223 vs 5.56

[jballs918]

ok guys i tried this in a different forum, maybe i will get some real answers from you all. i have a friend giving me 5k 5.56 shells for reloading. now my question is i want to use this in a 223rem bolt action. not sure most likely a new savage. but my answer is if i resize these shells and run with recommanded powder charges are there going to be any issues with this. now if there is i will completely scrape this project. so guys i come to you for the info on this and also these will be a jboolit gun. i know the is evil but for 223 it looks like a better option for me right now.

[LGS]

I have used a lot of military brass in my AR15. I would reduce the starting load at least 15% due to military brass has a thicker wall then commercial brass. It also may be longer so check the OAL of the case. Check for case separation, some brass has been fire in open bolt machine guns and this can cause an excessive stretch in the case. This wont be a problem if your friend fired all the brass through his rifle. You will have to remove the primer crimp after decapping. This takes a simple tool. Military brass takes some time to prepare for the first loadings but it is so cheap plus you are getting free, the savings can be great. I hope this helps you.

[BruceB]

Facing much the same questiion when I recently bought an Interarms Mini Mauser bolt-action, I checked my rather-considerable supply of .223/5.56 brass.

I weighed samples with four or five different commercial headstamps, and LC military brass dated over several decades. The total difference in weight from heaviest to lightest with ALL cases included, military and commercial, was only about a grain or two...around 95 grains' weight for EVERYTHING. Since that time, I've come into some 04- and 05-dated LC cases, and they fall within the previous weight spread and total weight as well.

I still sort cases by headstamp, but that's mostly because they look better that way, in the box! There may be some desirable benefits from sorting, but the case capacity issue is not a factor in MY loads. A given load in military cases runs exactly the same as the same load in commercial brass.

The same condition does NOT necessarily apply to other military brass and calibers, and the civilian counterpart. It's essential to check our own cases against each other, and conduct the loading appropriately depending on our findings.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I have been dancing around with ex mil brass for awhile. I was at the Small Arms Factory range one day and the factory manager came out to see us (and bought some toys out to test (Steyers and SAWs). When we had finished shooting there was brass everywhere. I said what do you do with the brass? He said 'oh we clean it up and send it off to scrap everynow and then. Help yourself if you want any.

I got a fair bit that day, and as he didn't specify any time constraints, I kept helping myself for a couple of years. Everyone who mentions 223s gets a bag of brass off me and I still haven't made a dent in it.

Its a lot of screwing around getting it right though.

I fancy buying one of those Dillon crimp removers. Anybody used one? They are as dear as poison though. I could probably pay for it by preparing some brass and selling it. It is handy when spotlighting to just let the cases fly and concentrate on the shooting.

The smallest group I have ever shot was with a friend's Howa heavy Bbl and these cases. One small ragged hole, so they work ok.

Mick.

[garandsrus]

Jballs918,

Here is a link to an excellent article about .223 and 5.56. It will probably cover more quetsions than you could even think to ask: http://www.ammo-oracle.com/

John

[katie]

I have been shooting military ammo in my various 223 rifles and have never encountered any problem, except accurcy. Nor have I ever seen or heard of any one having a problem. just hearsay that people keep repeating that have no basis at all. so if anyone has any actual experiance with a problem then please post it with actual facts..I don't beleive that ammo and rifle makers would give us ammo that could be loaded and shot in any rifle chambered as such without a warning...JMO.. Katie

[dk17hmr]

My dad and I have been using 5.56 in our 223s for a long time. Brass that is, I use Lake City brass, mostly because I bought 1000 emptys for $30. 5.56 loaded ammo has more pressure so it is not advised to be run through a 223 but for reloads it is fine, last alot long also at least for me it has.

[StarMetal]

The article was fun to read, but full of alot of mistruths. One for example about Remington released a cartridge designed by G. A. Gustafson is not correct. The real story is Stoner started with the 222 Remington and not that it wasn't poweful enough, it's pressures were way too high. So....Eugene Stoner designed the "222 Special" and had Remington make it for the test rifles. The proliferation of names for the new .222 offshoots was causing some conclusion, particulary between the ".222 Special (Stoners creation) and the ".222 Magnum" (Remington's bird). Therefore, in 1959, Remington announced that henceforth STONER'S ".222 Special" cartridge would be known as the ".223 REMINGTON".

So because the website and articles had a profession air to them, don't believe everything they said.

Eugene Stoner had been beaten down and tried to be made a fool of in his whole firearm career and not until his later and final years was he realized as good if not better firearms genius as John M. Browning....this oracle website I see is still promoting the untruth myths.

