Kentucky Ballistics Answers Age-Old Questions About How Reliable AKs Are

When it comes to the AK versus AR debate, I tend to prefer an AR. I like the ergonomics a lot better, particularly with regard to where the controls are located. I’ve owned both and loved both, though, so I don’t direct hate toward anyone.

I’ll also acknowledge that I’m not a good enough shot for the difference in accuracy between an AR or an AK to make much of a difference for me, and I’ll also acknowledge that the AK has legendary reliability.

I’ve often joked you could bury an AK in the dirt for a few years, pull it out, clean it out a bit, and it would still run.

It seems Scott over at Kentucky Ballistics may have heard the same thing. Either way, though, he dropped a video on Monday where he torture-tested four Century AK-47s, burying one in the dirt, tossing one in a pond, submerging another in salt water, and freezing a fourth and leaving them there for 100 days.

During that time, his range flooded a few times and the spot he buried the AK at was underwater for a while.

How did it go? Well, watch the video:

Well, what do you know? The legendary AK reliability is just about what one might expect.

Scott didn’t lube up that buried AK at all before trying to shoot it. If he had, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have gotten any of those jams. The other AKs performed well, also.

He references that he did this with AR-15s, and the AK beat them pretty easily in this test.

Now, is this reasonable? Well, probably not. I won’t say no one will ever bury their AKs or ARs, but they’re probably not going to just toss them in a hole, pile dirt on top, and hope for the best. They’ll likely put them in something to offer some degree of protection.

But if you’re wondering just which gun runs the best dirty, it seems Scott’s somewhat unscientific test suggests that the AK will reign supreme in that regard, which we kind of already knew.

So what does this mean for your own gun decisions?

Probably nothing.

Look, you’re probably not going to run a firearm that dirty under any circumstances. This is kind of extreme, and if you just take precautions like cleaning your weapons from time to time, you’re not going to run into any issues with either platform.

If you’re concerned about a situation where you can’t reliably clean your guns, or may have to store them in a less-than-ideal environment for…well, reasons, then you probably already prefer the AK-style weapon.

But I will note that this was a cool test to watch, and while I figured I was tending to exaggerate about how long you can keep an AK in the dirt, this test suggests that I might not have been as far off in reality as I thought.

Leave it to Kentucky Ballistics to do something like this and film it for our enjoyment.

I’m just glad he didn’t have to stick his thumb in any new holes as a result of the test.