The AK-47 is not a death ray.

I was on one of my twice a year stops over a Folkbum(when did Jay go group blog? shows you how out of it I am) and one his posters KSShorewood had a post about Michael Kalashnikov and the celebration that the assault rifle he designed the AK-47 was turning 60 years old. I am guessing KSS thinks this is a bad thing.

For one the AK is only a machine a very good well designed machine but no AK has every woken up and said today I am going to massacre a village.

But that is neither here nor there.

I am always amazed by the perception that assault rifles are some kind of death ray capable of taking down Superman. So I thought I would do a little teaching.

One of the things I like to do when we have the BBA shooting events is to show people a comparison between the .30-06 round which was used by the US to fight World War One and Two and has slayed many a deer in the past 100 years in Wisconsin. With the 7.62x 39mm round that the AK-47 fires. People are amazed at the difference in the two.

So I even went and created a visual aid for this post.


That is both rounds and a dime for scale. People like Dad 29 and Owen etc know the answer but can you tell me which round goes to the AK and which is the .30-06 ?

I am guessing that most of you are smart enough to figure out the AK round is the smaller of the two.

You see that is the whole idea behind assault rifles the round is smaller and lighter so troops can carry more of them, they are not as effective as the older military round. I would say after 200 yards you are SOL with the AK round where you are just getting into the wheel house of a .30-06 round. The AK round uses less powder etc. In short the assault rifle was designed to fight in close.

Do not get me wrong it will still hurt any thing it hits but not with the same effect as the older bigger round. One complaint by our troops in Iraq has been the US assault rifle the M4, the latest version of the M-16 is underpowered and lacks stopping power(the US guns shoot a round even smaller than the AK)

What is the purpose of all of this I am trying to demystify the whole aura the MSM has given the assault rifle they treat it like it a death ray or something along the lines of a laser blaster from Science Fiction. Its not it is just a smaller rifle that happens to hold a lot of smaller sized rounds.

I will even let you in on a little secret they are more accurate in the semi auto mode(you have to pull the trigger each time it is fired) than in the full auto mode(think machine gun rat a tat tat and most civilians cannot own full auto ones)I even believe the US military has stopped having full auto as a selection on the later model M-16's but I could be wrong I have not shot a military assault rifle in over 20 years.

What I hope to do with post like these is at least make people more informed I am amazed how many people on the left who talk about guns know little to nothing about the subject. I mean simple stuff like a shot gun vs. a rifle or a revolver vs. a semi auto handgun.

Heres is the Wiki page for assault rifles if you would like to learn a little more about this so you can use it the next time a anti gun person is foaming at the mouth over assault rifles.

Oh and I cannot resist this but if KZ does not like the AK-47 he/she(I do not know) must hate the German Gewehr 98 line of rifles and the Mauser brothers because I am guessing the Mauser bolt action line of battle rifles(they supplied the German army in both World Wars and only fire one shot at a time) have killed more people than the AK-47 and M-16 combined.

So I hope this helps you all be you a gun nut or a moonbat ;)

did I screw anything up Dad29? lol

Oh and why do they use the term gun lover like it is a bad thing?;)

WSB Chris(I am trying to settle on one handle for the blogosphere and WSB Chris will be it lol)