The .30 Remington AR cartridge was created in 2008 by Remington Arms to fill a perceived gap in performance on large game between the

.223 Remington The .223 Remington (designated as the 223 Remington by the SAAMI and 223 Rem by the CIP) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed in 1957 by Remington Arms and Fairchild Industries for the U.S. Continental Army Command ...

and larger cartridges such as the

.308 Winchester The .308 Winchester is a smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge widely used for hunting, target shooting, police, military, and personal protection applications globally. It is similar but not identical to the 7.62×51mm NATO ...

.Nischalke, Mike "The R-15 And The .30 RAR", Shooting Times
Online Article
accessed 13 January 2010 Design of the cartridge is considered a joint effort between companies under the "Freedom Group" name through a

private equity firm A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...

and included such companies as Bushmaster, DPMS and

Remington Remington may refer to: Organizations * Remington Arms, American firearms manufacturer * Remington Rand, American computer manufacturer * Remington Products, American manufacturer of shavers and haircare products * Remington College, American c ...

itself. It is a rebated rim cartridge designed to fit Remington's R-15 semiautomatic hunting rifle. It was designed to fit the dimensional constraints of the

AR-15 An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the Colt AR-15 design. The original ArmaLite AR-15 is a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design. The then Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporatio ...

magazine and is based on a modification of the

.450 Bushmaster The .450 Bushmaster is a rifle cartridge developed by Tim LeGendre of LeMag Firearms, and licensed to Bushmaster Firearms International. The .450 Bushmaster is designed to be used in standard M16s and AR-15s, using modified magazines and u ...

, which in turn was based on the

.284 Winchester The .284 Winchester is a cartridge that has enjoyed a resurgence due to interest from long-range competitive shooters. Winchester has continued to produce brass cases for this since 1963. Introduced by Winchester in 1963, the .284 Winchester was de ...

. Remington was the only company that manufactured this ammunition and its components. The cartridge was a commercial failure and has been discontinued by Remington. RAR+223 base

Design

Starting with a .450 Bushmaster case, Remington trimmed the length to 1.525" from the original 1.7" and necked it down to accept a conical .308" diameter bullet with a 25 degree shoulder. The rim size is .492" and because the round generates 55,000 psi, Remington opted to use a .308 rifle bolt in a 5.56-sized rifle for increased case support. The rim was widened from the .473" of the parent case to prevent the use of a weaker .450 Bushmaster bolt with this cartridge. With a 150 grain bullet, the round travels at 2575 fps.

Cartridge Performance

Performance tests between the .30 RAR and the .308 Winchester show that while the .30 RAR does have a good muzzle velocity, the energy it is capable of delivering on target at around 400 yards decreases significantly. Combined with the poorer ballistic coefficients of the lighter projectiles (.267 for the 125 grain Core-Lokt), this makes the .30 RAR a cartridge suited to ranges around 300 to 400 yards, although this could be extended with projectiles of higher ballistic coefficient (.341 for the Speer TNT 125 grain). A side effect of the short, wide case has meant that the Remington R-15 Rifle which was designed alongside the cartridge uses a four-round, single-stack magazine.

References

External links

Review of the Remington R-15 VTR

Remington Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:30 Remington AR Pistol and rifle cartridges Remington Arms cartridges

Design

Cartridge Performance

See also

References

External links