In several news accounts of the recent “sniper” style shootings in the Maryland, Virginia, DC area, reports have made reference to “… the 30 types of rifles that use .223 rounds …” or similar verbiage.
In doing a little research, I’ve been looking around for a bit now and have come across AR-15’s, AK-47’s and other “major” military style rifles that can use this particular round - but that’s about it.
Does anyone have a link to a comprehensive listing of all .223 rifles currently or recently manufactured?
I’m pretty sure a real AK-47 uses 7.62mm, not .223. A comprehensive listing of all .223 rifles currently or recently manufactured would probably be several hundred pages long. Its a very common round for hunting also, not just military weapons. Definitely not high-caliber either, as the media keeps repeating.
.223* is incredibly common, ever since the US foisted the round on NATO years ago
AR-15/M-16 style rifles, FNC’s, FAMAS, G36, AUG, SAR-3, G41, M17, M96, some Type 56S’s, various bolt guns, and even a few psuedo hand-guns (granted, the OA-93 and its ilk are AR-15ish…), among many others, use the .223 round.
The SAR-3, a Romanian AK-type rifle, would be the cheapest, but the AR-15 is the most common, I would guess. There are around a dozen manufacturers of AR-15 type rifles (from the big boys like Bushmaster, to the mom&pop shops like RRA), each of which makes many variants. A comprehensive list of AR’s alone would be a page or more.
It sounds like the bullets in these shootings were fragmenting well. In a .223 bullet, fragmentation depends on a high velocity (2500fps+ or so) to shatter the thin copper casings on the bullet. Without fragmentation, you generally get little .223 holes, but not much (relatively speaking) tissue damage. Barrel length plays very strongly into muzzle velocity, which plays into fragmentation, so depending on the range of the shots, the authorities will be able to eliminate the shorter variants.
Slight hijack:
Will the ignorant media ever bother to do some research? What the hell is a ‘high caliber’ rifle, as Fox News was reporting? There are high velocity rounds (the .223), and there are small caliber rounds (the .223), but I have never heard of ‘high caliber’ until that ignoramous on FNC opened his pie-hole.
*.223 is actually a SAAMI-spec cartrige, found in the civilian world. Only Armalite (that I know of!) makes a AR-15 type rifle chambered for .223. True military clones are chambered for the 5.56 Nato round. (Of course, we have our freakish Wylde-chambers ;)) Almost the same dimensions, but .223 rifles don’t tend to like 5.56 ammo. 5.56 rifles can feed both types, generally, due to more generous tolerances. Not that it really matters.
Indeed, these are the things I’m curious about - in my research, I’ve found plenty of refernces to the authentic Soviet era AK-47 and the fact that it uses 7.62x39 mm rounds. However, a variant of it uses .223 caliber rounds - same for the Armorlite AR-15 (which can also accept, apparently, a 5.56 mm round as well.)
But in a bunch of googling and other reference pounding, I can’t come up with much beyond those rifles mentioned above. Being a TV Guy and not a Gun Guy per se, I’m not up on all the tech-talk behind the various rifles, other than what I’ve managed to read over the years.
When I see the reference to “… 30 types of rifles that use .223 caliber rounds …” I make an assumption that this indeed refers to ‘type’ (i.e. the AR15 type, AK47 type, Bushmaster type, etc.) and not individual variants of the models - I mean I’ve come accross at least 150 variants of the AR15 already - ALL of which use the .223 round.
What Brutus said. Just about every bolt action rifle maker in the world offers .223. I bet Remington alone offers 50+ variants in .223. Then you have Winchester, Ruger, Browning, etc… For a general overview of currently available guns, see The Shooter’s Bible.
Also, remeber that guns don’t really ever wear out. This nut might be using some old Rem. 700 action that he has rebarreled, there is no way to tell. Unless there has been some report that I havn’t seen, I don’t think anyone ought to assume that this guy is using a semi-auto.
And to pick on another media term, “High Powered Rifle” WTF is that? All I can think that is supposed to mean is that it isn’t a .22LR. I treat all my rifles as high powered.
I saw a CNN report on the shootings today, and it was the most over-hyped piece of crap I ever saw. Their ‘expose’ was on how easy it was for people to get these ‘dangerous’ military rifles that could kill people from HUNDREDS of meters. They went on and on about how the AR-15 was an extremely accurate weapon, and how dangerous it was because of that.
The thing is, the AR-15 is neither particularly deadly or accurate, as rifles go. Why is it that reporters can not learn simple facts about guns? Are they so afraid of them that they can’t even look at a simple specification sheet without turning to jelly? Military rifles are not more deadly than civilian rifles - the things that make an AR-15 a good battlefield weapon have more to do with operational aspects like weight, ease of field stripping, ability to operate in various climates, ability to take damage in rough terrain, etc. None of these features make the weapon any more dangerous to civilians than a typical hunting rifle.
The Mini-14 mentioned above is every bit as deadly as an AR-15. It may even be more accurate. And a Remington 700 rifle, which is in common use by hunters, is FAR more accurate and deadly, and is a common choice of snipers. Oh, and the Remington 700 is another extremely common rifle that is available in .223, although I’d guess most civilians buy the .308 model, which is far more powerful.
Leave it to CNN to turn this into an anti-gun issue before they even know who the shooter is, and to get all their gun facts wrong in the process.
There are a decent amount of .223 AK rifles in the world - and a decent amount of .223 AK civvie rifles in the US. The most common are probably the old norinco .223 AKs - I can’t remember the type number - although the only cheapish post-ban one I can think of is the romanian sar-3 - my friend has one - which is a stripped version of a prototype rifle they made for NATO submission.
