The M-4 is better made, higher quality weapon that if well cared for will remain accurate and reliable. It also provides excellent close/quarters and room clearing capabilities that make it suitable to the new urban environments today's forces face. However, the AK-47 is a rugged, heavy-hitting rifle with a larger 7.62x39 round that will punch through light armored vehicles or knock a man down where he stands. It is a much simpler design with few moving parts and high tolerances between the parts so that you can open the breach, fill it with sand, then throw the weapon in the water, take it out, rack the bolt and fire the weapon with no cleaning, making it very reliable as a combat weapon. It suffers a little in accuracy but makes up for it in power and rate of fire.

for what purpose. I prefer a .225 or .243 with a laser sight/scope combo for 1000 yard shooting

The M-4 is far superior to a trained hand, although the AK-47 is also a fine weapon and deadly to a trained hand. Now the AK-47 is a far superior weapon if your armies are conscripts, who now little or nothing about weapon maintenance.

AK-47. millions of extremists can't be wrong. Ok, maybe they can, but not with their weaponry.

I would prefer an M4. It is more reliable and accurate and it remains accurate from close quarters to long range. The AK47 uses a larger projectile and is more powerful but it can be very inaccurate as well.

It depends on what you prefer: -A weapon that is very accurate and has vast killing potential because of its fragmenting 5.56 by 45mm NATO round and also has picatinny rails and other bases to attach a large range of attachments. But is one of the most jam-prone modern assault rifles, and is very expensive to make. ie the M-4. Or -A weapon that is less accurate, has a lower killing potential because of its non fragmenting 7.62 by 39mm round (the M67 round, as opposed to the M43 will be more likely to yaw once it hits flesh increasing its killing potential, however this effect is nothing compared to the NATO round.), but this round does have valuable armor piercing capabilities because of the insertion of a mild steel insert (M43). It also has fewer picatinny rails than the M4, however the AKM (Moderized) has a wider range of attachments and bases. This weapon (AK-47) is extremely reliable and has a service life of 20-40 years with little maintanence attributed to this figure, all because of large and generously spaced components, however the reason behind why this weapon is less accurate is synonomous with the reason for its reliability. Its final trait mentioned here will be why the AK-47 is the world's most wide spread assault rifle with more varieties than all other assault rifle types put together - IT'S CHEAP TO MAKE. But pesonally I would rather have an AK.

The M-4 is better than the AK in recoil, sights, reloading speed and accuracy. The AK is better than the M-4 in reliability in a fast paced combat environment where cleaning may not be possible for prolonged lengths of time.