Most seem to think the AR is some type of magic weapons that does what no other rifle can do. It’s not. In fact, until the 1990s, it wasn’t a very popular rifle. Since 2001, and all the media press from shooting and the war, this has changed and it seems that every firearms manufacturer has a clone of this weapon on the market. One reason that it’s popular, too, is that it’s an issue weapon for the military and most know it from service. Personally, I prefer the Ruger 556 Mini-14 in the same caliber. It’s more like the M14 than the M16 and does not use the same magazines as the AR or the M14. My reason is simple. The safety is in the trigger guard like it was for the M1 Garand and the M14, making it much faster to switch on and off. And, since it’s 5.56mm like the AR, it fires the same ammunition. Any deviation in velocity is due to the barrel length in each weapon.
Maybe explaining this using vehicles will work better. If you have two Mustangs with the same engine, they will perform the same. It doesn’t matter what color they are, what type of mag wheels they have, or if they have an AM radio or CD player. The engine is the important part. For our weapons, it’s the 5.56mm/.223 cartridge. Change the weapons and you still have the same “engine.”