Counter-Strike 2 Weapons
Damage, armour penetration, ammo, prices and other CS2 weapon stats.
CS2 has 34 weapons, but only a smaller group appears regularly in competitive matches. Others are used for eco and bonus rounds, specific positions, or situational buys. Knowing the differences helps you choose the right weapon for the round.
Every number on this page comes from the game rather than from other guides, and the table further down lets you sort and compare all of it. Where a stat is commonly misquoted - the M4A1-S head multiplier, the AUG one-tap, shotgun damage - I say what the actual figure is.
September 2026
Stats verified against the March 2026 game build, including the reworked reserve ammo and the January 2026 SMG changes.
- Reserve ammo reworked in March 2026 - the AWP dropped from 35 rounds to 15
- MP7 and MP5-SD buffed and discounted, PP-Bizon discounted, January 2026
- M4A4 and FAMAS price cuts, January 2025
CS2 Weapon Damage & Armour
Base damage, hitbox multiplier, armour penetration and range.
Every bullet in CS2 runs through the same short calculation: base damage, then the hitbox multiplier, then armour, then distance. Get those four and you can work out any matchup in the game without looking anything up.
Hitbox multipliers
| Hitbox | Multiplier | Protected by |
|---|---|---|
| Head | 4x for most weapons | Helmet |
| Chest and arms | 1x | Kevlar |
| Stomach | 1.25x | Kevlar |
| Legs | 0.75x | Nothing |
The stomach hitting harder than the chest surprises people. It is why a body shot that felt identical sometimes does 33 and sometimes 41.
Two weapons break the 4x rule. The Desert Eagle is 3.9x, and the M4A1-S is 3.475x. That second one is the whole reason the M4A1-S cannot one-tap a helmeted head despite having higher base damage than the M4A4: 38 damage at 3.475x through 70% penetration comes to 92, and 92 is not 100.
How armour works
Kevlar covers the chest, arms and stomach. The helmet covers the head. Legs are never protected, which is why leg shots do the same damage whether the target bought armour or not.
Where armour applies, damage is multiplied by the weapon's armour penetration. An AK-47 at 77.5% doing 36 base to a chest lands 27.9 instead of 36. The SG 553 is the only weapon at 100% - against it, buying armour changes nothing at all.
Armour also absorbs part of the hit as durability, which is why a plate that started at 100 ends the round at 60 or 70. That number does not change how much damage you take on the next bullet, only how many more bullets the vest keeps absorbing before it is gone.
Distance
Damage falls off with range, and the rate is per weapon. An AK-47 loses 2% at 500 units. A MAG-7 loses 55%. Shotguns and SMGs lose much more effectiveness with distance than rifles with lower damage falloff.
| Weapon | Damage lost at 500 units |
|---|---|
| AWP | 1% |
| AK-47, Galil, AUG, SG 553 | 2% |
| M4A4 | 3% |
| MP7, MP5-SD, MP9 | 13% |
| MAC-10, PP-Bizon | 20% |
| UMP-45 | 25% |
| Nova, XM1014 | 30% |
| MAG-7, Sawed-Off | 55% |
What this adds up to
Take an AK-47 against a fully armoured target. Head at 4x through 77.5% gives 111 - dead. Chest gives 27.9, so four bullets. Stomach gives 34.9, so three. Legs give 27, so four, and armour never mattered there.
Now the M4A4: head gives 92.4 through a helmet, so not dead. Chest 23.1, five bullets. Unlike the AK-47, the M4A4 cannot kill a fully armoured opponent with one headshot.
Every one of these figures is in the weapon table further down - click a row and it works out the per-hitbox damage for you.
Weapon Economy
What a gun costs, what it pays back, and when the cheap one is the right one.
A weapon has two prices: what you pay for it, and what it earns you per kill. Those values are set independently, so cheaper weapons can sometimes earn more per kill than rifles.
Kill rewards
| Weapon | Per kill |
|---|---|
| Knife | $1,500 |
| Nova, MAG-7, Sawed-Off | $900 |
| XM1014 | $600 |
| SMGs except the P90 | $600 |
| Rifles, snipers, LMGs, pistols, P90 | $300 |
| AWP | $100 |
| Zeus x27 | $0 |
Two of those are worth stopping on. The P90 costs $2,350 and pays $300, not $600 - it is priced like a rifle and rewards like one, which is why it is a much worse eco buy than people assume. And the AWP pays $100. Four AWP kills earn less than one shotgun kill.
