CS2 Negev machine gun displayed in the weapon inventory

Negev Guide for Counter-Strike 2

Damage, spray, 150 rounds, and when a $1,700 machine gun is worth it.

The Negev is a $1,700 machine gun with 150 rounds in the magazine and 450 in total, more than any other gun. Both sides can buy it, it pays $300 a kill, and at 800 rounds a minute it kills an armoured opponent in five chest hits, 0.30 seconds - as fast as the AK - out to about 90 metres.

The trade-off is movement and headshot damage. At 150 mobility the Negev is the slowest gun in the game, a helmeted headshot does 99.4 - less than a point short of a kill - and a full reload takes 5.7 seconds. This page goes through the numbers, the spray, when to buy it, and the skins and cases.

Last checked

September 2026

Weapon stats checked against CS2 build 1.41.7.6.

Negev at a Glance

The full stat sheet, straight from the game.

Every number below comes from the game build of 18 March 2026. Two of them define the Negev: a 150-round magazine and 150 mobility. It carries more ammo than any other gun and moves slower than any other gun. What it gives up besides speed is the headshot - 99.4 damage to a helmeted head, so it never one-taps a helmeted opponent.

Damage and money

Price	$1,700
Kill reward	$300
Side	CT and T
Base damage	35
Armour penetration	71%
Headshot multiplier	4x
Damage lost at 500 units	3%
Wall penetration	200%
One-tap range, helmet	None (99.4 damage)
One-tap range, no helmet	5,523 u (about 140 m)

Handling and ammo

Rate of fire	800 RPM
Magazine	150
Reserve	300 (450 total)
Reload	5.70 s (mag in at 3.83 s)
Deploy	1.0-1.1 s
Mobility	150 (knife is 250)
Tagging power	60%
Accurate range, standing	12.5 m
Running inaccuracy	171.3
Recoil	Set pattern
Console command	`give weapon_negev`

The weak spot is movement. At 150 the Negev is as slow as a scoped AUG or SG 553, and its running inaccuracy, 171.3, is close to the AK's 182. Standing still it is accurate only to 12.5 metres. It also takes 5.7 seconds to reload, tied with the M249 for the slowest reload in the game.

Negev Damage & Armour

What one bullet does, and how many it takes.

Everything here assumes a full-health player at close range. Armour means kevlar on the body and a helmet on the head. The general rules behind these numbers are on the weapons hub.

Damage per bullet

Hitbox	No armour	Armour	Bullets to kill, no armour	Bullets to kill, armour
Head	140	99.4	1	2
Chest and arms	35	24.85	3	5
Stomach	43.75	31.1	3	4
Legs	26.25	26.25	4	4

One number misses by almost nothing. A helmeted headshot does 99.4, six tenths of a point short of a kill, so the Negev never one-taps a helmeted opponent. Without armour it hits hard: three chest hits kill, the same as the AK.

Where the Negev holds up

The Negev loses 3% of its damage for every 500 units of distance, the same as the M4A4. The bullet counts above hold this far:

Shot	Works up to
Head, helmet - 2 bullets	Any distance on a map
Head, no helmet - 1 bullet	5,523 u (about 140 m)
Stomach, no armour - 3 bullets	4,464 u (about 113 m)
Chest through armour - 5 bullets	3,564 u (about 90 m)
Stomach through armour - 4 bullets	3,564 u (about 90 m)
Chest, no armour - 3 bullets	801 u (about 20 m)
Legs - 4 bullets	801 u (about 20 m)

Past each of those distances the count goes up by one. Damage is multiplied by 0.97 for every 500 units of distance, and it drops smoothly in between.

What this means in a fight

Against a player without armour, three chest hits take 0.15 seconds at 800 rounds a minute, out to about 20 metres. Against kevlar, five take 0.30 seconds - the same as the AK - out to about 90 metres. Two helmeted headshots kill at any distance, 75 milliseconds apart. On paper that is rifle-level damage for $1,700; what holds the Negev back is accuracy and movement, not damage.

Negev Recoil & Spray

Why the Negev gets more accurate the longer you hold the trigger.

The Negev fires 800 rounds a minute, one bullet every 75 milliseconds. A full magazine of 150 lasts a little over eleven seconds. Its spray works the other way round from almost every other gun: the start is the hard part, and the longer you hold the trigger, the tighter it gets.

