. he was right, the gun fired, one round, then he got to find out what it takes to replace a reciever.

Sounds like the idiot pulled the bolt back and must have poured some into the barrel from teh breech end as well.

Well I can tell you this much.I had a Chinese PreBan a few years ago that had been in a pond for years and years.Long enough for the wood to rot off and the springs to rust apart.I replaced the springs, the wood, soaked it in solvent and sandblasted it before painting it.I then  shot the hell out of it for several months.I bumped so many mags thru it before I got rid of it I lost count. I posted pics of it here but have long since lost the links to the thread.Its now hung on the wall of a local gunshop here in Mo so people will know how tough an AK really is.

No, none in the breech, he got just enough gravel in it to wedge the bolt, and it split the reciever. I have seen some rifles that have taken some serious abuse. I have never seen any rifle run over by a bus, but hey that is just one more testament to the ruggedness of the AK design. I saw an M16 get run over by a HMMWV, it turned out OK, when that happened one of the SGT's told us that he had seen a 16 run over by a deuce, and still function(I am still not sure if I believe him though). I once witness an M-60 have its barrel broken off and the lugs that it attatches to sheared off with it, when the guy carrying it landed a little hard on a jump. Of course the M-60 is no shining symbol of reliability but they did have a reputation for being as rugged as they come, under the right circumstance any machine can break down, as well as under the right circumstance a machine will sometimes function long after it logically should have been destroyed.

The barrel is poorly supported in a M-60 so that isn't suprising.  If the socket is worn, it can cause the barrel to droop slightly and the resulting torque can cause the bolt to snap during firing.

Well you should never be getting big enough peices of gravel in the action to cause the bolt to jam and break the receiver, during normal and abnormal use..

I think the sand spray booth test that is done in Russia says it all for the durability of the AK, which is the only weapon to survive it....The M-16 did not...

At Knobb Creek this year our 7.62 AKS-74S topped 13,500 rounds without a cleaning. It went almost non-stop for about 2,000 rounds. I also picked up a full auto Maadi at the Creek that the bbl. had lost it's temper and sagged. Luckily I had a a new Maadi take off bbl. It had received several full auto drum dumps without a brake. You can't beat them!

Troy Sellars
IN RANGE inc.

Well, there were two tests done that I've read (here) about.
One, a guy losing his SOT decided to mess with the AK he had to give up, so he got a bunch of people loading drums and fired about 10,000 rounds through it. Other than the handguards catching fire and falling off, and the obvious barrel wear, the gun still ran 100%
The Bulgarian Arsenal company did their own test, and had a rifle on continuous feed. they got over 80,000 rounds through it before giving up. Stopped half way through to clean brass chips out of the receiver (ran fire, but they were gunked up in there). Still ran fine, but I can imagine what kind of condition it was in.

ETA: I've also remember an anouncement about some range gun (Arsenal or Izmash, can't remember) which had (logged) over 300,000 rounds through it.