The .223 Remington is a rimless, bottlenecked, centerfire intermediate cartridge. It was developed in 1957 by Remington Arms and Fairchild Industries for the U.S. Continental Army Command of the United States Army as part of a project to create a small-caliber, high-velocity firearm. The .223 Remington is considered one of the most popular common-use cartridges and is currently used by a wide range of semi-automatic and manual-action rifles.
A variety of .223 Remington cartridges with a .308 Winchester (right) for comparison
From left: .222 Remington, .223 Remington, and 5.56×45mm NATO
(Left to right) .223 Rem, .243 Win, .308 Win
A rim is an external flange that is machined, cast, molded, stamped, or pressed around the bottom of a firearms cartridge. Thus, rimmed cartridges are sometimes called "flanged" cartridges. Almost all cartridges feature an extractor or headspacing rim, in spite of the fact that some cartridges are known as "rimless cartridges". The rim may serve a number of purposes, including providing a lip for the extractor to engage, and sometimes serving to headspace the cartridge.
Rimmed .357 Magnum revolver ammunition
Rimmed vs Rimless cartridges
Rimless 9mm Parabellum pistol cartridges