Can you survive a bullet from an ak 47?

Answer 1

There is nothing magical about an AK-47; it has certain features that makes it fairly dependable even in adverse conditions.

With any bullet, fired from any weapon, the location of the impact, the size of the bullet, its velocity will all play a role with respect to injury severity.

Generally, a shot to the head, heart or major blood vessel will be fatal most of the time. However there are rarely exceptions. If the bullet impacts the torso (neck, chest, abdomen) it all depends what structures are damaged. There are many major organs in the torso and they have a blood supply, so such a wound would be life-threatening, but not 100% fatal. An AK-47 could hit a person in the upper chest, near the shoulder and pass through without hitting any major organ or blood vessel should not be fatal. A shot to the limbs (arm or leg) that hits the brachial or femoral artery will have a narrow window of opportunity for a medic to apply a tourniquet. Otherwise you'd be dealing with bone & tissue damage--maybe requiring an amputation.

The same could be said of a small, .22LR bullet as well. Shot placement has everything to do with survival.