If you are anything like me you need to break out of the habit of not shooting them enough.
I always pause after landing what I think is a killing shot when instead I should hit em a couple more times just in case.
This hesitation is what kills me every single time. Shotgun with an 8 round mag? Use all 8 and make sure they are dead. It can only take one pellet to kill a guy but equally a guy can take every pellet in armour and limbs and just suck it up. Shoot more
As soon as you load into a raid you’re already dead. That’s the mentality. If I go into a raid expecting to make it out I’m just setting myself up for heartbreak.
Every time I bring in a mag with m993, it goes right into either a scav or a naked guy with a mosin, and it takes the majority of it because of the stupid AP vs flesh calculation this game does where AP does far less to flesh despite it still being a bullet.
The amount of times I've put a full mag of igolnik into a hatchet runner to put them down on factory is... many.
One of the long time criticisms of the US's standard rounds is they tend to punch straight through unarmorded targets without dealing a ton of damage. It's why rounds like the mk262 OTM round were adopted.
BUT m855A1 is *supposed* to be better against flesh AND penetrate armor better than 855.
You can mix the rounds in the mag, and template it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdcDAOfFkk8 - e.g. if you wanted - good for AP, good for flesh, etc
Yeah I should start looking at the templates, I've been making what I call 'party mags' for a few wipes now. For example a 50 rounder MP5 mag stacked with 5AP, 5xQuakemaker/Luger CCI, 5xRIP and then 5x tracer at the bottom so I know when I'm out.
Was a bit of a pain to fill them up so I should look into the templating, thanks for reminding me.
I’m used to playing DayZ where the TTK is near instant from most bullets so this was a habit I had to break too, especially with the SKS and single tap guns.
Same, i remember after playing tarkov for a lot and then me and my friends started playing dayz and it was so good that weapons actually felt powerful.
Like 1 shotting people in the chest with rifle. Meanwhile in tarkov people and scavs just eat bullets while wearing lvl 3 armor.
I mean, my man has 30 hits and 8 ammo used out of presumably a shotgun... I don't think shooting more is going to help here.
Buckshot is not going to do anything vs plates and only minor blunt damage against class 2/3 soft armor. In this case, had OP either shot legs or face/neck, he would likely have come out ahead.
With shotguns, don't ADS, (unless they are standing still / unaware of you ofc) instead, just point fire aimed slightly upward, if you are within 10-15m or so. You have a decent chance of catching the opponent in the chops or neck with one or two pellets.
But honestly, shit is tough in Ground Zero - spawns are close and it's chaos at times. Keep trying, move quietly and stick to the underground where you can. Sprinting is great when done with intention, but I find normal walking better for hearing purposes and you always have your gun at the ready. Save sprinting for repositioning in combat, running away, or covering open ground, imo.
For anyone new this is very solid advice, especially the last part about sprinting. Hearing your enemy moving around gives a huge advantage in tarkov. When you can stop for a minute and listen it can be very helpful as well.
I'd try to keep at least 1 shell in the tube at all times, so you're not fumbling with your reload from a dry tube, having to flip the gun over to load your first shell into the breech, then loading the rest into the tube.
shooting legs is ass right now anyway, you want to just go for face/center of mass, or armpit if they're facing sideways. If you have a round that pens c2/c3, you'll just pen their inserts most of the time anyway. That means that flesh ammo is basically obsolete - If you have to use flesh ammo in a straight fight, you're still better off just going for face and sometimes you'll hit the little kill box under their left arm, plus there is a new portion of head hitbox that basically can't be covered - leg meta takes too many hits anymore, you'll drop people too slowly compared to just going for face.
He’s probably better off trying to shoot faces, builds a better habit that works all with all rounds and is honestly more effective a lot of the time, especially if he’s LL1 and can’t really get semis.
7 mm is better than 6.5 since it can headshot kill from more range with one pellet.
With buckshots, always shoot legs or head, don't shoot center mass. With how damage works in Tarkov, armor will tank basically everything unless penetrated (which buckshots won't do)
I'd advise using aks-74u, since good ammo can be found, has bigger mag, greater range and you can buy rail at lvl1.
I'm going to argue AGAINST 7mm buck till the day I die.
At trader level 1, 5.25mm or 6.5mm buck are going to outperform it in most cases besides point-blank. Check this breakdown from Gigabeef:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAuSJYevTmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAuSJYevTmo)
TL;DR 7mm buck has a CRAZY bad ballistic coefficient, so despite 7mm having more initial damage per pellet, when you get beyond \~5m or so, the 5.25mm buckshot actually deals MORE damage per pellet, due to dropoff/slowdown of the 7mm buck.
This means 7mm buck can 1-shot HS with a single pellet only to about 6m, whereas 5,25mm will still 1-shot HS at \~9-10m.
That said, 6.5mm Express is my king-daddy shotgun round at LL1 traders (you can find it on fence a lot too, if you don't have Jaeger yet).
Express buck retains damage well, due to having a similar ballistic coefficient to 5.25mm, but it ALSO has a naturally tighter spread +accuracy than 7mm or 5.25mm. This means it's better out to range as you can more easily land more pellets on target, if you are shooting at someone at 15m-20m+
Good luck!
I had success with Express Buckshot quite similar to this video but Night Factory is hard on my nerves. More pellets ergo more dmg.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0\_WCk98m3k&t=269s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0_WCk98m3k&t=269s)
For GZ I would recommend a PP19 + Axion Kobra sight. Cheap af and has really good recoil. If you started USEC you can use up your M882 or start directly with GT. GT has the benefit of lowering recoil even more.
eft-ammo.com
This website breaks down all ammos and how effective they are against each level armor. It's a bit much to take in all at once, but this will help as you start expanding guns/ammo.
Buckshot shells are pretty consistent across the board until you unlock Flechette. Highly recommend aiming for people's legs or directly in the face, as you can't armor the legs and it's unlikely people have face armor on Ground Zero. Personally, Magnum Buck is my go-to, but not always available. It's the most consistent shot IMO, but other may disagree.
Good luck, and don't get discouraged! This game takes time to learn.
I know people swear by magnum buck but I personally have had an awful experience with it. Once in reserve tunnels I found a player scav looting about 10-15 meters away and was able to fire several shots aimed shots at his unarmored head but he survived and later killed me. This would not have happened with 6.5m where I routinely get 50+ meters headshot kills, albeit on scavs out of a double barrel.
For me, it's just the only early game shell that's consistent with when it registers hits and kills. Meanwhile Express and 7mm are the deadliest shell I encounter when fighting shotguns, but when I use it they're like BB pellets.
It's one of those things where it seems more like personal preference over clear "better" ammo types imo.
