How to Link and De-link Ammunition by Hand

Video Transcript:

Today I'm going to show you how I link and delink M27 and M13 disintegrating links. For most of this video I'm going to be demonstrating on .308 just because it's bigger and easier to see, but the process is the same if you're linking .308 or .556. The links, they have this little tab on the bottom. That clicks into the rim on the cartridge. I'm right-handed, so I always keep my links on my right-hand side, my ammunition on my left-hand side. I'm going to take a link, make sure the tab is pointed toward me.

I'm going to slide the cartridge in. Once you see the projectile and that little opening, lay your next link on. Click. Push with your thumb. You can hear that? Click every time. It's real easy. What I'm doing is I'm pushing with my thumb. I'm holding this down with my finger so it doesn't go sliding away on me. If I've got two belts that I want to join together, what I do is I get a hammer, hold it like this, lay the tab right there, and I press. I pop it into place. I'll show you again. Lay the tab right there, press.

When I've got a helper, I can belt up ammunition real quick. All I do is I put my hand on the belt, hold it down, and then I slide the cartridge into place with the other hand, and my helper just lays the links where they need to go, like this. When I de-link big belts like this, I like to break them down into a couple smaller belts first. To do that, I grab a link somewhere in the middle. I put the projectile nose down on my wood workbench. You can use a 2x4. Just don't use anything too hard.

You're going to grab on either side of it. You're going to just press straight down. Then you've got two smaller belts.Once I have my smaller belts and I want to take all these off their links, take a look at which side you're going to start on. It's going to be the side with the single link sticking out the fat one. Then what I do is I'm going to de-link this the rest of the way. I kind of gather this up into somewhat of a neat pile, flip it down, and I take the side that I'm going to start de-linking from, put the projectile right into my wood workbench, and you just give it a gentle tap with a hammer. Cartridge here, link there. Just like that.

Another thing I do sometimes is these links are actually coming out pretty easy, so I don't even need to hit the hammer. What I'll do then is I'll grab a shop rag and I'll put it on my thumb and I'll press the links out just like that. Sometimes they even come out two at a time like those did. If they're coming out real hard and you've got to use a lot of force, use the hammer tap method, but these aren't too bad, so I'm just pressing them out.

If you liked our guide on linking and de-linking ammunition, be sure to check out our guide on the Mark 211 Ralfus Rounds.