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It has been drilled into my head by pop culture and AK fans since I was in high school that the loose tolerances of the AK allow it to shoot even when it gets dirty. I distinctly remember a friend telling me in high school that the tolerances on an AR are so tight that any foreign contaminants cause it to seize up. Perhaps the AK reputation is unearned.
http://www.recoilweb.com/ak-vs-ar-mud-test-82001.html
http://www.recoilweb.com/ak-vs-ar-mud-test-82001.html
The AR15 is a really well sealed and enclosed design. There isn’t a big open slot for a charging handle, there aren’t big holes elsewhere in the action, there is a very good dust cover and even when the dust cover’s open, the bolt itself really fills the ejection port and seals it, pretty tightly actually.On top of this, the direct impingement, or pseudo-direct impingement (the AR15 bolt itself is a piston in and of itself); the way that thing vents gas is it blows it out the side of the bolt out the ejection port, and that actually I think has a non-trivial effect on blowing dirt away from the ejection port which otherwise might fall into the gun. Now, the AK has this open slot behind it, the safety covers that slot but doesn’t cover it nearly as tightly as the dust cover on the AR. There’s a much larger gap, even on the highest end AKs, there’s a large gap between the receiver dust cover and the bolt itself. Mud can get into that gap. It causes friction on the bolt, which prevents it from cycling properly and it can get backwards into the fire control group, and when you get maybe not soft things (water probably would not do this) but mud, with bits of sticks and rocks and sand and crap in it, that stuff gets into a fire control group and that will lock up a gun and it will cease to function.
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