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Description
(Not only has all the gun-fluff been updated and consolidated, the AR2-M1/M225 has also been updated. The receiver extends further behind the pistol grip now, the magazine release button is now larger, a useless thingy beneath the barrel is now gone, oh and the fire selector is now a bit more ergonomic. yeah the calibre is changed too, back to 7mm after all this time, i've decided 8mm is probably a bit too heavy for some folks to use comfortably - NOW WITH MOAR DAKKA!!!!!)

AR2-M1 aka M225
Hybrid recoil operated
7x50mm CTA = 150gr(10g) = 2,800fps(850m/s)
20rd, 40rd, or 80rd magazine
Safe-single-salvo fire selector on grip
Sliding six position stock
Multipurpose lug and rail for bayonet, bipod, or grenade launcher
Rail for mounting optical gunsights
Integral post-and-ring iron-sights built into barrel assembly and reciever housing.
Quick-remove barrel assembly, comes in standard, short, heavy, and sniper variants.
Stock is removed to access butt-plate, which is unscrewed to remove recoil buffer and bolt carrier assemblies.
Grip is removed to access trigger assembly.

The M225 uses 7x50mm brass alloy or plasticeramic Cased Telescopic Ammunition, feeding magazines;
20rd box
40rd sickle
80rd drum

Five barrel variants are available;
Basic carbine
Precision-fire rifle
Sustained-fire rifle
Ultra-short carbine
Space-ops carbine

Underbarrel mount can attach;
Sword bayonet
Folding bipod/grip
Underslung 35mm grenade launcher (will not fit on ultrashort barrels)

Mount on top of barrel can fit a variety of optics;
Electro-optical gunsight - includes flash-light, ranging-beam 2x, 4x, and 8x zoom levels, low light amplification, electromagnetic, ultraviolet and infrared filters, as well as an integrated ballistics calculator.
Unpowered sniper scope
Close range reflex optics

By far the most prolific and iconic firearm of the Solar Confederacy today in 2088, the M225 is a compact modular weapon system firing the 7mm telescoped long cartridge from a disposable or reusable magazine. These weapons are highly customisable, with various barrel assemblies, sliding stocks, optic packages, and underslung accessories such as a sword bayonet, grenade launcher, folding bipod, or illuminator module. The weapon has a three position selector switch permitting semi or fully automatic fire.
The M225 is a product of interstellar age engineering, designed using a standardised template and fabricated from a wide range of materials. The weapon can be easily made with hand tools or autofabricators, and only the barrel and inner mechanisms require metallic elements for their construction, allowing the chassis and outer components to be made of various materials, from engineered hardwoods to plasticeramic composites to lightweight alloy stampings or forgings. The level of variation available to the M225 pattern of weapons is simply phenomenal, with numerous custom components built to standard essential specifications. These are all freely available on the commercial market for domestic use.
The M225 auto-rifle is a closed-bolt hybrid-recoil operated rifle with a telescoping bolt carrier group and buffer assembly.
The rifle fires 7x50mm CTA rounds, chemically propelled kinetic projectiles "nested" in a brass or plasticeramic cartridge.
The rifle is simple to manufacture, easy to maintain, and modular accessories make it extremely flexible.
The M225 has a telescopic bolt carrier group and buffer assembly. It uses a hybrid recoil operation, and has a non-reciprocating bolt handle which can be drawn back to allow cleaning of the mechanism without total disassembly, achieved by employing the bolt handle itself as a dust cover, which exposes part of the inner mechanism when drawn back.
Since the bolt handle doesn't cycle backwards with each shot, foreign matter cannot enter the internals, although the mechanical tolerances of the firearm have been engineered so that particulate matter will not obstruct the mechanisms of the weapon even if they enter.

