Is it really mainly the sights? I don't know which rifles you're comparing but you would not include say...the barrel quality, trigger, ergos, perceived recoil, and tolerances etc? Even things like ammo, I'd imagine run of the mill 5.56 is tighter than run of the mill 7.62x39 so even when using basic or mil-surp or most ammo even there's still a difference with the AR taking another advantage. The AR is also really the closest to a target rifle any military autoloading rifle gets and the AK is the closest to a rolling pin that any military autoloading rifle get. Talking about accuracy becomes repetitive quickly becasue the rifles seemingly have much different goals in that regard. The rifles have different goals in a lot of their design features and they are very different rifles from different times and cultures but they both fill their respective roles exceptionally well and can be perfectly acceptable in filling the role of the other.
Ya know what I want to see though, a real American AK redesign. All US made with high quality parts and manufacturing. An actual all metal stamped AK (milled option too) with maybe some slight ergo upgrades and most importantly superb manufacture and fitment.
I would love to see what happens if you have this US-AK and do something like give it really super tight tolerances that sit right in the middle of the AKMs tolerances for example. It would be a true AK (just not yet tried) with a large (almost full) amount of parts interchangeability going from the tight rifle (US-AK) to the looser rifle (AKM) but not as much the other way around (unless I am as dumb as I look). Could this work as I describe, decreasing tolerances significantly to get on the road to a more fine and more accurate (real) AK? Has anyone ever tried something like this? I know wide tolerances are good for a lot of reasons and the AKs are great as the are in their many configurations, also just tightening everything up alone does not make an accurate rifle and would be unnecessary in some areas, still I wonder what could be and how far we could take it. I really don't even care all too much about accuracy and not from AKs, I just want to hear the bolt as it pulled and released and I'd love to see it in like a blued steel with certain NiB treatments and nice wood, oh, and finally a stock that brings the recoil straight back into the shoulder.
Does anyone know if there has ever been a full real US made AK? If not why? Is there a patent or something or are the parts (and rifles) just so damn cheap and common overseas that they are uneconomical to produce domestically? Just seems a bit weird.