How Many Rounds Can An AR-15 hold? A Detailed Explanation

If you’re not familiar with guns, it can get extremely confusing when getting into the details of how they work. AR-15’s are no exception to this rule. They are intimidating until you start learning more about them. A good starting place is learning about capacity. Let’s take a look.

How many rounds can an AR-15 hold? The number of rounds an AR-15 can hold is limited by the capacity of the magazine inside the gun. A typical, standard capacity AR-15 magazine holds 30 rounds; however, there are smaller magazines that hold 5 or 10 and larger magazines that hold 60 or more. When magazines get too big, they often become unreliable. Some states restrict the number of rounds AR-15’s can hold.

Obviously this explanation gets us most of the way there, but there are certainly more details that can help us understand why it holds 30 rounds and what other types of guns can hold.

Detailed Explanation

The AR-15 is a fantastic gun to own in order to practice and protect your second amendment right. By itself, it doesn’t have a specific round capacity because magazines containing ammunition are inserted—this is similar to most modern guns. The standard capacity in an AR-15 magazine is 30 rounds. Those magazines are then inserted into the mag well in order to fire.

Obviously, then, magazine capacities can be altered in order to fit fewer rounds or more rounds depending on the application. Some common low-capacity magazines hold 5 or 10 rounds—often used for shooting at long distances. Other magazines hold much more than this, with capacities of 60 or more. These types of magazines can be used in real applications, but are often used for fun at the range.

Some more restrictive, communist-type states restrict the number of rounds magazines can legally hold. California, for example, has passed laws that make it illegal to own magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, regardless of the type of gun. In other words, AR-15 owners in California can only shoot with magazines that hold 10 or fewer rounds—even though their guns are capable of holding normal-capacity magazines. Other states have followed suit, but most, still allow their citizens to be free.

What round does the AR-15 shoot?

The AR-15 shoots a smaller round than most people think. It seems like a big and scary gun. Though it’s an effective weapon that is capable of helping you defend your life (and your second amendment right); it isn’t as intimidating as it initially appears. AR-15’s shoot a .22 caliber bullet. Many other rifles shoot much larger and more powerful projectiles.

The technical caliber that the AR-15 shoots is 5.56 NATO and .223 Remington. They are two ways to describe virtually the same cartridges. They are NOT the same cartridge technically, but they are very similar. Suffice it to say that the 5.56 is a slightly more powerful cartridge than .223. Most AR-15 barrels are chambered in 5.56—which allows the shooter to shoot .223 rounds or 5.56 rounds out of the same gun.

Small caliber allows for higher capacity

Many rifles shoot larger bullets, which generally affects how many rounds can be carried in magazines. Obviously, as we’ve discussed, there’s technically no limit to how many rounds a magazine can hold—but there is a practical limit to how many rounds a magazine can hold. And the bigger and heavier the cartridges are, the fewer rounds each magazine will hold.

I would venture to say most rifles hold a .30 caliber bullet. By the way, all “.30 caliber” means is that the actual bullet is between .3 and .399 inches (or somewhere close) in diameter. There are so many rifles out there that fit this description, which is both good and bad. There are strengths and weaknesses to every caliber that exists. One of the weaknesses of a .30 caliber cartridge is that it is generally fatter than a 5.56/.223 cartridge.

Because .223/5.56 is .20 caliber cartridge, they are more narrow than .30 caliber cartridges. The more narrow cartridge takes up less space in a magazine. As a natural result, more rounds can fit in a magazine of the same size. This is almost always the better option (as long as the cartridge is effective) because it means more ammo can be carried more effectively. Obviously, there is still a limit to the number of rounds that can be held, but it can be a better option.

Semi-automatic regardless of capacity

Now that we’ve established that an AR-15 can really hold any capacity that a magazine can reliably feed into the gun, it’s important to remember one other thing. Regardless of the number of rounds in the magazine, AR-15’s are still semi-automatic. Which means they can only shoot one round per pull of the trigger. People often start to think that a person could just put a huge magazine in an AR-15, pull the trigger and send hundreds of rounds down range in a minute. But it’s no different than shooting a handgun.

Through lots of practice a person can get very fast at pulling the trigger on any gun; but only one round will leave the gun per trigger pull. For anyone who’s never shot a lot of rounds quickly, it’s hard to maintain that pace without exhausting your finger. Additionally, there’s only so many rounds an AR-15 can mechanically process through the gun—and it’s no where close to what some politicians are saying.

How do the rounds fit in the magazine?

AR-15 ammo fits in the magazines the same way most ammo fits into any other magazines. There is an important point to make though. One of the reasons an AR-15 can easily hold 30 rounds in a standard magazine is that the rounds are stacked in an alternating pattern called “double stack”. All this means is that one round doesn’t sit directly on top of another. Instead, each round sits at about a 45 degree angle on top of the other. This makes for fatter magazines—since they are two rounds wide—but shorter magazines.

The alternative to double stack would be single-stack magazines—which are magazines with only one vertical stack of rounds. Single-stack magazines tend to be thinner than their double stack counterparts. They either have to be taller to hold the same number of rounds, or cut the total number of rounds that will fit. We often see handguns that are single stack, but not many rifles.

With AR-15’s, not only are the rounds very narrow in diameter, they fit in double-stack magazines. So the magazines are relatively short even with 30 rounds. Guns that shoot larger cartridges must compensate by making larger magazines or reducing the number of rounds. AK-47’s, for example, take larger magazines with 30 rounds.

Capacities of other long guns

AK-47’s

The AK-47 is one of the most used guns on the planet—usually in military applications. AK-47’s tend to carry 30 round magazines, which is the same number of rounds as AR-15’s. However, if you were to line an AK-47 magazine up with an AR-15 magazine, you would clearly see that the AK mag is longer. This is simple physics, The rounds are fatter and take up more space.

Remington 700

The Remington 700 (or close variants) is a very popular bolt-action rifle. It is typically used in hunting and long-range shooting. It usually holds 10-round magazines, but there are other size magazines available. It shoots a .30 caliber bullet, which means it’s magazines are larger than AR-15 magazines of the same round count.

Mossberg 500

Switching gears a little bit, we’ll go to a few shotguns. The Mossberg 500 is a very popular shotgun used for skeet shooting and certain hunting applications. It’s magazine is a little bit different than the others because, like most shotguns, it isn’t removable. It has a capacity of 5 shells (of 2.75 inches), which is significantly less than most rifles.

Remington 870

Looking at another very popular shotgun, we’ll transition to the Remington 870. It is used in very similar ways as the Mossberg 500, mostly skeet shooting and hunting. It has a bit longer magazine, holding 6 shells (2.75 inches) inside. Both of these shotguns’ magazines are mounted underneath the barrels. The rounds fit in the magazines in a horizontal fashion. One round sits in front of another. Obviously, like other shotguns, the 870 holds fewer rounds in its magazine than rifles with removable magazines—where the rounds are stacked vertically instead of one in front of the other.