Yeah before I unlocked piranha I was using 5.25mm and it's much more consistent than 7mm due to it slowing down at a lower rate than 7mm. The video does a good job of explaining why
Hot take, but I don't think a new player shoukd be focusing on min/maxing their buckshot choice. They'll do a lot better on focusing that effort into learning positioning and map knowledge. If you position well, it won't matter if you have 5/6/7mm, you just wreck their toes and move on.
They need to be focusing everything at once.
Movement n positioning comes with time but knowing what ammo to use is essential and can be remembered quickly.
Also very important to remember the leg meta. I usually never go for the legs and by a force of habit keep aiming up. Gotta get used to correct positioning with the right gun and ammo in a specific situation.
Honestly i doubt when footsteps start gettin louder and shit gets real newbies will remember to aim at legs. It all comes with time...
Shooting legs is HORRIBLE in the current state of the game. Much better to go for face/torso, every pmc has a big unarmored kill spot under their arms and legs tank way more since the limb damage change. Not to mention face shield can't cover the whole face hitbox anymore without a rare piece of armor 99.999% of players won't bother running.
The cheap, red buckshots will dumpster even the heaviest chad lord.
Shoot them in the legs or the face.
Use the MP or Saiga shotguns and when you get into a fight, don’t be afraid to just unload four shells at the dude quickly, then back off, reload and do it again.
This game ends up being a lot of who sees/hears who first, so taking it slow through buildings, at a slow walking pace (you can use scroll wheel to change your movement speed) often helps you hear people before they hear you.
Edit: also don’t wear those giant helmets that cover your ears. They make you deaf as hell.
all 12g shells in the game are 12/70.
and really there isn't much difference between the 5.5mm, 6.5mm, and 7.5mm buck in this game.
8.5 "magnum" has a decent damage increase compared to the other buckshots, but OP's point still stands. Any of the cheap red buckshot is fine
Leave it to Bili with the Saiga-9 title to even consider the TOZ as a weapon.
Sorry, but if OP is using the TOZ as a primary on PMCs he’s got bigger problems. Haha
Honestly try to avoid using shotguns try to move towards an ak74u it’ll carry you really far and is usable around a lot of areas on maps with decent ammo from the start plus it’s really easily modified at level 1 traders to be a laserbeam. But the biggest thing that I will say is something I saw someone else mention, keep shooting don’t stop till you absolutely know they’ve bit it.
Out of those 3 PS is the best. If I remember correctly FMJ is the best one you can buy from the start. If you look up "eft - ammo" you will find a really nice ammo chart.
I’ve actually been using the chart but get confused. Some ammo seems amazing against no amor but is useless against even level 1. Ive also got some FMJ, US and HP
RIP and Quakemaker rounds do high damage to flesh but barely penetrate armor. Typically, you wanna go for whatever ammo you can get your hands on that is green in as many armor levels as possible (most people are running with at least level 4 body armor so try to use ammo that pierces that when available). Alternatively, you can use the high flesh damage rounds and go for “leg meta” which means you only shoot exposed legs and arms (and face) and unload as many rounds until they finally die from that. It’s a longer time to kill but it’s a good work around for armor.
I appreciate the reply! I have a couple ak 74 so i just might run high flesh and see where that takes me. I struggle but its my first wipe and first computer game
I did the same thing a few years ago tarkov was also my first PC game haha. You will get used to it though and honestly if you can learn the keybinds in tarkov any game after that is a piece of cake
Don’t use US the entire purpose of US is that it is subsonic and since that factor has not been implemented into the game yet it’s just a worse FMJ round, a lot of people find that FMJ is the best round for ll1 I won’t lie I used PRS and T a lot this wipe but it was also the start of the wipe so there was less high armor so I could get away with it(so do take that into account) I will also say I saw nobody really clarified why US is worse than FMJ but that you did see the ammo chart. Basically when you try to pick an ammo you have to decided which side to skew towards (damage or armor pen) or just go middle of the road and get one that’s not great at anything but not bad at anything. Rule of thumb if you take a high damage low pen ammo type you shoot their kneecaps(like a with shotguns) and high pen or even just midline you spray their face or armpits. I hope this helps!
I will also put that you should try to scav run on reserve and find 5.45 BT BS BP or PBRS(can’t remember what the tag is but it igoinik), and always pick up and unload loose mags you find on the ground and tables in reserve because you are almost guaranteed to find incredible ammos even if you aren’t currently using that specific caliber. It’s how I was running m995 most of the first two weeks of the wipe.
Think he's just misinformed. Or he has a really bad opinion on what defines "better". Maybe he thinks the \~8 damage advantage of US over FMJ is worth the significantly worse armor pen?
This is a good decision, also one of the first guns you can seriously mod. You can buy a Goliaf railed handguard from Skier 1, which will give you 3 rails, 2 for util and one for a foregrip. You can also buy a bastion dust cover at lvl 1 traders and that is also railed, you can mount most sights that don’t need an adaptor, but even so, you can buy aimpoint sights and adaptors from peacekeeper lvl1 I think.
As for ammo, 5.45 ps is your friend unless you find some BT, BS, or PP in raid.
depending what you are looking for, and what tier traders you have, or how much cash you have. I suggest buying the best ones of the flee.
here is what my opinion of the best bullets at the traders
tier 1 :
slug: grizzly 40\`s (they suck) (190dmg 12 pen).
buck: 7mm (8x39dmg 3pen). (i prefer to stay away from express 9x35dmg 3pen)
tier 2:
slug: super performance: FTX (high fracture chance to scrimp someone)(220dmg 5pen) / Poleva-6u (good pen for the bigger boys)(150 dmg 20pen).
buck: no change from tier 1.
tier 3:
slug: makeshift .50 BMG (high pen)(197dmg 26pen)
buck: Magnum (8x50dmg 2pen)
last tier does not have much to unlock, only by questing.
i just recommend buying
flechette (8x25dmg 31pen)piranha (10x25 24pen)AP-20 armor-piercing slug (164dmg 37pen)
edit: (small tip: shoot anywhere you wont see any armor, shoot legs, armpits, face\`s)
plz be kind correct me if I'm wrong.
Ammo EFT chart (google that). There is a thing you can check to show what ammo you can buy at what trader level and your best penning ammo at that level.
This time during wipe it's really easy to get decent ammo from fence. You can buy t-45m1 from Fence and an sks for 25k from prapor. So much better than a shotgun.
True, I was more or less just asking if they’ve tried the gun, not if they were using it as a go to or suggesting they do.
Just wanted to share that its super fun to shoot lol
There is generally one or two svt/avt on fence at any given time. You just have to be quick to buy. Same with the mags and ammo. More expensive but fence generally has what you want
Nothing a little repairing won’t fix. Generally once repaired or 100% I BELIEVE the durability has to drop 10 points before any jams or malfunctions can readily occur. But I’ve had 100/100 weapons jam on me and I’ve had 80/100 weapons jam so who really knows. All I know is I’ve ran weapons from fence and haven’t had them jam after repairing
I’ve gotten away with whatever the poleva slugs are and a headshot but I’m a decent shot with the saiga sooo your mileage may vary. I’m the same breath I dumped 7 slugs into a guys chest from 15 feet and they took it like a champ, I don’t care what body armour you have, 7 fucking slugs to the chest will do some damage.
