4Game

TL;DR

• Good ammo isn't expensive at all early wipe, contrary to popular belief.
• 900 rounds of BP is only around ~1.5mil value at most.
• Considering that 1.5mil is only around 4~5 successful PMC/scav runs without using the flea market and 100% relying on traders therefore taking inflation/buying power of the playerbase out of the equation, the effect is negligible.
• The only effect it had was teaching the playerbase that it pays off to use good ammo instead of shitty PS ammo, and giving < lvl10 players an option against class 4+ armors.
• I do agree it would be nice to have gifts disabled at least for 3 weeks into wipe, and then make gifts receivable so that late joining pmcs can have a chance against the stronger players who had a 3 week headstart. Regardless, the gift isn't as gamebreaking as people think.
• "It breaks progression!!!" -> Let me fix that for you: "I demand to be invincible and win firefights all the time against lvl6 players just because I invested in gen4 assault along with an altyn from flea"
• Note: I do think raider spawns / boss loot tables should be adjusted at start of wipe so that killing raiders at D-2 button in reserve on day 1 doesn't bring in bunch of APSX / 855A1 / BP ammo into the economy. But that's a story for another day.

I think people are overreacting to the effect that 900 rounds of BP has.
Unless your idea of "early wipe" is < lvl 10 gameplay without the flea market (I do respect that idea but I doubt majority of the playerbase would agree with that), once you have flea market unlocked, good ammo is extremely easy to come by, especially early wipe.

Most people are just too busy buying wires and bolts at 300k on flea market for the hideout that they completely forget how cheap endgame gear is in the beginning.

APSX was below mechanic's ll4 locked price (800 < 1100 rubles) for months(even when I was lvl 40, I didn't buy it from mechanic because flea was still cheaper at the time).
BP almost never got higher than prapor for so long, M381 (no-brain ammo for the GL40) was 10k for 1~2 months that I had bought 4000+ rounds of it for less than 10k each by the time I was done buying(no I'm not kidding).

People have different opinions about game balancing.
Some prefer to have shorter TTK, some prefer to have longer TTK.
Some want to be an invincible Ironman when they invest 3mil into gear, some prefer to be able to kill a M61 reap-ir M1A slick altyn dude when ambushing them with shitty guns.
Some want mosin/hunter/aks74u gameplay to last longer into the wipe, some think that since TTK with PS aks74u against zhuk3 armor is the same as 995 HK against a slick, progression is meaningless and it's all the same anyway.

But regardless of personal preferences, I can tell you one thing – 900 rounds of BP did not "ruin your wipe progression". It's something anyone who is remotely invested into the game can acquire in 1~2 hours maximum even on the second day of the wipe.

This is just a conspiracy theory of mine, but the outcry against 7.62 BP was possibly a propaganda campaign launched by tarkov twitch streamers. They are heavily dependent on snowballing their pmc lvls to acquire better gear earlier than others and steamroll everyone in raids. Every time they die, they lose a ton of viewers due to 5~10 minute of matching/gearing up downtime. Every time they do a 1v5 squadwipe, their youtube highlight profits skyrocket.
Streamers' only goal is making it harder for casual players to kill them. And if they keep dying on the second day of wipe while using their gen4 hmk they got from a raider because of a lvl5 "timmy" hiding in a bush with a BP SKS kills them, it hurts their channel growth a LOT.
That's why they complained a lot about the BP gift, and it is my theory that their 30k+ cumulative viewers are proxy broadcasting the propaganda to make it harder for the casual players and make it easier for nolife streamers.

P.S. I say this as a hardcore 3000hr+ nolife gamer with 300mil+ stash. Stop the BP gift hate. Cheers.