The SMG round
After you lose a round, the enemy may be on a low buy with around $2,000. An MP9 at $1,250 or a MAC-10 at $1,050 pays $600 per kill. Two kills almost cover the MP9 and fully cover the MAC-10; three kills return $1,800.
That makes SMGs especially useful against pistol or low-buy rounds: they are cheap, mobile and pay a high kill reward.
Full buy, force buy, save
- Full buy is rifle, armour with helmet, and utility. On T that is roughly $4,700 with an AK, a vest and three grenades. Under that and something has to go, and it should not be the armour.
- Force buy means spending what you have on the best thing that fits. Galil at $1,800, FAMAS at $1,950, or armour plus a P250. The mistake is buying a rifle with no vest - you will lose the trade to anyone who did it the other way round.
- Save means buying nothing, or almost nothing, so the next round is a real buy. Losing two rounds properly beats losing four badly.
What armour costs
Kevlar alone is $650. Kevlar with helmet is $1,000. If you already have a vest with durability left, the helmet on its own is $350.
The helmet is the cheapest thing in the game measured by what it does. Against an M4A4 it turns a one-tap into a five-bullet fight. Against an AK it does nothing, which is the whole reason the AK costs what it costs.
Buy priorities that hold up
Armour before a better gun. A P250 with a vest beats a Deagle without one, most of the time, against most things.
After armour, the order is: something that kills, then utility, then an upgrade. A smoke that stops an entry is worth more than the $400 difference between a Galil and an AK on a round where you were never winning the long duel anyway.
The last thing: count the enemy's money, not just yours. Buying a rifle into a full eco is fine. Buying one into a round where they are also fully kitted, while you are at $2,900 and skipping the vest, is how a team ends up losing five in a row.
Pistols
Ten of them. Three matter on a pistol round, two matter after that.
Pistol rounds are decided by armour penetration and by who peeks first, in that order. Players start without helmets, so every head is unprotected. Kevlar is still an option, which makes armour penetration important for body shots. Every pistol can kill with one headshot at close enough range, but the maximum distance varies by weapon.
The P250 at $300 and the $500 Five-SeveN or Tec-9 are the main pistol upgrades. Later in the game, the Desert Eagle remains the most common dedicated pistol buy.
The ones worth knowing
Glock-18 and USP-S. The two defaults, and they are not equivalent. The Glock does 30 damage at 47% penetration with 20 rounds; the USP does 35 at 50.5% with 12. The Glock is built to spray a rush, the USP to hit one head from a held angle. Burst mode on the Glock is accurate to 7.4 metres, which is close enough that you will rarely want it.
P250. $300, 38 damage, 64% penetration, and a fatal headshot out to 1,987 units against a bare head. Against an armoured chest it does 24, which is why it is an anti-eco weapon and not an anti-rifle one.
Five-SeveN and Tec-9. The $500 pistol-round upgrades, and the only two cheap pistols that take a helmeted head - the Five-SeveN inside 366 units, the Tec-9 inside 380. Both have over 90% penetration. The Tec-9 has the lowest running inaccuracy in the entire game at 10.71, so it is the one for moving fights.
Desert Eagle. $700, 53 damage, and a helmeted headshot out to 2,017 units - further than most sightlines. The catch is a 3.9x head multiplier instead of 4x, and recoil that makes the second shot near-useless. It is a one-shot weapon or it is nothing.
R8 Revolver. Hits for 86 at 93.2% penetration and kills a helmeted head at 9,414 units, which is further than any distance on any map. It is not used seriously because of the trigger delay - you commit before you know if the angle is still there.
CZ75-Auto. Twelve rounds, fully automatic, 600 RPM. One magazine and then a reload you will not survive. Built for one specific thing: winning a close angle before anyone reacts.
Dual Berettas. Thirty rounds and 38 damage sounds strong until the 57.5% penetration lands. Against armour they do 21.9 a shot. Fine on a pistol round, pointless after.