A single shot 35x70mm grenade launcher can be mounted under the barrel. Grenades used can have airburst charges, shaped charges, solid slug or scatter shot, aerosol incendiary, chemical smoke, tangler gel or other varied payloads.
SpaceForce Marine M225s are issued with an underslung grenade launcher as standard, although some Marines prefer to mount a bipod and either a drum magazine or an elecro-optical scope. Sword bayonets are still issued to Marines, but heavier boarding cutlasses are preferred by tradition (and the fact that the lug below the barrel is usually occupied by a grenade launcher).
The underbarrel-lug used to mount everything from bayonets to grenade launchers has been a constant since the earliest Confed auto-rifles (even.though it was only used for bayonets and bipods at first).
Since the third generation (AR1-M3 or M185) the barrel assembly of the Confed rifle has had a rail built into it for the mounting of optics. Eye relief electro-optical gunsights are quite common, but so are conventional unpowered scopes.
Compared to rifles of previous generations, the M255 is quite short, and many older folks refer to them as carbines instead of rifles. This is a natural development with more and more infantry engagements taking place in confined terrain. The buttstock of the gun can actually be folded up when slid to its shortest position, permitting an easier grip by larger hands. The stock can be removed altogether, and an ultrashort barrel assembly can be fitted to turn the rifle into a kind of heavy pistol.
The number of M225s produced for SpaceForce inventories is a bit over a quarter of a billion, but the number of identical AR2-M1s produced for the commercial market is impossible to know with certainty, but believed to be in the multiple billions.
M225 is the military designation of the AR2-M1 Confed Auto Rifle, designed by the Consolidated Armouries, a co-operative project of Great Houses of Primus for the use of the Space Forces and the Civil Militias of the Peoples of the Solar Confederation. AR2-M1 is the commercial designation, given not just to those weapons sold to the civilian market by the Consolidated Armouries but also by the many hundreds of private manufacturers producing what is essentially an identical weapon.

The CAR and CAP series of arms (Confed Auto Rifle and Confed Auto Pistol) were first developed in the 1920s as part of a program to standardise the arms of the fledgling Space Forces.
The first generation of Confed Auto Rifles, M122 or AR1-M1, used rimmed cartridges, and early models were notorious for jamming. New rimless ammunition was introduced to the market in the 1930s, and a modified version of AR1-M1, the AR1-M1-RL (rimless) or M122/33, was designed to use the new ammunition until the development of the M155 / AR1-M2 in the 1950s.

An interim model weapon, the M122/33 or AR1-M1-RL was designed in 1933, and was essentially an M122 rechambered to fire the new 9x55mm rimless cartridge.
The older 9x65mm rimmed cartridge, while effective in manual repeating arms, had a tendency to jam up autoloading mechanisms - a fault many Confederates learned the hard way during the first decade of the war with Hercuba. The development of a new, more reliable rimless style cartridge and cleaner burning propellant was started in the late 1920s and completed in the early 1930s.
However, since no new rifle had been developed to go with the rimless cartridge, and the Great Houses were unwilling to fund a replacement for a rifle the Space Forces had procured scarcely a decade earlier, the decision was made that all SpaceForce ammunition purchases would be changed to orders of new rimless cartridges, and all Consolidated Arsenal M122 production lines would be modified for the M122/33, which is just an M122 with a bolt assembly designed for the new rimless cartridges. These weapons would eventually outnumber the M122, and served with distinction in the second half of the Hercuban Wars and until its replacement by the M155, with a new detatchable magazine.
M122 rifles are still popular items on the market for collectors and historians, but the scarcity of 9x65mm rimmed ammunition means that M122/33 and it's 9x55mm cartridges are more popular with actual shooters.

In the 1950s, the M155 or AR1-M2 was developed, the second generation Confed Auto Rifle. This featured removable box magazines as the standard, and marked the shift from the heavy 9mm calibre to a lighter and faster 7x55mm rimless cartridge, and would be produced by the hundreds of millions. The new 7mm calibre projectile would become the standard calibre of the Confederacy, resisting multiple manoeuvres to replace it with a smaller and lighter 5mm projectile, even after the development of the latest composite telescoped cartridge ammunition. The frame of the M155 was still mostly wood however, with a heavy alloy chassis housing the operating mechanism and a traditional style wooden stock grip.

The 1980s saw the third generation of autorifle adopted, the AR1-M3 or M185, with a revised chassis using a pistol grip and a fixed/folding two-piece stock as modules, a feature that would be carried over to the second "century" of rifles. Even so, the AR1-M3, or M185, would never outnumber the older AR1-M2 or the newer AR2-M1.
The AR1-M3-TC ("Telescoped Cartridge", also known as M185/99) was produced in 1999 as an interim service rifle before the M225 began development. Essentially it is an AR1-M3/M185 remodeled to use the new 7x50mm cased telescopic ammunition instead of the older 7x55mm rimless bottlenecked cartridges.
These interim rifles had some reliability problems, although they served the Space Forces well until the 2020s. During the Xonchi invasion, these rifles continued to see service with colonial militias and guerillas in occupied territory. Today the rifle is rarely used in combat, as the far more reliable AR2-M1/M225 has replaced it throughout the Confederacy.
It is ironic to some that almost a century earlier the first autorifles to enter service with the Space Forces underwent a similar redesign to use new ammunition, although this was due more to the unreliability of those rifles and their original rimmed cartridges than a desire to simplify the logistics and expedite the adoption of new generation of munitions.

