# FPS video games -- scavenging ammo, realistic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 29, 2009, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fps-video-games-scavenging-ammo-realistic/483493 "2009-01-29T02:52:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fps-video-games-scavenging-ammo-realistic/483493/61 "2009-02-01T01:50:15Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The AK series does not have sloppy tolerances. It intentionally has larger clearances than are seen in the AR series. Tolerance and clearance are absolutely not the same thing. Clearance is the space around or between parts. The AK is legendarily reliable partly because its clearances make it tolerant of debris that would foul “tighter” guns. Tolerance is the allowable limit of variation in the dimensions of parts. Actual Soviet or Russian made AK’s use parts that are held to pretty tight tolerances. > > Secondly, the idea that the"AK is a spray and pray gun" comes from the way it has been seen in use by untrained or poorly trained 3rd worlders. If you have ever seen the rifle used by trained troops from the many nations that issue variants, you’d recognize that cliche as basically false. I have family members who served in the Soviet Army and whose knowledge of firearms consists only of their military training. Any of them can still pick up an AK and make it do things the average American armchair expert would say is impossible. **Extreme Personal Anecdote ON** Few years back at a family picnic in Pakistan, some cousins and I stuck a 2 by 4 into the ground and fired AK-47 rounds from 100 yards straight. All of us are failry experienced with guns-no experts though. Did’nt touch it. My Dad, who is an ex-army officer was busy sunning himself in a lawn chair perhaps a hundred yards to iur left. He looked amused and one of my cousins gave him his Ak and challenged him. Dad took the rifle, sat up, and shot the bloody thing with his first shot, and then told us to go off and stop ruining his nap. And from a man who was an artilleryman in an army whose main weapon is the G-3. So yeah, I can see what you are saying **Extreme Personal Anecdote OFF** I asked my many extended family members who have seen action, one of them at a post in Kashmir where he was cut off and pounded for 6 weeks before being relieved and it was an eyeopener even he did not recall ever taking the dead enemys weapon in the heat of combat. Apparently the only thing he took was a Khurki from a dead Gurkha. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fps-video-games-scavenging-ammo-realistic/483493.md?page=3)