Colt Sp1 Manual
I am in no way an expert but everything I have read or been told by experts is don't shoot 5.56 in a barrel marked.223. One reason being pressure. I have both factory.223 and 5.56 made by the same company (federal) at the same bullet weight 55 grains and the 5.56 sits a little higher. I have heard (never seen it) that 5.56 rounds in a.223 sometimes do not seat right.
I say why risk it? Again, would you shoot a.38 +p in a barrel marked.38 spcl?
I am sure a couple rounds might not matter but again, why risk it? I have one that I bought in 1977.
A SP-1 and I have shot hundreds of rounds of LC 5.56 and Commercial 223 through it. Every Police Dept and prison that I know of shoots 223 ammo through their 5.56marked rifles. There might be a difference that I don't know about but I have never run across a set of dies marked 5.56 or 7.62X51. Ironically, RCBS does have 5.56 die now. It is part of their AR series. It is different because it applies a different crimp ment for auto reloading rifles. They also have a 7.62x51 one as well.
I shoot.223 through my 5.56 all the time when I plink, personally I would never switch that. Colt ARs have alway used GI 5.56 chambers. As others have mentioned, it has to do with the leade in the throat ie. Where the rifling begins. The main reason this is mentioned is that bolt action.223s usually have a very short leade and using 5.56 Nato ammunition can result in much higher chamber pressure because of that. For that reason most seasoned High Power competitors avoid Colt barrels because mag-length match ammo doesn't do as well as for example the Wylde chamber with a somewhat shorter leade. It only gets worse as the throat is eroded through use.
I like this guys answer and link is here. The 5,56x45NATO and the.223 Remington are the EXACT SAME cartridge, and completely interchangeable, just as with the 7,62x51NATO and.308Win. If this were NOT so, EVERY weapon chambered for these cartridges would have BIG RED WARNING tags on them saying so when they are shipped from their factories of origin. Also, I would imagine similar warnings would appear in any quality reloading manual, and I own several, from over 35 years old, to nearly brand new, and NONE of them contain ANY such warnings! I have a FN/FAL, a H-K G-3, and a Mauser and Springfield sporterized bolt guns, ALL chambered for 7,62/.308, ALL of which have each at least 1,000 rounds thru them. When this fairy tale first made its' debut years ago, I had all of my rifles checked by my friendly neighborhood gunsmith, and, between fits of laughter, he assured me, as several other professionals have, firing either cartridge in any of my rifles is perfectly safe.
Source(s): Legal Arizona CWP armed citizen, w/ H-K USP.45ACP Life Member: N.R.A. Marine 4x Rifle & 2x Pistol Expert:U.S.M.C. Firearms owner,including FN/FAL, H-K G-3, & Mauser rifles.
35+ years reloading metallic pistol and rifle ammo. I've been shooting with and around AR's a long time, all the way back to Colt's SP1 AR 15. Everybody shot military surplus LC 5.56 x 45 NATO cuz it was cheap. I can't recall any pressure issues with the Colt rifle (or Armalite's). Fast forward, since the time of the commercialization of the AR15 A2 in the '80's, nearly every barrel out there has either a Wylde-spec chamber or a 5.56 NATO chamber.
So your AR is GTG with.223 Remington or 5.56 NATO. The ONLY documented incompatibilities I've seen/heard reported were with earlier-version '.223 Remington'-marked bolt-action rifles manufactured by Remington and Savage, perhaps others as well, in the 12 twist barrel.
Bolts hard to close, hard to open, flattened primers reported in shooting '5.56 NATO'-labeled ammo. But since the latter '90's most of the popular factory-barreled U.S.-made bolt guns are chambered for either cartridge and rifled 1:8 or 1:9. My Winchester Model 70, for example, is a 9 twist stamped '.223 Heavy Varmint.'
It has a Wylde chamber. I'm not saying throw caution to the winds. Know your own equipment.
But I am saying these specs are easy enough to check out with the manufacturer of your AR or bolt gun or barrel maker or rifle builder. There's no reason to buy anything labeled/stamped '.223 Remington' any more unless it's factory ammo.
Here is a pic of page 1 of the 1990 Colt Sporter owners manual. They say either 5.56 or 223 is suitable for both the target model and the HBAR. Regarding Vandy's question about using 38 Special +P in a revolver marked 38 Special.
Colt Sp1 Manual
It was regularly done for years by law enforcement officers. Before the sub compact semi autos came along, the small five shot 38 special snubby was one of the most popular back up guns carried by cops. The favorite ammo for these was the Winchester LSWCHP +P round also know as the Chicago load. It was known by the officers that there was a possibility the round could eventually stretch the frame, but a catastrophic failure was highly unlikely.