The AR2-M1 or M225 (pictured above) was adopted in 2025, and used a brand new simplified chassis with a sliding buttstock, fixed pistol grip, and the new telescoped plasticeramic ammunition. These rifles were produced in more numbers than any other in history - there are enough AR2-M1 rifles to arm every military age male on every world in the Confederacy.
The AR2-M2 would be introduced later in the 2070s, and includes a revised chassis with even more modularity than the last rifle, allowing the magazine feed to be rotated to the top of the reciever, or even behind the 8trigger and pistol grip (with the aid of a different chassis and two spare parts). The AR2-M2 would never outnumber the AR2-M1, but it would be a highly desirable item and a mainstay of elite formations.

The AR2-M1, or M225 CAR, was the standard rifle adopted just before the Xonchi war began.
These were the first auto-rifles chambered to fire the 3rd generation cased munition, a 7x50mm composite case telescoped ammunition, and also the first rifles to be designed around an in-line stock with a telescoping bolt and buffer assembly with non-reciprocating charging-handle and dust-cover/cleaning access directly above the grip8.
The AR2-M1 has been partially replaced by the AR2-M2 (M275), but it is still a very common sight throughout all the worlds of the Confederacy and the single most mass produced firearm in Confederate history.
The previous generations AR1-M3 (M185) and AR1-M2 (M155) rifles can still be found, but these are no longer used by any professional military organisations. Brass rimmed and rimless cartridges with first and second generation propellants are also harder to come by now that polyceramic/duraplastic composite telescoped cartridges with hexonite and octonite propellants that are the standard.
The AP2-M1, or M224 CAP, fires an 7x30mm telescoped short cartridge, and enjoys similar popularity to its larger brother.
The Colonial Armament Project of the 2030s in the aftermath of the Xonchi Invasion saw many millions of rifles and pistols produced, enough to arm every person in the colonies, if they all desired.
The Confederacy has a liberal attitude toward civilian armament, and the Confederate Charter of Principles actually declares that the right of individuals to keep and bear arms is sacred and inviolable. Very few states in the Confederacy regulate personal armaments and the ones that do are generally rich insulated enclaves, neo-luddite primitivists, or authoritarian "independent" collectivist states.

The AR2-M1, as shown in the picture, is a weapon optimised for compactness. It has a sliding stock with a fold-up butt, and can be wielded with one hand if necessary. If soldiers of the 1900s saw the M225, they would call it a carbine rather than a rifle.
These weapons are favoured not just by the SpaceForce people they were made for but also with hunters, sporters, civil militia, and all manner of armed organisations. In a very true sense it is a "volksgewehr" - a rifle for the people, easy to make, easy to maintain, and easy to use.

SpaceForce Marine Corps AR2-M1s are generally issued with an underslung 35mm grenade launcher, capable of firing airburst charge or shaped charge munitions. These grenade launchers aren't often seen outside the SpaceForce Marines, although modification kits can be found on the open market allowing them to be fitted onto baseline AR2-M1s.

8
Cartridges

CRC - classic rimmed cartridge - adopted 1840s

RLC - rimless cartridge - adopted 1930s

CTA - composite - telescoped ammunition - adopted 2020s

Measurements for CRC and RLC are calibre by cartridge length, bullet length is usually 20-40mm with at least 10mm concealed by the cartridge, cartridge diameter is typically calibre+4mm

6x35mm cadet CRC
9x65mm long CRC
9x25mm short CRC
12x65mm long CRC
12x25mm short CRC
15x125mm heavy CRC
18x65mm canister CRC

5x35mm micro RLC
7x55mm long RLC
7x25mm short RLC
9x55mm long RLC
9x25mm short RLC
15x120mm heavy RLC
20x60mm canister RLC

Measurement of CTA is bullet diameter by overall cartridge length (projectile included) cartridge diameter is calibre+3mm and projectile length typically half of cartridge length

