Is there an easy way to disassemble 5.56 ammo belts?
I have 1000 rounds of 5.56 green tip and tracer in belts that were made to feed S.A.W.'s. Does anyone know of an easy way to break them down(besides running them through a SAW lol)? It's kind of slow and tedious pushing them out of the links. Thanks in advance.
2013-02-16T11:54:26Z
I like the hire a kid idea too! If I could get them to load the rounds into stripper clips it would be ideal. I had thought about using some wire hooks held by the top of my loading press and utilize the ram and shell holder to pull them out of the links but it seems like too much trouble.
The Freak Show2013-02-16T05:48:22Z
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I just delinked a bunch of cloth belted 30-06. I have delinked thousands of rounds of 5.56 too. I always do it the same way. I bring out a hardwood block, turn on the TV, sit down, press the tip into the wood to get it started, then twist it out. After a few, it becomes totally automatic. You're totally right. It's tedious, but to me I do it so seldom, it isn't worth investing in a dedicated tool for the job. I really do like the idea of having some neighbor kid do it. Tell them they can run a magazine of the ammo through your rifle. When I was a kid, my Dad would always assign me jobs like that, or depriming cases. In return, I got to shoot his ammo. It seemed like a good deal then, and now that we're 45 and 73, I still do that sort of stuff for him.
Mr 357 has an awesome piece of advice there! LOL. I would pay a kid $10 to do it.
Me - I would haul it all to the local National Guard armory with a case of good beer. Ask if you could use their delinker for a half hour, and, if it would ok to use this case of 'beverage' as a door stop.
If it looks like you will be getting allot of this ammo in the future - buying a delinker would be a good idea. You never see them come up in DRMO or military surplus, but, you can advertise in places like gunbroker.com, the a-list, and ar-15.com in the wanted section that you are looking for one.
You might be able to find a 5.56 linker/de-linker which will make this process much easier.
Some place like here might be helpful:
http://beltfedplus.com/linkloaders.html
You will note that the baseline M7 linker-delinker is for .50BMG ammo, but if you look farther down on the page, there is a conversion plate for 5.56 ammo. If you're willing to spend the money, it may pay for itself in the lack of headaches, depending on just how much linked ammo you have.