By the way, I don't agree with the comments of AK47 and M 16 mentioned above, which are too biased and misleading.
In terms of accuracy, the accuracy of Soviet weapons is not good, even if it is improved to ak74 and AKM, the accuracy is not the same as that of western weapons in the period.
Reliability is the only thing worthy of praise, but it is now recognized that more than 80% of gun failures are caused by users. Moreover, during the Vietnam War, AK47 has been improved and used for more than 30 years, and M 16 has just been put into production. It is an indisputable fact that there are many problems with new equipment. It is unkind to say so. More importantly, with the problem raised and improved to M 16A 1, the reliability is also significantly improved.
The penetration is quite strong, and the steel bullet of 7.62 is easy to penetrate, and the discrepancy is so big. And M 16 is called the black gun, which is not only the appearance color, but also the terrible effect. The small hole enters the big black hole and basically dies. After M 193 bullet was replaced by SS 109, the penetrating light protection also changed greatly. The lack of shooting through the jungle is because there is no fully automatic shooting mode, only semi-automatic and three-shot slow machines, and the fire density is slightly insufficient.
Ergonomics should also be better than the direct support of M 16 and G3 series. Recoil force is directly absorbed by shoulders, reducing wrist pressure, which is beneficial to improve accuracy and reduce fatigue.