shhhh! handloading?

Sikamick

Welcome on Board Tac, no pun meant. Great to see on this site.


Sikamick

murph226

Quick question, didnt see a point in starting another thread on it!

can 5.56 brass be used when reloading for a .223?

bunny shooter

Might not be a good idea especially if it was fired in a s/a military type firearm first ;)

murph226

thanks Bunny, say the brass is new so?

Grizzly 45

If you have resizeing dies that wil resize it to .223 dimensions and dont mind trimming the case neck to the tolerances of .223.Yeah.Why not just get a load of .223 brass in the first place?

tac foley

In aswer to the question - 'Can 5.56 brass be used to reload .223' the answer is a categorical no.

Unless the person carrying out the reloading is prepared to do a lot of work, that is.

The reasons are -

1. Military 5.56x45 cases are Berdan primed, not Boxer primed. This means that they have to be decapped [ie. have the old primer removed] either hydraulically or by the use of a tool that looks like a miniature can-opener. This is, quite frankly, a RPITA in view of the cheapity of .223 cases for reloading, so nobody I've ever met bothers.

2. Military brass is substantially thicker in material mass, particularly around the base of the case inside, because it is designed to be used from a rapid-firing, and in some cases, positively LUNATICALLY rapid-firing machine gun. The M249SAW fires at around 800rpm, but the GE Minigun at rates of up to 4000 rpm.

3. This means that because the internal volume of the case has been reduced, so the amount of propellant must also be balanced so as to avoid excessively high pressures from being generated. Typically, charges are reduced by as much as 10% or so - and gradually worked up VERY gingerly, observing sighns of excessive pressure with every 1/10th gr increment. Again, this is a PITA precaution that does not normally occur when loading regular .223 brass - for which ALL the loading data has been determined already.

So we don't bother.

A couple of other points that might be useful to know -

1. MOST Remington 700-series actions will shoot 5.65x45NATO - not well, but adequately. They have a generous throat and will accomodate the rather iffy dimensions of the many makes of military brass.

2. I've never encountered a Tikka or SAKO that would actually chamber the military stuff, but then I've only encountered about thirty or so - perhaps we all just got unlucky. [As ever, YOUR experience might be different, but I would NOT shoot milsurp 5.45x45 in a SAKO.]

HOWEVER - please read this before deciding to shoot the milsurp 5.56x45 in YOUR expensive pride and joy -

The following notice from SAAMI back in 1979 -[The Society of American Armament Manufacturers' Industries - the US gun and ammunition-makers standard-setters like DIN and ISO]
CAUTION!

Shooters should be aware that 5.56x45 NATO military chambers and throats differ from .223 Remington Sporting rifle dimensional measurements. Therefore notice is given that firing 5.56x45 military ball ammunition in a firearm chambered for .223 Remington MAY result in damagingly high chamber pressures being encountered. This can be detected by observing the following signs -

1. Difficulty in opening the bolt after firing.

2. Flattening or cratering of the primer - and in extreme cases, blown out primers.

3. Embossing of the cartridge case head with bolt face featues, including pressure flow of the case material into the ejector cut-out.

Any and all of these signs is/are indications of excessive and potentially dangerous over-pressure and should NOT be ignored.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse restoration Fund

Tackleberrywho

Well said TF

It is a common misguided belief that some Military stuff is better.

The .223 is designed for accuracy.

The 5.56 is designed for getting rounds down range towards the target.

Some thing like 250,000 rounds used in iraq for every confirmed hit.

I was out today with my .223 and got 3/3 bunnies

bazza888

250000 rounds for every hit is probably more to do with it being a battle type situation,firing fast semi auto or full auto to keep enemy heads down and such,heart pumping from adrenaline and breathing hard,if the rabbits were firing back at you would you have got 3 out of 3?i get what u mean tough the 5.56 hardly going to be as well put together as a box of 20 .223 for 20 odd euro!i read the 223 can be put in 556 rifle ok but 556 in 223 rifle can damage it think it was wikipedia or somewhere so that info could be wrong.

Tackleberrywho

bazza888 wrote: »

250000 rounds for every hit is probably more to do with it being a battle type situation,firing fast semi auto or full auto to keep enemy heads down and such,heart pumping from adrenaline and breathing hard,if the rabbits were firing back at you would you have got 3 out of 3?i get what u mean tough the 5.56 hardly going to be as well put together as a box of 20 .223 for 20 odd euro!i read the 223 can be put in 556 rifle ok but 556 in 233 rifle can damage it think it was wikipedia or somewhere so that info could be wrong.

Why would you want to.

Military stuff is made cheap and tough.

Civie is made weaker but more accurate.

No contest really!
Same with rifles, you would not crawl through a river with a shiny new rifle!

bazza888

i wouldnt want to but im sure if people could get dirt cheap bulk 556 they would prob try it,in us im sure they have, or at least wonder if it would work.misread your post also tac tought you were saying 556 being inaccurate was cause for 250000 rounds per hit!my bad!

Grizzly 45

From Bob Cashners book
Poor mans scout rifle [Paladin Press]

The infantryman makes noise with his individual weapon and hoses down the countryside in a wasteful and highly inaccurate way while calling for military support weapons to inflict casualities on the enemy.A rifleman uses somthing like a scout rifle,sniperweapon,or battle rifle;the infantryman uses an assault rifle.
As evidence to this ,I should point out that artillery fire is the number one cause of battle casualities.During the Vietnam war,American soilders and marines armed with M16 rifles expended a staggering 200,000 rounds of small arms ammunition[some estimates run as high as 400,000 rounds] for every enemy soilder killed.The same statistics found it took 1.33 rounds for a sniper-a well trained rifleman-using.30-06s and .308s to produce a casualty.

