For the varmint hunters out there the .204 Ruger is a superb cartridge for sniping ground squirrels & prairie dogs, and, like the .300 Blackout, requires only a new barrel to work in an AR15. It’ll spit out a 32gr bullet at over 4,000fps and excels at exploding those prairie destroying little rodents at long range (as long as you can deal with the wind).

One of the new cartridges that I find very interesting comes from Olympic Arms and was designed to exceed .308 Winchester ballistics in the AR15 platform. They call it the .300OSSM–Olympic Super Short Magnum–and it is essentially a Winchester Super Short Magnum case necked up to .30 caliber. Though magazine capacity is low, the cartridge holds a lot of promise for hunting & long range shooting with the AR15 platform.

Then of course there’s the true big bores: the .450 Bushmaster, .458 Socom & .50 Beowulf. Any of the three will take any animal that walks on the North American continent, and they make dandy hog hunting rounds!

My personal favorites are the .223/5.56, the 6.5 Grendel & the .458 Socom. The .300OSSM has also peaked my interest!