.223 Remington vs. 5.56 NATO: What You Don’t Know Could Hurt You

Human Events ^ | 02/15/2011 | Richard Johnson

[labette]

" .308 there's no substitute..."

Believe it or not, a reverse condition exists with the beloved .308.

By reverse, I mean an increased failure risk in some rifles to use civilian .308 in a NATO spec 7.62X51mm chamber. Some of the hundred plus year old pre 1898 mausers converted to 7.62X51mm come to mind.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Q. Can you shoot 5.56 mm ammo in Ruger Mini 14?

A. Yes you can, the Mini 14 has always had a 5.56x45 chamber.

The mini14 receiver is marked ".223 CAL" not ".223 rem."

[Dick Bachert]

If you reload your own ammo and are careful to keep the charges out of the max muzzle velocity range and keep the overall length of the finished cartridge at the .223 Remington spec., using once fired 5.56 brass should not pose a problem.
What the article tells us is that using FACTORY loaded NATO 5.56 in a weapon — like the Mini-14 — chambered for .223 can cause a problem.

[phockthis]

sfl

[Clint N. Suhks]

OT

Met an Army Sniper in between tours who sold me a Glock working at the local gun shop this weekend. He said they use .308 bolt and M-16 exclusively unless they need to shoot through a car or cinder block then they use 50mm. I asked why they don’t use a .300 win mag and he said the Army is converting over to them soon. FWIW

[ExtremeUnction]

No worries. You can safely fire the 5.56 round in the mini 14.

You're correct. The manual that came with my mini-14 clearly spelled that out.

[BushMeister]

Tons of info for all AR-15 owners:

AR-15

[Chode]

yeah, could mean trouble...

[50cal Smokepole]

The Stag is 5.56. The custom varmint upper is also 5.56. The “leade” mentioned in the article is the key. The fine folks over at Sinclair International stressed that I pay attention to COAL (cartridge overall length). The Barnes Varmint Grenades I use like a little space before the rifling.

[Cobra64]

I did my homework on this before I bought my AR15 in 5.56.

To the novice, the two rounds look identical.

[Cobra64]

I chose 5.56 because I can safely shoot the .223.

Me too.

[HP8753]

He said they use .308 bolt and M-16 exclusively unless they need to shoot through a car or cinder block then they use 50mm

50 MM, Holy super bore Batman,That'll knock your fillings loose. ;-)

[org.whodat]

LOL, when you start worrying about the thickness of the copper/brass you have a problem but it has nothing to do with the firearm. LOL

[Chode]

damn, i'd thought they'd go for the .338

[JayVee]

I would not worry much about the Mauser 98’s. Now the Spanish Mauser 95’s are another issue. Some were converted to a homegrown round dimensionally identical to the 7.62x51. With only two locking lugs and the inferior Spanish steel, there is a very serious problem.

[Clint N. Suhks]

Surprising, not really, they use the 50 very seldomly, so he said, because it weighs 28 pounds.

[musicman]

BFLR

[HP8753]

I'm assuming you meant the 50 cal BMG. A 50 MM would have close to a 2" bore and would most likely tear the shoulder off anyone trying to shoulder fire such a gun.

The Bradley Fighting vehicle has a 25 mm gun.

I was just poking fun at your typo.

[Clint N. Suhks]

When he said .300 win mag, I thought he’d say the Weatherby .300 mag which IIRC has a higher velocity and less drop according to my recipe book.

Not familiar with the .338 though...

[Clint N. Suhks]

LOL!

Yeah, metric vs imperial conversions weren’t taught very well at my Publik Skrool...