Remington hasn't been in the AR game very long, but it sure has made a colossal impact, bringing the black rifle to a whole new audience. In another bold move, Big Green upped the ante with an ingenious cartridge and rifle combination that harnesses .308 Winchester ballistics in the lightweight and wieldy R-15.

Everyone has his own perceptions of the .223 Remington in the AR platform by now. It simply rocks on the prairie dog fields, and it's perfect for whacking dastardly predators. But as an ever-increasing number of ARs head to the hunting fields, they are being used to fill greater roles than they were ever intended.

For a meat-seeking sportsman, unless you're into head-shooting or blood-tracking medium-bodied big game like whitetail deer, antelope, or wild boar, you probably know that the .223 isn't really the ideal cartridge to use to harvest these animals. Regardless of its high velocity and excellent accuracy, where the small-bore .223 cartridge may well excel in the varmint and predator fields, it falls distressingly flat in terms of sheer knock-down power on larger game.

Suffice to say that the 6.8 SPC and several other newer AR-15 chamberings pack a little more punch to take down larger game. But within the AR world, real confidence in this arena can only be achieved by stepping up to the AR-10 and the eminent energy of the .308. Unfortunately, that confidence comes at the cost of size, recoil, and at least a pound more weight than the smaller AR.

Filling The Gap
As you likely know by now, Bushmaster, Remington, and DPMS--in addition to several other arms manufacturers--were all acquired within the last three years by a private equity firm. They were amassed under the "Freedom Group" moniker.

At the annual Remington editorial seminar last October, those companies were all present. We were introduced to both a new cartridge and a new take on the AR platform that turned your humble narrator into a slack-jawed drooler, pondering in bewildered amazement.

Through a joint effort, the Freedom Group introduced something that was revolutionary to me. They came up with a cartridge that would fire in a cleverly reengineered AR-15 and could rival the .308 Winchester within the overall length of a .223. This was something that should put down mid-sized game in a snap.

Excited? Who me; the guy who knows quite well that .223 on a big, naturally armored boar takes nothing less than a well-placed shot in the ear or neck? I was far more than merely intrigued.

Just a few, short years ago, we were introduced to the 6.8 SPC cartridge. It was commonly touted as the end-all cartridge in the AR platform. In coordination with specialized units of the U.S. military, Remington developed the 6.8 SPC, basing it on the century-old .30 Remington cartridge. Loaded with a 115-grain projectile, it was able to produce nearly twice the energy from the shorter-barreled M4 rifle than the .223 Rem. could muster. And it fed from a standard USGI magazine with only a slight reduction in capacity.

It was exactly what the U.S. SOCOM wanted. But with its decades of experience in the whitetail woods, Remington wasn't about to label the 6.8 SPC the ultimate short-action prescription for your deer-hunting affliction. The quest to fill that ticket--specifically for the lightweight and well-balanced AR-15 hunting platform--was just beginning.

Developing The .30 RAR
"While the 6.8 SPC is certainly being used for deer hunting, from a cartridge development standpoint, the 6.8 was not the optimal cartridge to start with," said John Fink, Remington's brand manager of rifle product development.