Russian made ak's......well the newer ones for sure. Their tolerances are actually pretty tight. WAY more than Egyptian, Romanian, etc made ak's. I own a saiga rifle in .223. (basicaly ak reconfigured for hunting). But my barrel is right off the ak101 line. From a cold barrel with ammo it likes will shoot stupid good for 1st 12 -15 rounds. From warm or hot barrel with crap ammo never exceeds 3 1/2 inch. at 100 yards. Hmmm cold with ammo it likes......under 2 inches with odd ball 1 inch groups now and then. For what it is this is quite good. Compares well to things like Ruger mini 14 (new model or old model tinkered with). Only 1/2 the cost...er was half the cost. And as for the m16/m4....it works well so long as you keep it clean. In the desert this means cleaning all the damned time or it probably will fail. My time in Iraq is why I will NEVER own that sort of design in a firearm. It works......but to much damned cleaning. Or when I see one I think clean clean clean, not so fun.
Ak is a full proof design BUT is getting up there in age. Needs a face lift in ergonomics. Safty/selector is something out of 1907. Better stuff now. Other than that.....damned fine weapon. But that has happened/is happening with stuff like galil and or Polish ak's.
Still OT the whole saga of the dirty-tricks & pay-offs behind the M16 made for an interesting book back in the 80s (Can't recall the title/author
) The promise of maintenance-free (or even low maint.) never did pan out even with the latest variants. I get the impression 'mainstream' .223 (SA-80 & M-16 variants) generally sucked when it came to manufacturing something that made the users life easier.
I wonder about older hardware. The Colt 1911 is still a favorite pistol in contests, despite being a design more than 100 years old. Your AK experiences make interesting reading from that perspective.
& on WW2 knew a guy who saw a lot of infantry action in ETO. He said the Sten couldn't hit a barn from inside with the doors closed, unless you had some German ammo. He preferred the MP40 but it was very ammo intolerant, & the was too accurate for house to house CQB when you needed to spray & pray.
I have yet to find someone who can describe the PPSh in combat 1st hand, gonna have to look harder.