Just got an email featuring an online sale of .223 ammo.

Black box $7.99 (no limit) and Brown Box $8.29 (limit 25 boxes)


I thought they were the same.  Why the price difference and limit on brown?

black box is rediculously worst quality, i've never gotten a single hickup with the brown box but had 2 blown primers out of 200 rounds with the 08 black box tactical piece of crap that i just bought. hope that helps

I would love to see somebody make a physical comparison of the two. Check the powder weight examine the projectile and inspect the brass.

I don't know if there's a difference between the two, but I gone through no less than 3K rounds of the black box Federal stuff and haven't had a single problem.

I have bought a couple thousand black box and a thousand brown box an I can't tell a difference. All Lake City brass, all looks the same. I have not pulled the bullets yet and inspected the powder. I can't see why'd there be such a price difference if they were the same.

I know a few people who work at  The manufacturer in question. If it's for sale from there it's not first quality product. It failed some testing requirement.

Quoted: I know a few people who work at  The manufacturer in question. If it's for sale from there it's not first quality product. It failed some testing requirement.

So...do your people have any idea which testing requirement that might be???

I dont know. I'll ask. None of them have hear of any 5.56 being made for commercial use. So they might be out of the loop on that too.

Quoted: I would love to see somebody make a physical comparison of the two. Check the powder weight examine the projectile and inspect the brass.

We were kinda waitin on you for that...

Quoted: I know a few people who work at  The manufacturer in question. If it's for sale from there it's not first quality product. It failed some testing requirement.

If it didn't fail some QC test, etc. it would have gone to the military and NEVER be for sale on the commercial market.

Quoted: If it didn't fail some QC test, etc. it would have gone to the military and NEVER be for sale on the commercial market.

Isn't this why we have the X in the XM193. It would be nice to know exactly which QC test or tests it did not pass. Please help us out JM1911.....if you can.

And from what I gather, the C in the XM193C pertains more to the packaging. Help me out anybody. Or could the C have failed some different QC test than the brown box XM193 ???

I've never bought any of the black box, plenty of the brown, but not recently. I've got plenty stashed when the prices were way better.
I do remember when the XM193 "tacticool" black box stuff came out and they were offering twenty round boxes, 1000rd cases or you could buy it packed on strippers in 900rd cases. I also remember they did have different headstamped brass. Both were headstamped LC with the year, but one had the nato cross and the other did not. Always thought that was very odd....maybe there's some correlation there?

There was a thread a couple months ago that said the black box XM193C with NATO cross was genuine military over-run that had to be out into a black box to get around Klinton's ban on selling surplus ammo. That's why the NATO cross is present--but the brown box I saw at the same time did NOT have the NATO cross.....I think I fired 100 rounds without a problem.

It's just so confusing.

Glad I got the "old-fashion" brown box when it was cheaper....These things are so hard to keep track of....

M193 has not been the standard load for the military in a LONG time. It's hard for me to believe that they are making so much of it for government contracts that they end up with millions of rounds of QC rejects to sell to the public.

Also, there is no way they would sell ammo that had any serious defects - that would be a HUGE liability.

Finally, they don't need to do anything with the packaging concerning the ban on selling surplus. If it's never delivered to the government in the first place, it's not "surplus," regardless of the packaging.

I have no experience with the "C" stuff, but I have shot thousands of rounds of the brown boxed XM193 without any issues.

It is not rejects, the .mil canceled a 120 million round contract for M193 awhile back and this is where all this XM193 is coming from.

XM193 IS 5.56mm contract overun material per ATK according to a query via this website:

http://www.thegunzone.com/556xm.html

Now, given that we have cleared that up what the heck is going on with the black box stuff?

If it "meets all requirements for pressure, form, fit and function", why are we popping primers?

May I suggest pressure bordering on the high side of the mil-spec range combined with tight chambers(even IF marked 5.56, some are tighter than others) AND/OR dirty chambers caused by firing steel cased Wolf leaving carbon deposits in the chamber?

The key issue being tight chambers and an intolerance for lack of cleaning and steel cases.

Discuss amongst yourselves..........

