The issue is not whether 5.56 NATO ammunition can be used in .223 Remington weapons, it is whether M193 can be used, and nobody has shown me a single piece of evidence that it cannot except for an anecdotal report about an action sticking.
The only evidence you've present is Wikipedia; While I have quoted it in this thread, I have quoted parts I know are true through extensive use and training with the M193 Ball round.
I don't trust Wikipedia to be 100% accurate on any given subject, and neither should you. You must remember Wikipedia is "crowdsource" knowledge, akin to the comments thread on a You Tube video.
You have had several people in this thread explain what the differences between commercial .223 and M193 are. You have refused to accept that our actual experience might trump an incorrect entry in Wikipedia. I wish I could create a Venn diagram to illustrate this, but I'm guessing you'd either misunderstand it, or dismiss it out of hand because it does not support your incorrect conclusion.
So then you shouldn't shoot 5.56 NATO ammunition in M16s from before 1979, because they were designed for M193/.223 Remington.
We noted rounds would stick in the action much more often than with M193 ball. We also noticed it tended to keyhole past 250 meters. I have done it, and I wouldn't advise it. But this is a moot point, as neither of us owns an M16 or an M16A1. When I build my semiauto replica of my Service rifle, a Harrington & Richardson M16 built in 1964, and upgraded to M16A1 standard sometime before April 1986 when I signed my equipement card for it, (which is on my desk as I type this), I will only fire my reloads, loaded to either .223 Remington standard or M193 standard. I will not fire M855, issue or commercial in it.
My understanding is this:
- The military adopted the .223 Remington as their new service cartridge in the early 60s. They called it the "Cartridge, 5.56 mm ball M193".
Partially correct. They adopted a "souped up" version of the .223 Remington, which exceeded commercial .223 Remington standard. This is the sentence immediately following the one your faulty premise is based on in the Wikipedia article; "The specification includes a Remington-designed bullet and the use of IMR4475 powder which resulted in a muzzle velocity of 3,250 ft/s (991 m/s) and a chamber pressure of 52,000 psi.
[5]"
- At some point a few years down the line, they changed the powder and increased the pressure. This change is reflected in max pressure limits for .223 Remington.
Source?
- In the late 70s, they decided they wanted a round with better penetration at long range, so they loaded it with a 62 grain steel core bullet that was very long and touched the lands of the chamber, causing a pressure spike. They began using a longer leade to address this issue with the 62 grain steel core bullet of the brand new 5.56X45mm NATO cartridge. The new cartridge was consequently overpressure in older rifles chambered for M193/.223 Remington.
You got this correct. That round was designates M855.
- M193 is not a different cartridge from .223 Remington ammunition. It is not 5.56X45mm NATO ammunition. It is not loaded to higher pressure than .223 Remington ammunition. It's specifications are not measured in chambers that are different from the chambers of rifles chambered in .223 Remington. There is a tendency for M193 ammunition to be loaded to the higher end of pressure limitations, just as one manufacturer's 9mm Luger ammunition may be loaded hotter than the next manufacturer's offering.
We have repeatedly cited works, and our own experience, to the contrary. Since it's specifications would be milder in the other .223 chambers (.223 Wylde, 5.56NATO) there is really no reason to test it in those. That would be like pressure testing .32 S&W Short in a .327 Fed. Mag. XM193 is loaded to the higher end of .223 standards. but actual issue M193 is hotter still.
It would be akin to the European 9mm SMG ammo, which is loaded much hotter than 9mm Para SAAMI and CIP standards. When the SMG ammo is fired in pistols, it can cause overpressure and damage to the pistol. The Navy Seals learned this with the Beretta M92FS, before they were adopted as the M9.
- Using M193 in a rifle that is stamped ".223 Remington" does not violate the instructions in the manual to use only ammunition that the rifle is chambered for and meets industry standards, because M193 ammunition literally is .223 Remington ammunition and meets industry standards for .223 Remington ammunition.
Supposition on your part. Using XM193 probably would not, because as has been mentioned
numerous times, it is loaded within .223 standards. Is the ammo you have Military issue? This is the question you should be asking. Post a pic of a box of what you have, it may help us determine what exactly you have, and whether it should be used in a Ruger bolt action .223.
I suspect the worst you'd encounter is cases that fail to extract, and flattened primers. This would also reduce case life for reloading.
And, BTW, it was two anecdotal cases of M193 sticking in Handi-RIfles. I posted that I had had the same problems as 12Bravo12 with M193, (and M855, in my case), and I had left out that it happed to me in two different rifles. It is also a well-known problem to Handi-Rifle owners.
- Using 5.56X45mm NATO ammunition, such as M855 "green tip" ammunition, would violate the manufacturers instructions, because this is a different cartridge from .223 Remington. Extrapolating this to include M193 ammunition is wrong, because M193 is not 5.56X45mm NATO, the boxes do not have the word "NATO" anywhere on them, and neither do the headstamps. True about the M855. It is not extrapolation to the M193, it too is a different round than .223 Rem.
Every single confirmable fact regarding the M193 round points to the conclusion that it IS .223 Remington ammunition.
The only time they would have been the "same" is that brief period from Sept.1963 when .223 was standardized by SAAMI, and Feb. 1967, when the M193 ball round was changed by Winchester changing powders from WC 846 to W 748, without changing the designation M193, the same time the M16 was upgraded to the M16A1. Are your rounds military issue from the era1963 to 1967? If so, they are probably perfectly fine to use in any firearm stamped .223 Rem. W 748 is a faster burning powder than WC 846 (Which is no longer produced), and creates higher pressures at the same velocity level (the 3,260 fps standard was not changed) and could create unsafe conditions in rifles that are not ARs.
Read the Wikipedia (Caveat Lector) on the M16, as it supplies some background info on M16 cartridge development that is left out of the 5.56 Wiki. The above info was partially from there, partially from my Armorer School training.
The SAAMI unsafe combinations PDF says to not use "5.56 Military" in rifles chambered for .223 Remington. The fact that it uses the term "5.56 Military" rather than "5.56x45mm NATO" suggests that it is likely (though not conclusively) referring to the M193 round.
At last you see the error of your 'logic'.
Every single confirmable fact regarding the M193 round points to the conclusion that it IS .223 Remington ammunition
And I'm sure I retierated that several times, as this is the one point I kept trying to get across to you; M193 was also called "5.56". It was NOT called "5.56NATO" As I posted before, I don't recall ever seeing M193 with the NATO stamp on it, as SS109 was being reviewed for use in the M16A2 at the time. The M855 I drew from the Ammo dump had the NATO stamp, the M193 did not. I can conlusively acertain that it refers to the M193 round.
When you assume....
What I found hilarious is that you kept refuting several experts when your premise was based in one misread Wikipedia quote.
But he's writing a post based on misreading your post right now, Cap' Mac.
