I find it interesting that in a capitalist (and gun) society that there seems to constantly be “discussions” about various rifles that seems to always end with an almost religious zeal with Stoners rifle (God created the earth, heavens and the AR). I own several and love the design but I also love other rifle types. Yes, many countries use this system but I do not feel it is the “One rifle to rule them all”. Anyone care to express any thoughts on this subject?
OK… I’ll play…
Due to some ridiculous laws in place in the US, we cannot get most types of foreign weapons. Considering this, it is little wonder that people prefer the weapon that they are more familiar with, and that is available for civilian purchase.
Given the choice, I would like to have any number of weapons, but considering what is available for civilian purchase, the AR is really the only logical choice for hard use, as it is really one of the only military grade weapons in the US that has any real user-support on a sustainable level.
Not only that, but the fact is that the AR-15/M-16 is a world-wide respected design that has performed well over a long service life in a wide variety of conditions, while retaining good ergonomics and sighting capabilities.
Well, first, this is a great topic.
There are multiple factors that attribute to the “love” of the AR and the “hate” of other assault rifles.
- nationality
- culture
- history/past experiences
- function/adaptability/platform
- niche
No doubt that only hit the tip of the iceberg but i’m not going to go into to much detail currently because i am quite tired.
Now addressing the points above.
- The AR/M16/M4 has a great historical signifigance in the USA’s combative history just as the AK has historical signifigance in Russia and countless nations in Africa. The exposure to nationalist beliefs like “ours is better than yours because it’s american” and similar statements are a product of pride or competetiveness.
- Culture blends with nationality. If you recall early american history (i’m sure you do) a musket was an essential tool to hunt game. Alot of pride was put into ones skills in marksmanship and ability to hunt game. Young men of the era could consider their ability to use a musket proficiently and provide for their family as a right of passage.
- History/past experiences can play a major role in ones preference of a rifle. I grew up around firearms (my father worked for various shooting ranges and stores for nearly 20 years) , my fondest momories of my childhood revolve around the time i spent with my father at the range and people/culture that revolved around it. I thoroughly enjoyed shooting my fathers AR so that also attributes to my love for the platform.
- The capabilities of the rifle also play a great role in why some people feel absolute about why they think a rifle is “better” than the rest. Personally i think that the AR platform is the most versatile and adaptive weapon system avaliable for the common man, with the AK coming in second. The ability to personalize a weapon to fit your needs is again, in my opinion, a very important aspect of choosing a weapon system. People can argue about whats “better” all day (and they do), but it’s just an opinion, not absolute fact. Peoples needs are different but that doesn’t stop their urge to be “better” or “more knowledgeable” and spout this “i’m right and your wrong” mentality we see so much of today.
- Niche. Kind of self explanitory. Each weapon system has its advantages and weaknesses and it is quite easy to take an understanding of those advantages and weakenesses and say “this is good for this job and that is good for that job”, and then it comes down to personal needs and preference again.
Anyways, thats my relatively quick two cents.
Really I cant think of any way in which another rifle can beat the AR for 90% of what anybody would be doing with a firearm. Better ergos, just as reliable, easy to setup optics, inherently accurate, inline design, minimal parts, easy to mfg., easy to use, the most modular rifle available, easy to maintain with common tools, etc. etc etc… The list just keeps going and going for the good and the bad really isn’t any worse than any of the others. It really does seem to do it all well.
I think CPtheWightKnight got a lot of it. My take on it:
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Not Invented Here/National pride/Patriotism, etc. M16 is used by the US, US is the best country, therefore the M16/M4/AR/etc is the best gun. People can be on a continuum anywhere from absolutely dogmatic zeal over the AR to informed opinion but still liking it best because it’s American, and who doesn’t love their country?
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Propaganda. Similar to #1, and by propaganda I don’t mean lies necessarily. Obviously, you want your soldiers to feel confident in their weapons and soothe their worries about the enemy. Hopefully not to the point of outright deception, but just emphasizing what your weapon is good at and pointing out flaws in the enemy’s weaponry. This is where the “AR = accurate, AK = inaccurate” stuff comes in. It’s true, ARs have higher potential for maximum accuracy than AKs. Doesn’t necessarily mean the enemy’s weapon is less effective (does the AR have better practical accuracy? A different debate). If anyone is interested, there is a WWII training film on the MG-42 (Hilter’s buzzsaw) that is exactly what I’m talking about. They lay it all out - “Yeah, it fires fast. Yes, it sounds scary. It’s not invincible, here is how you destroy it.”