Perhaps the reason my media brethern never seem to “learn the facts” is that they get hit with this kind of stuff as soon as they try to report anything having to do with guns???
But, any further with this and we’ll end up in The Pit…
FWIW, our newsroom has been vary careful to continue to remind people that the ammunition in question is fully legal and that there is nothing in the simple fact of the type of round fired to indicate what kind of weapon it actually came from.
THUS, my research…
But thanks anyway for the facts that have come to light so far - in between the vitriol and news media bashing
You might also be interested to know that the .223 is illegal to use in most states for hunting deer. It is considered more of a varmint and target shooting gun and not powerful enough for big game. (Though some might argue this has more to do with bullet construction) Anyway, just some more info, hope this is helpful to you.
Police have found a discarded shell casing which may yeild clues. Sometimes an impression of the firing pin and extractor may be enough to identify a weapon type but don’t count on much. ATF was showing a typical hunting rifle in a press conference. Unforutately this is about as useful as saying the getaway vehicle had four wheels.
Since the OP asked add several variants of the Savage model 10 to the list.
Padeye, I hadn’t heard that yet, but I suppose it makes sense, since they’re specifically calling it a .223.
I was going to mention something that hasn’t been brought up yet, but is somewhat obviated by having the actual spent casing, and that is if they’re going by the fact the projectile is .223", it could have come from a wider variety of guns than they think.
Rifles that include the circa-.22" bullet include things like the .22-250, .22-3000, .224 Win., .221 Fireball, .222 Rem, .22 Hornet, .218 Bee, and even some rimfires like the .22 WMR or the 5mm Remington, among about a hundred others.
Toss that in and the number of potential rifles doubles. But, as I said, if they have the case, that narrows it down. Commercial softpoint/hollowpoint fragments, while military “ball” ammo merely pokes a hole…
And “high powered” is a media buzzword no different than “cop killer”, “Saturday Night Special” or “weapon of choice”- it’s a meaningless vowel movement intended to appeal to emotion, not logic. Look for them to call it a “sniper rifle” next.
Why are the goverment not telling the American people which type of rifle is being used ? Using ferensic siences they should be able to (given the bullet aint too chewed up) determan … well pretty much everything - from what angle - what type of gun - what speed.
The fact they are not is disturbing… almost as disturbing at how easily it is to get the guns - right now i can purchase through a sight a fully function m60 - through another i can get ammo … (i will not post them)
Doc Nickel: …somewhat obviated by having the actual spent casing…
Maybe I’m behind on the news here, but do they know for certain that the casing is indeed from the weapon used, or is it just a show-and-tell item based on what they’ve figured out so far? My understanding is there are no witnesses who saw the shooter and they don’t even know where he shot from. Given that, even if a casing was found in a likely spot, it’s still just speculation that it was actually from the murder weapon.
trader_of_shots: Why are the goverment not telling the American people which type of rifle is being used ? Using ferensic siences they should be able to (given the bullet aint too chewed up) determan … well pretty much everything - from what angle - what type of gun - what speed.
Several posts above explain there are dozens of types of rifles that could have been used. Do you know something they don’t know? It appears you expect more than is possible from examination of a bullet fragment.
Have you read this thread? It’s not altogether that important what kind of gun it is. And they can only hope to narrow down the possible rifles using balistics. They’ve said that most of the projectiles have been badly fragmented. With the casing, they now know the exact ammo type and they might have hopes of looking at the imprint from the firing pin.
You think you can. In fact, you cannot. Unless of course you held a Class III federal firearms dealer license, which is incredibly difficult to get.
Well, since getting a Title III takes a biblical miracle, you can get one of those oh-so-cheesy yet oh-so-cool semi-only M-60’s and M-1919’s for about 2,500. Unfortunately, the foul name of ‘Hesse’ is on these…
Nothing to add as to the number of different types of rifle that use .223 Remington (by the way, Thompson/Center makes a .223 barrel for their Contender target/hunting pistol), but I heard this on the news the morning after it happened (paraphrasing): “The shooter used an assault rifle or high-power hunting rifle.”
I guess the local news just had to use “assault rifle” in the story, as “everyone knows” that they’re always used in crimes! Besides, “assault rifle or high-powered hunting rifle” is about as useful as saying, “The shooter used a gun.”
FWIW, I’m pretty sure my Colt AR-15 Sporter is marked “.223”. Neither it, the AR-15s I’ve built, nor my Ruger Mini-14 have any trouble digesting any sort of ammunition; civilian, military surplus or reloads.
As to the OP, the major U.S. rifle manufacturers are U.S. Repeating Arms Corporation (Winchester), Remington and Ruger. Colt is more of a handgun manufacturer, but they make rifles as well. There are a lot of other companies, but those are the “Big Three” (or “Four”).
As Padeye said, clues can be found on the discarded casing. It should be fairly easy to narrow the field of suspect rifles (or possibly, maybe remotely, pistols) by examining the firing pin indentation on the primer, the shape and location of the extractor mark(s), and the scratches that would be made by the bolt. This just occured to me: If the shooter fired only one round per victim and the casing was ejected, that implies that he used a semi-automatic rifle (which does support a non-automatic version of a military rifle). I say this because a shooter committing a crime using a bolt-action rifle would not eject the case if he were careful.
Of course, he may have ejected a case from a bolt-action rifle out of habit (i.e., he was careless in his crime). But he seems to be a good shot which implies familiarity with firearms. Would he make such a mistake? Or was he using a semi-auto which ejects the case automatically, and he couldn’t find the brass before he had to leave? If he were using a semi-auto, and if he is a methodical person, why wouldn’t he use a brass catcher?
In any case, he may have used an “evil black gun”, or he may have used a .223 hunting rifle. The marks on the brass should tell.