All 150 bullets of the magazine are plotted. The first seventeen climb; the rest land on top of each other in a band a few pixels tall, which is exactly what the gun does. The dots show where each bullet goes if you hold the trigger and don't touch the mouse; the panel on the right is the mouse movement that cancels it - one pull down at the start, then nothing. ×1 plays at real speed, ×0.5 and ×0.25 slow it down, and Step by step fires one bullet per click with Next shot.

The spray, in three parts

Shots 1-10. Straight up, fast, with no sideways movement at all. Pull down hard.
Shots 11-17. The climb slows and stops. Ease off the pull.
Shots 18-150. The bullets stay in place, jumping a few pixels up and down. Hold the mouse where it is.

That is the whole pattern. There is nothing to correct left or right, which makes the Negev one of the easiest guns in the game to spray once the first ten bullets are under control.

How to actually use it

Pull down for the first ten shots, then hold. Against an armoured opponent five chest hits kill (see Damage & Armour), and most of them will come from the stable part of the spray, so it pays to start shooting a moment before the opponent appears rather than when you see them.

Spray control will not make the Negev accurate on the move. Its running inaccuracy is 171.3, close to the AK's 182, and at 150 mobility it is also the slowest gun to move with. Tapping the opposite movement key - counter-strafing - brings you to a stop faster than just letting go of the key.

The accurate range standing is 12.5 metres, which covers the first shots. At range, the stable part of the spray is what lands, not the opening bullets.

Did the spray change in 2026?

No. In April 2026 Valve changed how the screen moves when you fire, so it feels closer to CS:GO. Where the bullets land stayed the same.

Sources: CS2 update notes, 21 April 2026

When to Buy the Negev

What a Negev round costs, and when it beats a Galil, a FAMAS or an SMG.

The Negev is a force-buy gun for holding one spot. It is cheaper than any rifle, kills through armour as fast as the AK, and carries enough ammo to shoot through a whole round without reloading. What it can't do is move.

What a buy adds up to

Item	Price
Negev	$1,700
Kevlar + helmet	$1,000
Smoke	$300
Flashbang	$200
Total	$3,200

A Galil with armour costs $2,800, a FAMAS with armour $2,950. For $100-250 less than those rifles, the Negev leaves room for the same armour.

Negev or a cheap rifle

Through armour the Negev is faster: five chest hits in 0.30 seconds out to about 90 metres, where the Galil and FAMAS need 0.36 - and the FAMAS only out to 15. It also has 150 rounds a magazine against 35 and 25. The rifles win on everything that involves moving: 215-220 mobility against 150, better accuracy on the move and standing still, and a reload of about 3 seconds against 5.7. If you will hold one angle for the whole round, the Negev is the stronger gun; if you have to rotate or take space, take the rifle.

Negev or an SMG

The SMGs cost $300-650 less and pay $600 a kill, the Negev $300. Against players without armour an SMG earns twice as much and moves far faster. Against armour at range, the Negev keeps its five-hit kill much further out than any SMG.

Negev vs Other Guns

What the Negev does better, and what it gives up.

The Negev wins on ammo and on damage through armour for its price, and loses on movement and on the helmet one-tap. The table below has both machine guns side by side.

vs M249

The other machine gun, $3,500 more. With 32 damage and 80% armour penetration, the M249 kills through armour in four chest hits, 0.24 seconds, inside about 10 metres, and one-taps a helmeted head over the same distance - the Negev can't do either. Past 10 metres it needs five hits, 0.32 seconds, against the Negev's 0.30. It moves at 195 against 150 and is more accurate standing still, 15.7 metres against 12.5. It holds 100 rounds a magazine and 300 in total, against 150 and 450, and it reloads just as slowly. Details in the M249 guide.

vs Galil AR and FAMAS

$100 and $250 more. How the two rifles compare with the Negev is in When to Buy above. Details in the Galil AR and FAMAS guides.

vs P90

$650 more, and the other gun built around a big magazine: 50 rounds at 857 a minute. Through armour it needs six chest hits, 0.35 seconds, up to about 6 metres, then seven. It moves at 230 against 150 and its running inaccuracy is 45.7 against the Negev's 171.3. Both pay $300 a kill. Details in the P90 guide.

vs SSG 08

The same $1,700, but a very different gun: a bolt-action sniper that one-taps a helmeted head at any distance. If the round is about one long angle, the SSG 08 holds it with headshots; if it is about a close choke point, the Negev holds it with volume. Details in the SSG 08 guide.

Machine Gun Stats Table

Both machine guns side by side, with the Negev already open.

This is the same table as on the weapons hub, but filtered down to machine guns. The Negev row is open with its damage per hitbox and full stats, and it is already ticked for comparison with the M249. You can add up to two more guns from the full table on the hub.

