Do you like 223/556 ?

Varminterror said:

I’m another which clicked all options of the poll, save “no.”

With 223/5.56 I have:

• Hunted deer, hogs, prairie dogs, coyotes, and sundry small game

• Competed in multiple formats; 3 gun, Service Rifle, and benchrest (G3)

• Employed, but luckily not deployed, in HD

• Prevented depredation of livestock

• Plinked for pleasure

• Practiced long range competition skills as an analogy for a larger cartridge

With so many uses, I have more rifles and specialty pistols chambered in 223/5.56 than any other cartridge.

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All of the above for me as well.

If I could only have one rifle, it would be chambered in 223. Very versatile and inexpensive to shoot.

For what I use it for, (paper and steel targets and the occasional coyote) it's a good caliber.

I am a fan of the .223/5.56. My first experience with it was in the late 1980's. It is important to remember that back then we did not have 100's of pages of internet arguments over the 77 grain OTM vs the 64 grain PP and all that. We had the Shooter's Bible, maybe a magazine article once a year, and advice from the local gun store. Since I was pretty much in the middle of no where at the time, I didn't even really know what it was.

I was working on a good sized ranch at the time and wild pigs just started to show up. The owner was buying our ammo for us to shoot them. We were mostly using the .22/250, 6mm Remington, .243, and .25/06. After a couple of months the owner showed up with 1000 rounds of loose pack M193 and a Remington 700 BDL. At first we weren't really sure what to make of it. My boss had used the .222 earlier in his life, so he felt it might be pretty accurate, but that was about it.

We headed out to a pasture, sighted it in and went to town on the hogs. We were instantly pleased with the results. We classified our hogs into three general sizes, Petunia's which were new born to about 60 pounds, Smoker Hogs which were about 90-150 pounds (they fit best in the smoker), and the big boys that were about 200 pounds and up. There were some gaps in our system, but it did not seem to matter much. The M193 took them all down. We shot them from all conceivable angles and distances. We did learn that shooting larger hogs directly into the shoulder was a no go, but we did a lot of neck shooting back then and the .223 was accurate enough for those shots all day long. We also used it for ranch pests, deer, and lots of varmints.

We liked the 700 so much I headed off to town to buy another. I could not find one and ended up with a stainless Ruger M77 MKII boat paddle (I still have it). We figured out that the Ruger had two little metal tabs on the bottom of the magazine follower to limit it to 5 rounds and if you ground them off you could get 8 rounds into the magazine. The Stainless, combined with the indestructible stock and the 8 round magazine made it a favorite.

We ended up shooting so much .223 that the owner just added a stipend to our pay. That pushed us into reloading for the .223 and our standard ranch load of 27.5 grains of Varget under a 55 grain bullet. This load worked well in the hot and humid summer as well and the freezing winters. I still use it today. Please check the Hodgdon reloading manual to make sure it works with your bullets if you want to try it.

Well I guess you can see that I like the .223/5.56 and for me it is a very useful round. Definitely not perfect, but it works for a lot of things. We also never fully retired the other rifles, but the .223 got a lot of miles put on it. I will add that the .22/250 is significantly more powerful and what we would grab if were were going after a specific coyote or feral dog. We liked the .243/6MM during deer season for the obvious added thump.

Do I like the .223 Rem? Well, sort of, but it's nowhere near my fave .22 Centerfire. But I like it enough to have one built that may be the only Pre-64 M-70 in .223 in the county. Winchester never offered the M-70 in .223, or even .222 back when it was popular, so it took some rather fancy gunsmithing to convert a vintage M-70 action to .223.and fitting a Douglas barrel. Plus pretty nice stockwork to finish up the job..The Buehler mounts add a touch of class in the PD patch..

Haven't read the responses yet but...

Do I like it? No. It's an underpowered pea shooter with mediocre ballistics...

But...I own and shoot it because the military made it ubiquitous.

I don't like 308/7.62 NATO either. Fat, dumpy, and again, thanks to the military, ubiquitous.

