.223 Wylde Chamber

[k2peaker]

My current 3-gun AR is a chambered in Wylde (18", 1x8"). I've never had issues chambering rounds with this barrel. But I mostly use my reloads (which are all full-sized resized, headspace assured) and pretty good factory stuff when I run it.

FWIW: my next comp gun will be chambered in .223 as I have good control of what I'm feeding the rifle and others like Hannu (who really knows this stuff) highly recommends .223 chambering for our competition use.
In your application where you just want reliable feeding with a whole host of different ammo, a 5.56 chamber would probably be best but I'm betting you wouldn't have problems if going with the Wylde chambering. A good number of the top AR15 builders are all using Wylde chambering (MSTN, JP, to name two of the top ones).

[ERNO]

Anyone here have experience with a barrel chambered in .223 Wylde? All the AR's I've ever owned have been chambered in 5.56.

My current AR-15 build is a Rock River upper, and I'm going to order a Shilen 223 Wylde barrel from Brownells, for High Power competition.
The good thing about the 223 Wylde is that you can safely shoot 5.56x45 in it; but you should not shoot 5.56x45 in a 223 chamber because of pressure spikes.

[buckshotbarlow]

1 savage model 12bvss - wylde 1:8 Shilen
1 RRA 16" - wylde 1:8
1 RRA 20" - wylde 1:7
1 PKcustom 16" - wylde 1:8
1 PKcustom 16" - wylde 1:8
1 Stag 16" - 5.56 1:7
I think i see a trend...Never had any problems with the wylde, and pdogs hate em. 1 Problem with the stag when an assumed FL resizer didn't work right...Bastard case got stuck in the chamber and had to bang the gun on the concrete to get it to eject. Once i got it out, i was correct, somehow the case didn't get a FL resize.

[970TJ]

huh. I was under the impression that the Wylde chamber was looser to make it easier to run 223 or 556. I have a Rock River Varmint 20" and I believe thats what it said in the book.....I very well could be wrong though, and I usually am!

[espos1111]

All RRA have the Wylde chamber, unless you can order otherwise. It is set up for both .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO. The current military loading (NATO SS-109 or US M855) uses longer, heavier bullets than the original loading did. This has resulted in a lengthening of the throat in the 5.56 mm chamber. Thus, while .223 Remington ammunition can be safely fired in a 5.56 mm chambered gun, firing 5.56 mm ammunition in a .223 Remington chamber may produce pressures in excess of even the 5.56 mm specifications due to the shorter throat.
The 5.56mm NATO chambering, known as a NATO or mil-spec chamber, has a longer leade, which is the distance between the mouth of the cartridge and the point at which the rifling engages the bullet. The .223 Remington chambering, known as SAAMI chamber, is allowed to have a shorter leade, and is only required to be proof tested to the lower SAAMI chamber pressure. To address these issues, various proprietary chambers exist, such as the Wylde chamber (Rock River Arms) or the Armalite chamber, which are designed to handle both 5.56mm NATO and .223 Remington equally well.

Woops! got carried away.

[Hannu]

Thanks to Ken for your polite words

If we want to be very picky, we decide what ammo we want to shoot and then order a custom reamer designed for our ammo.

In real life, there is never a chamber that could use two different kind of ammo equally well. Of course you can shoot .223 Rem out of .223 Wylde, but you can shoot .223 Rem out of 5.56 Nato as well. To say ".223 Wylde is for both .223 Rem and 5.56 Nato" is just a marketing trick.
It is kinda safe to say though, because 5.56 Nato ammo is not designed for precision shooting and performs equally poorly no matter what the chamber is.

What .223 Wylde is for; it was designed for Sierra MK 80gr loaded to 2.50" (from my memory) for high power slow-fire long range shooting. As you can imagine, there is no way 2.50" round would fit to any AR-15 mag.

So why many manufacturers use Wylde chambering ? Lets say first that US AR-15 manufacturers use it, Europeans do not. In Europe, liability is kinda transferred to (government operated) proof house that test fires every and each gun before it can be sold to private customer.

First answer is simple; .223 Wylde is better accuracy wise than 5.56 Nato, but longer (+10% to Nato is pretty typical) freebore keeps pressure down, even Wylde´s freebore is much tighter in diameter. The main difference between Wylde and Nato is freebore diameter. There are lost of others too, but regarding to accuracy that one is the most important.

M193 ammo usually does not create very high pressure when shot from minimum spec .223 Rem. chamber, problem is more with M855.
In min. spec pressure gun chamber, M855 ammo often creates pressure level 65.000 - 70.000 PSI. This kind of pressure will not blow a good AR-15 on your face with few rounds, but: if you just ignore high pressure signs and keep shooting, at some point your headspace will get longer and then you will have problems with high pressure ammo.

So .223 Wylde helps liability in US - if you shoot lots of high pressure military ammo or (for example) choose wrong powder for your handload, it does not explode on your face so easily and/or fast. With some loads, difference in peak pressure between .223 Wylde and .223 Rem. can be as 12.000 PSI.

Of course, this works other way too. Some bullet/powder combinations that work perfectly in .223 Rem, are performing just horribly in Wylde. Try (for example) to shoot 40gr Varmint bullet 3700 fps out of Wylde and see what happens - usually nothing good
Some powders are quite hard to ignite and demand quite high starting pressure to work ok etc.
With Rem chamber, you will get the same muzzle velocity with noticeable smaller powder charge = less throat erosion. Also you can use some very progressive powders that sometimes help accuracy.

We did some research years ago and find yout the following when compared to new Bushmaster 5.56 Nato barrel and our own .223 Rem: when .223 Rem barrel was shot about 16.000 rounds, the throat dimensions were almost equal when 5.56 Nato barrel was brand new. However, .223 freebore was still a little bit shorter. Usually, those barrels last around 26-28.000 rounds. That is the point where a barrel loses the ability to shoot in average less than 1.0 minute of angle groups to 150 meters (little less than 200 yd).
5.56 Nato barrels can not usually make that kind of grouping even as brand new.

Wylde´s loose chamber rear end also helps to use Russian shit like Wolf. But, loose rear end is a nightmare to many reloaders.

Other thing with Wylde... Well, I do not say it but somebody else might say: manufacturers do not want their barrels to last forever - they want to sell spare parts like new barrels too.

Yes there are some 5.56 match chamberings with tight freebore diameter, but for example 5.56 CLE is very close to .223 Rem and it has nothing to do with 5.56, except the name Main difference to .223 Rem is throat angle.

To put it short:

If you feed your rifle with anything you can find, take 5.56 Nato or .223 Wylde chamber, you probably do not worry too much about accuracy, barrel life etc. too much anyway.

If you reload, know what you are doing and want to shoot magazine fed ammo accurately for 3-gun, PD shooting etc, you care how long your barrel is gonna last because you just bought the most expensive Krieger match barrel, take .223 Rem.

Hope this helps someone to make the decision