I fired several hundred rounds through an alloy frame Chief's Special with no signs of a problem. I saw two Ruger minnie 14s blow apart in the last year at the local range shooting 5.56 and were marked 223 only you can decide why on your own and if you look it up for yourself and not go by what other people say a 5.56 case is longer than a 223 Rem case look it up and see!!!!!!!!!!! This is not credible. Ruger Mini 14's have ALWAYS been OK'd by the factory for EITHER 5.56 or.223 (read the manual). Mini 14's are INCREDIBLY strong.
SHort of a barrel obstruction or a case full of pistol powder, it is NOT gonna happen, 3. The only person who needs to 'look up' anything is you. But if you can find ANYTHING that backs up your 'longer case' theory, feel free to post it.
Hey, guys, welcome back. Today we’re at the long range with a couple of. In my hand I have an older 1971 manufactured SP1.
The SP1 is chambered for 5.56 or 223 and has a 20 inch barrel, it’s a pencil weight barrel. It’s a very lightweight barrel and it has a one-in-12-inch twist. These guns are really, you know—cool guns. They’re lightweight. This is what the M16 was originally supposed to be.
A super light rifle that would replace the M14 in military service in Vietnam. Again, this rifle was built in 1971. It has a shorter M16—M16-A1 stock.
You’ll notice it lacks a forward assist, which came later in 1967 as the M16-A1. Even though this gun was built in 1971, the civilian model rifles did not adopt the A1 feature, such as the forward assist, until much later in the product’s life cycle. Again, it has that that pencil weight barrel. One-in-12-twist, and what I want to do this afternoon is compare this rifle, accuracy-wise, with iron sights, to this rifle. This is an AR15-A2, Sporter.
This one has all the features of the A2 rifle. It does not have a removeable carrying handle, so that’s more like the A4.
The carrying handle is integrated into the receiver, but it does have the combat adjustable—both windage and elevation rear sights. 20 inch barrel, one-in-seven-inch twist. Slightly heavier barrel profile and the sights are slightly different than the SP1. Same sight radius, but the aperture is a little bit more precise. The front sight post is square, versus round, and honestly, I slightly prefer the sight fixture of the A2. Of course, I’ve been shooting the A2 much longer than I have the SP1. This has a slightly longer stock, which is an A2 type stock.
Colt Sp1 Manual
Forward assist, brass deflector, all that good stuff, but again, it has that one-in-seven-inch barrel twist. I’ve brought out some WOLF Gold, which is Taiwanese 5.56 spec ammunition. It’s a 55 grain ball, over 3,000 feet per second in velocity. Fairly decent stuff. I can’t get 2 inch, 2 ½ inch groups, typically, out of it with a scoped rifle that’s shooting good. We’re going to use this ammunition, iron sights at 100 yards, and we’re going to see which one of these turns in the best groups. The reason I’m doing that is because I’ve seen discussions on the internet where people say the one-in-12-inch twist barrels of the old SP1 rifles aren’t as accurate as the one-in-seven-inch twist rifles like the rifle you see here.
Some folks believe, falsely so, that the one-in-12-inch twist barrel cannot properly stabilize the bullet, and when I say a one-in-12-inch twist, that means the bullet makes one complete revolution every 12 inches of travel and flight, and the one-in-seven, obviously, is making 7 inches of travel every time it makes one revolution in flight. So we’re going to take these rifles out, shoot them at 100 yards, shoot a couple of groups and see which one turns in the best groups with the same ammunition. Not a scientific test, but it should be fun. Let’s see how they do. Alright, I have five rounds of the WOLF Gold loaded up. I picked this stuff up from luckygunner.com.
I’m going to fire the SP1 first. I do not have Eye Pro on, because, honestly, I can’t get a good sight picture with it on, so I do not recommend you shoot rifles without eye protection. I am taking a risk in doing this. I understand that, but I don’t recommend you do it. Alright, first five shot group, SP1. Got the target cam running over here that’s recording the target down range, and let’s see what we get. Alright, five rounds.
Stringing them out there. Not the best group. Let’s go ahead and grab the A2, load up five more rounds. Have to run down range and reposition the camera here really quick, and we will fire a group out of this one. We’re not just firing one group each.
We’re going to fire several and we’ll show you the best that each rifle turns in. A lot of it will have to do with the shooter. Not just the gun. Alright, run down range real quick and readjust our range so we can see the next target.