Same general feelings on 9mm.

I like
6.5 Grendel
10mm
7.62x25
327 Federal
45 (Long) Colt
6.5x55
9.3x62
7.62x39 (I know, I'm a hypocrite)
270 Winchester (there's almost nothing it can't do)

I’ve killed deer, pigs, coyotes and bobcats with a 223/5.56 and none of them ever complained that I was “under gunned”. I prefer my 6.8 SPC or 6.5 Grendel for deer and pigs, but I have no qualms about shooting either with a 69 grain Sierra Match King bullet. That’s probably my favorite 223 round for larger critters.

nhcruffler said:

I was at the range once with the Ranch Rifle, at a bench under the roof, and announced that I was going to fire. The family expert a few tables down told everyone not to put on ears as the 223 was not loud enough to warrant hearing protection.

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To say that, he must have been either ignorant, a liar, or previously deafened. I wonder how many of them opted to ignore him after that.

The only thing I use 223/556 for it shooting the occasional 3-gun or carbine match. I almost never use if for anything else.

I've only been shooting 223/5.56 for about 5 years. I started with a cheap savage axis II xp package rifle, with cheap bulk 55 fmjbt's. Reloaded for it and found it to make consistent 5 shot 1 hole groups, let my SIL borrowit, with 300 + reloads, to help him, new to center fire rifles, learn basics. Got it back to teach one of my grandchildren, then gave it to my SIL, and bought another 223, still doing load work ups, as well as an AR 15.

I use this rifle mostly to punch paper, but took a whitetail this past season. My Ar does informal target shooting and home defense.

It's been a while but remember I'd rather carry 5.56 than 7.62 ammunition. Same with the rifles that the USMC had.

I've never owned either as a civilian. But have recently been giving some consideration to a 223/5.56 bolt rifle. Like maybe a ranch rifle. Who knows.

js8588 said:

7.62x25
327 Federal
45 (Long) Colt
6.5x55
9.3x62
7.62x39 (I know, I'm a hypocrite)

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Yeah, I was like,“ what?”.

js8588 said:

270 Winchester (there's almost nothing it can't do)

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Now I know your just having fun!

Yes I am a big fan of the .223 rem

The .22 centerfires are great out to over 200 yards on 30 lb.+/- critters, but the .243 Win is a big step upward in capability. One day, I sighted-in my new .243 Win, placing a target about 6 feet or so away from a stone wall and fired my first shot. Looking through the scope, there were about 3 holes in the target. Hmm..what was going on? I walked to the target and noticed that the bullet hit rocks behind the target, sending angular stone pieces flying back toward me, piercing the cardboard about 6 feet or so from the stone. I was impressed!!!

Since then, I've fired the .243 against steel targets and it makes a pretty deep pock-marks in the steel silhouette targets at almost 200 yards. The targets aren't high-strength steel, but withstood many rounds of 44 magnum and other IMHSA cartridges without denting.

I consider the .243 Win a capable whitetail deer cartridge (under good conditions) out to a little over 200 yards and several have been taken by the teenage grand-kids and a 130 lb. buck that I shot about 200 yards, while on a mission to carry & set-up a portable blind up a long hill. It's the most pleasantly-surprising cartridge I've fired at game, having killing power much closer to a .308 Win than the .22-250, all three using the same parent case, I believe. Newer bullet designs have also considerably improved this and other cartridges' killing power.

I probably have shoot more of it in 3 gun matches than any other use. It’s good for varmints at further ranges than .22 Hornet without the additional recoil and cost of 22-250 and up rounds.

Picher said:

The .22 centerfires are great out to over 200 yards on 30 lb.+/- critters, but the .243 Win is a big step upward in capability. One day, I sighted-in my new .243 Win, placing a target about 6 feet or so away from a stone wall and fired my first shot. Looking through the scope, there were about 3 holes in the target. Hmm..what was going on? I walked to the target and noticed that the bullet hit rocks behind the target, sending angular stone pieces flying back toward me, piercing the cardboard about 6 feet or so from the stone. I was impressed!!!