5x40mm micro CTA
7x50mm long CTA
7x30mm short CTA
9x50mm long CTA
9x30mm short CTA
15x80mm heavy CTA
20x50mm canister CTA

M122 CAR - AR1-M1
first generation auto-rifle
9x65mm CRC short

M121 CAP - AP1-M1
first generation auto-pistol
9x25mm CRC short

M122/33 CAR - AR1-M1-RLC (rimless cartridge)
first-second intermediate generation auto-rifle
9x55mm RLC long

M155 CAR - AR1-M2
second generation auto-rifle
7x55mm RLC long

M154 CAP - AP1-M2
second generation auto-pistol
7x25mm RLC short

M185 CAR - AR1-M3
third generation auto-rifle
7x55mm RLC long

M184 CAP - AP1-M3
third generation auto-pistol
7x25mm RLC short

M185/99 CAR - AR1-M3-CTC (composite telescoped cartridge)
third-fourth intermediate generation auto-rifle
7x50mm CTA long

M225 CAR - AR2-M1 (the pictured rifle - ICONIC!)
fourth generation auto-rifle
7x50mm CTA long

M224 CAP - AP2-M1
fourth generation auto-pistol
7x30mm CTA short

M275 CAR - AR2-M2
fifth generation auto-rifle
7x50mm CTA long

M274 CAP - AP2-M2
fifth generation auto-pistol
7x30mm CTA short

Firearm mechanisms;

Revolver short or long cartridges

Break-lock (usually multiple barrels, drillings)

Lever-action (usually short cartridges)

Pump-action (usually canister cartridges)

Bolt-action (rotary pull)
Bolt-action (straight pull)

Primitive-recoil (burp-guns, early automatic weapons)

Gas-cycle (intermediate era automatic weapons)

Hybrid-recoil (modern automatic weapons)

Propellants;

Gundite/Blastdust - smokey propellant - 1500s

Cellonite/Pyroxite - 1st gen smokeless propellant - 1800s

Impellite/Propellite - 2nd gen smokeless propellant - 1900s

Hexonite/Octonite - 3rd gen smokeless propellant, 2000s

Description
(Not only has all the gun-fluff been updated and consolidated, the AR2-M1/M225 has also been updated. The receiver extends further behind the pistol grip now, the magazine release button is now larger, a useless thingy beneath the barrel is now gone, oh and the fire selector is now a bit more ergonomic. yeah the calibre is changed too, back to 7mm after all this time, i've decided 8mm is probably a bit too heavy for some folks to use comfortably - NOW WITH MOAR DAKKA!!!!!)

AR2-M1 aka M225
Hybrid recoil operated
7x50mm CTA = 150gr(10g) = 2,800fps(850m/s)
20rd, 40rd, or 80rd magazine
Safe-single-salvo fire selector on grip
Sliding six position stock
Multipurpose lug and rail for bayonet, bipod, or grenade launcher
Rail for mounting optical gunsights
Integral post-and-ring iron-sights built into barrel assembly and reciever housing.
Quick-remove barrel assembly, comes in standard, short, heavy, and sniper variants.
Stock is removed to access butt-plate, which is unscrewed to remove recoil buffer and bolt carrier assemblies.
Grip is removed to access trigger assembly.

The M225 uses 7x50mm brass alloy or plasticeramic Cased Telescopic Ammunition, feeding magazines;
20rd box
40rd sickle
80rd drum

Five barrel variants are available;
Basic carbine
Precision-fire rifle
Sustained-fire rifle
Ultra-short carbine
Space-ops carbine

Underbarrel mount can attach;
Sword bayonet
Folding bipod/grip
Underslung 35mm grenade launcher (will not fit on ultrashort barrels)

Mount on top of barrel can fit a variety of optics;
Electro-optical gunsight - includes flash-light, ranging-beam 2x, 4x, and 8x zoom levels, low light amplification, electromagnetic, ultraviolet and infrared filters, as well as an integrated ballistics calculator.
Unpowered sniper scope
Close range reflex optics

