The GAU-8 is badass, the sound it makes is awesome.
VRRAAPPPPPPPPPPPP.
When you hear the GAU-8 fart
you know silence will follow
They are unreliable and made of plastic, they jam constantly and the ak47 is a far superior weapon, although I would grab a lever action or a break action shotgun first.
1. The M16A3 receiver is made of allunium, and the internal parts (trigger assemble, bolt, etc.) is made of steel. Yes, there have been handguns with polymer frames, but everything else is metal.
2. The M16A3, with sticks and rocks in your barrel put aside, hardly jams at all, and if it actually does jam, it is usually an ammunition failure (blood on the bullets of the mag are known to jam the gun, hence the term "spit and shine" in the army, whereas army members would spit on and clean bullets covered in blood left by dead teammates), and can easily be resolved with hard-work. If it's not an ammunition failure, it's a manufacturing failure.
3. The AK47 is certainly great, with it's high entry, smoother mag ammo feed, higher caliber, and resistance to the elements. In fact, the AK47 is great for soda pops because the mag feed lips are strong enough to open a bottle. ;) However, it's accuracy at range is completely horrid. Automatic fire from an AK47 is only reliable up to 100 meters. Automatic fire from an M16 is reliable from up to 400 meters, 600 meters tops. The M16 is far lighter, has low ammo weight, a higher round velocity, comes with a flash-hider, has a carrying handle, and the stock is made of synthetic material which is FAR better than wood (the AK47's wooden stock is known to split, crack, and rot. this is fixed in later versions, where they also use synthetic material), it also had a good, big, well-insulated forestock, where with the AK47's on the other hand, is small and poorly insulated, therefore it overheats quickly and makes the AK47 hard to handle. Also, speaking of ammo weight, if you want to limit yourself to a 10 kilogram ammo load, you can hold 22 fully-loaded 30 round NATO STANAG mags, with the AK47 on the other hand, you can only hold
10 fully-loaded AK mags, which is quite a big difference, seeing that most torso-shots in real life are one-hitters anyways. With picatinny rails in mind, the M16 is remarkably more adaptive than the AK47, mostly because of the AK's smaller forestock and design. The M16 (not the A3, I'm talking about the AR-15/M16A1 now), at least during the war in Vietnam, unfortunately didn't have a chromed barrel and chamber, so corrosion was an extreme problem, and it lacked a forward assist, making it hard to clear ammo jams. Also, the M16 was claimed to be "self-cleaning," although no gun has ever, even now, been self-cleaning, as far as I know. They issued the rifle to troops without cleaning kits or training on how to even clean a rifle, however this was all fixed in the later years of the war. So yes, both guns have their ups and downs, and you can't say either is superior to the other.
TL;DR: Read it. All of it.
I, myself, have never fired such guns, seeing that automatic weapons are illegal in CA. However, I do know alot about the two discussed, mostly from documentaries and whatnot. So, before you start stuffting on guns, be sure to actually back-up your argument with valid facts.
I'll list my favorite guns in a later post, I just had to post this, I couldn't let it go unattended. >_<