The dilemma AR vs AK? If both are well kept then either one is good. If your not going to keep them in top working order then the AK. Cheap AK vs cheap AR I lean to the AR. Too many problems with cheap AK's, bolt problems, head space issues, to name a few. Cheap AR's feeding issues, poor fitting reliability to name a few. Buy yourself a good AR, and don't cheap out on it. Fire a thousand rounds thru it without cleaning. If it still works, you have a keeper. During my younger days in service our armour had a real russian AK we would take it out every time we went to the range. In order to load it the first time you had to kick start it to get the bolt working. After that it ran fine. But it was a real russian gun! You can't buy one now at a reasonable price. Looking at what I have now I have spent over $1500 for my AR's and know they are good rifles that work in all weather and decent ammo .