Which would you buy and why?

I can’t help you but everyone will want to know your use for it.

Just to have one in case everything does to crud. Plus to plink with. I have a 22lr and a 22-250. Just thinking about another option to play with.

5.56 sounds like the best option for doing that.

223 Wylde. Allows you to shoot both 223 or 5.56 and is a bit more accurate than the 5.56 chambering.

That makes sense.

Big Fitz beat me to it.

That’s what I bought just in case from an ammo perspective. It wasn’t anymore expensive

Now I know my next caliber. Now to choose the gun.

Never heard of 223 Wilde. I say stuff like that a lot.

223 Wylde is a hybrid chamber designed to let barrels be able to safely shoot both .223 Remington and 5.55mm NATO rounds out of the same barrel without loss of accuracy. Due to the slight differences in throat angle of each respective caliber’s cartridges and the difference in pressure; not much is known about the creator, but it was a gunsmith and engineer from Illinois named Bill Wylde who saw fit to design a chamber to fix this issue.

“What’s this issue”, you say? Well, here’s the thing — you can safely shoot .223 out of a 5.56 barrel without a problem because the Remington round has less pressure that military 5.56 rounds do. The caveat is that you’ll supposedly lose some accuracy but that loss is negligible to the average shooter not doing any precision or competition shooting. If you flip it the other way though, you could potentially have a serious problem.

223 barrels were made to withstand pressure from 223 rounds. 5.56 ammo has higher pressures than 223 does so if you were to shoot 5.56 out of a 223 barrel, the worst case scenario is that you could risk breaking your gun. Not to worry, it wouldn’t blow up in your face but there could easily be other malfunctions due to the excessive pressure the barrel wasn’t designed for — this could wear down internal parts very quickly causing cycling issues or break the extractor.

223 WYLDE PROS AND CONS

These are the pros and cons to using .223 Wylde designated barrels or rifles. Spoiler alert, you’re going to experience some increases in accuracy and may potentially pay more for it. Generally speaking, it’s hard to find anyone with a bad opinion of 223 Wylde.

223 WYLDE ADVANTAGES

The Wylde chamber provides additional space so that the throat of a 5.56 NATO cartridge won’t build up excess pressure. Honestly, the 223 Wylde is a solution to a problem that didn’t really exist. But, it does give you that much more leeway with ammo. If you have a 223 Wylde AR15 you could put any ammo through it without thinking twice. Also, there’s no such thing as 223 Wylde ammo.

223 WYLDE DISADVANTAGES

There really aren’t any disadvantages to having a 223 Wylde barrel or build. It’s a convenient option for AR-15 owners that shoot both .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO. If you find a good deal for a 223 Wylde complete upper, a 223 Wylde barrel or pre-built rifle, like the Wilson Combat Super Sniper, by all means go for it. Otherwise, the prices surrounding 223 Wylde products might make you think twice.

AR Performance .223 Wylde barrel with 5R and 1/8 twist has proven to be best for me in AR15 platform.
Surgically accurate at range, drops whitetails and pasture poodles quite well for me.

Wylde is the no brainer

Who builds a good budget gun say up to 1000.

It doesn't matter.

The .223 vs 5.56 debate is totally theoretical. There isn't a modern .223 made that won't safely handle any 5.56 NATO spec round. The lawyers have seen to that. The only exception would be a custom built rifle with a minimum spec chamber, and even that would probably be a bolt action rifle plenty strong enough to prevent a disaster.

Agree with ARP accuracy. I have an 18” and 16” in 223 Wylde only 3R.

I agree with this. There have been dozens of articles written and comparable tests between the two ammo’s and there is no evidence that one is consistently hotter. The difference is the chamber free bore and that has nothing to do with the ammunition itself.
We all know that there have been thousands of 5.56 shot in 223’s and I have never heard of an issue of rifles being damaged or anything dangerous happening.
Buy the Wylde chamber and that way the tacticool guys won’t reprimand you for shooting 5.56 thru your 223 at the local range would be my 2 cents.
I have guys ask me to load them 5.56 ammo because they think it’s hotter/ faster. I drag out the chronograph and show them factory Hornady Superformance 223 is faster than their 5.56 ammo as are my reloads. Ok I can slow down to that if you like..