ARs used to be preferred by a minority when I moved to the US 12 years ago, and SKS, AK and other East Bloc semiautos were cheap hunting guns for rural people who could not afford to buy more sophisticated hunting guns. At the time, AKs and SKSs sold for less than $ 100 at Fleet Farm in rural Wisconsin. Everything changed after Newtown when the Dems threatened to ban all semiautos, and then forced ammo shortages with huge RFQs that swallowed up all ammo manufactured in the country. ARs suddenly became an investment and the market exploded.

Simultaneously, something happened for which the AR is an ideal tool - the explosion of pig populations in many parts of the US. States like Texas where I now live, even have counties offering money for every pig that a hunter / culler kills, and there are state contests with prizes for whoever kills the most number of pigs in a year. If you have a herd of feral pigs to kill, however good you might be with a bolt action rifle, even a Lee Enfield, you're not going to be as fast as someone with an AR. And Texas alone needs to kill 14 million feral pigs a year just to keep numbers in check. We don't do driven game shoots here, and there is a lot of feral game that needs to be shot. There isn't much better than an AR for that. You get chamberings like 450 Bushmaster and 458 SOCOM which would be ideal to hammer pigs at short ranges. You don't get these in Tavors, AUGs etc., and the bigger AK based rifles in 7x54R, 30-06 and 8x57 are too long and heavy in comparison with the handy little ARs.

Yes, ARs are not for everyone or for every hunting situation, but there are specific situations where they work better than all other rifle types.

Good hunting!