Click a column header to sort. The full table with all 36 weapons is on the weapons hub.

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

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.

Negev Skins & Cases

Negev skins by market listings and price, and where they come from.

Three ways to look at Negev skins. Most listed are the ones with the most offers across the markets I track, in other words the ones currently offered most often. Most expensive are the skins that stay expensive even in their cheapest wear. Cheapest are the ones that stay cheap even in their best wear. Prices update every 15 minutes, and the range on each card runs from the cheapest variant to the most expensive one, wear and StatTrak included.

Mil-Spec Grade

Drop Me

$0.05 - $0.68

View prices →

Mil-Spec Grade

Ultralight

$0.05 - $0.43

View prices →

Consumer Grade

Raw Ceramic

$0.01 - $0.03

View prices →

Consumer Grade

Army Sheen

$0.01 - $0.03

View prices →

Industrial Grade

Bulkhead

$0.02 - $1.14

View prices →

Industrial Grade

Wall Bang

$0.02 - $0.98

View prices →

Industrial Grade

Sour Grapes

$0.02 - $0.29

View prices →

Mil-Spec Grade

Prototype

$0.14 - $1.32

View prices →

All of them, with a price for every wear, are on the Negev skins page.

Cases with Negev skins

Every case that can drop a Negev skin, newest first. The number under each case is how many Negev skins it holds.

Recoil Case2022 · 1 skin

Snakebite Case2021 · 1 skin

Fracture Case2020 · 1 skin

Prisma 2 Case2020 · 1 skin

Clutch Case2018 · 1 skin

Gamma 2 Case2016 · 1 skin

Revolver Case2015 · 1 skin

Falchion Case2015 · 1 skin

Chroma 2 Case2015 · 1 skin

eSports 2014 Summer Case2014 · 1 skin

Operation Breakout Weapon Case2014 · 1 skin

Operation Phoenix Weapon Case2014 · 1 skin

Negev skins that never came from a case

Some Negev skins come from map collections, operations, or the Armory instead of cases. Collections marked "souvenir" also come in souvenir packages from Majors.

The 2018 Nuke Collection1 skin · souvenir

The 2021 Vertigo Collection1 skin · souvenir

The Alpha Collection1 skin

The Ascent Collection1 skin

The Assault Collection1 skin

The Bank Collection1 skin

The Boreal Collection1 skin

The Cache Collection1 skin · souvenir

The Canals Collection1 skin

The Havoc Collection1 skin

The Mirage Collection1 skin · souvenir

The Norse Collection1 skin

The Overpass 2024 Collection1 skin · souvenir

Browse all CS2 cases and all collections, or check what your own skins are worth with the Inventory Value Calculator.

Common Negev Mistakes

Small habits that cost rounds, and what the numbers say instead.

Reloading after every fight

Since the 18 March 2026 update, a reload throws away whatever is left in the magazine and takes a full one from your reserve. The Negev has two spare magazines of 150, so a reload with 100 rounds still in the gun throws away 100 rounds - two full P90 magazines. With 150 rounds, a reload during the round is almost never needed. How this habit caught me out is in the AK-47 guide.

The second reload mistake is reloading when you are not safe. From pressing R to being able to shoot again the Negev needs 5.7 seconds, the Negev needs 5.7 seconds, tied with the M249 for the longest reload in the game. Only reload when you are sure nobody can swing on you for almost six seconds.

Shooting in short bursts

With most guns, short bursts are more accurate than a long spray. The Negev is the opposite: the first ten or so bullets climb, and the stable part of the spray starts only after that. Every time you let go of the trigger, you start the climb again. The spray section explains how it works.

Waiting for a one-tap

A helmeted headshot does 99.4 damage, so the Negev never kills with one bullet to a helmeted head. Two headshots kill at any distance, and at 800 rounds a minute the second one comes 75 milliseconds later.

Taking it on a rotation

At 150 mobility the Negev is the slowest gun in the game - slower than a rifle by 65-75 and slower than the knife by 100. Buy it for a spot you will hold, not for a round where you have to move across the map. More in When to Buy.

Buying it against an eco

The Negev pays $300 a kill, while most SMGs pay $600. Against players with no armour, an SMG kills fast enough, earns twice as much and moves much faster.

Shooting on the move

The Negev's running inaccuracy is 171.3, close to the AK's 182. A spray on the move goes wide. Stop first: tapping the opposite movement key - counter-strafing - brings you to a stop faster than just letting go of the key.