Top 5 7.62mm Rifles in the World

By Christian Orr, Former Air Force Security Officer

We asked a top firearms expert to rank the top 7.62x39mm rifles.

Here is what he came up with:

In the automotive world, you have endless Ford vs. Chevy debates. (Mustangs rule, by the way. End of story.)

In the world of handguns, you have the endless debates over revolver vs. semiautomatic pistol, 9mm Parabellum vs. .45 ACP, double-action (DA) vs. single-action (SA) vs. safe-action, and so forth.

And in the world of military rifles, you have the endless debate of 5.56x45mm NATO vs. 7.62x39mm.

Thanks to the Cold War, that rifle caliber debate has almost every bit as much an “East vs. West” ideological and geopolitical debate as a ballistic one, since the 5.56 was an American invention whilst the 7.62×39 originated in a Communist country. Well, I’m not here to settle that debate right now, Rather, I’m going to commence with another Top 5 List, this time assessing what I consider to be the best rifles in the 7.62x39mm caliber.

AK-47

Okay, is anybody really surprised to see this one at the top of the list?