Dumb question on 5.56

Catshooter pretty much nailed it.

There are a lot of old wives tales floating around but there is one absolutely undeniable truth;
There are hundreds of millions of rounds shot interchangeably every year and you never hear of any rifle being damaged.

Jack
 
Savage250, I think you missed a big point here. The .223 actually, like almost all high velocity centerfire .22 rounds, fires a .224 diameter bullet. That is true of the .222 Rem, the .223, 5.56mm, .222 Rem Mag, 22-250, .220 Swift etc. The .223 is just a factory name but as I said, fires .224" bullets.

So, as the posters said, find yourself a gun you like from a good manufacturer and enjoy it, it will digest whatever quality ammunition you buy or build for it. Don
 
Intresting thread here. I purchased a Rem 600 in Taiwan 1966 to shoot all the free ammo I could get from the guys up a Linko Air Station. I put thousands of rounds of millitary ammo through it, still have a few bandoleers of the stuff around. It took 40 yrs to finnaly fry the barrel, there were countless thousands of handloads throught the thing also, never noticed any difference in the way it shot or the brass. I'm still loading some of that old brass for my savage 223's.

AWS
 

While the 5.56 mm and .223 cartridges are very similar, they are not identical. Military cases are made from thicker brass than commercial cases, which reduces the powder capacity (an important consideration for handloaders).

This is just plain BS that's been posted all over the internet, it's not true to the .223 case, it is true with .308 military cases.

Tom
 
Cat Tracker

After reading the link that you provided, I wonder if my Rem 600 might have had a milspec chamber as it was never catalogged in 223 and were sold almost exclusively to law enforcement. Mine was purchased throught the embassy gun shop.

AWS
 
Quote:
Quote:
I shoot 5.56 rounds thru both my Mini 14's without a hiccup.



So do I. Ruger was asked once about military ammo. They laughed at the concept that it would cause any damage to their rifles.

And where in the case you measure pressure isn't a factor, all parts of the case will experience the same pressure.



Stamped on the reciever of my mini 14 bought in 1997 is ".223/5.56mm"

The mini 14 has always been chambered for the hotter 5.56mm nato ammo because Bill Ruger thought he was going to get a military contract with the AC556. He eventually did with some nations such as Turkey.

I called Remington to see if I could shoot some 5.56mm in a .223 LTR(light tactical rifle marketed to law enforcment) they responded in the negative. The fellow I talked to said absolutely not, that it would be unsafe and that if I did try it, it would void the warranty and they could not accept any liability as to what may occur since it's clearly rated a .223 and not 5.56mm.

So thats big green's stance on the issue.
 
you can only shoot .223 in a barrel marked .223 but you

can

shoot .223/5.56 out of a barrel marked 5.56.

My Oly K16 is marked 5.56, and I shoot both rounds without a problem.
 
All I know is this, " I have shot 100's of thousands of these rounds back and forth in my life and have never experience a problem!" Don't think you will ever see a difference unless you run into some sort of bad load problem that was not caught.

My opinion is the mfg'ers don't want you to shoot the 5.56 ammo in their rifles because they know folks will shoot anything loaded from anywhere, junk or hot in rifles just cause it is cheap. It does not matter if it will damage, blow up, jam, screw up chambers, or whatever. Believe they use these tales to their advantage. Kinda like the barrel break in methods they recommend. They know 99% of all shooters are not gonna follow those goofy recommendations they set up. So if your rifle does not shoot well they can blame it on the shooter because they did not follow the proper break in process.
 
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