Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .223 Rem Trivia

I had my copy of P.O. Ackley's tome out this morning, looking up a completely unrelated bit of info. Just on a whim, I went to see what he had to say about the .223 Remington. I was surprised to find there was no mention, nor even of its previous moniker of .222 Rem Special. There was the .222 Rem, and the .22 Rem Magnum, but no .223 Rem.

Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders came out in 1962. Why didn't the .223 Rem make the cut? Where did the .223 Rem AI come from?

I believe that book pre-dates both the military and commercial rounds a bit. The exact dates can probably be found somewhere on Al Gore's Amazing Internet if you simply must know.

Ingwe is the inventor and sole user of the AI version. AI stands for Ach Ingwe, the German term for Stunt Shooter.

The .223 Remington wasn't introduced as a factory cartridge until 1964.

Apparently Ackley never "improved" the .223. In fact he never improved a lot of case that are now known as AI's. Instead "Ackley Improved" has become a generic name for any improved cartridge with a 40-degree shoulder.

The .223 Rem. is in Vol. 2 which was first printed in 1966.
No A.I. in that either.

I'd take it further and say that in addition to the 40 degree shoulder, non-AI ammo should chamber/headspace.

You can't take a 223 and move the shoulder 1/2" down the case and give a it 40 degree shoulder and have fit the accepted 'Ackley Improved' definition.

Further trivia;

Any Cartridge followed by "RCBS" is the AI concept with a 30-degree shoulder.

Ed

I remember reading in an reloading manual, forget the company, from the 1960s or early 1970s, the lead-in for the .223 data. The author stated that while it was a good cartridge, and only time would tell if it became successful, that the .222 Magnum was a better cartridge and the only thing the .223 had over it was availability of military brass. Chuckle...guess that was enough . I will freely admit that hindsight is 20/20 though.

IIRC, Beta was a technically better tape format than VHS.

And technically, the .244/6mm Remington was long considered by rifle loonies as a superior round to the .243 Winchester, because of a little more powder room, sharper shoulder, and longer neck.

But the 6mm's also a little long for seating the heavier, high-BC bullets that are all the rage these days, and still have the rounds fit in a short-action magazine. The .243 Winchester can usually handle 'em OK. Wonder if Winchester foresaw the long-range trend back in 1955?

Well, IF you put the 6mm R in a Rem M 6, 7600, or 760 the magazine is long enuff.

B. > Obviously not.

Whoada thunk paper thin jackets would have been shot at B G?

I still prefer the 6mm to the 243 for those same reasons--- but not in S A, standard 06 length is great.

Jerry

Thanks all.

Yep. I did some digging. Depending on different sources, you can take 1963 or 1964 as the year --the .223 REM was adopted. I had Ken Water's Pet Loads out at the same time, and he said 1957, which I now understand was the beginning of the process than the end. That's what got me going down the bunny hole.

And if someone sees a rifle with Ackley's name on it, they may assume it's a wildcat, and sell it cheap.

I stumbled across a left hand Mauser action, one of the few that Ackley had made in Japan. It was a nice sporter, but labeled as a "7x57 Ackley Improved". It turned out to be a regular 7x57, built on Ackley's action, by the famous Jaeger shop in Pennsylvania.

I nearly kept it despite the bolt being on the wrong side. I sold it to a collector of left hand Mausers, who was delighted to get it. So there's some Ackley trivia.

I bought a custom .25-06 a few years ago, on a VZ-24 Mauser 98 action that had been rebarreled and some other work done in Ackley's shop. (Somebody else stocked it.) EVERYBODY who saw the rifle, or heard about it, assumed it was a .25-06 Ackley Improved. It wasn't.

Did`nt Ackley say the 25-06 was over bore already and that AIing it would not do much?

I don't think Ackley had access to "easy-light" charcoal back in the day.

Guessing not, since they put them all into long action rifles til into the 90s.