GF, I well remember the controversy when the Army went from the M-14 to the mouse gun. The Ordnance Corps was against it. Defense Secretary MacNamara and his Ivy League whiz kids forced it on the military. Gen. Lemay liked the AR-15 for Air Force Security people to replace the aging m-1 carbines. Now the Army is looking at a 6.8 mm to replace the 5.56. The old .45, proven in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam is making a comeback, too. Personnaly, I like it fine for self defense. The FN FAL or the AK-47 are better man stoppers than the M-16. In the mean time, an AR-15 makes sense for a citizen seeking a self defense weapon. I hear that there are new higher caliber uppers in the works soon.
The main benefits of the AR platform in 5.56 are the ability to carry more rounds of ammo because it's lighter and the fact that the AR platform is inherently more accurate than M-14s/M1As, FN FALs and AK-47s and the AR platform is more modular than any of the others. Now the accuracy part can be debated and I won't deny that M-14s/M1As can definitely be brought up to a level of accuracy that matches or very easily beats an AR but dollar for dollar I think the AR is more accurate. FALs can be accurate and there are a few AKs that are accurate but generally speaking these weapons are not know for there accuracy.
I will have to agree that .308 is definitely a better "man stopper". I will also say that from my reading and first hand experience from other people I have talked with 5.56 is capable of doing what it was designed to do. Where 5.56 definitely starts to lose its value is when you start talking about targets much more than 300-400 meters away. 5.56 gets its killing power from tumbling and then fragmenting. If you don't get a 5.56/.223 to tumble and fragment all you are doing is blowing .22 sized holes in your target which has been proved to be less than effective. I can’t remember exactly but SS109 loses its ability to fragment at something like 2300fps. I will have to look that up.