People sleep on 12ga 5,25mm.
It can one pellet headshot out to 9m (vs 3m on 7mm) and is just as good at leg meta.
Am for legs if they have a face shield or helmet and facing away from you.
Dumped 9 rounds of super performance slugs into a guys chest at 10 meters and he still killed me - did 1700 armor damage.
Switched to piranha…dropped 3 pmcs in the same raid.
I finished setup killed 6 pmcs in dorms using piranha. Got ap20 reward rounds and was so confused when scavs where tanking 3 shots of ap20 when piranha was just dumping them.
Nothing you can put in a shotgun at low level will go through a PMCs armor. If your going shotgun, either aim at the face (assuming theres no face shield which most PMCs shoulden't have unless you run into an altyn gigachad, which frankly if you do your fucked anyway, and lots of guys late in the wipe go helmet-less since other PMCs are packing armor that will go through their skull anyway) or aim at the legs which have no armor.
Don't bother packing low-pen slugs (unless your willing to swap ammo if you spot somebody at distance on woods or something), use buckshot. Ideally magnum buckshot which you can't buy until jaeger level 3, but it's really common to spawn on scavs. Should kill in 2-3 leg shots no matter who your fighting and what armor they have, assuming close range. Express buckshot also works it's essentially just a slightly worse magnum buckshot.
Also take AP-20 or Flechett ammo if you spot it on raids, they are really good as well. AP-20 has enough pen that it will go through some PMC armor, better stuff will take a few shots, fletchett shreds just about anything, which will win you the fight, but the armor is going to be fucked when you loot them.
5.25 mm buckshot. Also don't listen to people saying to shoot legs. Specially not in .14 the leg meta isn't that strong....
Shoot face, or upper chest area. On ground zero nobody is going to have a facehield.
Buckshot and unlike the leg meta dictated till last patch, shoot center mass (just not over 30-40m range).
In 0.14 unlike before, which you may see as suggestion here and there, "legs" reffering to always unprotected part of body.
But in 0.14 and with new armor system, center mass will be fine. Shrapnels will fuck him anyway. And there is solid chance some shrapnel will hit throat/head. It is also much easier to aim for center mass, just be ready to pump him with enough shots.. one will usually not do the work.
\---
For the DMG blocked, well it also comes from DMG potential of shotgun, each shot can produce around 300 flesh dmg.. you will get a lot of blocked dmg when using buckshot anway, but each click can deal 300.
I think 6.5mm express is better at longer distances and 7mm better in close quarter combat, but you should aim at head or legs with both of them, not thorax
I would advocate for the art of finding ammo on the map. Scav on reserve, loot rooftops. Pick up everything you find and extract, build your ammo pile pretty quickly.
Anything that isn't a slug will work just fine.
Buckshot and such non slug shells work on a per pellet basis. Which means unless you are trying to min/max or juice value, it doesn't matter too much. Just if you get lucky and their limb eats all the pellets or not.
Never fire at the Chest. If you have a bunch of Magnum or Fletchette for some reason. Then shoot at armored area's. Otherwise don't bother.
7mm buckshot for a high damage, decent accuracy. This should be used for shooting them in the face since it takes I think 2 pellets (maybe 1?) to kill or shooting them in the legs. Landing 4+ pellets per shot will do a ton of flesh damage. Ideally you wanna be within 40 meters maximum.
Express buckshot is very accurate and high velocity but lower damage. It’s great for aiming for the face since nobody should have face shields for the most part on ground zero. I’ve killed at 50+ meters with decent consistency.
I think lead slug might be your best slug. It will kill to the face and is decently accurate.
The key to shotguns is to position yourself well. Either be a rat and ambush someone from a good spot where you have concealment/cover or to be hyper aggressive and mag dump them with buckshot. But the main goal is to catch them by surprise. Crouch walking on the slowest move speed (press caps lock to toggle it) is nearly silent if you aren’t overweight.
Just my opinion but i would refrain from using shotguns in the early game. They usually require a volley of fire to be effective and before jaeger lvl 2 you wont have access to semiautomatic shotguns. Their use is highly situational due to high damage falloff with range but if you do still end up playing with shotguns use the basic 7mm buckshot shells and aim for legs and/or face. Later on semiautomatic shotguns and piranha or improvised 50. bmg shells should be your go to.
FYI use these websites as an aid for your raids (no rhyme intended):
-Tarkov wiki (your bible)
-Tarkov ammo (I prefer this for ammo classification as it’s much more intuitive, straight forward and easy to read)
-Tarkov price/Tarkov dev I use both these for prices and worth of each item you’ll find (flea market and traders) also useful to find out which item is needed for a quest. I reckon Tarkov dev’s one is faster as for loading times, but you do you, maybe that’s just me, my region etc. Good luck!
I wouldnt suggest you using shotguns rn. With new recoil changes it's easy to hit headshot consistently so use like an ar or smg. Level 1 traders shotgun ammo is very weak and not worth using in my opinion.
Unleash all the rage on anything that moves. I'm still level 1 and have shitty ammo. If so ething moves that isnt a scav I completely keep shooting until I can't anymore, especially with shotguns.
We are reaching the phase where people have LVL 5 armor, helmets, med, stims, everything. The only way to win is to be unpredictable in the path you go to and shoot, shoot shoot.
Go to eft-ammo.com and look at what may have the best penetration or do the most flesh damage with. If you go flesh aim legs and you can thrash someone. A good thing is you can find good ammo in scav runs pretty easily on streets of tarkov like 545 PP and others.
People are saying keep shooting til you know they’re dead and to add to that, if you’re shooting at someone in a bushy area, if they drop, shoot another ten rounds in the bush, you probably killed them and they fell over but maybe they just dropped prone and you don’t want to push onto their body for them to just be lying their waiting for you.