SMGs
Seven guns built around a $600 kill reward and full movement speed.
Every SMG except the P90 pays $600 per kill instead of $300. All seven also have 100% tagging power, which means their hits apply the full movement slowdown to a moving target. Combined with high movement speed and strong close-range damage, that makes SMGs especially effective against pistols and low buys.
What you give up is range. The best of them loses 13% damage at 500 units; the worst loses 25%. Against a rifle on a long angle you lose, and no amount of spray control changes that.
Which one to buy
MP9 and MAC-10. The CT and T versions of the same idea, at $1,250 and $1,050. Both move at full speed, both spray fast, both are useless past a corridor. The MP9 fires quicker at 857 RPM; the MAC-10 hits harder at 29 damage. The MP9 only carries 90 rounds for the whole round, which catches people out on long anti-ecos.
MP7 and MP5-SD. Both were buffed in January 2026: damage up, falloff cut from 15% to 13%, and $100 off the price. At $1,400 with 30 damage and 62.5% penetration, the MP7 is the closest thing to a rifle in the class - accurate to 14.4 metres standing. The MP5-SD is the suppressed alternative: 28 damage, 62.5% armour penetration, no tracers, and slightly higher movement speed.
UMP-45. Highest base damage of any SMG at 35, and the worst falloff at 25%. Against armour it deals 22.8 to the chest at point blank, so five hits are needed, and the damage drops quickly with distance.
P90. The odd one out. $2,350, which is rifle money, and a $300 kill reward, which is also rifle money. Fifty rounds a magazine and 857 RPM make it genuinely hard to deal with in a tight space, but buying it means giving up the economic reason SMGs exist.
PP-Bizon. Sixty-four rounds, almost no recoil, 27 damage and 63% penetration. Against an armoured chest that is 17 a bullet, so six to kill. The January 2026 price cut to $1,300 did not change what it is: a gun for spraying a doorway you cannot see through.
The trade nobody mentions
Reserve ammo matters more after the March 2026 reload change. The MP9 starts with 90 rounds total, while the MP7 and MAC-10 have 120. Partial magazines are now discarded when you reload, so running low on ammo during a long anti-eco is a real possibility.
Shotguns
Four guns, $900 a kill, and about three metres of usable range.
Shotguns fire multiple pellets per shot, and every stat sheet that lists their damage as a single number is adding those pellets together. A Nova does 26 damage nine times, not 234 - and all nine only land when the target is close enough to touch.
Three of the four pay $900 a kill, the highest reward of any gun. That is the argument for buying one, and it works exactly as often as you can force a fight into a doorway.
| Weapon | Pellets | Damage each | Accurate range | Lost at 500u |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nova | 9 | 26 | 3.24 m | 30% |
| XM1014 | 6 | 20 | 3.39 m | 30% |
| MAG-7 | 8 | 30 | 3.24 m | 55% |
| Sawed-Off | 8 | 32 | 2.21 m | 55% |
The four
Nova. $1,050 and nine pellets. The cheapest way to earn $900, and the one people buy on a save round hoping for one kill and a dropped rifle. Fifty per cent armour penetration is the worst of the group.
MAG-7. CT only, $1,300, 30 damage per pellet at 75% penetration - the best armour penetration of the four. Five rounds a magazine and 20 total, so there is no spraying a site with it. It loses 55% of its damage at 500 units, so damage drops quickly with distance.
Sawed-Off. T only, $1,100, hardest hitting at 32 per pellet. Accurate to 2.21 metres standing, the shortest range in the game. This is a weapon for one corner, on one map, where you know someone is coming.
XM1014. $2,000, semi-automatic, and the only shotgun that pays $600 rather than $900. Six pellets at 20 damage give it the lowest raw damage per shot of the four, but the semi-automatic action allows fast follow-up shots. The high price and lower reward make it hard to justify over a rifle.
What the numbers do not show
Shotgun damage depends on how many pellets connect and which hitboxes they hit. A single shot can spread damage across the head, chest, arms and stomach, so the numbers above do not translate into one fixed shots-to-kill value.
Shotguns work when the enemy has to come through a space you already have covered. They do not work as a general-purpose buy, and a shotgun round that opens on a long angle is over before it starts.
