Military Grade Rounds

"...And now we use cartridges for currency, how morbid is that? If you think about it, one bullet is somebody's life. A hundred grams of tea cost five lives. A sausage... a mere trifle, fifteen lives. A nice leather jacket? It's your lucky day, it's on sale. Not three hundred, but just two hundred and fifty human lives."

- Market Station Guard

Listen to that quote, as heard in Metro 2033:

Military Grade Rounds, or simply MGRs, are 5.45x39mm military rounds produced before The Great War of 2013. Because they were produced using professional machinery and with high-quality materials, rounds of this quality cannot be reproduced in the post-apocalyptic Metro system. Due to this, and the fact that real money lost all its value after the War, Metro inhabitants chose to use military grade 5.45mm rounds as their most widespread form of currency.

Military grade rounds can, obviously, also be used as regular ammunition. This provides the user with increased stopping power and weapon reliability (as professionally produced, high-quality rounds are less likely to jam), but one has to consider the fact that they are literally "shooting money", which they might need later to buy medkits, gas mask filters, or other crucial pieces of equipment.

Apart from military grade rounds, there are also Metro-made dirty 5.45mm rounds, which have the same caliber and are one of the most common types of ammunition used in the Metro and post-apocalyptic Russia, but due to their lower quality and reproducibility, these rounds can not be used as a form of currency.

Appearance
In Metro 2033, MGRs are kept either as a single bullet, in five round stripper clips or in the rectangular 30-round clips for the Bastard. Military-grade rounds have a polished, glossy look to them, while dirty rounds are, for lack of a better word - dirty.

In Metro: Last Light, MGRs return as shiny, 5 round stripper clips, but the actual amount found in the clips varies from 1 up to 15 rounds, yet the model is always the same. In a gun, most easily visible in the Bastard's clip, they are much the same as dirty rounds, except they are much shinier, making it easy to see what has been loaded in Ranger Modes.

Metro 2033
Military grade rounds are first encountered right at the beginning of Metro 2033. In the level "Exhibition", Artyom has a stripper clip of MGRs on his desk. Picking it up will bring up a pop-up window, explaining the currency mechanics and the role of MGRs in the game. Ten military grade rounds, along with a batch of one hundred dirty 5.45mm cartridges (twenty in the Redux version) and the player's first Bastard carbine, are later given out to Artyom by the armourer when visiting the armoury.

Military grade rounds are much more powerful than their makeshift counterparts, and can be used in an emergency or against strong enemies to defeat them quickly, but as you are essentially "shooting money", one should be careful not to do this too regularly.

Metro: Last Light
In Metro: Last Light, 180 MGRs are given to Artyom in D6 at the beginning of the game - 280 in Ranger Mode, meaning one should always have some available for trading or combat, as long as they are not exclusively used. They will also start with plenty of regular rounds, as there is an ammunition box in the shooting range. As in Metro 2033, the rounds are much more powerful than regular 5.45×39mm rounds, capable of taking down most human enemies in one shot. As well as their returning power, the rounds now appear to be incendiary, capable of setting the target on fire for a brief period, the extra punch it delivers seems, however, to be similar to the Metro 2033 variant. This is probably used to differ it from normal 5.45×39mm rounds, because it is possible to use MGR accidentally.

The amount of MGRs the player character can carry in both games is infinite.

In Metro Exodus, the economy has changed. Away from the Moscow Metro, MGRs have little value. As such, they are no longer the basis of the economy and are no longer distinguished from regular ammo in any way. The player character can carry 90 rounds of 5.45 ammunition with the standard armour and 180 rounds with the upgraded carrier vest.

Trivia

 * 5.45x39mm rounds are the only rifle-type (discounting 7.62x54mm and 12.7x108mm) found in bulk in the Metro, and 7.62x39mm (the round that the AK-47 and AKM fire) is nonexistent, even though massive stockpiles of such rounds and weapons firing them should exist and said round would prove highly useful against mutants.
 * This may be due to the more common use of 5.45mm ammo, as most 7.62 weapons were phased out of service with the introduction of the AK-74 and further cemented by the introduction of the Kalash 2012 in the game universe.
 * The MGRs, as seen on stripper clips, are actually dummy rounds for training purposes. Unlike live ammunition rounds, they have longitudinal grooves on the case.
 * No shops are encountered after Polis, so using all military-grade rounds after that point or use them against the tougher enemies like demons or librarians is recommended.
 * Military-grade rounds are commonly used by Rangers, especially in "Chapter 7 - Tower" of Metro 2033. Rangers in Metro: Last Light use dirty rounds more often, most notably during the final battle for D6.
 * Although the round was created for select weapons like the Kalash and Kalash 2012, many other weapons have been created or converted to use it, proving the versatility of it.
 * There are 1,391 Military-Grade Rounds that can be found in Metro 2033. More can be earned through selling weapons.
 * The amount of MGRs acquired is not always the same in Metro 2033, the 5 round stripper clip will give 1-5 rounds (usually just one), the Bastard magazine will give up to 30 rounds.
 * On hardcore difficulty, one stripper clip can only give one MGR, but the Bastard clip can occasionally give 30 MGRs.
 * In Metro: Last Light, there are not any more Weapon Vendors after Depot, and no other reasons to give MGRs away (beggars etc.). Thus, unless saving for the Walking Bank achievement, it is worth using them all up, especially against the heavily armored rhino, during the boss encounter at the Garden, and the final battle in D6.
 * The game stops counting the MGRs and regular rounds after 9999, although more can be brought in Metro 2033.
 * When fired from any weapon, Military-Grade Rounds produce a brighter muzzle-flash than dirty rounds, adding an additional gas-effect to the muzzle flash. This is probably due to the high-grade propellant used for the bullets.
 * In reality, 5.45x39 ammunition is all steel-cased, rather than the shiny brass cases seen in the game.
 * Steel ammo casings, however, are sometimes colour treated to make them look like brass in reality, which offers a possible explanation for the brass cases seen in game.
 * There actually is a factory in Russia that makes ammo with brass-coated casings.


 * In the "Bandits" level of Metro: Last Light Redux, players can farm around 700 MGR just by selling guns of the bandits. After killing/knocking out all bandits, swap their guns with your own guns and then get back to the refugee caravan, which was first encountered in the level at the beginning, and sell those guns at the gunshop. At a time the player can carry up to two sellable weapons in Normal mode and one sellable weapon in Ranger mode. But if the player proceed through the wrecked trains after the crash of regina and jump onto the next area where player have to wait for the fisherman, then there will be no comeback available to the gun shop.

Kaliber 5.45x39mm Патроны-деньги 5.45 мм - набої-гроші