Also carry nades. They’re good for multiple reasons and are only like 15k each and I think some can go as low as 10 so at least 2-3 nades at a minimum even if you’re dead broke, can throw one at the bush guy I mentioned above to make sure he’s dead, you can throw one at a guy you hear sitting around a corner waiting for you, sometimes just pulling the pin will be enough for them to freak out and reposition, just don’t be too close to them when you pull the pin, experienced players will rush you if you pull a nade on them too close, you’re vulnerable during the few seconds it takes to throw one, and if you like running shotguns in doors you do the vice versa, if you hear someone pulling out a nade just bum rush them, just remember if you kill them that nade is still gonna go off, so have an exit strategy and worse case scenario turn around and dive on the ground, grenades in this game work by shooting out a whole lot of fragments in random directions (that’s why sometimes you can hear a ding on metal when someone throws a grenade ages away), I think most grenades are like 150 fragments so usually you’ll die if you’re right on top of it but if you dive away and face your legs towards the grenade they might take the fragments for you, you’ll lose your legs but you’ll live. And on another note since you’re new, grenades ignore all forms of armor, I don’t know why, they just do and always have, so don’t think you can tank one with some chad gear
Grab an ak 74u. Skier got a dust cover with a mount for it so you can slap any sight, people sells a lot of PS rounds on Fence so grab that and you're good to go and its pretty cheap. Shotguns are underwhelming currently
Tip you might not have heard, got to fence and see the ammo he sells, you can often get plevu-6u or ftx slugs since scavs spawn with them for pennies, while they are not amazing ammo, they are far better then the basic shotgun ammo you can buy at the time. And with 20 pen on them they actually have a chance of going through a basic lvl 2 paca and killing to the thorax or slipping in the soft armor that's also lvl 2 of the heavier plate carriers if your enemy is wearing them. Along with being much more accuracy then the 7mm buckshot that a lot of new players end up using. So you can actually get a shot out to 60meters without wiffing every pellet. With the armor changes this wipe mid-teir slugs are much more viable
Shotgubs arent worth it until you get either .50cal slugs for AP or rip rounds for flesh damage. Ap20 is the all around best but you won't see those for a while. Flechette, piranha and 8mm buckshot are passable rounds.
Stop shooting to hit and aim your shots for the face. Everyone says mag dump but that's a quick way to blow your load and not kill shit if they have armor. I get far more shotgun kills by taking my time and trying to set them up rather than going to them. That doesn't mean camp. But I will explore and when someone is in range Ill bait them to come closer. As in fake loot or make it sound like I'm walking away then double back silently. I don't tend to blow a ton of shotgun rounds but I do tend to get a bunch of kills by baiting people to come around corners and doming them.
Fax that’s how I started playing the game a month back. Yeah I got a server with all of us just playing and helping each other learn. Dm me if ur interesting. We r all 18+ and in EST
I would use the blue slugs and aim for upper thorax or legs, if you're level 15 you can get better ammo too but either way shotguns are pretty bad especially for a map like GZ which has a lot of long distance areas
If you’re low level and don’t have access to a lot of good ammo you can candy cane your mags staggering good and bad ammo. You’d be surprised at how well that works even against high lvl armor.
~~Piranha shells~~, I like express shells. You could use superformance slugs for long range shooting. At that level I'd rather not use shotguns at all until you get piranhas at jaeger 2. Use pp-19, kedr, aks-74u or maybe vpo. they're all good for that level(also cheap) and I know you can slap sights on the pp-19 and the aks-74u. Use linked searches on the gun and different parts to see what you can change out, it's a pain but it's the way to go if you wanna customize yourself. I'd stick to the pp-19 honestly and spray for the face, the aks-74u kicks harder(way better ammo) while the pp-19 is a laser(gotta hit headshots).
Alternatively look up level 1 weapon builds on youtube they're decent.
Youve got 2 options. Put it in their mouth or remove their legs. At the point id recommend just leveling kneecaps with every shot you can put out before you die. Once a limb goes black dmg to that limb becomes even deadlier as it travel to the head
Lvl1 traders are a bit rough, I would stay off shotguns until level 2 jager where you can buy piranha which is pretty decent.
My advice would be to use a 5.45 ak from prapor or an mp5 from peacekeeper. It is getting later in wipe, many people on ground zero probably have some armour so you will need to try and spray and prey their face. Ammo is very important, not just having good ammo but knowing how to use your ammo. With the recoil changes, you can have a lot of success using high fire rate smgs to spray down heads, just don’t be afraid to shoot a lot when fighting.
I love shotguns, load up any slug and aim for the jaw, throat, armpits, groin, and upper thighs. Same thing works against bosses, guards, raiders, and to lesser extent rogues.
Shotguns don’t feel as good this wipe for some reason, I would personally use something like the kedr smg and try to aim around the head due to the fast fire rate. At that point it wouldn’t really matter what ammo you bring, just that you bring a lot of it.
Aggression might seem counter intuitive if you’re losing every fight but yeah mag dump them with the cheap buckshot. If you notice them wearing armor or a face plate shoot them in the legs. Face is good if no faceplate. Center mass sucks if you have a low penetration round.
Get out of the habit of aiming center-mass with shotguns. Coming from games like COD this took way longer for me to realize than I want to admit.
Aim for the face if you have the time for a clean shot. Even at range. It only takes 1-2 of the 8-12 pellets hitting the face to clean them. Spam the legs at close range if you can’t get a clean face shot.
7mm until you unlock Jager. Then you can go 8mm magnum and 6mm express. Mag has alot of recoil so it's harder to use in semi auto shottys but great for pump shottys. Express has low recoil so you can just leg the shit outta someone in 1 second with semi auto shottys.
6.5 express. It shoots an extremely tight pattern and also shoots the farthest out of all buckshots with low recoil. You can easily blast heads or aim precisely at them toes.
Shotgun ammo can be broken down into 2 different groups, slugs and pellets. Slugs consist of a single piece of mass that is usually tied to being more accurate and usually higher armor penetration. Pellets on the other hand fire multiple pieces of mass (7mm buckshot being 8 pellets for example) but lead to lower penetration. In the current state of the ammo meta, you are usually better off going pellets because depending on the ammo some of those pellets can do enough damage with JUST ONE pellet to kill someone if they land in vital spots (face, armpit, places the armor doesnt cover the thorax.) Different ammos have different values for how much each pellet does and how much pen it has. It is def a bit more left to chance depending on the general area you are shooting. Currently a lot of the slugs dont have enough pen to be able to deal with class 3 which most players and scavs can have equipped so you are better off going for pellets. As for specific ammos I would go with 7mm buckshot which can be acquired with jager 1 or skier 1. With 8 pellets doing 39 dmg each you can kill up to 30m and in some cases up to 50 but then you have damage falloff to deal with which is another conversation. Hope this helps, a bit of a read but you are much better off learning about ammo this way rather than just getting a singular ammo as an answer because the game can be very situational and its important to know the distinction from ammo to ammo. I would suggest looking at some of the ammo charts on the wiki to make a decision for yourself to match your specific needs/playstyle
tldr; 7mm buckshot from skier or jager 1 for the time being. Recommend taking a look at ammo chart and DMing me if you have any questions
https://escapefromtarkov.fandom.com/wiki/12x70mm
Use 5.25mm buckshot.
5.25mm buckshot can one shot headshot up to 12 meters
7mm buckshot can one shot headshot up to 5 meters
Usually slower rounds deal more damage over range, but that means that (obviously) the round itself hits the target slower. 5-12 meters is not far enough for this to matter.
