This trope is really a class-related one: where you have X number of classes of weapon ammo, it's this trope if X is less than it would be in real life. This has two major levels:
1). The ammo itself is universal, as in more than one weapon that would fire an incompatible round shares the same pickup. Eg, "assault rifle" ammo is used by an AK and an M16, or "SMG" ammo is used by a P90 and an MP5. Obviously, this can involve the rounds totally changing shape depending on what gun model they're being put into.
2). The ammo pickup is universal to guns of that calibre when it shouldn't be; eg, a Luger, MP40, MP5 and Glock 17 all share a "9mm ammo" pickup. Here there's still behind-the-scenes magic going on.
Let's say you pick up a 32-round MP40 magazine under the above. You can use it to reload the 8-round Luger, the 17-round Glock, and the 30-round MP5. This could only really work if you picked up the magazine itself along with four empty Luger mags, 2 empty Glock mags, and 2 empty MP5 mags. Obviously, you didn't just pick up nine magazines, eight of them empty, so instead of having magic transforming bullets you have a magic transforming magazine; obviously, it's still this trope. This is especially true since the bullets themselves sometimes transform in this process; the most obvious being that rifle rounds can magically grow a belt if they're used in a machine gun (Metal Gear Solid 4 does that, though it's rare for 7.xx rounds since games don't like potentially giving you 800+ sniper rifle bullets out of the MG).
The latter links closely to One Bullet Clips since both of them treat ammunition like water that's just decanted into a container of the right type when you need it; the reason it's here rather than there is that here the container in question can magically change depending on what you're trying to attach it to, whereas there it's more about the way every magazine you're not holding is filled to the brim when you pull it back out by the FPS Elves living in your webbing.
This trope is really a class-related one: where you have X number of classes of weapon ammo, it's this trope if X is less than it would be in real life. This has two major levels:
1). The ammo itself is universal, as in more than one weapon that would fire an incompatible round shares the same pickup. Eg, "assault rifle" ammo is used by an AK and an M16, or "SMG" ammo is used by a P90 and an MP5. Obviously, this can involve the rounds totally changing shape depending on what gun model they're being put into.
2). The ammo pickup is universal to guns of that calibre when it shouldn't be; eg, a Luger, MP40, MP5 and Glock 17 all share a "9mm ammo" pickup. Here there's still behind-the-scenes magic going on.
Let's say you pick up a 32-round MP40 magazine under the above. You can use it to reload the 8-round Luger, the 17-round Glock, and the 30-round MP5. This could only really work if you picked up the magazine itself along with four empty Luger mags, 2 empty Glock mags, and 2 empty MP5 mags. Obviously, you didn't just pick up nine magazines, eight of them empty, so instead of having magic transforming bullets you have a magic transforming magazine; obviously, it's still this trope. This is especially true since the bullets themselves sometimes transform in this process; the most obvious being that rifle rounds can magically grow a belt if they're used in a machine gun (Metal Gear Solid 4 does that, though it's rare for 7.xx rounds since games don't like potentially giving you 800+ sniper rifle bullets out of the MG).
The latter links closely to One Bullet Clips since both of them treat ammunition like water that's just decanted into a container of the right type when you need it; the reason it's here rather than there is that here the container in question can magically change depending on what you're trying to attach it to, whereas there it's more about the way every magazine you're not holding is filled to the brim when you pull it back out by the FPS Elves living in your webbing.
Edited by EvilestTim