| bouzane said:
@BasilZero The average hunting rifle has about double the stopping power of an AK-47 and has an effective range advantage for a point target of about 200 - 400 meters. |
You would have to be a pretty excellent shot to accurately engage a man-sized target with an AK-47 at 400 meters. With iron sights, you'd have to be Carlos Hathcock.
The design itself was never really for true "rifle" ranges. Because the field strip cover is on the rear of the rifle, the rear sight is placed well forward of the magazine well. Paired with a 16" barrel, the short sight radius means harder to aim at longer distances. That's part (as well as lack of shoulder/stock stability) of why pistols in general are difficult to fire accurately at even 100 yards (long range for a pistol, short for a rifle).
To make things worse, the 7.62x39 round is one of the least inherently accurate centerfire rifle rounds ever made. 3-5" MOA through a standard AK-47 for regular ball ammo which is worse than a lot of modern pistols.
The AK-47 is really best deployed more like a submachine gun than a rifle. A lot of SMGs like the MP5 and UMP are more accurate than the AK.
Naturally, any firearm will be made easier to hit targets accurately with the aid of optics, but I personally don't see the point of tricking out a base AK-47 chambered in 7.62x39 with good optics unless one was really attached to the model.
But as I said before, there are plenty of AK variants that don't fall into the base category, but once you start comparing high end, custom built, custom chambered and AK derived models, you're pretty much no longer comparing the same rifle.
