Different Groupings with Different Brands of Rounds.

[GhostSOCOMM4]

I finally had some time to go the range today, Phoenix Gun Club(Down by the Police Academy), and one of my friends brought his AK-47. It was fun to shoot, but we experimented with some different types of ammo, Russian made, and the federal made. When we were shooting, we found that each Russian made round was missing 1 of 5 rounds fired at about 50 yards. I know its an AK, and they aren't made for accuracy, but we compared it to my AR-15, and we found that the AK had better groupings with the federal made ammo. But, the AR-15 still had better groupings.

Have any of you guys had this experience with different rifles or pistols?

[XavierMace]

All it would take is the slightest amount of research on ballistics to know that different types of ammo have different ballistic properties.  Especially when dealing with surplus, hand loaded, or reloaded ammo.  If all bullets shot the same, there would be no need to have 20 different types of bullets for a single caliber.  Not to mention the fact that if you are going from light loads to heavy loads (or visa versa) you are probably overcompensating while shooting to adjust for the recoil that is no longer the same.

In order for us to agree or disagree on missing one shot out of five at 50 yards, we'd need to know the size of target you were shooting at.  But I would also suspect the shooter is probably to blame there.

[GhostSOCOMM4]

The target was a human sized one. But it was windy at South Mountain this morning.

[XavierMace]

I would suspect to miss a human sized target 20% of the time at 50 yards that the shooter was probably a factor.

[Ganef]

Your ability to shoot factors far more into accuracy than minor changes in powder and ballistics. I do like to feed my guns brass cased ammo from a reputable source, but that has more to do with how I treat my guns than how I expect them to perform.

[SARC]

Agreed, the monkey on the stick is always the weakest link.

[lucas431]

The target was a human sized one. But it was windy at South Mountain this morning.

well wind will not have much effect on a 7.62 at 50 yards. just like everyelse has said its the man behind the rifle not the rifle itself

[GhostSOCOMM4]

The shots were on target, and then they were terrible when we used the Russian rounds.

[lucas431]

i will try and pick some different rounds up what rounds did you use I already have russian surplus.

[Dilligaf]

Think about the difference in the rounds a federal round that has to meet certain standards compared to those massed produced Russian made rounds that had no standards to go by just make as many as possible.  That can be the difference I have noticed that different rounds and caliber have different carecteristiscs. Remember that the round that is in the ak47 is a 7.62 and alot heavier and the AK has a maximum range of 400 meters and shoots at 215 meters per second. So at 50 yards obviously you are going to run into some accuracy issues.
Ar15/m4/m16
5.56 round is lighter and comes out the barrel a hell of a lot faster than the 7.62 at 948 meters per second. Maximum range of 800 meters. Now with those basic facts tell me that it don't matter what round or weapon you use because I guarantee you that you try to shoot something at 500 yards you will miss 9 out of 10 times and on the tenth time its only because it will tumble into the bottom of the target