.223 vs 5.56?

[jmoore]

But that was the reloader's fault. I still maintain no problem.

Noted!

...it was the owner's fault for getting too aggresssive with his loads.

Nor was he shooting 5,56 even though the rifle had some sort of wretched M16 magazine conversion which reduced the thickness of the feed area behind the lower locking lug. The point being that bolt handles on modern Remingtons aren't as stout as the old timey stuff.

langss was the one with the cautionary example which seems not out of the question.

[vintage hunter]

I had a similar experience to the one JM describes in post 19. Mine involved a Rem. 700 Varmint in 6mm Remington and it was caused by defective factory ammo but I digress.
I also have a Howa 1500 bolt gun and 99% of the ammo I shoot in it is surplus M193 ball. I came into a 5 gallon bucket of mixed(foreign and domestic manufacture) 5.56 M193 ammo at a gun years ago and separated according to headstamp, it's about gone now but I never once had any kind of problems related to the use of 5.56 ammo in a .223 chamber.

[DaveN]

But that was the reloader's fault. I still maintain no problem.

I will after reading all this experience go with better safe then sorry.
Rifles marked .223 get .223. Rifles marked 5.56 get 5.56 and or .223. Rifles marked 5.56/.223 I'll use either or at this rate what I can get my hands on.
But in the case of life and death....whatever I can chamber (5.56 or .223).
Thanks again for making it interesting as usual.

[DaveN]

Update: finally found a outdoor range (its always been there) and my son and I took our AR's , my Olympic Arms PCR-01 and his brand new Sig CM-400 and got some good quality time with our rifles. We shot both .223 and 5.56 as the preloaded mags I had were mixed and it all felt the same to us. Both AR's are 5.56 rated.
Fun was had by all. The AR is such a pleasure to shoot, so much so I bought another Olympic Arms still staying with the low budget plinker with carry handle and though these are 12 years apart I find them to be almost identical. And the price was identical too $690 ish.

[enfield303t]

I have read so many posts on various sites about the difference in .223 and 5.56 and to be honest there are so many opinions I can't count. I use .223 in my Savage FCP10 and my son shoots it in his Norinco CQ. Now I just purchased a case of what is Norinco .223 Yellow Box that we shoot in a VZ58 and the Norinco and there's a great difference in that ammo. We also use Federal .223 in both guns.

We have not had any extraction problems with any ammo in any gun and I think the Norinco yellow box is left over from a contract the Chinese had.

We did test a few different with a chronograph and the yellow box Norinco .223 is much "hotter" than any other we have used. We tried it in the Savage 10 and I won't do that again, it was IIRC a couple of hundred fps faster than the Federal and you could physically tell that when you shot it.

We bought it to use in the Norinco as that gun eats ammo and we wanted to save the better quality ammo for the Savage. The Norinco has a 10.5" barrel, the VZ a 18.5" and the Savage a 26" barrel.

One thing is there have been reports that the yellow box has a "harder" primer and some bolt guns don't like it.

Bottom line is I wouldn't use the Norinco yellow box in a quality bolt gun, just a little on the high side for load in my humble opinion. I don't think it really is .223 but possibly 5.56 no matter what is written on the box.

[DaveN]

Thanks to all for your great post.