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Exotic/foreign coolness. This is the opposite of #1. Things you DON’T see every day are cooler! The “bad guy’s gun” is cooler. The exotic coolness of a particular item can weigh more than the patriotic feelings of the other thing.
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MY item is best, no matter what YOU say. People justify their own previous purchases and get their pride tied into it. With people making purchases each day, new people need to defend their purchases each day.
Now for full disclosure: I’m way into Soviet weapons and Russian stuff in general. Own a (Yugoslavian-made) SKS, two Soviet Mosin-Nagants, and two AKs. Own zero ARs. The ARs are great weapons, I know they’re more than reliable enough, very accurate, can be customized up the wazoo, so I’m not blindly suckered into #4 up there They’re just soulless to me, and therefore less interesting than the AK (so obviously I AM susceptible to #3 
) I love studying the minor variations of among different countries, years, etc. Can’t get that with an AR, but I still like reading about the technical specifics (which is why I’m mostly only in the Technical Discussion AR subforum).
Try applying pretty much any other 5.56 weapon to full spectrum use and their shortcomings are readily discovered.
There are some that are ok, but nothing that really outperforms it overall, and quite a few that fall well below in one or more areas of application.
Is the standard AR perfect? Hell no, improving ambidexterous ergonomics and charging handle location along with bolt-hold open for one-handed use would be great, but would require a complete redesign of the system.
I have absolutely no hatred toward any weapon system, just a realistic examination of performance and expectation coupled with knowledge and parts availability when it comes to platform adoption.
I agree with F2S on all the above.
The AR also benefits from a large pool of private owners, known as the US shooting community, who push the envelope on how good it can get.
That means the platform gets shot, a lot, by folks who are willing to break them, so the shortcomings of the system either get addressed, or become well enough known to work with.
Personally, I am unaware of any other platform that can be shot to destruction, then completely rebuilt to new, with common to no tools.
Also, rifles have reached a point where it is really tough to make anything but very incremental progress.
Many of us are just tired of all the promises of “new hotness” only to discover that it doesn’t do anything better than “old busted” and in fact more often comes at a price, whether financial, reliability, support, etc.
Unless the point of this thread was to get all dr. phil on things, in which case I don’t know “why”, but I could go on for days about the intentional contrarians that just prefer to be a special flower.
yet amazingly the enginerds seem incapable of making any progress in any one area without making something worse in another.
This shouldn’t be hard. All we want is a gun that is exactly like the AR in every functional way (functional meaning external, not internal, and meaning keep the modularity) with true ambidextrous, mirrored, controls incorporating some increased ergonomics, that is lighter, cheaper, and more readily available.
what’s so hard about that?
Ah, yes. The world of engineering tradeoffs. Everything has a cost, and rifles may not be spacecraft, but they are not too far off, considering that each thing you do has consequences, which almost always produce foreseen and unforeseen negative response.
I think the best thing is what knights and colt (cm/sp901) are trying to do with the somewhat redesigned lower that takes standard uppers… now about the CHEAPER part… good luck.
I think the only way to cut cost would be to change materials and anything cheaper seems to not be as good structure-wise. Anything stronger and lighter than aluminum may be too brittle or will be a lot more expensive. Every industry wants something stronger and lighter, so it wont be cheaper due to demand, unless something gets a huge scale up real quick. Plastics bend too much, or are brittle, ceramics are too brittle, and nanocrystalline metals are very expensive, but would be very light. Its more of an economy issue than an engineering issue, it seems.
You could make something similar to an ar-180 cheaper, but you lose in other areas, as already stated.
OP. From what I can tell, ars are most loved since :
1 - made in U.S.
2 - LARGE support system
3 - reliable as any other(if made right)
4 - Best accuracy potential with match barrels
5- ergos and speed. They can be set up to be fully ambi and can be faster to operate than any other gun out there.
The next best thing we have here IMO is the AK which has a short handguard, slower reloads, and its barely any cheaper for a quality one. Some people prefer them, but most lean towards the AR. I honestly dont see much improvement left for firearms. I think the next step is gonna be a totally different weapon (small-arms rail guns maybe? And thats gonna be a LONG time).
I made a journey back to AR’s after a 10+ year lack of owning one. I always thought the weapon was too fragile, that is, until I watched Larry Vickers’ torture test one, and after reading the “Filthy 14” article in SWAT magazine. I was sold on the rifle again, even if the carbine version will need parts replacements sooner than the full length rifle version. Light weight, accuracy, low recoil, and the ability to customize it any way you want made me sell off all of the rest of my collection in favor of it.