By far the most prolific and iconic firearm of the Solar Confederacy today in 2088, the M225 is a compact modular weapon system firing the 7mm telescoped long cartridge from a disposable or reusable magazine. These weapons are highly customisable, with various barrel assemblies, sliding stocks, optic packages, and underslung accessories such as a sword bayonet, grenade launcher, folding bipod, or illuminator module. The weapon has a three position selector switch permitting semi or fully automatic fire.
The M225 is a product of interstellar age engineering, designed using a standardised template and fabricated from a wide range of materials. The weapon can be easily made with hand tools or autofabricators, and only the barrel and inner mechanisms require metallic elements for their construction, allowing the chassis and outer components to be made of various materials, from engineered hardwoods to plasticeramic composites to lightweight alloy stampings or forgings. The level of variation available to the M225 pattern of weapons is simply phenomenal, with numerous custom components built to standard essential specifications. These are all freely available on the commercial market for domestic use.
The M225 auto-rifle is a closed-bolt hybrid-recoil operated rifle with a telescoping bolt carrier group and buffer assembly.
The rifle fires 7x50mm CTA rounds, chemically propelled kinetic projectiles "nested" in a brass or plasticeramic cartridge.
The rifle is simple to manufacture, easy to maintain, and modular accessories make it extremely flexible.
The M225 has a telescopic bolt carrier group and buffer assembly. It uses a hybrid recoil operation, and has a non-reciprocating bolt handle which can be drawn back to allow cleaning of the mechanism without total disassembly, achieved by employing the bolt handle itself as a dust cover, which exposes part of the inner mechanism when drawn back.
Since the bolt handle doesn't cycle backwards with each shot, foreign matter cannot enter the internals, although the mechanical tolerances of the firearm have been engineered so that particulate matter will not obstruct the mechanisms of the weapon even if they enter.

A single shot 35x70mm grenade launcher can be mounted under the barrel. Grenades used can have airburst charges, shaped charges, solid slug or scatter shot, aerosol incendiary, chemical smoke, tangler gel or other varied payloads.
SpaceForce Marine M225s are issued with an underslung grenade launcher as standard, although some Marines prefer to mount a bipod and either a drum magazine or an elecro-optical scope. Sword bayonets are still issued to Marines, but heavier boarding cutlasses are preferred by tradition (and the fact that the lug below the barrel is usually occupied by a grenade launcher).
The underbarrel-lug used to mount everything from bayonets to grenade launchers has been a constant since the earliest Confed auto-rifles (even.though it was only used for bayonets and bipods at first).
Since the third generation (AR1-M3 or M185) the barrel assembly of the Confed rifle has had a rail built into it for the mounting of optics. Eye relief electro-optical gunsights are quite common, but so are conventional unpowered scopes.
Compared to rifles of previous generations, the M255 is quite short, and many older folks refer to them as carbines instead of rifles. This is a natural development with more and more infantry engagements taking place in confined terrain. The buttstock of the gun can actually be folded up when slid to its shortest position, permitting an easier grip by larger hands. The stock can be removed altogether, and an ultrashort barrel assembly can be fitted to turn the rifle into a kind of heavy pistol.
The number of M225s produced for SpaceForce inventories is a bit over a quarter of a billion, but the number of identical AR2-M1s produced for the commercial market is impossible to know with certainty, but believed to be in the multiple billions.
M225 is the military designation of the AR2-M1 Confed Auto Rifle, designed by the Consolidated Armouries, a co-operative project of Great Houses of Primus for the use of the Space Forces and the Civil Militias of the Peoples of the Solar Confederation. AR2-M1 is the commercial designation, given not just to those weapons sold to the civilian market by the Consolidated Armouries but also by the many hundreds of private manufacturers producing what is essentially an identical weapon.

The CAR and CAP series of arms (Confed Auto Rifle and Confed Auto Pistol) were first developed in the 1920s as part of a program to standardise the arms of the fledgling Space Forces.
The first generation of Confed Auto Rifles, M122 or AR1-M1, used rimmed cartridges, and early models were notorious for jamming. New rimless ammunition was introduced to the market in the 1930s, and a modified version of AR1-M1, the AR1-M1-RL (rimless) or M122/33, was designed to use the new ammunition until the development of the M155 / AR1-M2 in the 1950s.