Also don't believe that a .224 bullet spun from a 1:7 twist doesn't have more terminal damage on flesh that slower twists, I've proved this to myself and don't buy into that over stablization cannot be accurate.

They did have factual good stuff on that site.

Joe

[Scrounger]

My dad and I have been using 5.56 in our 223s for a long time. Brass that is, I use Lake City brass, mostly because I bought 1000 emptys for $30. 5.56 loaded ammo has more pressure so it is not advised to be run through a 223 but for reloads it is fine, last alot long also at least for me it has.

I think you'll find that the military ammo is loaded to less pressure than commercial, not more. True of all the military rounds that have been commercialized: .308, .30-06.

[StarMetal]

Well Art, the Oracle website disputes that, here's what it said:

Dimensionally, 5.56 and .223 ammo are identical, though military 5.56 ammo is typically loaded to higher pressures and velocities than commercial ammo and may, in guns with extremely tight "match" .223 chambers, be unsafe to fire.

No Art,I'm not arguing with you, just pointing out what they said. I myself found discrepansies that I've already duly noted in a previous post.

Little more on that Gustafson round. He developed a shortened 222 case to fire a 40 some grain .224 bullet out of a modified M2 carbine. Hardly the round that became the .223

Joe

[jballs918]

wells guys i guess i opened up a small can of worms on this one. well let me throw in my 2 cents on what i think about this whole thing from reading alot. if i resize them and go with a 15 percent reduction how would that work. i was looking at running 20 grains of imr4198. i use that in another rifle. so what would be 17 grains of powder how does that sound

[StarMetal]

jballs,

What bullet are you going to be using? For my jacketed loads using 55 to 68 gr bullets I like W748 and Hodgdon's H335 or surplus 844. For my varmint loads I use a 53 gr Hp and Imr & Hodgedons 4895. I take the loads out of the manuals for the brand bullet I use. I don't shoot the top end load so I don't worry about reducing for thicker military cases, which in my opinion in the 5.56/223 there isn't hardly any difference. The biggest difference I've seen in military cases are in the 30-06, those are definately alot thicker then commercial cases.

Joe

[jballs918]

star,

i was going to use a winchester 55 grain fmj. i can get these in bulk pretty cheap. about 50 bucks a 1000. so i was thinkinh running with the imr4198 at 20 grains becuase the book said that 19 was lowest. i figure this would give me a good place to start. please also remember that all the cases will be full resize for the first load. just wondering if im on the right track

[StarMetal]

jballs,

That's fine, but the original military was, for example of one surplus powder, surplus 844 about 25 grs. Like any surplus powder, or even different lot of new commercial powder, you should start low and work up. Like I said before W748 and H335 basically the same load. Fills the case up pretty much too. I have a HBAR Colt AR15 that I shoot those loads and others out of and it's been a pretty good performer and does have the 1:7 twist. My other 223 is a Win Mod 70 heavy barrel varminter and that's the one I shoot the 53 Hp and 4895 out of . You should pick up some of that surplus 844, even though you use less grains of 4198, the cheapness of the surplus will well make up for it.

Joe

[jballs918]

ok i will look into the wc844 i got to find some. thanks for all the info

[StarMetal]

jball,

You mentioned that you are going to use those 55 Win FMJ's. Those have a cannelure, so if you are going to crimp them, make very very very very very sure that all the cases are trimmed to the exact same length, because if they aren't and you get one too long it will buckle the shoulder on a 223 case very easily. This isn't as critical with the Lee factory crimper.

A friend and I were loading that same bullet and we mainly intended the ammo for the military type semi-autos out there. Well this one fellow bought a few thousand rounds and he was shooting it out of a Remington heavy barrel either match or varmint rifle. He brought the ammo back wanting his money back, which we gladly gave him. He was complaing he could only get 1/2 inch groups with it at 100 yards. Apparently a rifle like he had would cut small holes with proper match bullets and careful loads. Later I recited this same story talking to a Sierra bullet representative. He said "Darn, that's dang good accuracy for surplus Vietnam bullets". I said I knew that, but the fellow thought the stuff should have been match grade ammo we guess. The Sierra said that it shot very well for what it was initially intended for and asked what are load was and what reloading equipment we used to assemble it.

Joe

[9.3X62AL]

I can't see much difference performance-wise between mil-spec 5.56 and commercial ammo. This comes from firing both M-193 and M-855 rounds extensively in both M-16A1 and Ruger Mini-14 rifles, and chronographing results. In particular, the differences between commercial 55 grain FMJ and the M-193 was less than 50 FPS in the same rifle, and stayed that way between the 8 rifles used during our load tests. In other words, that velocity variance was the same size as the shot-to-shot variance in velocity. Not a huge sample (3 Rugers and 5 M-16's), but I think it illustrates the idea.