I have a fair amount of both XM193C (American Eagle ``Black Box'') and XM193 (Federal ``Brown Box'').  I have shot over a thousand rounds of the brown box and a couple hundred rounds of the black box, in several rifles, with no problems.

I can say from a quick visual inspection that the XM193C seems to have more "seal" problems: the crimp seal is smeared all over the cartridge, and the the primer seal seems light or missing.

No problems with kB!, duds, squibs, primer issues, brass issues, etc in any weapon I own.

Of what I stockpile, I shoot

Privi M193
XM193C
XM193

... and would go in reverse order for Home Defense/SHTF.

YMMV, IANA Ballistics Expert, etc. etc.

-WhyTanFox

Quoted: It is not rejects, the .mil canceled a 120 million round contract for M193 awhile back and this is where all this XM193 is coming from.

This is what I choose to believe. The X stands for cancelled and the M193 is the old designation.
WOW! Thats its...Okay problem solved. Its good enough for me.

Quoted: I have a fair amount of both XM193C (American Eagle ``Black Box'') and XM193 (Federal ``Brown Box'').  I have shot over a thousand rounds of the brown box and a couple hundred rounds of the black box, in several rifles, with no problems. I can say from a quick visual inspection that the XM193C seems to have more "seal" problems: the crimp seal is smeared all over the cartridge, and the the primer seal seems light or missing. No problems with kB!, duds, squibs, primer issues, brass issues, etc in any weapon I own. Of what I stockpile, I shoot Privi M193 XM193C XM193 ... and would go in reverse order for Home Defense/SHTF. YMMV, IANA Ballistics Expert, etc. etc. -WhyTanFox

The only differences I've ever noticed are the box and "maybe" some cosmetic sealer issues.  It does not affect the way the gun shoots.  And since it looks like you've seen the same thing, I'm willing to bet that's the difference between packaging...

I feel more tacticool while shooting the brown box at the range.

Quoted: I feel more tacticool while shooting the brown box at the range.

And green!  The brown box is biodegradable; I'm not so sure about the glossy black box.

-WTF

A guy shooting the black box ammo on the range today was having one failure per box. Looked like the primer was seated to deep in the LC headstamped brass. Fireing pin was leaving just the smallest dimple in the primer. We tried the failed rounds thru my AR-15 with the same results. The dimple left in a normal primer when chambering was deaper than what multiple attempts to fire from different rifles was doing to the out of spec black box stuff.

I chrono'd some brown box and some black box a couple of days ago.  It was hot as hell here in Florida, close to a 100 degrees F, I'm guessing.  I was shooting my Bushy 16" HBAR.

Ten rounds of brown box shot at 3187 ft/sec.  Then I shot eight rounds of black box shot at 3230 ft/sec.  I could feel more of a kick with the black box, it seemed.

Looking back over the record of shots, the speeds were generally increasing as I shot more.  I'm guessing that the barrel was heating the cartridges as it heated up.  So I shot a couple more brown box rounds and replaced those speeds in my calculations with the first two I had shot earlier.  This ten rounds of brown box then averaged 3197, which is exactly the same as I got in a test I did a couple of months ago.

It will be interesting to see what kind of speeds I get when the weather cools down.

A couple of tidbits, for those who are interested:

My little .22 mag North American revolver with the short barrel (1 1/8 in) shot .22 mag Winchester hollow points at between 6 and 7 hundred ft/sec.  My friend has one with a longer barrel, but his speeds were no better than mine.  We carry these little guns in our pockets with our keys and change.

My Sig 228 shot 115 gr Speer Gold Dot HP's at 1141 ft/sec.  I shot 5 rounds of Winchester Wal Mart  "value pack" 115 gr, and it averaged 1088.  I've previously determined that the Wal Mart stuff is pretty accurate, so I'm going to keep about a thousand rounds around as backup self-defense ammo for when TSHTF.  I bought some earlier before the price went up.

Finally, I had a couple of BAD rounds of Gold Dot that I have disregarded (668 and 761 ft/sec).  I suspect these are rounds that I have pulled out of the chamber a lot when I'm unloading the gun to dry fire or clean it.  I have previously noticed that this loosens the bullet.  One time the bullet fell out of the cartridge.   This is something that needs to be watched as the round in the chamber is the first one I would fire in self-defense.