Product news: Franklin Armory® just entered the ammunition business with Rabbit Rounds™ — patent-pending multi-projectile 5.56x45mm loads aimed at small-game hunting from AR-pattern rifles. Specs and quotes below are from Franklin Armory’s Sept. 30, 2026 announcement and product page. This is not a SlavGuns range T&E; we have not shot these loads yet. Always verify current availability, local hunting regs, and what is legal for your game/season.
Squat Squad — coyote or pig hunt going well… then a rabbit or squirrel pops up and your magazine is still stuffed with single-projectile hunting loads. Franklin Armory’s answer (announced from Minden, NV on September 30, 2026) is simple on paper and weirdly overdue: give the Modern Sporting Rifle a spin-stabilized “shot” option that still lives in a.223 Rem / .223 Wylde / 5.56 NATO chamber.
Meet Rabbit Rounds™ — and yes, this is Franklin Armory’s first time in the ammunition business.
Shop / product page: franklinarmory.com/rabbit-rounds (direct — Franklin is not on our AvantLink merchant list yet).
What Rabbit Rounds actually are
Per Franklin Armory, each cartridge launches four spin-stabilized projectiles in a multi-piece, self-discarding sabot (patent-pending). Think “shot pattern,” but engineered so the pellets keep spinning after the sabot sheds — not a loose cloud of random BB chaos.
- Caliber: 5.56x45mm for AR-pattern firearms chambered in .223 Rem, .223 Wylde, or 5.56 NATO
- Projectile assembly: 45 grains total (four projectiles)
- From a 16″ AR-15 rifled barrel (FA claims): 3,150 fps muzzle velocity and 992 ft-lbs
- Pattern claim: spin-stabilization helps maintain an effective pattern beyond 40 yards (product page also talks effective pattern out toward ~50 yards)
- More calibers: planned soon
Franklin’s sporting pitch is clear: harvest smaller game more effectively with the MSR/AR you already own — and give coyote/pig hunters a magazine swap when smaller game shows up, using non-expanding, shotgun-like pellets instead of a single expanding bullet.
“Rabbit Rounds allow your AR to fire super-velocity, spin-stabilized shot… This ammunition greatly expands the sporting capabilities of .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO firearms.” — Jay Jacobson, President, Franklin Armory
FA also notes the velocity/power is more than double a typical shotshell — which makes sense when you remember these are leaving a rifled 5.56 barrel at rifle pressures, not a 12-gauge cylinder bore.
Who this is for (hunting / sporting lens)
If your “do-everything” gun is already an AR, Rabbit Rounds are aimed at the gap between:
- Single-projectile .223/5.56 hunting loads — great on medium game / predators, easy to miss or over-penetrate on tiny, fast targets
- Actual shotgun birdshot / ratshot — pattern-friendly up close, but you had to bring a second gun (or a weird .22 ratshot load that runs out of steam fast)
Franklin’s use-case language is sporting: smaller game on the same hunt, higher hit probability on fast movers, cleaner harvest / less meat damage vs a full-power single bullet (their claim — we’ll want range data before we treat that as gospel).
Legal reminder: small-game seasons, projectile rules, and “what counts as a legal hunting firearm” vary hard by state. An AR with specialty ammo can be legal for some species and banned for others. Check your regs before you mag-dump cottontails.
Multi-projectile ammo isn’t new — the context matters
Hunters and plinkers have seen cousins of this idea for decades: .22 ratshot, specialty birdshot loads in rifle/handgun cartridges, and various “shot from a rifled barrel” experiments. Most of those trade pattern density for velocity and useful range — fine for snakes in the woodpile at 10 yards, not great at chasing a running rabbit past 40.
What’s interesting about Franklin’s approach (on paper) is the spin-stabilized sabot package: keep rifle-level speed, then try to hold a useful pattern farther than classic ratshot ever could.
You’ll also hear multi-projectile / shot-style concepts come up in open-source reporting around drone warfare in Russia/Ukraine — improvised or specialty loads discussed as a way to raise hit probability against small, fast aerial targets. That’s a useful technology parallel for why “more than one projectile leaving the muzzle” keeps getting reinvented. It is not what Rabbit Rounds are marketed as. Franklin is selling a legal sporting/hunting product for AR owners who want small-game capability. We’re noting the parallel the way you’d note that APCs and pickup trucks both have four wheels — same broad physics conversation, totally different product and purpose.
We’ve covered Franklin Armory gear before
Ammo is new for them; innovative firearms hardware is not. If you want channel context on Franklin Armory products we’ve already looked at:
Franklin Armory Prevail TRC — Shot Show 2026 first look:
Franklin Armory integrally suppressed 10/22 rifles:
Availability
Franklin says Rabbit Rounds are available directly from Franklin Armory and certified dealers. Start here: Rabbit Rounds product page. Media contact listed by FA: [email protected]. They also push updates across Facebook, Instagram, X, Rumble, and YouTube.
Bottom line
This is one of the more interesting “expand what your AR can hunt” ideas we’ve seen this year — not because multi-projectile ammo is brand new historically, but because a known MSR brand is putting a patent-pending, spin-stabilized sabot load into the 5.56 ecosystem with claimed patterns past 40 yards and rifle-level velocity. On paper it fills a real sporting niche. On the range, we’ll believe the pattern and terminal claims after someone (ideally us) chrono’s and patterns them.
Until then: cool launch, clear hunting use case, and another reason your “one rifle” setup keeps getting harder to keep to one magazine type.
More gear I actually use: SlavGuns Amazon. Precision accessories: Anarchy Outdoors (code SlavGuns on Anarchy-manufactured). Support the channel: join on YouTube.
Keep squatting.
Would you run Rabbit Rounds as a dedicated small-game mag on coyote/pig hunts — or is this still a “bring the .22” problem for you?
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