Quote Originally Posted by BrotherhoodUK View Post
You want reliable? Look to Russia. Reliability is one thing the Russian-made weapons have in bucketloads.

Even the old weapons, like the Nagant revolver were simple.

"If something went wrong with a Nagant, you could fix it with a hammer"

Does that not sum it up?

But in terms of quality, the US is far and away in front of other countries. An AK is powerful. But you couldn't hit a bloody shed from a foot away looking down those sights.

An M16, on the other hand is accurate. But not particularly reliable in humid or sandy conditions. You can't fix it with some motor oil and a hammer, but you can be a damn good shot.

It's a trade-off. US for being able to hit things, and CIS/Russia for your weapon working even if poorly maintained.

Yeah, accuracy and realiability is a trade off. It is hard to have both. Reason is that metal clearing tolerances need to be generous in order to have something be reliable. Tight tolerances cause jams when debris gets in there. Lose tolerances help debris clear. But lose tolerances also mean that everything does not fit together very tight thus there is more movement and give... which causes inaccuracy.
But if my life depended on a weapon I would want it to fire. I can compensate for inaccuracy by getting closer to the target or shooting at a higher rate of fire. (i.e. accuracy by volume). But I cannot compensate for weapon failure.