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Posted: 6/2/2018 4:08:51 PM EDT
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Just purchased this entire collection of .223/5.56mm from another collector. Though it would never be complete, many, many examples are shown here. Looks as if it was started in the late 50's and stops in the 90's. In alphabetical order by head stamp and by country. Almost all flavors are shown including ball, duplex, tracer, AP, Proof, Flechette, blank and special contract. Enjoy!
Was asked about collecting and where to find some of the more rarer cartridges. Gun shows are a good start, but cartridge shows or even better. Belonging to the International Ammunition Association (IAA) helps a lot as it has like minded people (ex DOD and ATF types). They host a terrific cartridge show once a year called Saint Louis International Cartridge Show (SLICS) in April'ish. Many European collectors from the ECRA comes over from for the show, many from around the world. Just collecting cartridges are sold, its not a shooters show. The European Cartridge Research Association (ECRA) has 4 shows through out the year, all over Europe (Germany in Sept). Check out these clubs, you won't be disappointed. A second source is the internet, such as gun broker and special Facebook forums. wolfganggross 
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The Golden Rule rules, but enough is enough
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I never would have guessed there were that many individual cartridges.
I'm sure it took a little while to group them all together for the photo, but sometime when you have a lot of time to kill, I (and I'm sure a lot of other members) would love to see a list of what each cartridge is 
ETA: I saw that you painstakingly lined up each cartridge so it's label can be seen, but the writing pixelized too much when I enlarged it to read your writing. |
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Thank you, Thank you.
Rare is a relative word. What is rare to you might not be rare to me. With that said, there is a round at the end of the second row that is from Powell River Labs, Oak Ridge Tenn. that's a 69gr powdered tungsten tin core that was tested against and beat the AP3/ M995, but was excluded because of cost. Later this technology was sold to Dynamic Research Technologies (DRT), who only manufactures a powdered copper version. Most expensive , any of the tungsten core AP rounds (there is about 8 of them in this collection, including early version of M995/AP3) would sell for around $35-50 each. The THV from South Africa is another that commands a high price tag. Hard to find but not expensive, a Swiss match round for the US marines, USMC match from Camp Perry 2000, Sub sonic South African, a Rem-UMC for the 1962 NRA show, LC heavy ball reference, "FABRL". A couple will be sectioned, but not many. Most have been already sectioned (I need to repost) and I won't do the average ball round, they all look the same. Would love to do a lot of the tracers but won't until another is found to sacrifice. |
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Nice assortment. I hate those collectors that have to write on the cartridges though. Personally I think it ruins the collector value. For those that think this is a large collection, a serious collector of this caliber will have many thousands of individual variations. I got to visit Dave Hughes back when I was stationed in California in the 80s/90s. At the time, he was the .223/5.56 guru. He wrote a great book on the history and development of the M-16 and the .223/5.56. He also published a headstamp/variation checklist that was a full 1/2" thick. To second Wolfgang, the IAA and ECRA are fabulous organizations full of knowledge and great people willing to share that knowledge. |
i would trying them out on hogs 
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