In short the techniques taught of "spray&pray" shooting in the armed forces today rather than individual well aimed shots has alot to answer for.So you cant expect Milspec ammo to be very accurate or good quality stuff.You can certainly expect it to be robust though.

bazza888

thats my point i think it was tacs also there used in completely different ways for different purposes

Sparks

Don't forget that the 250,000 rounds per hit type of figure take training ammunition into account as well, and that that's the bulk of the rounds fired.
It's not just that 5.56 is woefully inaccurate compared to .223 or anything.

Tackleberrywho

Sparks wrote: »

Don't forget that the 250,000 rounds per hit type of figure take training ammunition into account as well, and that that's the bulk of the rounds fired.
It's not just that 5.56 is woefully inaccurate compared to .223 or anything.

I've fired both

Give me a .223 any day

Grizzly 45

Sparks wrote: »

Don't forget that the 250,000 rounds per hit type of figure take training ammunition into account as well, and that that's the bulk of the rounds fired.
It's not just that 5.56 is woefully inaccurate compared to .223 or anything.

Last I heard
20 rounds to zero,and then 40 rounds to qualify is the standard nowadays in Uncle Sams armed forces.:eek:
Its not that the 5.56 is inaccurate,it is accurate when compared to an old pokey 7.62X39.It is just the proably worst round for it's intended application,of NOT killing the enemy.It hasnt the reach or the oomph to do either,as we are discovering out in the sandpits,and should have dammed well learned after Nam.:rolleyes:

Bananaman

I'm not really comfortable with the direction this thread is taking

accuracy - for our purposes is score on the target shooting range or shot placement while hunting

I don't think military uses or statistics are relevant ???

It's akin to someone asking which is the best brick and having someone tell you how far they managed to throw one in a riot - true it's a brick - but it's hardly relevant

B'Man

tac foley

bazza888 wrote: »

250000 rounds for every hit is probably more to do with it being a battle type situation,firing fast semi auto or full auto to keep enemy heads down and such,heart pumping from adrenaline and breathing hard,if the rabbits were firing back at you would you have got 3 out of 3?i get what u mean tough the 5.56 hardly going to be as well put together as a box of 20 .223 for 20 odd euro!i read the 223 can be put in 556 rifle ok but 556 in 223 rifle can damage it think it was wikipedia or somewhere so that info could be wrong.

Mr Bazza - please read my post two above yours. As for Wikipedia, I only have faith in the stuff that I write in it, and prefer to use the official documentation of the Government-sponsored SAAMI than that of an enthusiastic but ill-informed amateur poster to the Wiki.

To remind you - THIS is what I wrote - from the document -

'1. MOST Remington 700-series actions will shoot 5.65x45NATO - not well, but adequately. They have a generous throat and will accomodate the rather iffy dimensions of the many makes of military brass.

2. I've never encountered a Tikka or SAKO that would actually chamber the military stuff, but then I've only encountered about thirty or so - perhaps we all just got unlucky. [As ever, YOUR experience might be different, but I would NOT shoot milsurp 5.45x45 in a SAKO.]

HOWEVER - please read this before deciding to shoot the milsurp 5.56x45 in YOUR expensive pride and joy -

The following notice from SAAMI back in 1979 -[The Society of American Armament Manufacturers' Industries - the US gun and ammunition-makers standard-setters like DIN and ISO]

CAUTION!

Shooters should be aware that 5.56x45 NATO military chambers and throats differ from .223 Remington Sporting rifle dimensional measurements. Therefore notice is given that firing 5.56x45 military ball ammunition in a firearm chambered for .223 Remington MAY result in damagingly high chamber pressures being encountered.

This can be detected by observing the following signs -

1. Difficulty in opening the bolt after firing.

2. Flattening or cratering of the primer - and in extreme cases, blown out primers.

3. Embossing of the cartridge case head with bolt face featues, including pressure flow of the case material into the ejector cut-out.

Any and all of these signs is/are indications of excessive and potentially dangerous over-pressure and should NOT be ignored.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse restoration Fund

Grizzly 45

[

I don't think military uses or statistics are relevant ???

Only when it comes down to argue the quantity vs quality point regarding accruacy.Somthing thats churned out by the billions for it to be fired somwhere in the general direction of an enemy,by relatively untrained people.Cant be expected to be very accruate,precise or well made?
Only thing it will be is cheap,well,more or less.
But you buy cheap you get cheap.Wolf ammo being a case in point.Everyone bitches and moans about it,but they keep buying it,It is basically Russkie military ammo.

To use your brick example.
It would be more like saying whats the cheapest load of bricks I can get to chuck in a riot,as I wont be building a wall with them.:)

tac foley

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

fired somwhere in the general direction of an enemy,by relatively untrained people.Cant be expected to be very accruate,precise or well made?

Be careful now, some of us are slightly more trained than others....

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

I'm not really comfortable with the direction this thread is taking
accuracy - for our purposes is score on the target shooting range or shot placement while hunting
I don't think military uses or statistics are relevant ???

They're not relevant - the point was that the bandied about figure of X hundred thousand rounds fired per hit isn't to do with the relative accuracy of the 5.56 and .223 rounds.