in nearly every case. They don't CARE enough about real performance to get enough experience to appreciate the advantages that better guns and loads most certainly DO offer. whoopity-doop, you can fire them after a mud bath, so effing WHAT? What about how SLOW the ak's safety is? That's many times more likely to be an issue than buring the gun in muck! What about there being 10x as much 223 ammo in the US as 30 ak ammo? What about the .20 AK not having a .22 unit? what about the AK/s SUCKING as a scope base? What about 30 ak ammo being twice as heavy as 223? what about having to use a stupid barrel liner with the .22 unit in the .30 AK? what about the 30 ak's recoil being too different, making .22lr conversion unit practice not very tranlative to .30 Ak skill? What about silencer on 30AK not suppressing the 22 unit worth a hoot? The required larger hole thru the baffles lets out a lot of .22lr gas. What about the HORRIFIC cost of really handy AK's? You can build an M4 these days for well under $600, and it will conceal in a SMALL backpack! What about the Makarov being as big and heavy as some .45's, yet offering only 1/3rd-1/2 as much power? So some ignoramus "likes" the mak and "thinks' it's adquate, so what? millions "like" .25 ravens and said .25's. HAVE sufficed, thousands of times. and they cost half what a Mak costs, too. shoot some critters with the mak and also with a 357 and SEE if there aint a MAJOR difference in the immediate effects! you CAN get better than .357 jhp performance, with the right ammo, in a compact .45.