Is there an easy way to disassemble 5.56 ammo belts?

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.

If you have kids or some neighbor kids, pay them five cents apiece to de-link them.