Rifles
Seven guns that decide most rounds, and two that decide most matches.
Rifles lose almost nothing to distance - between 2% and 6% at 500 units - and all of them punch 200% through walls. That is why the map opens up when both teams have them, and why a round with rifles looks nothing like a round without.
They all pay $300 a kill, so unlike SMGs there is no economic argument for one over another. You pick on damage, accuracy and how much ammo you get.
AK-47 and the M4s
AK-47. $2,700, 36 damage, 77.5% penetration. Kills a helmeted head out to 2,716 units, which is further than any angle you will hold on any map in the pool.
M4A4. $2,900, 33 damage, 70% penetration, and it cannot one-tap a helmet at any range. Against an armoured chest it needs five bullets to the AK's four. What it gets in return is 30 rounds a magazine and 150 total and 666 RPM.
M4A1-S. Same price, 38 damage, and still no one-tap. The reason is the head multiplier: 3.475x instead of 4x, unique to this gun. 38 damage at 3.475x through 70% penetration lands at 92, eight short. The trade is a silencer, tighter spray and only 20 rounds a magazine with 80 total.
Choosing between the M4s comes down to magazine size against silence. If you are holding a site alone and want the enemy guessing where the shots came from, the A1-S. If you expect to fight three people, the A4 and its 150 rounds.
The budget pair
Galil AR. $1,800, 30 damage, and the same 77.5% armour penetration as the AK. Thirty-five rounds in the magazine and 90 in reserve, 175 total. It does not one-tap a helmet, but on a force buy it is the closest thing to a rifle round the T side can afford.
FAMAS. $1,950 after the January 2025 discount, which also came with an accuracy improvement. Thirty damage at 70% penetration, burst mode accurate out to 35.5 metres if you commit to it. The CT answer to the Galil, and about as good.
The scoped two
AUG. $3,300 and 90% armour penetration - higher than the AK. It technically kills a helmeted head, but only inside 197 units, which is close enough that you should not plan around it. The scope is the actual reason to buy: 38.3 metres of accurate range and reduced recoil while zoomed.
SG 553. $3,000 and the only weapon in the game at 100% armour penetration. Against it, buying a vest changes nothing whatsoever. Kills a helmeted head at 4,512 units, further than the AK. The cost is 545 RPM - the slowest rifle - and 210 mobility, the slowest too.
Both scoped rifles drop to 150 units/s while zoomed, making movement considerably slower. That is the trade for the accuracy, and it is why they suit holding an angle rather than taking one.
Snipers
Four guns, and one of them changed a lot in March 2026.
Snipers punch 250% through walls - the highest in the game - and lose 1 to 2% of their damage at 500 units. They are built to win a fight before it becomes a fight.
In March 2026 Valve reworked reserve ammunition across the whole game, and snipers took the worst of it. The AWP went from 35 rounds a round to 15, the SSG 08 from 100 to 30, and the auto-snipers lost close to half their reserve. If you have not played since, this is the change you will notice first.
| Weapon | Price | Kill | Damage | Total ammo | Mobility |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWP | $4,750 | $100 | 115 | 15 | 200 / 100 scoped |
| SSG 08 | $1,700 | $300 | 88 | 30 | 230 |
| SCAR-20 | $5,000 | $300 | 80 | 60 | 215 / 120 scoped |
| G3SG1 | $5,000 | $300 | 80 | 60 | 215 / 120 scoped |
AWP
115 damage at 97.5% penetration kills anything hit in the chest or above, armour or not. That is the whole weapon, and it is why $4,750 is worth paying on a round you need to win.
The costs are real. It pays $100 a kill, the lowest kill reward of any firearm. Scoped, movement drops to 100 units/s, less than half the AK-47. And now you get 15 rounds for the entire round, so missing three shots is a meaningful fraction of your ammunition.
SSG 08
$1,700, 88 damage, and $300 a kill - triple the AWP's reward for a third of the price. It does not one-shot a body, so it wins by taking a head or by trading a leg hit into a teammate's kill.
230 mobility makes it the fastest sniper to move with, faster than any rifle. Its $1,700 price makes it a practical sniper option on force buys, but body shots still require a follow-up hit.
