AK74 vs M4: which rifle should you actually buy

The argument, settled at the top

The M4 kills fractionally faster. The AK74 costs $1,200 less, aims in quicker, zeroes twice as far and takes a 75 round drum.

We buy the AK74, and the gap is wider than the damage numbers suggest. Here is the whole comparison.

Killing speed: the M4 wins, barely

M4

01

Assault Rifle · 5.56x45mm · 800 RPM

Faster on paper, and you pay $1,200 for the difference.

Eight hundred rounds a minute and 28 damage a shot. Four to the chest in 0.23 seconds, two to the head in 0.08.

Vendor price

$2,800

Chest, unarmored

4 shots · 0.23s

Head, unarmored

2 shots · 0.08s

Chest, Level 3 armor

8 shots · 0.53s

Pelvis, Level 3 armor

4 shots · 0.23s

Full damage out to

500 m

M4 statsRun the M4 on standard rounds

AK74

02

Assault Rifle · 5.45x39mm · 650 RPM

Five hundredths slower, $1,200 cheaper, and it reaches further.

Same four shots to the chest, arriving 0.05 seconds later. Same two to the head.

Vendor price

$1,600

Chest, unarmored

4 shots · 0.28s

Head, unarmored

2 shots · 0.09s

Chest, Level 3 armor

9 shots · 0.74s

Pelvis, Level 3 armor

5 shots · 0.37s

Full damage out to

500 m

AK74 statsRun the AK74 on standard rounds

Against armor the M4 pulls slightly further ahead. At Level 2 it needs six chest shots to the AK74's seven, and at Level 3 it needs eight to the AK74's nine. Both of those are one shot, which is a tenth of a second.

Range: the AK74 wins, and this one matters

Here is the thing nobody mentions. Neither rifle loses a single point of damage inside 500 metres.

So the range argument is not about damage at all. It is about whether you can aim.

The AK74 zeroes from 100 out to 1000 metres. The M4 stops at 500. Past half a kilometre the AK74 is a rifle you can still range properly and the M4 is a rifle you are holding over and hoping with.

On a map that runs nearly ten kilometres corner to corner, with Control Zones that regularly put you on a hillside looking across a valley, that comes up often.

What the extra $1,200 could have been

This is the argument that actually settles it. The M4 costs $2,800 and the AK74 costs $1,600. That is $1,200 of difference, every single life.

Twelve hundred dollars buys a Level 2 helmet at $500 and a Level 2 vest at $1,000. That runs $300 over the gap, and it takes an enemy AK74 from four chest shots to seven, and from two headshots to three.

Or it buys 30 rounds of armor piercing plus a Level 1 helmet and vest and a frag grenade, with change.

• M4 with nothing: you kill 0.05 seconds sooner and die in four chest shots.
• AK74 with Level 2 armor: you kill 0.05 seconds later and take seven chest shots to put down.

We have never seen the first loadout beat the second.

The attachment split

One more difference worth knowing if you intend to build the gun out.

The AK74 takes three magazines: the standard 30, a 60 and a 75 round drum. The M4 has one extended magazine and that is the list. If you like holding a trigger down, the AK74 lets you do it for two and a half times as long.

The M4 answers with muzzle devices. It takes eight where the AK74 takes four, so there is more room to tune recoil and sound on it.

Both take the same five sights and the same eleven underbarrel options, so the optic you like will fit either one. Build both in the loadout planner and watch the stat readout move as you bolt things on.

Buy the AK74

The M4 is a slightly better rifle. The AK74 is a considerably better purchase, and in a game where every life is a transaction that is the question you are actually answering.

Take the M4 when you are rich, when the fighting is close, and when you have already bought armor. Take the AK74 the rest of the time, which is most of the time.

If you want to check any of this against a target dressed the way your lobby dresses, the damage calculator has both rifles and every armor tier.