As an aside, about bullets. Sure, the military has access to more powerful rounds. Aircraft cannons, for example. But they don't typically load the soldier's r

As an aside, about bullets. Sure, the military has access to more powerful rounds. Aircraft cannons, for example. But they don't typically load the soldier's rifles with rounds more powerful than what a civilian can buy. - Soldiers' bullets really don't have more kinetic energy than civilian ones. For one, a civilian can always hand load, and get whatever K.E. they want (until they blow up their gun's chamber). Also, civilians can buy military rounds. Either surplus or whatever. Smaller bullets means soldiers can carry more ammo. Not as important in the trenches of Europe, but crucial in the jungle colonial wars, I mean freedom wars, since WW2. - Also, the military only wants a bullet powerful enough make it through any reasonable personal armor. The idea is that a bullet that isn't powerful enough to exit the body will cause more damage by tumbling inside and/or be more difficult to remove -> it's a way around the Geneva conventions that mandates rounds hold themselves together - Third hunters, by law, have to use a bullet with a certain minimum K.E. The .30-06, for example, was initially used as a military round, but is today a popular deer hunting round. It has been replaced in the military by the much smaller, weaker, round used in the M-16. The civilian .30-06 is considerably more powerful round than the AK-47's, whose round is considered too powerful for a modern rifle. - Check out the perfectly legal, if expensive, .50 BMG.