An interim model weapon, the M122/33 or AR1-M1-RL was designed in 1933, and was essentially an M122 rechambered to fire the new 9x55mm rimless cartridge.
The older 9x65mm rimmed cartridge, while effective in manual repeating arms, had a tendency to jam up autoloading mechanisms - a fault many Confederates learned the hard way during the first decade of the war with Hercuba. The development of a new, more reliable rimless style cartridge and cleaner burning propellant was started in the late 1920s and completed in the early 1930s.
However, since no new rifle had been developed to go with the rimless cartridge, and the Great Houses were unwilling to fund a replacement for a rifle the Space Forces had procured scarcely a decade earlier, the decision was made that all SpaceForce ammunition purchases would be changed to orders of new rimless cartridges, and all Consolidated Arsenal M122 production lines would be modified for the M122/33, which is just an M122 with a bolt assembly designed for the new rimless cartridges. These weapons would eventually outnumber the M122, and served with distinction in the second half of the Hercuban Wars and until its replacement by the M155, with a new detatchable magazine.
M122 rifles are still popular items on the market for collectors and historians, but the scarcity of 9x65mm rimmed ammunition means that M122/33 and it's 9x55mm cartridges are more popular with actual shooters.

In the 1950s, the M155 or AR1-M2 was developed, the second generation Confed Auto Rifle. This featured removable box magazines as the standard, and marked the shift from the heavy 9mm calibre to a lighter and faster 7x55mm rimless cartridge, and would be produced by the hundreds of millions. The new 7mm calibre projectile would become the standard calibre of the Confederacy, resisting multiple manoeuvres to replace it with a smaller and lighter 5mm projectile, even after the development of the latest composite telescoped cartridge ammunition. The frame of the M155 was still mostly wood however, with a heavy alloy chassis housing the operating mechanism and a traditional style wooden stock grip.

The 1980s saw the third generation of autorifle adopted, the AR1-M3 or M185, with a revised chassis using a pistol grip and a fixed/folding two-piece stock as modules, a feature that would be carried over to the second "century" of rifles. Even so, the AR1-M3, or M185, would never outnumber the older AR1-M2 or the newer AR2-M1.
The AR1-M3-TC ("Telescoped Cartridge", also known as M185/99) was produced in 1999 as an interim service rifle before the M225 began development. Essentially it is an AR1-M3/M185 remodeled to use the new 7x50mm cased telescopic ammunition instead of the older 7x55mm rimless bottlenecked cartridges.
These interim rifles had some reliability problems, although they served the Space Forces well until the 2020s. During the Xonchi invasion, these rifles continued to see service with colonial militias and guerillas in occupied territory. Today the rifle is rarely used in combat, as the far more reliable AR2-M1/M225 has replaced it throughout the Confederacy.
It is ironic to some that almost a century earlier the first autorifles to enter service with the Space Forces underwent a similar redesign to use new ammunition, although this was due more to the unreliability of those rifles and their original rimmed cartridges than a desire to simplify the logistics and expedite the adoption of new generation of munitions.

The AR2-M1 or M225 (pictured above) was adopted in 2025, and used a brand new simplified chassis with a sliding buttstock, fixed pistol grip, and the new telescoped plasticeramic ammunition. These rifles were produced in more numbers than any other in history - there are enough AR2-M1 rifles to arm every military age male on every world in the Confederacy.
The AR2-M2 would be introduced later in the 2070s, and includes a revised chassis with even more modularity than the last rifle, allowing the magazine feed to be rotated to the top of the reciever, or even behind the 8trigger and pistol grip (with the aid of a different chassis and two spare parts). The AR2-M2 would never outnumber the AR2-M1, but it would be a highly desirable item and a mainstay of elite formations.

The AR2-M1, or M225 CAR, was the standard rifle adopted just before the Xonchi war began.
These were the first auto-rifles chambered to fire the 3rd generation cased munition, a 7x50mm composite case telescoped ammunition, and also the first rifles to be designed around an in-line stock with a telescoping bolt and buffer assembly with non-reciprocating charging-handle and dust-cover/cleaning access directly above the grip8.
The AR2-M1 has been partially replaced by the AR2-M2 (M275), but it is still a very common sight throughout all the worlds of the Confederacy and the single most mass produced firearm in Confederate history.
The previous generations AR1-M3 (M185) and AR1-M2 (M155) rifles can still be found, but these are no longer used by any professional military organisations. Brass rimmed and rimless cartridges with first and second generation propellants are also harder to come by now that polyceramic/duraplastic composite telescoped cartridges with hexonite and octonite propellants that are the standard.
The AP2-M1, or M224 CAP, fires an 7x30mm telescoped short cartridge, and enjoys similar popularity to its larger brother.
The Colonial Armament Project of the 2030s in the aftermath of the Xonchi Invasion saw many millions of rifles and pistols produced, enough to arm every person in the colonies, if they all desired.
The Confederacy has a liberal attitude toward civilian armament, and the Confederate Charter of Principles actually declares that the right of individuals to keep and bear arms is sacred and inviolable. Very few states in the Confederacy regulate personal armaments and the ones that do are generally rich insulated enclaves, neo-luddite primitivists, or authoritarian "independent" collectivist states.

