The battle scenes in 'Saving Private Ryan' are both epic and realistic. A number of World War II veterans who saw the movie when it was first released all agreed that it's the most convincing depiction of the battlefield ever recorded for the big screen. Everything looks vivid and visceral, and so you naturally assume that every piece of kit worn by ever soldier is authentic and of the time.
That's not actually the case. You'll see many soldiers carrying reams and belts of ammunition shells during the shoot-out scenes, but they're not made of steel. They're actually carved from wood. That's not been done for safety reasons - carrying empty shells would have been safe - it was because the steel bullets were too heavy for actors to carry. The real soldiers of the real war had no such luxury!