Two interesting points in the article:
1. The government has bought .22lr....I’m really curious as to why.
2. The government buys hollow points by the million, and as the article points out several times, 99% of this ammo is for training. I don’t train with hollow point, since I can’t afford it. Why does the government think it can afford it?
They are testing common rounds found by US gun owners against body armor.
Fed law enforcement has apparently trained with hollow point for a long time.
Don’t have the source handy but apparently once the purchases are in large enough quantities the price differential for hollow points gets a lot smaller.
One of the things contributing to the falsehoods and myths surrounding government ammo purchases is that for any conceivable Google search, the first several hundred results are now repeats of all the idiotic panic articles from the blogosphere instead of actual truthful information.
It is common to train with what you use in the field. When buying in these quantities, the price difference isn’t that great, especially if you only have to deal with the logistics of one type versus separate orders for fmj and hp, shipping to separate locations, storing separately, tracking separately, etc.
FWIW, I took an Army ROTC-sponsored Marksmanship in college as part of fulfilling the PE requirements.
We used bolt action .22s sans the magazine. That is, if you weren't careful in loading a round, it fell through...
I seem to remember that for the entire 1/2 semester course, I might have fired maybe 25 rounds, total.
Oh, and it was at the National Guard indoor range next town over.
When it all goes up, the bad guys will be using those on dogs and small children.
Funny that a website allegedly explaining what the government is doing doesn’t cover those two very important points.