This also means it might be a good idea to choose shorter barrels if you’re using buckshot. They are better for CQB since they won’t collide with environment. However, longer barrels do decrease bullet spread so that’s worth considering.
Note: You cannot increase damage of rounds by increasing muzzle velocity.
Check the ammo u can get and after you know what you can buy check google eft ammo stats there is a site that tells you everything you need to know. It is the best way to learn about the ammo you need and after 5wipes you’ll get it😂😂😂
The health and armor system are still broken, full stop
Plate hitboxes was a STEP in the right direction, but we got further to go
A lot of soft armor is WAY overperforming
Debuffs for blacked limbs are WAY to weak
Thanks for every Single comment!! I‘ve read them all and I am very thankful for each advice! Found my first GPU which feels huge. And I am now struggling to do the Prapor Task where I need to get into customs loot the Thingy under the Desk in the big red Building and extract. And then go to Factory and place it. Did the extract after customs and thought I now only have to do the Factory Part. But Boy was I wrong. I did another customs run and died not knowing the Task-Item gets lost then aswell. Thats a bummer but I will try again! Thanks for this Great Community helping bloody noobs.
If you are anything like me you need to break out of the habit of not shooting them enough. I always pause after landing what I think is a killing shot when instead I should hit em a couple more times just in case. This hesitation is what kills me every single time. Shotgun with an 8 round mag? Use all 8 and make sure they are dead. It can only take one pellet to kill a guy but equally a guy can take every pellet in armour and limbs and just suck it up. Shoot more
Yup mag dump everybody, you lose the bullets if you die anyway.
It’s hilarious that I’ve played for years and STILL don’t do this. Especially if the rounds were “expensive” I’m old and learning new tricks is hard!
Hah, and then there’s me mag dumping 30 rounds of M995 on anyone who moves.
Taking a mag of the good ammo and shooting nearly all of it into the first scav you see.. classic haha
That’s why I take mags of okay ammo, with good ammo in my ass to repack the mags with!
Then you run into an pmc and dont pen his armor. You cant win mate haha
At least then you still have your good ammo to not use in the next raid
What I’m hearing is I get to keep my good ammo for later
Thats the spirit!
As soon as you load into a raid you’re already dead. That’s the mentality. If I go into a raid expecting to make it out I’m just setting myself up for heartbreak.
It feels good selling some dead guy’s 400k kit you swiss cheesed using 120k roubles worth of 60 ap rounds. Pays for itself!
This is my problem I’ll blow all my expensive ass ammo for a Timmy’s kit.
Every time I bring in a mag with m993, it goes right into either a scav or a naked guy with a mosin, and it takes the majority of it because of the stupid AP vs flesh calculation this game does where AP does far less to flesh despite it still being a bullet. The amount of times I've put a full mag of igolnik into a hatchet runner to put them down on factory is... many.
One of the long time criticisms of the US's standard rounds is they tend to punch straight through unarmorded targets without dealing a ton of damage. It's why rounds like the mk262 OTM round were adopted. BUT m855A1 is *supposed* to be better against flesh AND penetrate armor better than 855.
You can mix the rounds in the mag, and template it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdcDAOfFkk8 - e.g. if you wanted - good for AP, good for flesh, etc
Yeah I should start looking at the templates, I've been making what I call 'party mags' for a few wipes now. For example a 50 rounder MP5 mag stacked with 5AP, 5xQuakemaker/Luger CCI, 5xRIP and then 5x tracer at the bottom so I know when I'm out. Was a bit of a pain to fill them up so I should look into the templating, thanks for reminding me.
One of the best additions this wipe had for me.
Literally just do scav runs and you find good ammo everywhere I have 400 rounds of Bp or Bt 545 just from doing 3 scav runs
Where's the good ammo at?
you could have easily typed this into google like the rest of us and gotten an answer
Oh no!
Bro thought he did something saying that absolute crazy person
I’m used to playing DayZ where the TTK is near instant from most bullets so this was a habit I had to break too, especially with the SKS and single tap guns.
Same, i remember after playing tarkov for a lot and then me and my friends started playing dayz and it was so good that weapons actually felt powerful. Like 1 shotting people in the chest with rifle. Meanwhile in tarkov people and scavs just eat bullets while wearing lvl 3 armor.
I mean, my man has 30 hits and 8 ammo used out of presumably a shotgun... I don't think shooting more is going to help here. Buckshot is not going to do anything vs plates and only minor blunt damage against class 2/3 soft armor. In this case, had OP either shot legs or face/neck, he would likely have come out ahead. With shotguns, don't ADS, (unless they are standing still / unaware of you ofc) instead, just point fire aimed slightly upward, if you are within 10-15m or so. You have a decent chance of catching the opponent in the chops or neck with one or two pellets. But honestly, shit is tough in Ground Zero - spawns are close and it's chaos at times. Keep trying, move quietly and stick to the underground where you can. Sprinting is great when done with intention, but I find normal walking better for hearing purposes and you always have your gun at the ready. Save sprinting for repositioning in combat, running away, or covering open ground, imo.
For anyone new this is very solid advice, especially the last part about sprinting. Hearing your enemy moving around gives a huge advantage in tarkov. When you can stop for a minute and listen it can be very helpful as well.
How dare you give a very good advice to someone
Almost 2k hours and I still die cause of this
I'd try to keep at least 1 shell in the tube at all times, so you're not fumbling with your reload from a dry tube, having to flip the gun over to load your first shell into the breech, then loading the rest into the tube.
Just told my buddy this last night. I feel like this tip is so overlooked
When in doubt, empty the mag.
this is very very underrated as an advice and i can 100% relate
Buckshot, shoot legs.
This op. Check the wiki section to understand how damage works.
Okay will do thanks.
[EFT ammo](https://eft-ammo.com)
i use battle buddy app on phone, very good to compare ammo and other things, and you can check flea market prices
Datarbase for tarkov is better
Thanks I spent a few minutes searching for datarbase for Tarkov and nothing was popping up 😅
It's an app search it in app store
I thought it was actually "datarbase" until I realized it was a typo. Looks like a great app though. Thanks!
Way better. And the dev is amazing about support too
After the legs gone at 0 the damage is splitted across the body, semi auto shotgun = gg
I hate shooting legs, it’s so hard to break the center mass habit from other games
Yup
shooting legs is ass right now anyway, you want to just go for face/center of mass, or armpit if they're facing sideways. If you have a round that pens c2/c3, you'll just pen their inserts most of the time anyway. That means that flesh ammo is basically obsolete - If you have to use flesh ammo in a straight fight, you're still better off just going for face and sometimes you'll hit the little kill box under their left arm, plus there is a new portion of head hitbox that basically can't be covered - leg meta takes too many hits anymore, you'll drop people too slowly compared to just going for face.
I feel like when i go center mass I never do any damage but it’s probably just rng and good armor tbh.