I read somewhere years ago--I think in the American Rifleman, possibly in a couple articles by C.E. Harris covering the (at that time) upsurge in use of the AR-15/M-16 series rifles in National Match competition--that military CHAMBERING and THROATING in the 5.56 x 45 differed slightly from that of the commercial 223 Remington reamer. Maybe that's so, I'm unsure myself. It's a little counter-intuitive to think that a self-loading gas op system could take more pressure than a bolt rifle, but there it is there.

I share Joe's fondness for WW-748 as a fuel for this caliber. C.E. Harris did mention in the series of articles I speak of that W-W primers contain an aluminum oxide fuel element that is tailored to the use of W-W ball powders, and I've used the WSR primer with 748 in 223 ever since. I recently bought a jug of WC-844, and will be using it for the 223, the 30-30 J-words, and 8 x 57 J-words. If I completely lose my mind and get a M1A to use with my magazines already gathered for that rifle (izzat NUTS, or what?), the WC-844 could find use there as well. WC-846 is the spec powder for the 7.62 x 51, but I think it will be close enough.

After having 4 bolt rifles in 223 that all shot VERY well, I am bound to say that the 55 grain cannelured M-193-style bullets did not do the best work in any of those rifles. That bullet's group sizes usually ran about twice the radial dispersion of better bullets, i.e., those with closed bases. If all you're doing is blasting beer cans, the 55 FMJ's are fine for bulk shooting--but if you REALLY want to see what a good bolt rifle in 223 can do, spend a bit more for better bullets. Just the change to W-W 55 grain CXP soft-points from the M-193 ammo in my agency's patrol rifles caused group sizes to shrink 30%-50%, immediately. That was true of old Colt M-16A1's with 1-14" twist, newer Colts with the 1:7" pitch, and Bushmasters with 1:9". Just like with our poured ones, quality and consistency matters.

[jballs918]

the twist was 1 in 9 on both rifles inm looking at, im looking at a savage 10fp and a savage 12v. not sure on wihch yet

[Blueknight2520]

When we had finished shooting there was brass everywhere. I said what do you do with the brass? He said 'oh we clean it up and send it off to scrap everynow and then. Help yourself if you want any.

I got a fair bit that day, and as he didn't specify any time constraints, I kept helping myself for a couple of years. Everyone who mentions 223s gets a bag of brass off me and I still haven't made a dent in it.

Its a lot of screwing around getting it right though.

I fancy buying one of those Dillon crimp removers. Anybody used one? They are as dear as poison though. I could probably pay for it by preparing some brass and selling it. It is handy when spotlighting to just let the cases fly and concentrate on the shooting.


The smallest group I have ever shot was with a friend's Howa heavy Bbl and these cases. One small ragged hole, so they work ok.

Mick.

I have a dillon crimp remover. Your right the price is hefty. They defently work. I have mine mounted to a piece of ply wood with some felt on the bottom. This allows m w to clamp it to the right edge a work top with put scratching it.

The handle needs to be moved just past horizontal to swedge the primer pocket properly. The only down side to the Dillon is the mandrels that come with it are small large and extra large. In 22 and 45acp they wotrk perfectly but in between its sort of sloppy as far as sporting the inside of cartridge (the web/head while swedging. But I fixed that by turning a custom mandrel.( if you get one and need a special size yell and ill see if I can make one for you. This does not hinder swedging , only speed on odd size cases.

Something to consider is the primer pocket swesger that C&H makers (or use to) I works just as well although maybe not quite as fancy and not quite as easy , lt needs a slight bit more dexterity to use as fast as the Dillon and it required a reloading press that accepts standard shell holders and standard type dies.

BK

[Phil]

I've used the RCBS primer pocket crimp remover for years with complete satisfaction.

Cheers,

Phil

[imashooter2]

I also use the RCBS swager and like it. I'm not doing 1,000 pieces at a time though. If I was, I would pay Dillon's price.

BTW, for anyone interested... 5.56 Military ammo in a .223 Remington barrel is one of the unsafe combinations listed by SAAMI:

http://saami.org/Unsafe_Combinations.cfm

[Explorer1]

"I've proved this to myself and don't buy into that over stablization cannot be accurate."
For a practical point of view to the typical user, this is a valid statement. But benchrest shooters are using the slowest possible twist for the bullet weight/velocity/distance combination to acheive the highest extremes of accurracy for that combination.
So, overstablization is not the most accurate but it sure as the heck is much more practical in the real world where shooting happens at multiple unknown distances with numberous bullet weights.