I’ve owned many other types of so-called assault weapons and battle rifles over the years, and all of them (including the AR) have their shortcomings, but I went back to the AR because it didn’t suffer the same problems as others:
HK91: Too heavy and stout recoil
FAL: Too long and unwieldy
M14: Heavy
SKS: poor ability to upgrade to detacable mags
AK: poor ergonomics, accuracy, gun is heavy, no bolt hold-open
I’d like to say some more about the AK: I really tried to like it. It supposedly has legendary reliability but the poor quality control of a lot of makers negates this to a degree. I can’t tell you how many I saw with canted sights before I bought mine. The US-made compliance parts are often crappy, too, as are the “conversions” of sporterized versions made to be legal first and quality second.
Yet I can buy a top tier M4 today, not do a damn thing to it except load a magazine and fire it, and I have the assurance that I have something that is the same quality as the real military version. I don’t trust any US-compliant AK to be that.
Weekend before last, I shot my BCM M4 side-by-side with my AK. My M4 has shot right at 1,000 rounds without a single malfunction. Of course the AK’s reliability is all that as well.
At 50 yards I shot my M4 with Aimpoint T1 mounted and could not miss. I only hit the target with the AK about 75% of the time. Whether it was the AK’s accuracy, the ammo, the long trigger, crappy sights, or just me…how would you like to miss about 25% of the time on the two-way range?
That was the kicker that made me decide to sell the AK and not maintain one in my collection anymore.
As far as the M4 goes, I’m beginning to prefer the pencil barrel version of that weapon just for the weight savings.
I think this is a very good list on why American’s prefer the AR and I would like to add one more. America does have a relatively large veterans community and I know that when I first decided to own a civilian semi-auto rifle 4 years ago, I picked an M4 because that is what I was issued in the Army and it held a nostalgic value to me. I don’t think I’m unique regarding this and I do have other friends of mine who served in the military and went with an AR pattern rifle when they bought a rifle of their own as well.
Because it is the best combination of accuracy, ergonomics, weight, modularity, adaptability, and reliability of any infantry rifle.
I have used and own almost every rifle ever to exist and I would never use any of them over an AR-15.
I own a large variety of 5.56 rifles.
My first grab in any serious situation is going to be something like a Colt 6520, and it isn’t because I hate my other rifles. Some have advantages over the AR system but when you talk about total package I don’t think anything beats the AR system.
Good post.
And let’s not forget that folks over the pond and in most other countries envy the military Colt AR platform. In many undeveloped countries (such as Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc) merely owning one is a symbol of power and authority. They are more fanatical than even some of the most rabid Hk owners here in the US.
:laugh:
It’s the local wine of the country. I wanted something that has readily available parts, that everyone knows how to work on, that is common. After lots of research, I got the basic lmt 14.5"/ fa bcg. At 6.2 lbs it does most of what I want. This site & the list were a tremendous help. Ambidextrous controls & a folding stock would be nice.
I was trying to understand this for a while.
I live in Canada and our firearms laws straight out stink, yet for some reason US import legislation is much worse than ours. It’s puzling how a country with such a strong suport for the right to own firearms can have such a messed up import legislation.
Part of the problem is that people expect every foreign company that makes firearms, is going to build factories in US and make every product they want inside US. This rarely works, and only very large companies, that can secure big contracts can afford that.
The other problem I see is that, when it comes to import legislation, the US firearms industry works hand in hand with the liberals. They work against you.
If all firearms suporters would work togheter, in a Country like USA, with such a strong community, this import laws could be fixed in less than a year.
Great responses and I tend to agree with most of the same reasons on the pros to the AR system. I suppose the reason I posted this question is because I tend to use a different system for work and play and have found that people tend to give me reactions ranging from mild curiousity to sheer horror (what the hell is THAT abonination?). I can expect this from other LEO’s because most of them are not gun nuts and generally only know one system, usually because of prior military experience or because an AR is the first “assault rifle” they have been issued. What surprises me is when I attend a shooting match and fellow gun nuts give me those responses…
I hate to admit it but I’ve encountered outright bigotry toward AK’s from some AR owners.
If I hear the phrase “crappy commie rifle” one more time…
And you’d think talking to some of these guys that you must be an Al Qaeda sympathizer or a gangbanger or Mexican cartel member just for owning one.