| Good solid logical points Phil. Also;
Eugene Stoner concived while working for ArmaLite a half century ago the AR-10. The AR-10 lost out to the M14 due to it's then unproven "space age" design, plastic furniture, and vastly different appearance from what the U.S. armed forces held dear in a battle rifle. When the U.S. Army adopted the M-16- the M-14 service rifle joined the ranks of the M-1 in long term storage. The AR-10 was simply a rifle before it's time, and to date remains one of the most unjustly-neglected rifles in American firearms history.
I have often thought of the same question BattleRifleG3 posed in the opening post about caliber choice. I believe a .243/6mm Rem or some type of 7mm design would have been a good spilt between the .308 & 5.56
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