If you go with the .223 Wylde you can also use 5.56 as well.
Huh? How do you mean? Because IIRC, They were offering two sizes at the counter... One was a critter-gitter caliber, like .223 or .243 - A suitable coyote round - And the other the 556... SO why 2 different rifles if you can do both?
Optics planet sells a real nice Vortex Vortex 6-24x50 Diamondback Tactical FFP Riflescope, 30mm Tube, EBR-2C MOA Reticle, Black, DBK-10028 it is going for $399 right now, but they sometimes have really good sales, or so I have heard.
Like I said, I am a little scared of short-range optics. I probably ought to go that way, as my eyes ain't so good no more... But I grew up hating on short optics - Nothing worse to me than hauling up the rifle and seeing nothing but hair. It is REAL brushy leaning to mixed brush in the woods here, so a brush gun, it's hard telling where you see something - from 30 yards on out to 150...So optics on a brush gun are not very useful.
But I am already rigged in big iron - Venison and elk up close are gonna be a lever gun, and mostly everything else is going to be a reach-out-and-touch-someone gun. And that's all high caliber and long optics (250+) So I am covered pretty well... so the thing I seem to want to justify is a short to midrange lay and wait rifle, for coyote and such, because in that rare instance, you get to pick your range.
I don't know of any AR-15s that handle the .243Win. There is the 6mm ARC. I didn't know about it when I picked up my first AR-15 so I went with the 6.5 Grendel.
I dunno... I wasn't paying much attention when I went through... 556 I am pretty sure of, but the other was one of them quick little waspy rounds... Registered on me as a coyote round and nothing more... So .223 if not .243... Beats me.
That fast, small caliber stuff ain't good for much else around here, except maybe deer in a grain field... For which I have other toys.