Since then, I've fired the .243 against steel targets and it makes a pretty deep pock-marks in the steel silhouette targets at almost 200 yards. The targets aren't high-strength steel, but withstood many rounds of 44 magnum and other IMHSA cartridges without denting.

I consider the .243 Win a capable whitetail deer cartridge (under good conditions) out to a little over 200 yards and several have been taken by the teenage grand-kids and a 130 lb. buck that I shot about 200 yards, while on a mission to carry & set-up a portable blind up a long hill. It's the most pleasantly-surprising cartridge I've fired at game, having killing power much closer to a .308 Win than the .22-250, all three using the same parent case, I believe. Newer bullet designs have also considerably improved this and other cartridges' killing power.

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The parent cartridge for the .22-250 is the .250 Savage (.250-3000), but otherwise, 100% agree. FWIW, .223 will kill deer further than 200 yards. and my son has done so, but I stick to less than 150.

entropy said:

The parent cartridge for the .22-250 is the .250 Savage (.250-3000), but otherwise, 100% agree. FWIW, .223 will kill deer further than 200 yards. and my son has done so, but I stick to less than 150.

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Did Newton not use the .30-06 as the parent for the .250-3000? Hence the 22-250 and 308 both trace back to the .30-06.

It’s a jack of all trades, master of none to me.

I own some but shoot them rarely as their is always a better option in my safe..... if I ever take up Coyote hunting I may look into it a little further.

Varminterror said:

Did Newton not use the .30-06 as the parent for the .250-3000? Hence the 22-250 and 308 both trace back to the .30-06.

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I know the 22 Newton is derived from the 30-06, and finalized around 1914, but I’m not 100% sure about the 250-3000, as it and the 30-06, premiered around the same time. I’d have to research a bit more, but I’m thinking the 250-3000 came out prior

edit: the idea came out in the early 1900s, but the cartridge was not sold to savage until 1914 (some say 1915, but I have some very old books that say 1914)

If I were limited to having only one centerfire cartridge, it would without doubt, and for many and asunder reasons, be the .223/5.56.

So, apparently the 250-3000 is in fact derived from the 30-06.

I like the 5.56/223 well enough.
When I was a young’n, I got to spend some time with a bushmaster arm pistol, and I loved that thing! Pure unadulterated fun. I’m sitting here grinning just thinking about it.

I do appreciate that the 223 has minimal recoil, and it’s a dandy for HD/SD (assuming)

I get two kinds of enjoyment.

Enjoyment from the firearms themselves, whether it be craftsmanship, history, or an interesting cartridge with heritage. This, the 5.56 is not. (To me)

And I get enjoyment from firearms related activities where the gun is not the focus, but the activity is. It’s this kind of enjoyment where the guns largely are no more than tools, but how well I do in this activity is the entertainment. For example marksmanship, 3 gun, being proficient in HD scenarios etc.

I don’t get enjoyment from my 5.56 ar because I romance the cartridge and rifle. I get enjoyment because I like knowing I can hit a moving target wayyy out there, engage multiple targets faster than any other rifle I own, or I have proficient means of protecting myself and property.

Yes just a fun overall cartridge, a good small game caliber and economical to shoot.

Demi-human said:

Yeah, I was like,“ what?”.



Now I know your just having fun!

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7.62x39 is my 30-30...and steel case soft points are cheaper than any 30-30 on the market. Inside 150 yards my CZ 527 Carbine will do anything I'd ask of it.

270 Winchester with 130-150 grains is good up to 400 yards for anything in North America. A little redundant with the 6.5x55 in the stable but it does have a little more juice.

If I need something heavier than that, I have my 9.3x62. Yeah, that's limited to ~275 yards but realistically I'll never need it to go longer than that anyway.

Also, you're*

js8588 said:

Also, you're*

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Even an IPhone will getchya*...

*means “get you” in Michigander.