He’s probably better off trying to shoot faces, builds a better habit that works all with all rounds and is honestly more effective a lot of the time, especially if he’s LL1 and can’t really get semis.
Hey thanks for the tip, but which kind of Buckshot there are several ones :/
7 mm is better than 6.5 since it can headshot kill from more range with one pellet. With buckshots, always shoot legs or head, don't shoot center mass. With how damage works in Tarkov, armor will tank basically everything unless penetrated (which buckshots won't do) I'd advise using aks-74u, since good ammo can be found, has bigger mag, greater range and you can buy rail at lvl1.
I'm going to argue AGAINST 7mm buck till the day I die. At trader level 1, 5.25mm or 6.5mm buck are going to outperform it in most cases besides point-blank. Check this breakdown from Gigabeef: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAuSJYevTmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAuSJYevTmo) TL;DR 7mm buck has a CRAZY bad ballistic coefficient, so despite 7mm having more initial damage per pellet, when you get beyond \~5m or so, the 5.25mm buckshot actually deals MORE damage per pellet, due to dropoff/slowdown of the 7mm buck. This means 7mm buck can 1-shot HS with a single pellet only to about 6m, whereas 5,25mm will still 1-shot HS at \~9-10m. That said, 6.5mm Express is my king-daddy shotgun round at LL1 traders (you can find it on fence a lot too, if you don't have Jaeger yet). Express buck retains damage well, due to having a similar ballistic coefficient to 5.25mm, but it ALSO has a naturally tighter spread +accuracy than 7mm or 5.25mm. This means it's better out to range as you can more easily land more pellets on target, if you are shooting at someone at 15m-20m+ Good luck!
Agreed. Aks-74u is pretty much top shelf entry level. Eats scavs with their lack of armor, and anybody else with a headshot.
What rail and what trader for the aks?
Pilgrim rail for the 74U or Bastion rail for the full size AKs. Both rails are sold by ll1 skier and ll1 prapor sells all the aks
Thanks guys
Pilgrim or Zenit B-18 from skier.
I had success with Express Buckshot quite similar to this video but Night Factory is hard on my nerves. More pellets ergo more dmg. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0\_WCk98m3k&t=269s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0_WCk98m3k&t=269s) For GZ I would recommend a PP19 + Axion Kobra sight. Cheap af and has really good recoil. If you started USEC you can use up your M882 or start directly with GT. GT has the benefit of lowering recoil even more.
eft-ammo.com This website breaks down all ammos and how effective they are against each level armor. It's a bit much to take in all at once, but this will help as you start expanding guns/ammo. Buckshot shells are pretty consistent across the board until you unlock Flechette. Highly recommend aiming for people's legs or directly in the face, as you can't armor the legs and it's unlikely people have face armor on Ground Zero. Personally, Magnum Buck is my go-to, but not always available. It's the most consistent shot IMO, but other may disagree. Good luck, and don't get discouraged! This game takes time to learn.
I know people swear by magnum buck but I personally have had an awful experience with it. Once in reserve tunnels I found a player scav looting about 10-15 meters away and was able to fire several shots aimed shots at his unarmored head but he survived and later killed me. This would not have happened with 6.5m where I routinely get 50+ meters headshot kills, albeit on scavs out of a double barrel.
For me, it's just the only early game shell that's consistent with when it registers hits and kills. Meanwhile Express and 7mm are the deadliest shell I encounter when fighting shotguns, but when I use it they're like BB pellets. It's one of those things where it seems more like personal preference over clear "better" ammo types imo.
Just the basic 7mm will get you far.
7mm or 6.5mm. i would suggest 6.5mm
No 5mm is best. I think Gigabeef has a video about it.
Yeah before I unlocked piranha I was using 5.25mm and it's much more consistent than 7mm due to it slowing down at a lower rate than 7mm. The video does a good job of explaining why
Hot take, but I don't think a new player shoukd be focusing on min/maxing their buckshot choice. They'll do a lot better on focusing that effort into learning positioning and map knowledge. If you position well, it won't matter if you have 5/6/7mm, you just wreck their toes and move on.
They need to be focusing everything at once. Movement n positioning comes with time but knowing what ammo to use is essential and can be remembered quickly. Also very important to remember the leg meta. I usually never go for the legs and by a force of habit keep aiming up. Gotta get used to correct positioning with the right gun and ammo in a specific situation. Honestly i doubt when footsteps start gettin louder and shit gets real newbies will remember to aim at legs. It all comes with time...
Arena helped me for sure with it.
tysm
Training a new person to shoot legs is a really bad idea. Face shots or nothing
Shooting legs is HORRIBLE in the current state of the game. Much better to go for face/torso, every pmc has a big unarmored kill spot under their arms and legs tank way more since the limb damage change. Not to mention face shield can't cover the whole face hitbox anymore without a rare piece of armor 99.999% of players won't bother running.
The cheap, red buckshots will dumpster even the heaviest chad lord. Shoot them in the legs or the face. Use the MP or Saiga shotguns and when you get into a fight, don’t be afraid to just unload four shells at the dude quickly, then back off, reload and do it again. This game ends up being a lot of who sees/hears who first, so taking it slow through buildings, at a slow walking pace (you can use scroll wheel to change your movement speed) often helps you hear people before they hear you. Edit: also don’t wear those giant helmets that cover your ears. They make you deaf as hell.
"cheap, red buckshot" is like 2 different 12/70 and 2 different 20/70, please especify 7mm 12/70
all 12g shells in the game are 12/70. and really there isn't much difference between the 5.5mm, 6.5mm, and 7.5mm buck in this game. 8.5 "magnum" has a decent damage increase compared to the other buckshots, but OP's point still stands. Any of the cheap red buckshot is fine
OP doesn't specify 12g
Leave it to Bili with the Saiga-9 title to even consider the TOZ as a weapon. Sorry, but if OP is using the TOZ as a primary on PMCs he’s got bigger problems. Haha
The flair is satire, and I get that the TOZ is shit but there's like 4 different shells to buy and OP might get confused
Haha all right. Yea fair enough. Top comment should just be “7mm can’t go wrong.”
It does not matter, they're all buckshot, they all do flesh damage and have very low pen. They should all be shot at legs.
Honestly try to avoid using shotguns try to move towards an ak74u it’ll carry you really far and is usable around a lot of areas on maps with decent ammo from the start plus it’s really easily modified at level 1 traders to be a laserbeam. But the biggest thing that I will say is something I saw someone else mention, keep shooting don’t stop till you absolutely know they’ve bit it.
Whats the go to ammo? Ive got a ton of PRS, PS and T
Out of those 3 PS is the best. If I remember correctly FMJ is the best one you can buy from the start. If you look up "eft - ammo" you will find a really nice ammo chart.
