For distance, (300M+) you cant beat the M14.
For close in work, I would have to agree that the AK47 is the way to go.
Until the front sight retaining screw loosens and the weapon loses its zero, until sand or lack of lubrication scores the bolt roller and it splits, leaving the rifle incapable of even single-shot fire as a manual repeater, or until the front swivel breaks through the stock, all common M14 failures I've encountered literally hundreds of times. That's before rookies tinkering with the rear sight manage to disassemble it into a handful of parts they're unable to get back together. We won't even consider scope failures, not a fault inherent to the weapon's design.
For close in work, I would have to agree that the AK47 is the way to go.
Not quite. For close in rifle work, the Kalishnikov action is indeed the way to go, but whether in the form of the far more effective RPK squad automatic weapon with 24-inch barrel that radically improves the characteristics of the 7,62x39mm M43 Soviet cartridge, or as the heavier PKM/Pecheneg light MG is quite open to debate. The RPK certainly serves better as a *rifle* or carbine, however, though early Soviet military literature described the AK47 as a submachinegun. The RPK needed only a quick-change barrel, as fielded on some Yugoslav versions, to be a truly great squad support weapon.