The auto-snipers
The SCAR-20 on CT and the G3SG1 on T are the same gun with different models - 80 damage, 82.5% penetration, 240 RPM, $5,000 each. Two body shots kill through armour, and they fire fast enough to land both.
They are rare because of the price and because scoped mobility drops to 120. Spending $5,000 to stand still is a hard sell on any round where you might have to rotate.
Recoil matters less on the AWP and SSG 08 because of their slow follow-up shots. It matters more on the SCAR-20 and G3SG1, where repeated shots can be fired at 240 RPM.
Machine Guns
Two guns nobody buys, and one of them deserves better.
Both carry more ammunition than any other guns in the game and trade mobility for sustained fire.
M249
$5,200 - more than an AWP - for 32 damage at 80% penetration and 300 rounds. It kills a helmeted head only inside 389 units, and at 195 mobility you are the slowest thing on the server except a Negev.
At that cost, it’s difficult to justify choosing it over a rifle, an AWP, or even the much cheaper Negev.
Negev
$1,700 puts it in force-buy range, and that changes the argument. 35 damage at 71% penetration, 800 RPM, 150 rounds a magazine and 450 total. After the first few shots the recoil settles almost flat, so a held choke becomes genuinely hard to cross.
The cost is 150 mobility - the slowest in the game by a wide margin. You are not rotating, you are not repeaking, and anyone who flanks you wins for free. Buy it to hold one entrance you know they have to use, and accept that you have committed to that spot for the round.
The Negev at $1,700 costs the same as an SSG 08 and pays the same $300. Which one is better depends entirely on whether the round is about holding a space or taking one.
Grenades & Knives
The part of the buy that wins rounds without firing a bullet.
A full buy that skips utility is not a full buy. Grenades are how a site gets taken against players who are aiming at the entrance, and no amount of aim substitutes for a smoke in the right place.
| Item | Price | What it does |
|---|---|---|
 Smoke Grenade |
$300 | Blocks vision for about 18 seconds. An HE or a molotov clears it. |
 Flashbang |
$200 | Blinds anyone looking at it. Two per player. |
 HE Grenade |
$300 | Up to 98 damage at the centre. Never kills a full-health target alone. |
 Molotov |
$400 | T side. Denies ground with fire; a smoke grenade extinguishes it. |
 Incendiary |
$500 | CT side. Smaller spread and shorter duration than the Molotov. |
 Decoy |
$50 | Fake gunfire on the radar. Cheap, and occasionally worth it. |
Grenade prices and timings are not in the reference spreadsheet - these come from the game itself.
Smokes in CS2
This is the one thing that genuinely changed with Source 2. Smoke is now a volume that fills the space it is in rather than a sphere painted over the screen. It flows around corners, sits lower under a ceiling, and expands differently depending on where it lands.
Two consequences matter in a round. Bullets clear a temporary hole through it, so shooting into a smoke can open a window for a second or two. And an HE grenade blows a gap that closes again - which is why teams throw one into a smoke before an execute rather than after.
The rest
Flashbangs. Two per player, $200 each, and the cheapest utility in the game measured by rounds won. Thrown over a wall so nobody sees the grenade itself, they turn a held angle into a free entry.
HE grenade. Maximum 98 damage, which is deliberately one short of a kill. Its job is to soften a group or finish someone already hurt, not to trade on its own.
Molotov and Incendiary. The Molotov costs $400 on T side. The Incendiary costs $500 on CT side and has a smaller spread and shorter duration. Both deny an area with fire, and both can be extinguished by a smoke grenade.
The Zeus x27
$200, very short range, and an instant kill on a successful hit. There is no kill reward. After use, the Zeus recharges in 30 seconds and can be fired again if the round lasts long enough.
Knife
The fastest thing to move with at 250 mobility, and $1,500 a kill - the highest reward in the game by a factor of nearly two.
Left click slashes for around 40. Right click stabs for considerably more and takes longer to swing. A stab from behind kills outright regardless of armour, which is the only reliable way to use it.
Running with the knife out is not an aesthetic choice. At 250 against a rifle's 215, it is the difference between making a rotation in time and not.
Zeus and knife figures come from the game files rather than the reference sheet.
