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It was a .223, was it not?
If it was an AR platform, yes.
BTW Nobody shoots 30-06 anymore.
People who have 30-06 caliber rifles shoot 30-06. It's just that the two main choices in an AR platform rifle, unless you happen to be a gun nut, are .223 and .308.
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Saw people here say .22, so I ran with that. Updated info points to AR style, so bushmaster XM15 is the most likely candidate just for availability. So, .223.
Also, boo on 30-06 not being fired anymore. Military doesn't, true, but home pressers usually load up .308 or 30-06. Admittedly I haven't been in the scene for years, but all the small town rednecks who pivoted away from walmart supplies during the 2020 ammo shortage swear by their old reliable hunting rugers.
.30-06 is obsoleted by .308 on the low end (and in most tactical/fighting rifles) and .300 Winchester Magnum on the high end (and in hunting rifles).
Modern gunmakers, when designing hunting rifles, build their receivers for the physically largest cartridge they'll offer first. .300 Win Mag is that cartridge, so if you buy that rifle in .30-06 you're taking a rifle that's already sized for a more powerful cartridge and, well, nerfing it. And when hunting, people generally welcome the extra power, since you only really want to take (and frequently, only get) one shot.
As for .308, there's no .30-06 Pmag, and why would a manufacturer reinvent the wheel when a different company has already designed it for them? And if you're designing a hunting rifle with its own custom magazine, the above point applies.
Don't worry, though. If it makes you feel any better, in the next 20 years all .30 caliber cartridges will be obsoleted by a hybrid-case high-pressure .308-sized round that delivers .300 Win Mag performance, and I don't believe any mass-market cartridge is going to bother going higher because .300 Win Mag is already at the upper limit of human recoil tolerance.
.300M sounds interesting, never fired that. My experience is oriented to a pretty specific niche, with a period of extremely fun mag dumping 12.7 and 7.62 surplus. Only plonked marksman rifles at a ranch with some buddies in the 2010s and thats when I discovered an appreciation for .308 and 30-06 guns and a deep loathing of .22LR plinkers.
.300 Win Mag isn't really all that much more powerful than .30-06 is. It's actually kind of too bad that it exists because .300 WSM is arguably a better cartridge (and doesn't need that belt, so it feeds from magazines better), but it's much less popular specifically because the shortness is never taken advantage of and "but you could get 100 more FPS from the full-sized version".
It also does beat you up just that little bit more. I think that if I ever buy a rifle in that cartridge it's going to be a heavier semi-auto rifle with a brake; basically an HCAR but with all the meme removed (in an even more powerful cartridge).
The Ruger 10/22 is not that great a rifle (partially because it hasn't changed in 60+ years) and I'm amazed people sink the kinds of money they do into them. Actually, it's also amazing to me that .22LR has lasted so long; I think that if there ever was a cartridge to replace, it's either that or shotgun cartridges (because all repeating shotguns are ultimately hacks to manage a cartridge design that just doesn't work well at all in repeaters).
What would you want to try replacing 22LR with? Something center-fire?
I've given it some thought and could never come up with something cheaper (which let's face it matters a lot more for plinking and practical use than ballistic performance)
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Point of pedantry, but the AR platform covers just about every commercially available cartridge, from .17 rimfire to .50 BMG.
It was probably a .223/5.56mm, but the AR platform is extremely popular and absurdly diverse.
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