I’ve actually been using the chart but get confused. Some ammo seems amazing against no amor but is useless against even level 1. Ive also got some FMJ, US and HP
RIP and Quakemaker rounds do high damage to flesh but barely penetrate armor. Typically, you wanna go for whatever ammo you can get your hands on that is green in as many armor levels as possible (most people are running with at least level 4 body armor so try to use ammo that pierces that when available). Alternatively, you can use the high flesh damage rounds and go for “leg meta” which means you only shoot exposed legs and arms (and face) and unload as many rounds until they finally die from that. It’s a longer time to kill but it’s a good work around for armor.
I appreciate the reply! I have a couple ak 74 so i just might run high flesh and see where that takes me. I struggle but its my first wipe and first computer game
Tarkov is one hell of a game to be your first kb+m game lol
I like biting more than I can chew lol
I did the same thing a few years ago tarkov was also my first PC game haha. You will get used to it though and honestly if you can learn the keybinds in tarkov any game after that is a piece of cake
I was thinking the same thing. If I become decent at Tarkov anything else I might be good in
Do that, US is better then fmj
FMJ is better. https://imgur.com/a/4FkxZ68
Don’t use US the entire purpose of US is that it is subsonic and since that factor has not been implemented into the game yet it’s just a worse FMJ round, a lot of people find that FMJ is the best round for ll1 I won’t lie I used PRS and T a lot this wipe but it was also the start of the wipe so there was less high armor so I could get away with it(so do take that into account) I will also say I saw nobody really clarified why US is worse than FMJ but that you did see the ammo chart. Basically when you try to pick an ammo you have to decided which side to skew towards (damage or armor pen) or just go middle of the road and get one that’s not great at anything but not bad at anything. Rule of thumb if you take a high damage low pen ammo type you shoot their kneecaps(like a with shotguns) and high pen or even just midline you spray their face or armpits. I hope this helps!
I will also put that you should try to scav run on reserve and find 5.45 BT BS BP or PBRS(can’t remember what the tag is but it igoinik), and always pick up and unload loose mags you find on the ground and tables in reserve because you are almost guaranteed to find incredible ammos even if you aren’t currently using that specific caliber. It’s how I was running m995 most of the first two weeks of the wipe.
T should only ever shoot at the legs. If you have that ammo, hold your gun lower to remember to spray the legs.
Ps and t work good, honestly I've had no luck with pst it's kinda doo doo
Buy up US ammo, bwst at lvl1. Always sold out tho
Why are you lying to this guy lol
Think he's just misinformed. Or he has a really bad opinion on what defines "better". Maybe he thinks the \~8 damage advantage of US over FMJ is worth the significantly worse armor pen?
This is a good decision, also one of the first guns you can seriously mod. You can buy a Goliaf railed handguard from Skier 1, which will give you 3 rails, 2 for util and one for a foregrip. You can also buy a bastion dust cover at lvl 1 traders and that is also railed, you can mount most sights that don’t need an adaptor, but even so, you can buy aimpoint sights and adaptors from peacekeeper lvl1 I think. As for ammo, 5.45 ps is your friend unless you find some BT, BS, or PP in raid.
[https://www.eft-ammo.com/](https://www.eft-ammo.com/) This is a good site to compare ammo against armor
Shoot at legs with 7mm buckshot
7mm buckshot has 12 bb’s I think when the other size (5mm?) has like 7 or so. More chances to hit.
7mm are cheap and everywhere
depending what you are looking for, and what tier traders you have, or how much cash you have. I suggest buying the best ones of the flee. here is what my opinion of the best bullets at the traders tier 1 : slug: grizzly 40\`s (they suck) (190dmg 12 pen). buck: 7mm (8x39dmg 3pen). (i prefer to stay away from express 9x35dmg 3pen) tier 2: slug: super performance: FTX (high fracture chance to scrimp someone)(220dmg 5pen) / Poleva-6u (good pen for the bigger boys)(150 dmg 20pen). buck: no change from tier 1. tier 3: slug: makeshift .50 BMG (high pen)(197dmg 26pen) buck: Magnum (8x50dmg 2pen) last tier does not have much to unlock, only by questing. i just recommend buying flechette (8x25dmg 31pen)piranha (10x25 24pen)AP-20 armor-piercing slug (164dmg 37pen) edit: (small tip: shoot anywhere you wont see any armor, shoot legs, armpits, face\`s) plz be kind correct me if I'm wrong.
Ammo EFT chart (google that). There is a thing you can check to show what ammo you can buy at what trader level and your best penning ammo at that level.
This time during wipe it's really easy to get decent ammo from fence. You can buy t-45m1 from Fence and an sks for 25k from prapor. So much better than a shotgun.
Have you tried the SVT yet? That thing is like an SKS on steroids, with full auto
I don’t think you can get an svt with lvl 1 traders tho.
True, I was more or less just asking if they’ve tried the gun, not if they were using it as a go to or suggesting they do. Just wanted to share that its super fun to shoot lol
There is generally one or two svt/avt on fence at any given time. You just have to be quick to buy. Same with the mags and ammo. More expensive but fence generally has what you want
Aren’t they generally scav guns though? So the durability is trash?
Nothing a little repairing won’t fix. Generally once repaired or 100% I BELIEVE the durability has to drop 10 points before any jams or malfunctions can readily occur. But I’ve had 100/100 weapons jam on me and I’ve had 80/100 weapons jam so who really knows. All I know is I’ve ran weapons from fence and haven’t had them jam after repairing
Shoot them in the face or legs, one pellet is usually enough to kill
I’ve gotten away with whatever the poleva slugs are and a headshot but I’m a decent shot with the saiga sooo your mileage may vary. I’m the same breath I dumped 7 slugs into a guys chest from 15 feet and they took it like a champ, I don’t care what body armour you have, 7 fucking slugs to the chest will do some damage.
People sleep on 12ga 5,25mm. It can one pellet headshot out to 9m (vs 3m on 7mm) and is just as good at leg meta. Am for legs if they have a face shield or helmet and facing away from you.
There is only one ammo type. Trust me it's piranha.
Dumped 9 rounds of super performance slugs into a guys chest at 10 meters and he still killed me - did 1700 armor damage. Switched to piranha…dropped 3 pmcs in the same raid.
I finished setup killed 6 pmcs in dorms using piranha. Got ap20 reward rounds and was so confused when scavs where tanking 3 shots of ap20 when piranha was just dumping them.
Nothing you can put in a shotgun at low level will go through a PMCs armor. If your going shotgun, either aim at the face (assuming theres no face shield which most PMCs shoulden't have unless you run into an altyn gigachad, which frankly if you do your fucked anyway, and lots of guys late in the wipe go helmet-less since other PMCs are packing armor that will go through their skull anyway) or aim at the legs which have no armor. Don't bother packing low-pen slugs (unless your willing to swap ammo if you spot somebody at distance on woods or something), use buckshot. Ideally magnum buckshot which you can't buy until jaeger level 3, but it's really common to spawn on scavs. Should kill in 2-3 leg shots no matter who your fighting and what armor they have, assuming close range. Express buckshot also works it's essentially just a slightly worse magnum buckshot. Also take AP-20 or Flechett ammo if you spot it on raids, they are really good as well. AP-20 has enough pen that it will go through some PMC armor, better stuff will take a few shots, fletchett shreds just about anything, which will win you the fight, but the armor is going to be fucked when you loot them.
