OK I am in Virginia for a week now and am going to do this one off line as I lost a lot of typing before.
Aberdeen Proving Ground is a vast complex facility that obviously tests things most of us never think about. For instance one day I saw a Test Operation Procedure for Body Bags.
Then there is another organization there that I only had a couple dealings with but was fascinated at the scope of their work the more I learned what they did. It is called the Army Material Systems Analysis Activity. (AMSAA)
My first interaction with them was I got a phone call from a Col Buck Weaver, US Army Retd who worked for them and the conversation started off by saying who he was and that he had already spoke with my section Chief Bob Connolly (who also held a NRA Master High Power Card) and he had approved his contacting me directly to see if I would be willing to help AMSAA with a weapon the Army wanted an analysis on. Sorry I can’t fill you folks in on how they get their assignments but apparently it comes down from somewhere well above the Proving Ground mission.
On the phone he told me they had a Russian weapon, an AK-74 that somebody some place wanted to know how accurate it was compared to the M16A1 and the proposed enhancements incorporated into the M16A1E1 the USMC was pushing for adoption to enhance the range and lethality and durability of the M16A1. He said it was a AK-74 and that it was the only one in the country but I only learned recently how it all came to be here.
He invited me to come to their office which was about 150 yards away inside the security area which was referred to as “behind the fence” where the real action took place on the PG. I walked up and we got introduced and Buck was one of those kinds of people that I knew I was going to work well with. We sat down and he laid out what they had, what they were tasked to do and that he understood I had just completed the dispersion firings on the M16A1E1 days before and they were getting that data as we spoke.
The USMC was the mover and shaker on what was to become the M16A2 and they went directly to Colt and basically told them they wanted something better than a M16A1 and they funded the effort. I was surprised about that effort as I had just transferred in from the Army Small Cal Lab and the M16 guys in Product Engineering were not doing anything of that magnitude as there was no directive to do anything else. Their section was right across the aisle from us and all they did was M16A1 work and my area did everything else in the system that Product Engineering covered. I had all the rifles, shotguns and SMGs and Roscoe Picard had all the pistols, revolvers, and cleaning equipment.
Least ways that was what it was on paper but I guess it could be said I was the float man. Basically if the M16A1 guys got backed up I got detailed to help them. That was interesting in that I got hands on with catastrophic failure investigations as we had a M16A1 come in about every five months in pieces and that created a stir to determine if it was a material failure or ammo caused or operator induced.
One of the first things I was taught was no matter how much it had been designed/ tested/ evaluated when you give it to the troops all bets were off on how they were going to treat it and that caused breakages never contemplated. For instance barrels got bent on M16A1s (early versions had the 3 prong flash suppressors) and the story was the prong fingers got caught on foliage in Nam but in reality we learned the troops were using them by inserting the prongs onto steel binding straps on containers and twisting the rifle to break them. Also the C rats came with steel wire and they were used to break those. Thus the C rats and MREs were changed to nylon so the troops could use a knife to break them.
OK back to the AK-74 quest. The post paper had just done a big article on me being on the 1982 US Palma Team that went to Canada for the worldwide Palma competition that year and it was later explained by Weaver that AMSAA had seen the article and they put all the pieces together and figured out this was a golden opportunity to get a apples to apples comparison.
Weaver explained they were always seeing comparisons of this and that weapon in gun publications and they were not comparable because different folks conducted different tests with different ammunition at different ranges and the abilities of the personnel were unknown . He figured in this case they had the once in a lifetime opportunity to get good solid test data because with the variables normally associated were eliminated.
Thusly we had:
1. They were going to use the same control shooter that conducted the M16A1 and M16A1E1 comparisons to test the AK74 for dispersion from 100 to 800 meters.
2. The test would be conducted on the same range thusly the exact same elevation.
3. The same light conditions.
4. The same weather conditions
5. The same targets on the same frame.
6. The same bench position.
7. The same bench rest/sandbags.
I added one more thing which was I would get the same Gun Crew personnel that mounted and handled the targets so basically the only difference was rifle and ammo.
ROJKOH said he was not impressed with it and on first examination I would have to say I was not either.
The bad points as I remember:
What we thought was a flash suppressor turned out to be a muzzle brake as it has the worst flash signature I have seen for a shoulder fired weapon I have seen. I have a personal rifle that approaches it but the AK-74 has the prize. We went out and shot it in the dark and I was fully expecting a call on my radio that the boys in orbit had just reported a catastrophic event on the Proving Ground and were calling it in! ! !! To walk around with that thing at night in a combat situation would be tantamount to carrying a Coleman Double Mantle Gas Lantern on a night patrol ! ! !
The brake was loose and there was no way to tighten it. Flash signature from the muzzle brake is awesome. Puts out a very bright flash about the size of a large pumpkin.
It had about 9” of slack in the trigger and there is no warning it is about to sear off till it has and it takes concentrated effort to control it so that it goes off when you want it to and not the way it wants to.
The sights for all practical purposes are terrible as there is no protection to keep them from being contacted and their finish was worn off leaving gleaming shiny surfaces that in bright sunlight eliminates any semblance of usefulness.
I figured out right quick I had to blacken the sights and I fabricated a hood for the front and rear sight out of gun tape and that was the only way I could get a decent sight picture.
The sights are way too close together for the eye to accommodate and the users have to basically be in their teens/20s to be able to see them.
The rifle had a scope mount on it and I would have loved to have had an issue scope for it and been able to zero it at 800 meters just to really see what it was capable of.
Sighting it in was a real task and the sights are not designed to be adjusted by the soldier it is issued to. The Soviet way is an enlisted designated marksman shoots them and an officer observes the target and tells the marksman how much to move the sight and when he thinks it is close enough for gov’t work he informs the shooter who doesn’t see the target.
I shot three ten round strings at each meter line 100 thru 800. The ammo we used was iffy at best as what we had to select from was a couple 55 gal drums full of battlefield pick up consisting of loaded mags, bandoleers, strippers etc. No full cans thusly all we could do was select about 400 rounds with the same headstamp and hoping the same lot number.
I was impressed with the groups I fired at 800 meters as I was able to keep them in the 8 ring of our 1000 yard LR Target.
I would have loved to have had a Russian scope for that rifle and been able to zero it at 800 meters just to see how well it would really do.
Bottom line is a good shooter with a known range of 800 meters would most likely be able to obtain first shot hits about 75% of the time.
We got through with that test and Buck and his wife more or less adopted me and had me over to their place for Thanksgiving, and several more times while I was there and we got to be friends. I was able to learn a little bit more about what AMSAA did and they ran testing using troops from a Test Platoon which was just a run of the military unit. If you wanted to get an idea of what the troops might do you went down and got however many you wanted.
I did that on the M16A1E1 test and found out they did not know how to insert mags in ARs. Yep upside down and one did it upside down and backwards. I recommended oversize bottoms on M16 mags (like the AK mags) to stop such but it fell on deaf ears.
Buck told me they had done hit probability studies on full auto vs semi auto fire and he told me so much work had been done on that subject that if I ever saw a test showing full auto be more effective than semi auto it was a rigged test.
A month or so later Buck called me and said he had a assignment to evaluate the feasibility of obtaining a 1500 yard MOA sniper rifle. If anyone is interested in how that went I will do a write up on that.
