.308/7.62 NATO vs .223/5.56: which is better?

submitted by Chipit from self.Guns

Amount you can carry

Fighting between the big-round and small-round groups reached a peak in the early 1960s, when test after test showed the .223 Remington (M193 5.56×45mm) cartridge fired from the AR-15 allowed an eight-soldier unit to outgun an 11-soldier unit armed with M14s at ranges closer than 300 meters. U.S. troops were able to carry more than twice as much 5.56×45mm ammunition as 7.62×51mm NATO for the same weight, which allowed them an advantage against a typical NVA unit armed with Type 56-1s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×51mm_NATO#Adoption_in_battle_rifles

Interesting chart there too about how much ammo you can carry in a 10kg load of magazines.

260 rounds of 762 NATO

620 rounds of 556

360 rounds of 762 Soviet.

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[–]TaseAFeminist4Jesus 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm actually partial to .22 Magnum. I guess the rimfire aspect of it limits military usefulness.

[–]The-Real-Mario 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Actually I often think of that, imagine a 22Mag machinegun, with some type of hopper-magazine system , would be pretty easy to design, and it could lay fire for a very long time, it would be great at making the enemy take cover, easy to suppress the sound, and super light, even 22lr would work for this, It would be crap at shooting buildings, but even 7.62 becomes useless against a masonery wall that is more than 5" tick, its not gonna go through! at this point might as well shoot 5 times longer at it , amd make the enemy cower for longer, giving you time to advance, ALSO , it would have so little recoil you would be able to shoot a laser beam of tracers

[–]iamonlyoneman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

apples are better than oranges