M16 and AK47
Several people have brought up the subject that VietNam vets say that the US M16 rounds were routinely taken off of our fallen warriors and used in the Russian AK47's by the Viet Cong. Dimensionally it doesn't seem possible. What is the inside skinny?
Sal
Sal
0
-
Untrue.
The 5.56 NATO round fired by the M16 is considerably longer and smaller in diameter than the 7.62X39 round fired by the AK0 -
My brother told me the same thing. I showed him the difference and he said that is what he was told by the sarge.i think the military just didn't want GI's losing ammo. 0 -
No. 0 -
true story: we up here in nd spend alot of time chasing enormous flocks of blackbirds out of the sunflower fields(ya have to live here to understand). most farmers gun of choice are sks's or mini 14s and cheap wolf ammo for either. my brother and his son were out doing the chasing that day, the son accidently got one of the 223 shells mixed in the clip with the rest being 7.62x39mm. well when my brother was shooting he said one sounded funny and he actually say the projectile slowly arced out there. the sks didnt cycle either and he couldnt pull the bolt back to cycle another round so after some beating on the handle he finally got it out and saw what had happened, the smaller diameter 223 had expanded enough to get stuck in the chamber. the sks chambered and fired the 223 round.
so in short i know that that particular sks did in fact chamber and fire a 223 round, as far as enemy soldiers using it i say no, as in the story i just told it wouldn't be very effective even if i did fire it.0 -
I heard it differently, that the 7.62 NATO round was used in the 7.62 Soviet AK47, which is also not possible. 0 -
I think that it might be that the Viet Cong were picking up out M16's on the battle field and using them.
Emmett0 -
quote:Originally posted by shootuadeal
true story: we up here in nd spend alot of time chasing enormous flocks of blackbirds out of the sunflower fields(ya have to live here to understand). most farmers gun of choice are sks's or mini 14s and cheap wolf ammo for either. my brother and his son were out doing the chasing that day, the son accidently got one of the 223 shells mixed in the clip with the rest being 7.62x39mm. well when my brother was shooting he said one sounded funny and he actually say the projectile slowly arced out there. the sks didnt cycle either and he couldnt pull the bolt back to cycle another round so after some beating on the handle he finally got it out and saw what had happened, the smaller diameter 223 had expanded enough to get stuck in the chamber. the sks chambered and fired the 223 round.
so in short i know that that particular sks did in fact chamber and fire a 223 round, as far as enemy soldiers using it i say no, as in the story i just told it wouldn't be very effective even if i did fire it.
Saw this at the range a few years ago with a kid shooting his new ak 47. He somehow got a 223 into it and fired it. Also had the same problem of trying to get the fired case out of the chamber. Had to loan him my cleaning rod to get it out.
On a side note, when working at the gun shop range, I learned that Glock 40's can also shoot 9mm ammo. Some guy rented the 40 glock and started shooting his own 9mm through it after blowing off a box of 40 he bought from the range. He came into the shop and said his gun was jammed.
I went out there and cleared the gun by hooking the slide on the bench and forcing the slide backwards. I wish I would've kept that ballooned out empty 9mm case.0 -
Obviously you can't fire a 7.62x39 round through a .223 gun. Ain't going to happen, and I wouldn't want to be standing around next to anyone stupid enough to try this.
While the converse is possibly true (ie you MIGHT be able to get a .223 round to fire from an AK gun), you sure as heck aren't going to try to do that deliberately unless you have absolutely no choice, and even then its probably not going to work very well.
No way were the Commies deliberately doing this.
Of course its possible to build an AK-like gun that fires .223 ammo (the Israeli Galil is a famous example) but that's a whole other thing.
My understanding is that the Commies in 'Nam did one-up the Allies with non rifle small arms. Specifically, they designed mortars that were slightly larger than the American ones, so that they could use captured American mortar shells, but the allies couldn't use their shells.
Interesting (if true), but again, not quite the same thing.0 -
Actually, the Vietnames did not design anything. Their weapons were copies of the Warsaw pact weapons- AK-47, SKS, etc. Rockets were the Chinese version of the RPG (B-40) and their mortars were Chinese copies of the Russian 82mm mortar. Hell, I'm not sure if they even MADE weapons- most that I can recall were Chinese. 0 -
They did modify the hell out of some guns though. There is a pic(In R Blake Stevens M-14 book) of a SKS/m14 hybrid some Vietnamese solider made from an M14. 0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
10 comments