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To: RetiredNavy
Design of the barrel is everything. From how much chamber pressure it can safely hold, to the final numbers on the external ballistics, to how much heat it'll dissipate under sustained fire.

Metallurgy, machining tolerance, heat treating, etc... all are parts of it.

Again, it all comes down to how much pressure a given design can deal with. 5.56 chambered pencil barrels will have the looser tolerances. They also lack accuracy because of it. The same pencil profile in .223 match chambering would indeed come apart under sustained 5.56 diet. The same .223 chambering with better steel and a bull barrel profile can eat 5.56 all day long, even if you end up ironing a few case heads.

82 posted on 11/23/2008 7:12:00 AM PST by Dead Corpse (What would a free man do?)
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To: Dead Corpse
Absolutely agree that design of the barrel is critical to safety and accuracy. Also agree that 5.56 chambers are different than a .223, having a longer leade being the main difference and causing the concern at hand.

As posted previously, a 5.56 round designed for the longer leade of the 5.56 chamber will often be jammed into the rifling of a firearm chambered for the .223, causing increases in pressures of up to 20,000 psi, making every shot a proof load.

Thanks for the discussion.

84 posted on 11/23/2008 3:32:45 PM PST by RetiredNavy ("Only accurate firearms are interesting")
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