Any difference in reloading .223 vs. 5.56?

[Safonator]

A local Gun store here was offering equipment to use and Guidance on using the reloading equipemt. Unfortunatley some of the people reloading thought it more important to text than pay attention to what they were doing and had quite a few duds. Now they want you to pay them 35 an hour to train you on it, but not until march or so.

I have made the long overdue decision to start reloading my own ammo. I have close to 1k rounds of brass. It's a mix of .223 and 5.56 shells. Will this make difference in reloading them? I was told the the main diff is they crimp the 5.56 brass and it is a little hotter load or something like that. Would the .223 shells be able to handle the 5.56 load? or will i need to seperate them and do them differently? I'm just now looking into this and trying to gain some knowledge on it any info would be awesome.

[jvpark]

you can put a .223 loads in a .556. Not really any load data for .556.

[NotEnufGarage]

you can put a .223 loads in a .556. Not really any load data for .556.

Ramshot lists 5.56 loading data. It's under .223 with a subheading of military or NATO and lists the higher pressure.

I haven't checked other manufacturers.

.223 has a lower max pressure (55,000 PSI, I think) than 5.56mm (62,5000 PSI). You can shoot .223 from a 5.56mm chamber but not the other way around. If your barrel says 5.56, you're good to go.

Separate the brass into .223 and 5.56. Load the .223 to .223 max loads and you can load the 5.56 to the hotter 5.56 loads. Regardless, you need to work up your loads.

[jvpark]

what I meant is that you can put a .223 load in a .556 cartridge.

[AdidasCJ]

what I meant is that you can put a .223 load in a .556 cartridge.

You will be fine as the measure the same over all length. the difference i believe is the degree on the neck area if im not mistaken

[FORD4LIFE]

No.

[California-Quigley]

The New Hornady Manual is to list 5.56 loads in the popular weights... 55gr, 62gr, 69gr, and 77gr

Factory loaded .223rem and 5.56mm NATO are way diff. I believe NEG was eluding to that there are very few powder manuf that tout an 5.56 load.

[Safonator]

My barrel is good for both .223 and 5.56. I'm gathering that i couldnt put a 5.56's load data like a 62 grain penetrator round into a .223 shell and would have to seperate them and load them diff?
or i could just load them all to .223 and be ok?

[spamsucker]

you can load them all to .223 remington power levels using .223 remington dies without worry. You will need to address the primer pockets on 5.56 cases as they're usually crimped. The difference between the cartridge dimensions is subtle.

[FLIGHT762]

Here is a sinpet from Wikipedia on the subject. The fact is 223 Remington cases and 5.56 NATO cases will take equal pressures. As reloaders we don't have pressure testing facilities to test to see if we are loading to 5.56 NATO pressures or .223 Remington pressures. We reload our .223 Remington chambered rifles and our 5.56 NATO chambered rifles to safe levels in our rifles. We do use Chronographs to try and duplicate factory velocity levels, which can confirm factory specifications.

No matter what rifle we reload for, a .223 Remington or a 5.56 NATO chambered rifle, we have be sure we don't load bullets too long and jam them into the lands, which can cause dangerous pressure spikes even with safe powder charges.

To the O/P, you can use the 5.56 cases and the 223 Rem. cases, the cases with a primer pocket crimp will have to have the crimp removed or swaged out before re-priming. The only difference in them will be their case capacity by manufacturer. It will only matter as you get to a maximum powder charge. The cases with less capacity will show signs of pressure before the cases with larger capacity will. This is why some reloaders segregate their cases by manufacturer.

If you just want to load practice/blasting ammo, you can use a load well under maximum that will work in all of the cases. Use well known, published reloading data and you'll be fine. When starting out, avoid someone's internet reloading data recommendations until you can confirm it with published data.

I've seen a lot of internet data that had typing errors in it which would get you in trouble.


223 Remington versus 5.56 mm NATO ( A Snip From Wikipedia)

These 5.56x45mm NATO cartridges are identical in appearance to .223 Remington. They are, however, not completely interchangeable.
While the 5.56mm NATO and .223 Remington cartridges and chamberings are very similar, they are not identical.
While there is a myth that 5.56 NATO cases are thicker and hence have less capacity than commercial .223 cases, this has been shown to be false. Each brand of case and each manufacturing lot has a slightly different case capacity; 5.56 NATO and .223 commercial cases tend to have nearly identical case capacity when measured using the water test.[6] The NATO specification allows a higher chamber pressure. NATO EPVAT test barrels made for 5.56mm NATO measure chamber pressure at the case mouth, as opposed to the location used by the United States civil standards organization SAAMI. The piezoelectric sensors or transducers NATO and SAAMI use to conduct the actual pressure measurements also differ. This difference in measurement method accounts for upwards of 137.9 megapascals (20,000 psi) difference in pressure measurements. This means the NATO EPVAT maximum service pressure of 430 megapascals (62,000 psi) for 5.56mm NATO, is reduced by SAAMI to 379.21 megapascals (55,000 psi) for .223 Remington.[7] In contrast to SAAMI, the other main civil standards organization C.I.P. defines the maximum service and proof test pressures of the .223 Remington cartridge equal to the 5.56mm NATO.
The 5.56mm NATO chambering, known as a NATO or mil-spec chamber, has a longer leade (also referred to as the throat), which is the distance between the mouth of the cartridge and the point at which the rifling engages the bullet. The .223 Remington chambering, known as SAAMI chamber, is allowed to have a shorter leade, and is only required to be proof tested to the lower SAAMI chamber pressure. To address these issues, various proprietary chambers exist, such as the Wylde chamber (Bill Wylde)[8] or the ArmaLite chamber, which are designed to handle both 5.56mm NATO and .223 Remington equally well. The dimensions and leade of the .223 Remington minimum C.I.P. chamber also differ from the 5.56mm NATO chamber specification.
Using commercial .223 Remington cartridges in a 5.56mm NATO chambered rifle should work reliably, but generally will not be as accurate as when fired from a .223 Remington chambered gun due to the longer leade.[9] Using 5.56mm NATO mil-spec cartridges (such as the M855) in a .223 Remington chambered rifle can lead to excessive wear and stress on the rifle and even be unsafe, and the SAAMI recommends against the practice.[10][11] Some commercial rifles marked as ".223 Remington" are in fact suited for 5.56mm NATO, such as many commercial AR-15 variants and the Ruger Mini-14, but the manufacturer should always be consulted to verify that this is acceptable before attempting it, and signs of excessive pressure (such as flattening or gas staining of the primers) should be looked for in the initial testing with 5.56mm NATO ammunition.[12]
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[jvpark]

My barrel is good for both .223 and 5.56. I'm gathering that i couldnt put a 5.56's load data like a 62 grain penetrator round into a .223 shell and would have to seperate them and load them diff?
or i could just load them all to .223 and be ok?

I just reloaded 233 and 556 cases with the same load (V-max 55gr, 23.8 gr of Varget) and they shot amazing.

I did have to remove the crimp on the primers and initially separated the cases (to see what I had).

I trimed them all the same length and loaded them, using a 223 load data and had no problems.

Shot them in a 556 chambered Mossberg MVP (bolt gun) and was very happy with the < 1" groups at 100 yards.