Same here! I was able to buy up 5500 rounds of .30 U.S. 1906 in links or loose in buckets at a pretty nifty price, later, I managed to score a bunch of late 60's early 70s delayed tracer in .30 cal, mostly in bulk buckets, and I don't even worry about the 5.56 as far as "Special" other then having a couple cases of tracer for fun times! Spent several weeks pulling bullets and testing various loads in the three chamberings I wanted to use them in, and was able to re use 99.9% of the brass and primers for other needs! Given the ease of obtaining armor, it's likely we will at some point be squaring off against those at least as well equipped as our selves, so having that little extra advantage of poking theirs is just smarts! Combine some experiments with the .338 using the .30 as sabots at over 4000 FPS has made for some very interesting results, both in the Win mag and the Lapua mag, and even the .375 mag has shown great potential, though I much prefer the harder hitting and much heavier full caliber AP stuff, I have to resort to making my own from Tungsten Welding rod and lathe turned bronze solid rod, still, it makes for a very effective hole puncher in the larger calibers, and i'm playing with both the .405 Winchester and the .500 Jeffry's with cored solids for those pesky F-250's and Dump Trucks being used as "Technicals" here in the states!
Exactly, body armor! Although I can tell you for a fact, taking a .30 cal to the plates will put you on your ass and take you out of a fight, unless it punches through, you will likely survive one hit!
That shootout I think 18 people got shot, no one died. Now if they had been using walmart hunting ammo and taking aimed shots from semi auto, probably would have been several dead cops.
and if just one Cop, was equipped with a Long Gun, and had even qualified with it, it would have been over a lot sooner.. It didn’t end untill the Cops went to a local Gun Store, and committed multiple Federal Felonies, by appropriating a few Long Guns and ammunition...
When I was a kid we found an old dump truck bed (probably off 5 yard dump) and found that .348, .308 punched through both sides and front to rear. I would think any .338, .300 whatever etc would have no problem with armor, even level IV