CS2 Weapon Stats Table
All 36 weapons, sortable, with the damage worked out for you.
The full weapon database is below. Sort by any column, filter by type or side, search by name. Click a weapon and it opens the damage per hitbox with and without armour, the full stat sheet, and any scoped or burst variants it has.
Tick the box on up to four weapons and a comparison appears underneath, with the better figure in each row highlighted - cheapest price, highest damage, most ammo, and so on.
Numbers come from the CS2 Weapon Spreadsheet maintained by SlothSquadron, at the game build of 18 March 2026. Two things to keep in mind while reading it: shotgun damage is per pellet rather than per shot, and the headshot ranges are converted from game units at 39.4 units per metre.
Click any weapon for damage per hitbox, full stats and variants.
| Weapon | Type | Price | Kill $ | Damage | Armour pen | RPM | Mag | Total ammo | HS kill vs helmet |
|---|
Comparing 0 of 4
Stats from the CS2 Weapon Spreadsheet, game build of 18 March 2026. Shotgun damage is per pellet. Headshot ranges are converted from game units at 39.4 units per metre. Zeus and knife values come from the game files rather than the sheet.
CS2 Weapon Changes
Weapon balance moves rarely in CS2, and every move is worth knowing about.
Counter-Strike does not get monthly balance passes. Valve tends to leave weapon stats alone for long stretches, then make a small set of targeted changes. The sections below cover the changes that still affect the current weapon stats.
The practical problem is that most weapon guides online were written once and never revisited. If a page still lists the M4A4 at $3,100 or the MP7 at 29 damage, its weapon data is outdated - those values changed in May 2024 and January 2026 respectively.
March 2026 - reserve ammo
Valve reworked reloading and reserve ammunition in March 2026. Reloading now discards any rounds left in the current magazine, and reserve counts were retuned per weapon, with ammunition represented as magazines, shells or bullets depending on the gun.
| Weapon | Total ammo now |
|---|---|
| AWP | 15, down from 35 |
| SSG 08 | 30, down from 100 |
| SCAR-20, G3SG1 | 60, cut by roughly 45% |
| M4A1-S | 80 |
| M4A4 | 150 |
| Galil AR | 175, the most of any rifle |
Fifteen AWP rounds sounds like plenty until a round goes long and you have missed four shots. The change pushed AWPers toward picking their moments rather than holding an angle and firing at anything that moves, which was the point.
Rifles came out of it fine, some better than before. The gap between an M4A1-S at 80 rounds and an M4A4 at 150 is now a real consideration when you expect to fight more than two people.
January 2026 - the SMG pass
- MP7: damage 29 to 30, falloff at 500 units cut from 15% to 13%, price $1,500 to $1,400
- MP5-SD: damage 27 to 28, same falloff change, same price cut
- PP-Bizon: price $1,400 to $1,300
Small numbers with a visible effect. The MP7 gained one point of damage, lower falloff and a $100 price cut, although its point-blank bullets-to-kill count against an armoured chest stayed the same.
January 2025 - the CT rifles
- M4A4: price $3,100 to $2,900, matching the M4A1-S
- FAMAS: accuracy improved, price $2,050 to $1,950
- MP9, MP5-SD and MP7: reduced accuracy while crouching
The M4A4 cut was the meaningful one. Valve had already reduced it from $3,100 to $3,000 in May 2024; January 2025 brought it down another $100 to $2,900, matching the M4A1-S. From that point, choosing between the two no longer carried a price premium.
October 2025 - sniper scopes
Scoped snipers now show your current inaccuracy in the scope itself, so you can see whether the shot will land where the crosshair is. It changes nothing about the numbers and quite a lot about how quickly you learn to stop moving before firing.
May 2024 - M4A4 and Incendiary
- M4A4: price $3,100 to $3,000
- Incendiary: price $600 to $500, with shorter duration and smaller spread
The M4A4 became slightly cheaper, while the CT incendiary was reduced in both price and area denial.
Recoil & Spray Control
Two separate things people call the same thing.
Recoil is where the gun points after each shot. Inaccuracy is how far the bullet can land from where the gun points. Both grow as you fire, and they are not the same problem - one you can learn, the other you can only wait out.