The AR2-M1, as shown in the picture, is a weapon optimised for compactness. It has a sliding stock with a fold-up butt, and can be wielded with one hand if necessary. If soldiers of the 1900s saw the M225, they would call it a carbine rather than a rifle.
These weapons are favoured not just by the SpaceForce people they were made for but also with hunters, sporters, civil militia, and all manner of armed organisations. In a very true sense it is a "volksgewehr" - a rifle for the people, easy to make, easy to maintain, and easy to use.

SpaceForce Marine Corps AR2-M1s are generally issued with an underslung 35mm grenade launcher, capable of firing airburst charge or shaped charge munitions. These grenade launchers aren't often seen outside the SpaceForce Marines, although modification kits can be found on the open market allowing them to be fitted onto baseline AR2-M1s.

8
Cartridges

CRC - classic rimmed cartridge - adopted 1840s

RLC - rimless cartridge - adopted 1930s

CTA - composite - telescoped ammunition - adopted 2020s

Measurements for CRC and RLC are calibre by cartridge length, bullet length is usually 20-40mm with at least 10mm concealed by the cartridge, cartridge diameter is typically calibre+4mm

6x35mm cadet CRC
9x65mm long CRC
9x25mm short CRC
12x65mm long CRC
12x25mm short CRC
15x125mm heavy CRC
18x65mm canister CRC

5x35mm micro RLC
7x55mm long RLC
7x25mm short RLC
9x55mm long RLC
9x25mm short RLC
15x120mm heavy RLC
20x60mm canister RLC

Measurement of CTA is bullet diameter by overall cartridge length (projectile included) cartridge diameter is calibre+3mm and projectile length typically half of cartridge length

5x40mm micro CTA
7x50mm long CTA
7x30mm short CTA
9x50mm long CTA
9x30mm short CTA
15x80mm heavy CTA
20x50mm canister CTA

M122 CAR - AR1-M1
first generation auto-rifle
9x65mm CRC short

M121 CAP - AP1-M1
first generation auto-pistol
9x25mm CRC short

M122/33 CAR - AR1-M1-RLC (rimless cartridge)
first-second intermediate generation auto-rifle
9x55mm RLC long

M155 CAR - AR1-M2
second generation auto-rifle
7x55mm RLC long

M154 CAP - AP1-M2
second generation auto-pistol
7x25mm RLC short

M185 CAR - AR1-M3
third generation auto-rifle
7x55mm RLC long

M184 CAP - AP1-M3
third generation auto-pistol
7x25mm RLC short

M185/99 CAR - AR1-M3-CTC (composite telescoped cartridge)
third-fourth intermediate generation auto-rifle
7x50mm CTA long

M225 CAR - AR2-M1 (the pictured rifle - ICONIC!)
fourth generation auto-rifle
7x50mm CTA long

M224 CAP - AP2-M1
fourth generation auto-pistol
7x30mm CTA short

M275 CAR - AR2-M2
fifth generation auto-rifle
7x50mm CTA long

M274 CAP - AP2-M2
fifth generation auto-pistol
7x30mm CTA short

Firearm mechanisms;

Revolver short or long cartridges

Break-lock (usually multiple barrels, drillings)

Lever-action (usually short cartridges)

Pump-action (usually canister cartridges)

Bolt-action (rotary pull)
Bolt-action (straight pull)

Primitive-recoil (burp-guns, early automatic weapons)

Gas-cycle (intermediate era automatic weapons)

Hybrid-recoil (modern automatic weapons)

Propellants;

Gundite/Blastdust - smokey propellant - 1500s

Cellonite/Pyroxite - 1st gen smokeless propellant - 1800s

Impellite/Propellite - 2nd gen smokeless propellant - 1900s

Hexonite/Octonite - 3rd gen smokeless propellant, 2000s