Franklin Armory Rabbit Rounds: A 5.56 Load With Four BBs

Last updated October 2026 · By Nick Hall, AR-15 owner who tracks every new ammunition launch for USA Gun Shop readers

Quick take: Franklin Armory has launched Rabbit Rounds, a 5.56x45mm cartridge that sends four lead BBs down your AR’s barrel instead of one bullet. It’s listed at $67.99 on the company’s own store, where it is the only ammunition on sale.

• What it is: A 5.56x45mm cartridge loaded with four .180-inch lead BB shot in a thermoplastic sabot over a copper gas check, 45 grains for the whole projectile assembly.
• Price: $67.99 on Franklin Armory’s product page, where the box pictured is marked 20 rounds.
• Where: Direct from Franklin Armory and through its certified dealers, though the product page lists no shipping to Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York or Washington.
• Why it matters: Franklin Armory claims 3,150 fps and 992 ft-lb at the muzzle of a 16-inch AR-15 barrel, with a pattern it rates to 40 or 50 yards depending on which of its pages you read.

Most oddball AR ammo is either a range toy or an answer to a question nobody asked. Rabbit Rounds could turn out to be one of those, or it could be the reason you stop hauling a second gun to a coyote stand. We pulled the press release, the spec sheet and the ballistics table straight from Franklin Armory so you don’t have to. And two of those pages don’t agree with each other.

Table of Contents

What’s Actually Inside a Rabbit Round

Franklin Armory, the Minden, Nevada company behind the Binary trigger, announced the load on September 30, 2026 in its own release. It describes Rabbit Rounds as "a new multiple-projectile cartridge designed to more effectively harvest smaller game with the ubiquitous AR-style Modern Sporting Rifle".

The spec sheet is short. Caliber is 5.56x45mm, the projectiles are four lead BB shot of .180 diameter, the sabot is thermoplastic, the gas check is copper, and the projectile assembly weighs 45 grains. The release calls the sabot multi-piece and self-discarding, and says the design is patent-pending.

Franklin Armory’s cross-section photo shows how it goes together: four balls stacked single file inside a white sabot that sits on a copper base. From the outside it looks like a brass 5.56 case with a white plastic tip where the bullet should be.

The release says the load is for AR-pattern firearms chambered in .223 Remington, .223 Wylde and 5.56 NATO, which is every chamber that comes up in the 5.56 versus .223 question. The product page adds one more line: "Compatible with semi-auto firearms."

The Rabbit Rounds Numbers: 3,150 FPS and a 15-Inch Spread

The headline figures are 3,150 feet per second and 992 ft-lb of energy at the muzzle of a 16-inch AR-15 barrel. Franklin Armory says that is "more than double the typical shotshell speed and power", which is the company talking, not a test.

But the table is where it gets interesting. Franklin Armory’s Rabbit Rounds page carries a performance chart for a 16-inch barrel, and it goes further than the release.

Velocity: 3,150 fps at the muzzle, 2,620 fps at 50 yards, 1,807 fps at 100 yards. Energy: 992 ft-lb at the muzzle, 543 ft-lb at 50 yards, 258 ft-lb at 100 yards. Average spread: 5 inches at 10 yards, 10 inches at 20 yards, 15 inches at 30 yards.

Run the math and the 992 ft-lb muzzle figure is the full 45-grain assembly at 3,150 fps, while the 50 and 100-yard figures only work out if about 35.6 grains is still flying, which is what you would expect once the sabot and gas check have peeled away and the four BBs are on their own.

Franklin Armory doesn’t break the energy out per pellet. Split evenly four ways, 543 ft-lb at 50 yards is about 136 ft-lb for each BB. By 100 yards the load has shed about three quarters of its muzzle energy.

The spread is the number to plan around. It opens at a steady half inch per yard across the three distances Franklin Armory publishes, and the chart stops at 30 yards.

40 Yards or 50? Franklin Armory’s Pages Disagree

Here’s the kicker. The release says the four projectiles "maintain an effective pattern beyond 40 yards". The product page and the Rabbit Rounds page both say they "maintain an effective pattern out to 50 yards".

None of those pages says what counts as an effective pattern, and the only measurements Franklin Armory publishes end at 30 yards with a 15-inch average spread. So you have a 40-yard claim, a 50-yard claim, and a chart that covers neither.

I have not fired it, so I am not going to tell you which figure is right. Four pellets inside 15 inches is already a thin pattern for something the size of a cottontail, and I would treat 30 yards as the working limit until somebody patterns it on paper.

The release invites media to request samples for testing and evaluation. Independent pattern boards will settle the 40 versus 50 question.

Rabbit Rounds Price: $67.99, and the Box Says 20

Franklin Armory lists Rabbit Rounds at $67.99 under SKU 21-01001-AMM on its product page. The box pictured there is marked 20 rounds, which works out to about $3.40 a shot.

That count comes from the box art. The written listing gives the specs and the price, and it does not spell out a round count.

Nobody is burning through a case of these on steel. It is a specialty load you carry one magazine of, and it will sit in a different part of your ammo can from anything in our AR-15 ammo picks.

The release says Rabbit Rounds are available directly from Franklin Armory and through certified dealers. One catch if you’re ordering direct: the product page says the load is not available for shipping to Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York or Washington, and it gives no reason.

More chamberings are coming. The release says the company plans to bring Rabbit Rounds to market in additional popular hunting calibers soon, without naming a caliber or a date.

Who Rabbit Rounds Are Actually For

Franklin Armory’s pitch is the hunter who is out for coyotes or wild pigs and bumps into something smaller. Its product page says to "simply swap in a magazine of Rabbit Rounds" and keep hunting with the same rifle.

"Rabbit Rounds allow your AR to fire super-velocity, spin-stabilized shot," said Franklin Armory President Jay Jacobson in the release. "This ammunition greatly expands the sporting capabilities of .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO firearms."

I like the one-gun idea. If you already carry an AR for predators, a spare magazine weighs a lot less than a second gun, and that’s the whole argument. If you hunt rabbits on purpose, a real scattergun from our small game shotguns list throws a cloud of shot where this throws four pellets, and that isn’t a close contest.

Whether a multi-projectile rifle load is legal for the animal you’re after is a question for your state’s hunting regulations, and nothing on Franklin Armory’s pages answers it. Read the regulations before a Rabbit Round goes anywhere near a season. The projectiles are lead, which matters if you hunt ground with lead-free rules.

Four BBs. One AR. Pattern it before you trust it.

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