That, and the fact that you can take somebody who just swung down out of a tree, and in an afternoon, expending 100 rounds of ammunition, you can turn him into an adequate marksman who can keep his weapon clean and operational under difficult field conditions. The Israelis and the Finns, starting from scratch, both wound up inventing Kalashnikov clones (the Galil and Valmet) which says something about the soundness of the original design. No better tool has ever been invented for the job.
Strelnikov