Set pattern versus random
Most automatic weapons in CS2 use a fixed recoil pattern. Fire thirty rounds from an AK-47 standing still and the barrel travels the same path every time: up for the first ten or so, then left, then right. That is why spray control is a skill rather than luck - the pattern is learnable because it does not change.
Others are marked Random: the Desert Eagle, the R8, the AWP, the SSG 08, the Dual Berettas, the shotguns. There is no pattern to learn, which is fine because none of them are meant to be sprayed.
| Recoil type | Weapons |
|---|---|
| Set pattern | All rifles, all SMGs, both LMGs, CZ75, auto-snipers, XM1014 |
| Random | Deagle, R8, Duals, Glock, USP-S, P2000, P250, Five-SeveN, Tec-9, AWP, SSG 08, Nova, MAG-7, Sawed-Off |
The three ranges of a spray
First bullet. Standing still, the first shot is fired at the weapon’s base accuracy. Tapping works because inaccuracy returns toward that baseline after a short pause.
Bullets two to about ten. Most automatic weapons in CS2 follow a similar pattern for the first few shots: the recoil primarily climbs upward, with the larger horizontal differences appearing later in the spray. For nearly everything, the first four or five bullets go up and the answer is the same - pull down by about as much as the gun climbs.
Where they start to separate:
- AK-47, M4A4, M4A1-S - the first five shots go almost straight up.
- MP9 - the first five are vertical with almost no sideways component at all.
- AUG - the first four land very tightly together, then the horizontal movement arrives.
- Galil AR - climbs upward through the first five with a slight drift to one side.
- SG 553 - climbs like the rest, but the sideways component starts earlier than five.
- FAMAS - the drift is already visible by the third to fifth bullet, the earliest of the group.
Learn the pull-down once and it carries across most of the automatic weapons in the game. What you relearn per gun is where the pattern leaves vertical and how hard it goes sideways after that.
Past ten. The pattern goes sideways and inaccuracy has grown enough that even a perfect pull-down scatters. Beyond about fifteen rounds you are spraying a doorway, not aiming at a person.
What actually ruins accuracy
Running inaccuracy controls how far a shot can deviate while you are moving, and the difference between weapons is enormous.
| Weapon | Running inaccuracy |
|---|---|
| Tec-9 | 10.7 |
| Glock-18 | 17.6 |
| MAC-10 | 27.9 |
| MP7 | 30.5 |
| M4A1-S | 98.4 |
| M4A4 | 143.4 |
| AK-47 | 182.1 |
| AWP | 257.5 |
An AK firing on the move is nearly seventeen times less accurate than a Tec-9 doing the same thing. That is the mechanical reason rifles want you stopped and SMGs do not care.
Stopping properly matters more than most people think. Releasing the key is not enough - you keep sliding for a moment, and shots fired during that slide use the running value. Counter-strafing, which means tapping the opposite direction key, kills the momentum immediately and is the single most useful movement habit in the game.
Jumping and landing
Inaccuracy at the top of a jump is between 50 and 380 depending on the weapon - effectively a guarantee that the bullet goes somewhere else. Landing has its own penalty that takes a moment to clear, which is why a peek that ends in a jump-down loses to someone standing still.
How to practise it
- Open a private server,
sv_cheats 1, and spray at a wall to see the pattern you are producing. - Drill the first ten bullets, not all thirty. That range is where fights happen.
- Practise counter-strafing separately from spraying - they are different habits and mixing them slows both down.
- Tap at long range, burst at medium, spray only when close enough that the pattern stays vertical.
The commands for setting up a practice server are in the practice commands reference.
Weapon Skins & Inspection
They change nothing about how a gun shoots. That has never stopped anyone.
A skin has no effect on damage, accuracy, recoil or anything else. A $3,000 knife and a default knife have the same combat stats. The only thing a skin changes is what you and other players see.
Where they do matter slightly is visibility. A bright skin on a weapon you are holding while peeking can show a sliver of colour before your model rounds the corner. Skins can change how visible a weapon model is because of their colours, but they do not change the weapon’s hitbox, damage or other gameplay stats.
