was posting on another thread last night. and it set a chain reaction of thoughts going on in my head. it eventually stopped at this point:
5.56 is the NATO military designation for .223, right? for all intents and purposes, it's the same caliber.
so i was contemplating that and i think i remembered a thread around here along the lines of this: one of the calibers has higher tolerances than the others in the chamer; it's okay to use .223 in a 5.56 chamber, but not the other way around; and/or they're totally different and you can't use one in the other (okay, not really that last part, but there was a lot of differing opinions in the post).
so here's my question: what, if any, are the differences between a .223 cartridge and a 5.56 cartridge? also, any difference in the chambers for these cartridges?
thanks.