Let's call them what they are:

[benEzra]

35. If you are talking about cyclic rate, you're not talking about an AR.

An AR is physically incapable of firing at the cyclic rate of an M16, due to the fact that all civilian guns (like AR's) have to deal with trigger reset. If you are talking cyclic rate, you are thinking of a Title 2 restricted military/government M16, and even then that's only the instantaneous rate, not the actual rate of fire.

If you are talking about the cycle time of a semiauto, an M1 is only slightly slower, and only because the bolt has to travel further back to clear those big high-powered rounds. If you scale down the M1 Garand action to fit the little .223 cartridge, then you have a Ruger Mini-14, a wooden-stocked non-"assault-weapon" that fires at exactly the same (civilian) rate as the AR-15, and has the same range of magazine capacities.