Again.. go into an everyday gun shop... ask to look at the few AR’s they have... 5.56 & .308 with maybe a .300 thrown in... you guys are in your own worlds...
I do go into everyday gun shops. I also halfway track the AR world. 6.5 and 300 BLK are the ‘cool’ ARs right now, and I see a lot of AR stuff oriented at those.......which is a DIRECT ding on the .308.....which there’s less of right now in AR10s....directly because of the creedmoor.
For most of my hunting, a 308can do it all just fine. My personal preferences lean to the 308/708, but the 6.5 was set up for success as a dual purpose target/LR/hunting cartridge for the one gun crowd, and it is.....highly successful. How much that’s detrimental to other cartridges (overall), I don’t really know. As far as large frame ARs go, especially LR/target themed guns, it’s hit the 308 pretty hard.
