Chinese .223/5.56?

Nerwy

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Anyone know if there will be or are any current imports of the Chinese 5.56? Seems to be the last hope for cheap .223/5.56.
 
Anyone know if there will be or are any current imports of the Chinese 5.56? Seems to be the last hope for cheap .223/5.56.

The words "cheap" and "ammo" are quickly becoming 2 words that are increasingly not used in the same sentence. I have never seen Chinese 5.56 but I like the idea of it for plinking ammo. It never really made much sense to reload .223 from a cost savings perspective but right now I would say that the savings are worth it if you can find the powder.
 
Lever Arms has 800 round 5.56 metal spam cans.

Around .70 a round shipped, not cheap but reloadable and non corrosive.
 
It's tough because while the boat is on the way here, you don't know where prices are going. Lots of 5.56 available in the .20 range still, but importers are marking it up as high as possible. The ammo crisis in Canada is nothing more than the supply chain getting greedy.
 
I don't think there will be any...Barnaul was pretty much the only cheap(er) game in town...mostly sold out everywhere by now.
 
It's tough because while the boat is on the way here, you don't know where prices are going. Lots of 5.56 available in the .20 range still, but importers are marking it up as high as possible. The ammo crisis in Canada is nothing more than the supply chain getting greedy.

Where do you find $ 0.20/rnd ? BP / Cabelas had 150-boxes for ($80 +tx) last Summer but they were gone around here by Fall.
 
Seems .60 to .85 is the norm. Steel case does not interest me, I want reloadable brass as I see 9mm, 5.56, 7.62, .50, all getting choked off by our Overlords.........
 
Lever Arms has 800 round 5.56 metal spam cans.

Around .70 a round shipped, not cheap but reloadable and non corrosive.

They just raised the price on their 8x57 surplus to $1.65/cartridge taxes in.

They mention in store only, if they won't ship. I see that on the 8x57 but not on anything else.

Call them.

I've used lots of that Chinese 5.56 Nato ammo and it's pretty decent, for the price, or at least it was.

It's as consistently accurate as Winchester or Federal White Box ammo.

It's actually very good to reload and can be redone at least ten times. The only thing you need to be careful with is are the flash holes.

It's Boxer primed, with only one flash hole, but those flash holes aren't always drilled or they can be offset, which leads to broken or bent decapping pins.

The Chinese use a load of ball powder, beneath their 55grain bullets that looks very much like BLC2. It must be their equivalent, because the average charge weight is 25.4 grains, which is exactly the load used with BLC2
 
I'll agree with all Bearhunter said above, I find the powder a little dirty but nothing serious, Norinco 5.56 was my go to competition ammo for 3 gun in my AR's, never had an issue,
They do not have a flash retardant in their powder which makes for some nice fireballs, in both the 5.56 and 7.62x39 white box. I haven't shot any of the norinco .45acp for awhile but it could produce them too, Iam not sure.
I've still got a semi healthy supply of Norc 5.56. doesn't get eaten up as fast since the AR's became prohib, the only rifles I have to feed it to now are a 180b and MRA which don't get out much.

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The Chinese use a load of ball powder, beneath their 55grain bullets that looks very much like BLC2. It must be their equivalent, because the average charge weight is 25.4 grains, which is exactly the load used with BLC2

Used by who, for what? I use BL-C(2) for all my bulk 556 and x51 loading and 25.4grns is going to be relatively slow with a 55grn FMJ. 28.2 grains barely gets me to M193 speeds with Norc brass, or any for that matter. I use 27.5 with a 62grn FMJ and I am well under max pressure.
 
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Used by who, for what? I use BL-C(2) for all my bulk 556 and x51 loading and 25.4grns is going to be relatively slow with a 55grn FMJ. 28.2 grains barely gets me to M193 speeds with Norc brass, or any for that matter. I use 27.5 with a 62grn FMJ and I am well under max pressure.

I have several different surplus lots of 5.56 from other than Chinese stockpiles

All of them, with ball powder, have a charge weight of 25.4 +-1grains.

I have tried to duplicate those loads so that I don't have to make sighting changes on the rifles I use them in.

25.4 grains of BLC2 gets me within 25-50fps of the velocities.

I don't see where you're coming from?

Surplus ammo is not the equivalent of handloads.

The best we can do is find a powder/components that match or comes close.

The BLC2 I have is also surplus, from a lot of powder made up for producing US military ammunition.
 
If it were their take on BL-C(2) it would be easy to duplicate without being so far off of their charge. Using their brass, Magnum primer and a nearly identical bullet and my charges barely break 3200 from several different 20" barrels. BL-C(2) (aka WC846) also wasn't used to load 5.56 for very long at all before it was blamed for leaving too much calcium carbonate residue in M-16s and replaced by WC844 (H335) powder. I had an AR with 3000+ rounds and no cleaning, never had any issues with reliability so I believe it was wrongly blamed or they managed to fix that in the meantime.
 
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If it were their take on BL-C(2) it would be easy to duplicate without being so far off of their charge. Using their brass, Magnum primer and a nearly identical bullet and my charges barely break 3200 from several different 20" barrels. BL-C(2) (aka WC846) also wasn't used to load 5.56 for very long at all before it was blamed for leaving too much calcium carbonate residue in M-16s and replaced by WC844 (H335) powder. I had an AR with 3000+ rounds and no cleaning, never had any issues with reliability so I believe it was wrongly blamed or they managed to fix that in the meantime.

So what???

The Chinese nor US militaries were loading for best performance.

They load for a cartridge that comes in at the cheapest cost, works reliably in their firearms and goes bang every time, while delivering a product that best meets their specs.

I agree with you completely, with what you've printed. The surplus ammo I have doesn't. Then again, the ammo is quite old but very reliable and my load duplicates its performance without any issues in my firearms, which most certainly aren't being used under stressful conditions
 
Yeah nice way of not bothering to say you are wrong. You are basing your statement off of nothing but what the powder looks like. Apparently you haven't noticed the difference between CJ-92, 93 and 95 either.

You are just wrong, aside from your opinion and supposed velocity there is zero proof they copied the powder (neither of those are proof as well...) On top of that it simply doesn't even make any sense. Why copy a powder that was used briefly then considered unsuitable 30 years prior? There are actual military documents showing what was used and when. Feel free to simply Google things.

Stop making statements that aren't true and I will stop calling you out.At this point I can't care enough about a stranger's silliness to continue. I'll catch you the next time you say something wrong.
 
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Thankyou very much for your obvious concern and input.

I'll still keep right on using my load of 25.4 grains of BLC2 in my 5.56Nato brass, under 55grain bullets, until I run out of one or the other.

This load is about as close as it gets to the Chinese 5.56Nato and it's not quite as dirty.

This would indicate to me that the powder used by the Chinese has almost the identical burn rate of BLC2, even if it isn't.
 
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