Alright, so we got our target cam adjusted to the new target. Five rounds of the WOLF Gold and the A2. This is technically a Sporter target model. Let’s see how this one does.
I definitely like the trigger better on the A2, probably because I just broke it in more. Let’s see what we did.
Hard to tell. Take a run down range and take a look at the target. I wanted to give you the history on this A2, which is technically a Sporter target model, caliber.223. This rifle, you’ll notice, is missing a bayonet lug, and it also has a big hole drilled here in the receiver and is plugged. This gun was made just before the 1994 ban, which was enacted by President Clinton.
It was known as the Assault Weapons Ban. Colt was producing these rifles. They purposely neutered them without any directive from the government. They were doing it in hopes that the government wouldn’t pass the Assault Weapons Ban. A lot of people got mad at Colt for doing that.
They, again, took the bayonet lugs off voluntarily, they put this block in here, which made it very difficult to convert the rifle either legally or illegally into a machine gun. You can see the big block they put in here, and they weakened the receive, some folks would say, because of the size of the hole they had drilled and plugged in the receiver, but this gun is almost impossible to convert to, obviously, a machine gun. Yeah, I thought that was kind of interesting that this gun was made just before the ban. This is not a ban rifle, this is actually a pre-ban rifle, and one of the cool features is it looks like it has a pushpin here in the front, but you’ll notice it actually has a screw holding the pin in place. It is a pushpin, but you have to remove this screw piece, then you can push out the pin, which looks normal on the other side of the rifle.
Alright, so how did the two rifles perform this afternoon? Let’s take a look at the groups.
We shot quite a few groups this afternoon with both rifles. I’ve taken the best and worst group that each rifle printed. Let’s talk about the SP1 first. The best group the SP1 printed today was a 2 inch group. Five shot group with WOLF Gold ammunition. The lighting conditions kept changing throughout the afternoon, and as it got darker, the groups definitely started to open up and we started to see groups like the next group.
The worst group that the SP1 printed, and this one measured 3 3/8ths of an inch. That’s the worst it did. Five shots, 100 yards. Alright, so how did the A2 fare? Well, the A2 printed the tightest group this afternoon, just 1 ½ inches. Three rounds, pretty much through the same hole here.
I was really impressed by that. Now, that’s the best I’ve seen the WOLF Gold ammunition shoot ever, even with a scoped rifle, so I got pretty luck with that one. I was really happy with that group. The worst group—so the A2 not only printed the best group, but it also printed the worst group. The worst group was turned in by the A2 with a five shot, 4 inch group at 100 yards. I’ll guarantee you, that was all the shooter. This was when it started raining and getting dark outside.
A thunderstorm was rolling through, so there you have it. Which one of the rifles was more accurate? I think it’s pretty much an even draw. With 55 grain ammunition, they’re both capable of putting down similar sized groups, and that’s what it kind of boils down to. In my personal experience in dealing with one-in-seven, one-in-eight, one-in-nine, and even 1-in-12 inch twist guns with 55 grain ball, I see similar results. I can’t find any empirical data that proves that the one-in-seven consistently shoots M193 ball type ammunition any better than the other twist rates that are slightly slower. What I will say is the one-in-seven is definitely better suited for shooting heavier bullets.
69 grain, 77 OTM, things like that. We did fire off one five shot group with the Black Hill 69 grain match. The one-in-12 inch twist SP1 and we saw that it shot about a 3 inch group at 100 yards, a little over 3 inches, which actually is comparable to some of the groups that we shot with the 55 grain ball. What I did note, though, is that I did stabilize the bullet. The bullets did not keyhole or strike the paper sideways, so in the end, both rifles, about the same in terms of accuracy. One thing I did find is that—I’ve guess I’ve always known is that the A2, with its combat adjustable sights, it’s definitely easier to shoot at range.
It’s easier to dial in elevation. You have a drum here that’s marked, and you can dial it out to six—I think it’s marked out to 800 meters. I was dialing it up to just under six and shooting and hitting a steel plate that’s 24 inches in size at 500 yards. I found it very easy to do to repeatedly hit that with the WOLF Gold ammunition using the iron sights.
So the gun is definitely well suited for extending those ranges where the SP1 kind of has a fixed sight, and you can flip your aperture over. You can’t really dial in precise elevation.
The A2 definitely has better sights, but again, that’s a matter of personal preference. When it comes down to just raw mechanics and which rifle is more accurate, you know, it’s a tossup. Either rifle, I think it more or less depends on the shooter than it does the gun.
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