[.44 Special]

No doubt the creedmore and grendel are fairly decent rounds. To be really effective I don’t you’d want do go below .264. You need a round that is capable of housing a tungsten penetrator, tracer capable with a velocity of no less than 2800 fps bullet weight needs to be a function of desired ballistic coefficient of your standard ball round. I expect such a round could be developed with a respectable weight savings over the 7.62 NATO. If staying with an AR type platform you might want to optimizer the receiver for such a .264 round and developing a really effective compensator as the recoil is going to be significantly higher than the 5.56. I maintain the 2800 fps should be the minimum in the standard rifle length barrel. That way re carbine length barrel would still offer respectable velocity. Just saying...

[MrEdd]

Or they could have more PT and make the troops strong enough to carry 7.62 again.

[Hardastarboard]

Yours is one of the best posts on the thread, so I'll ask your opinion on this. Given that the AR is a direct impingement platform, and assuming that at least some of these options have a larger powder capacity, does that possibly impact the functioning of that system, perhaps causing more fouling, more frequent cleaning, etc?

Your thoughts?