Wear and float
Every skin carries a float value between 0 and 1, which sets how worn it looks. Five bands:
| Wear | Float range |
|---|---|
| Factory New | 0.00 – 0.07 |
| Minimal Wear | 0.07 – 0.15 |
| Field-Tested | 0.15 – 0.38 |
| Well-Worn | 0.38 – 0.45 |
| Battle-Scarred | 0.45 – 1.00 |
The float does not move. A skin never degrades with use, no matter how many rounds you carry it - the number is set when the item is created and stays there forever.
Two skins in the same wear band can look quite different, because the pattern is applied independently. A Field-Tested at 0.16 often looks close to Minimal Wear and costs considerably less, which is most of what skin trading is about.
Inspecting
Hold F to inspect the weapon in your hands. It is bound by default and does nothing except look at the gun - you cannot shoot while doing it, which is worth remembering before you inspect on a live round.
StatTrak weapons count your kills with that specific item against human players on official Valve servers. The counter resets if the item is traded or sold on the Steam Community Market.
Where to look
CS2 Skins
Skins, collections, rarity tiers, float values and current market prices.
open →
Inventory Value
What a public inventory is worth at current market prices. The profile has to be open.
open →
CS Cases
Browse CS2 cases, the skins inside, release dates and current market prices.
open →Common Weapon Mistakes
Things people repeat about weapons that the numbers do not support.
"The M4A1-S one-taps because it does more damage"
It does 38 to the M4A4's 33, and it still cannot take a helmeted head. The head multiplier is 3.475x rather than 4x, unique to this weapon, which lands the shot at 92 damage through a helmet. Eight short, at every range.
"The AUG one-taps helmets"
At 197 units, which is five metres. Technically true, practically not something to plan a duel around. Buy the AUG for the scope and the 90% armour penetration, not for a one-tap that only exists inside a doorway.
"Shotguns do 234 damage"
A Nova fires nine pellets at 26 damage each. That total only appears if every pellet lands, which happens at point-blank range and nowhere else. Past three metres fewer pellets are likely to connect, and at 500 units each pellet has lost 30% of its damage.
"Armour degrades so it protects less over time"
Armour durability drops as you take hits, but damage reduction does not change. A vest at 30 durability reduces the next bullet exactly as much as a fresh one did. What changes is how many more bullets it keeps doing that for.
"Buy a rifle, skip the vest"
An M4A4 kills an unarmoured player with four chest shots; Kevlar pushes that to five. A vest costs $650, and besides reducing damage it also cuts aim punch heavily. Skipping it can save a buy, but against rifles you give up both protection and shooting stability.
"The P90 is a good eco buy"
It costs $2,350 and pays $300 a kill, not $600 like every other SMG. Three kills with an MP9 earns $1,800 on a $1,250 gun. Three kills with a P90 earns $900 on a $2,350 gun. It is a fine weapon and a bad economic decision.
"Spray control means learning all thirty bullets"
Almost no fight lasts thirty bullets. Past ten the pattern goes sideways and inaccuracy has grown enough that a perfect pull-down still scatters. Drill the first ten and tap or burst for anything further away.
"Crouching makes you more accurate, so crouch in fights"
Crouching does reduce inaccuracy, but it also cuts your movement speed and makes repositioning much slower. It is useful for holding a pre-aimed angle at range. It is how people die in close-quarters fights they would have won by strafing.
"Expensive means better"
The M249 costs $5,200, more than an AWP, and has no round where it is the correct buy. The Negev at $1,700 is genuinely strong in the one situation it fits. Price in CS2 reflects what a weapon does, not how good it is at winning rounds.
More CS2 Resources
The rest of the CS2 section, and two tests to see where your aim actually is.
CS2 Guides
Settings, mechanics, performance, gameplay systems and general CS2 guides.
open →
Maps & Callouts
Fifteen maps, with callouts and what each side is trying to do on them.
open →
Rank System
Competitive, Premier and Profile XP are three separate systems. What each measures.
open →
How Fast Is Your Aim?
Hit the targets, get a number, and see where it puts you against everyone else.
open →
How Fast Do You React?
Five rounds, average in milliseconds. Reaction is not aim, but it sets the ceiling.
open →
Back to CS2 Hub
Tools, tests, pro settings, skins and everything else in the CS2 section.
open →