@BurnedToast
First off, find me a 40-dam when silenced assault rifle (that is not DLC, at least, I can't speak for DLC content). Dealing the same damage as that is pretty damn good by me
7.62 has, IIRC, 30 less ammo, so a full mag less, than the AMCAR, at 30-90 when full. Meanwhile, it is powerful enough to be effective fired single-shot, and speaking of which, powerful enough at my setup to have a bodyshot 1HK on a blue SWAT, whereas AMCAR would require more spraying and thus more ammo per kill. All with a silencer and decent concealability.
Why does it need to be silenced? there's no reason to ever silence your primary weapon. You are hurting yourself for no reason.
AMCAR is one of the worst weapons in the game, it's not really something you should compare other guns to. It's the starting newbie gun for a reason.
In close range SMGs are instant death to just about anyone. As a sniper they make a great secondary because they have good pickup rates and if you are sniping properly you shouldn't need to use it too much. Fire control and headshots will get you a long way with them too
There's only 3 SMGs that can hit 40 damage, Uzi, Patchett, and specops
Patchett is ok but the ammo is not so good
Specops has painfully bad accuracy
Uzi is really good, can be modded to hit 40 damage + have perfect accuracy and very high stability, and still have decentish concealment
Kobus and Swedish K can hit 40 on the weapons screen, but it's a lie - they do 39.5, the game rounds it up on the weapons screen but down in game (for some stupid reason)
Hitting 40 for your secondary is not absolutely 100% critical but it's a pretty big and noticeable difference in power.
I'd like to find a use for the Nagant rifle against the other sniper rifles, but it just feels wrong. Maybe it's my scope, or maybe it just feels really inaccurate, I'unno.
All sniper rifles are hardcoded to be 100% accurate when you're aiming down the scope (or using ironsight on nagant) and not moving, regardless of the accuracy stat.
I like to use the nagant with ironsights as a DMR for dodge builds, since you can just barely hit the cap with a high concealment secondary like gruber.
And the beautiful thing about payday is that just about any weapon can be made feasible. I'm a huge fan of a slightly modded JP36, and that's despite having all the weapon DLC - it's very much my close quarters assault rifle of choice.
I guess it's true for overkill, but some weapons are just so bad it makes me sad to see people use them even if anything can work if you and your team are good enough.