Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Favorite loads for 223/5.56

What kind of loads are you guys running in your AR's with 16 barrel and what kind of speeds and accuracy are you getting.

LC Brass (pretty much any brass as long as it's sorted by head stamp)
CCI-BR4 or 400's
77gr Sierras or Nosler CC or 75gr Hornady BTHP
RL-15 (24-25gr) or TAC (23.6-24.4gr) or Varget (24-25gr)
2.260" COAL
Light crimp

You should be able to find a combo that gives you great accuracy. From a 16" barrel your velocity will probably be around 2500-2550 but will vary from barrel to barrel.

LC brass
Rem 7 1/2 br primer
25.5 gr Varget
Sierra 69gr MKHP
2748 fps
BushMaster 16" factory barrel
This load will shoot under 1" at 100 all day

25-grs H335 and 55 pill of choice. 25.5 grs TAC and 55 pill of choice. 25-grs Varget and 40grainers or 65 grain Sierras.

26 gr H-335 w/ 50's, 25 gr H-335 with 55's. I use bulk varmint bullets and mixed headstamp brass. Depending on the upper they'll group 5 into 1" with a match barrel, 5 into 1 1/2" with a chrome barrel. Haven't chronoed them but they should be running ~3000 fps.

PMC Brass
Rem 7 /12 primer

24.5gr Benchmark with the Berger 70gr VLD
2825 fps in 16 inches

Standard disclaimer: Not saying it is safe just have shot that load in a bunch of guns and never had one blow up.

24.3 grs of TAC, 77 gr NCC, LC or Rem case, CCI 41 primer, 2675 fps 16" barrel.

You might try considering Ramshot's new data for the 5.56. It's much warmer than the .223 data out there. E

I am only loading one right now. 64 grain Winchester SP over 24 grains of H335. The last time I ran some over the chrony, it was showing 2975 fps, for a 10 shot average.

guess old age is creeping up on me. I wanted to do some loading, and cleaned, de primed 300 rounds of once fired commercial brass. I was looking for the 100 round plastic boxes to put them in, and when I found them, they were already full of once fired, cleaned, deprimed brass. Dang.

Thanks guys, I worked up a few loads using 223 cases and the Sierra 55 gr sp, Nosler 50gr ballistic tip varmit bullet and the Barnes 50 gr varminator. I used Win 748, H335 and Benchmark powders, the Sierra 55 gr was the most accurate bullet with all powders, Benchmark was the most accurate powder with all bullets. I shot one group with 24.9 gr of benchmark and the Sierra bullet that measured .316, problem is that load now shows ejector marks on the case head, the marks were there when I worked up that load but they appeared to look more like scratches so I did not think nothing of it. After shooting this load for accuracy the marks become more defined. I reduced the load down to 24.3 gr and the marks disappeared but I also went from 2960 fps to 2848 fps.

Does not look like it's possible to get 3000 fps from my 16 barrel with 55 gr bullets. I have a bunch of 5.56 cases that I found scattered where I do my shooting, the head stamp reads Lc 14, I am assuming these are military cases. Is their a big difference between loading 223 and 5.56 cases. I bought a box of Winchester 5.56 55 gr fmj cartridges, they average 3160 fps, can't understand how they get such high numbers and I can't even get close to that.

I undestand mil spec 5.56 brass is havier, but I don't know how much. I do understand that 5.56 ammo is loaded to 62,000 psi vs. 55,000 psi for the .223.
I should also mention that 5.56 chambered rifles have a longer throat than do .223 chambered ones. E

LC 5.56 brass is not heavier than all commercial. Remington runs the same while Winchester has less capacity.

Before you start running 5.56 pressures, be sure your gun is chambered and set up for it. The last thing I'd want to do is run a carbine buffer with a gas port too large at 5.56 pressures.

I have wondered about this as well. I mean a Colt, DD, Noveske, etc your getting a 5.56 chamber and probably the correct gas port, with correct buffer. These guys that make 1-9 barrels and say their 5.56 chambers I don't know.

I have a Rock River arms Lar 15, it shoots both 223 and 5.56.

The RR LAR-15 carbine has a carbine gas system and buffer, it is supposed to have a 5.56 NATO chamber, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

Chech to see which LAR-15 you have and if the above I'd use at least an H2 buffer. While it's probably safe, it'll beat your gun to death and be harder to get back on target.

Oh and my 16" Noveske SS barrel shoots a 55 gr NBT 3023 fps with 26.5 grs of TAC in a Lapua or Remington case with a Fed 205M primer.

I love to try Tac but so far I have not been able to find any. We have A Cabelas, Sportsmens warehouse and Scheels in Reno, they get powder in just about once a week but the amount and different brands is limited.

I use this load in all my AR-15 5.56 for hunting , Win Brass , 26 gr of Varget , Hornady 60 gr V-Max , Rem 7.5 Primers . This is one of the most accurate load i have tried in all of my AR's and my Tikka Bolt . The chronograph load is from a 16 inch M4 Barrel

Had good luck with 23gr Varget, 75gr hornady HPBT and Federal match primers. Lake City brass.