If you are on your own and it's a firefight less than 300 yds away, let alone less than 100 yds away, you have probably already lost.
Look it's bad enough having to call in airstrikes at targets less than 300 yards from you, because what you have in your hand can't reach out far enough to keep you safe.
Are you going to be able to call in airstrikes to save your ass? Doubtful, huh?
We aren't talking about TOYS here in fantasy land situations. Our militaries are handicapped by procurement determined to supply TOYS, and it's getting our people KILLED!
Do you know what the kill to cartridge ratio of 5.56 in Iraq was? Something like 250,000:1!
Do you have the logistics capability to even begin to cope with that ammunition consumption?
Seriously, wake up and smell the ******* coffee! AK is a short range 'trench gun' too. If you intend to put yourself into trench gun efficient ranges, post SHTF, you are condemning yourself and probably yours, to be well and truly ******!
You can not turn a pig's ear into a silk purse, is the bottom line, but you can turn an AR into a decent medium range rifle that will also become a useful hunting tool.
Post SHTF circumstances will seriously revolve around KISS principles. Don't rely on optics (where do you think you are going to be able to get them repaired?), don't get used to them so you have to depend on them at the wrong time, and can't function without them. My eyes are probably a darned sight worse than yours Dennis, but a long sight plane with iron sights on a 24" barreled AR platform, firing something with the effective reach, will put me on target at 600 yds, if I am wearing my glasses.
Sure, I can't shoot anything like better than 1/10th of a minute any more, but I can still probably hit what I am shooting at, out to 1,000 yds.
With iron sights.
Keep it simple, save a butt load of money, and start practicing with what you will eventually be relying upon, so you have maximum familiarity with one long gun and one pistol. In the meantime, hire or turn up at a range with friends that have the platform (AR) with the same barrel length if possible, but with iron sights, provide a butt load of ammunition, and all of you have a good day out hitting small targets, starting at 300 yds, and get yourselves hitting things at 600 yds by the end of the day. Just get on the paper at 600 yds (have big paper targets there or a big sheet of metal), don't worry about group size, work on that with the platform you get (and also work on your prone shooting technique with a .22lr rifle to do it cheap).
I suspect the biggest practical problem you are going to have (and the biggest practical problem most in the 'zombie hordes' are going to have), is an inability to shoot from cover prone.
You need to find out if you can do that, asap, because if you can't do that, then you are into a whole new ballgame, that expensive toys for Christmas simply isn't going to be able to get you out of, and throwing money away on basically useless gear isn't going address it.
Bottom line, if you can't function below 300 yds (and it takes substantial support including extra manpower to be able to do that), then your only option is not to be there, and you have to learn how to achieve that, and have the tools available to keep you well over 300 yds away from problems.
PS. Also, if you have any intention of achieving competence with a rifle (i.e. become a genuine rifleman), you have to become good at reloading. Reloading will teach you more about ballistics than you would ever imagine possible.
Sorry if the above sounds harsh Dennis. But I like you, and I don't want to see you turning 'shopping mode' with your hard won cash, into something that is going to turn into a liability that could give you dangerous over confidence that might get you seriously hurt or dead. If Apple turn out an iRifle - avoid it like the plague (and it strikes me you are hell bent on acquiring as near to an iRifle as you can get).
Also, think on this. It's your first shot that counts, not how many you have in a magazine. If you don't hit what you are aiming at with your first shot, you all too easily don't have the chance of a second shot (and if you miss with the first you all too likely will miss with the rest of the magazine too).
