@Illyrian The Commies buit enough Full Auto AKS for every adult to fight WW3, After the Soviet Empire collapsed Eastern Europe had tons of AKs floating around. The americans sent suits in to make deals with the EE leaders. They set up companies in Europe who bought the carbines from the government, and completely took them apart, scrapped the Full Auto parts and Receiver and then shipped all the rest of the parts back to the states for sale to Americans

Is what I said proper gun-handling?

Always treat it like it's loaded.

@Khanclansith I am aware of that.

@Illyrian The Parts Kits came into the states as bags of parts, now to be made here in the states, they have to be built on US made receivers. The end result was despite corruption, it was more proffitable to destroy the AKs and send to parts than to sell them on the black market.

It helps that the AK-47 is cheap and easy to manufacture.

Where did you learn this, by the way?

AK-47s were actually hazardous to the Soviets, so the AKM quickly took it's place in 1959.

Hazardous?

AKMs, PKs, PKMs, RPKs, AK74s, RPK74s

Yes, those are Soviet machine gun patterns.

Yes, apparently there were quite a few flaws with the AK-47, that not many notice.

Heavy and inaccurate?

The milled receiver was bulky and the barrel would wobble when it fired.

Is that any worse than the M16A1’s stupidly delicate firing mechanism?

AK-47s broke apart after a few hundred rounds and most failed QC at the factory, they were replaced with AK-49s (Forged Receivers) and those proved unsatisfactory, and were replaced with what we call type 3 receivers.

Got it.

Damn, you really know your firearms.

I’m jealous that I’ve been out-trivia’ed.

Technical Specialist.

You’re a consultant?

I tought classes on this while I was in the Army

Got it.

The M16 was the epic fail of American rifles. The M16A1 was an improvement.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to challenge your expertise.

Wasn’t it the M16A2 that was the improvement in Vietnam?

no, M16A2 was in the late 70s early 80s

47s and its generation has been cycled out at this point though. Pretty sure there's a whole lot of them rusting in abandoned stockpiles now

The M16A1 was in service by 1968.

After NATO adopted the 5.56NATO

The A1 was the model that only had burst fire, right?

No, it had semi and full-auto.

A2 are burst, A1 full auto

Got it.

Weren’t automatic M1 Carbines also being used in Vietnam?

Yes.

Also used in Korea.

I’m a history major, so historical weaponry interests me.

M1s by then were upgraded to M2s but yes they were used by MAC-V and MAC-V supplied RoVA units

@Khanclansith If you don’t mind my asking, where did you serve while in the Army?

I was a headquarters monkey out at Shafter for 3 and half years, and I was in HHBN 10th Mountain Division.