What WOULD Stoner Do?

I am not certain InRange is on quite the right track with their WWSD project.

After interviewing Jim Sullivan they surely must be aware that Gene was an advocate of the 7.62x51mm round.

The 5.56 AR15 is preceded by the 7.62 AR10.  The 5.56 AR18 is preceded by the 7.62 AR16.  The 5.56 Stoner Model 63 is preceded by the 7.62 M69W.

Three times he tried to make a 7.62 NATO gun and three times suffered having his design reduced in caliber.

Not that he put up much fight...

But, what would Stoner do?

I think the AR16 prototypes show us some insight.  The first few guns used the same gas system as the AR15 and AR10.  It was the fact that the patents no longer belonged to Armalite that caused the change to a short stroke piston system.

I think Stoner had moved beyond "high tech and lighter" to "ease of manufacture, higher volume production, more sales."

I wonder what barrel length he'd settle on today though.

The AR15 and M63 both start with a 20" tube and the AR18 is just a bit shorter with 18-1/4".

Would he go with the legal minimum length of 16"?  For his round which was designed with 4" longer bores in mind?