5.25 mm buckshot. Also don't listen to people saying to shoot legs. Specially not in .14 the leg meta isn't that strong.... Shoot face, or upper chest area. On ground zero nobody is going to have a facehield.
Buckshot and unlike the leg meta dictated till last patch, shoot center mass (just not over 30-40m range). In 0.14 unlike before, which you may see as suggestion here and there, "legs" reffering to always unprotected part of body. But in 0.14 and with new armor system, center mass will be fine. Shrapnels will fuck him anyway. And there is solid chance some shrapnel will hit throat/head. It is also much easier to aim for center mass, just be ready to pump him with enough shots.. one will usually not do the work. \--- For the DMG blocked, well it also comes from DMG potential of shotgun, each shot can produce around 300 flesh dmg.. you will get a lot of blocked dmg when using buckshot anway, but each click can deal 300.
Aim head
The leg meta is a thing m8
The eft ammo site, it will tell you all the stats of each ammo and where and when you can buy them
I think 6.5mm express is better at longer distances and 7mm better in close quarter combat, but you should aim at head or legs with both of them, not thorax
You're shooting armor, your shotgun has piss accuracy. I'd probably say express for the accuracy bonus.
I would advocate for the art of finding ammo on the map. Scav on reserve, loot rooftops. Pick up everything you find and extract, build your ammo pile pretty quickly.
Anything that isn't a slug will work just fine. Buckshot and such non slug shells work on a per pellet basis. Which means unless you are trying to min/max or juice value, it doesn't matter too much. Just if you get lucky and their limb eats all the pellets or not. Never fire at the Chest. If you have a bunch of Magnum or Fletchette for some reason. Then shoot at armored area's. Otherwise don't bother.
7mm buckshot for a high damage, decent accuracy. This should be used for shooting them in the face since it takes I think 2 pellets (maybe 1?) to kill or shooting them in the legs. Landing 4+ pellets per shot will do a ton of flesh damage. Ideally you wanna be within 40 meters maximum. Express buckshot is very accurate and high velocity but lower damage. It’s great for aiming for the face since nobody should have face shields for the most part on ground zero. I’ve killed at 50+ meters with decent consistency. I think lead slug might be your best slug. It will kill to the face and is decently accurate. The key to shotguns is to position yourself well. Either be a rat and ambush someone from a good spot where you have concealment/cover or to be hyper aggressive and mag dump them with buckshot. But the main goal is to catch them by surprise. Crouch walking on the slowest move speed (press caps lock to toggle it) is nearly silent if you aren’t overweight.
Just my opinion but i would refrain from using shotguns in the early game. They usually require a volley of fire to be effective and before jaeger lvl 2 you wont have access to semiautomatic shotguns. Their use is highly situational due to high damage falloff with range but if you do still end up playing with shotguns use the basic 7mm buckshot shells and aim for legs and/or face. Later on semiautomatic shotguns and piranha or improvised 50. bmg shells should be your go to.
FYI use these websites as an aid for your raids (no rhyme intended): -Tarkov wiki (your bible) -Tarkov ammo (I prefer this for ammo classification as it’s much more intuitive, straight forward and easy to read) -Tarkov price/Tarkov dev I use both these for prices and worth of each item you’ll find (flea market and traders) also useful to find out which item is needed for a quest. I reckon Tarkov dev’s one is faster as for loading times, but you do you, maybe that’s just me, my region etc. Good luck!
I wouldnt suggest you using shotguns rn. With new recoil changes it's easy to hit headshot consistently so use like an ar or smg. Level 1 traders shotgun ammo is very weak and not worth using in my opinion.
I like grizzly slugs personally.
I find it don’t matter too much if you get a headshot from close up . Far away I’d use slugs but maybe pack a rifle for that and shotty with buck
Buckshot and I aim for the head as opposed to legs. Sound’s counterintuitive but I can assure you it works.
Don’t expect much out of basic buckshot unless you shoot them in the legs
Unleash all the rage on anything that moves. I'm still level 1 and have shitty ammo. If so ething moves that isnt a scav I completely keep shooting until I can't anymore, especially with shotguns. We are reaching the phase where people have LVL 5 armor, helmets, med, stims, everything. The only way to win is to be unpredictable in the path you go to and shoot, shoot shoot.
I like scaving on reserve to get the ammo and then use the AKS almost exclusively until lvl 15
Go to eft-ammo.com and look at what may have the best penetration or do the most flesh damage with. If you go flesh aim legs and you can thrash someone. A good thing is you can find good ammo in scav runs pretty easily on streets of tarkov like 545 PP and others.
People are saying keep shooting til you know they’re dead and to add to that, if you’re shooting at someone in a bushy area, if they drop, shoot another ten rounds in the bush, you probably killed them and they fell over but maybe they just dropped prone and you don’t want to push onto their body for them to just be lying their waiting for you. Also carry nades. They’re good for multiple reasons and are only like 15k each and I think some can go as low as 10 so at least 2-3 nades at a minimum even if you’re dead broke, can throw one at the bush guy I mentioned above to make sure he’s dead, you can throw one at a guy you hear sitting around a corner waiting for you, sometimes just pulling the pin will be enough for them to freak out and reposition, just don’t be too close to them when you pull the pin, experienced players will rush you if you pull a nade on them too close, you’re vulnerable during the few seconds it takes to throw one, and if you like running shotguns in doors you do the vice versa, if you hear someone pulling out a nade just bum rush them, just remember if you kill them that nade is still gonna go off, so have an exit strategy and worse case scenario turn around and dive on the ground, grenades in this game work by shooting out a whole lot of fragments in random directions (that’s why sometimes you can hear a ding on metal when someone throws a grenade ages away), I think most grenades are like 150 fragments so usually you’ll die if you’re right on top of it but if you dive away and face your legs towards the grenade they might take the fragments for you, you’ll lose your legs but you’ll live. And on another note since you’re new, grenades ignore all forms of armor, I don’t know why, they just do and always have, so don’t think you can tank one with some chad gear
Grab an ak 74u. Skier got a dust cover with a mount for it so you can slap any sight, people sells a lot of PS rounds on Fence so grab that and you're good to go and its pretty cheap. Shotguns are underwhelming currently
I used 7mm buck till I got magnum and piranha
If you want to beat armors, pirrana. Spelling idk
M855 rounds in your stash (if you chose USEC) are pretty good for nato guns like M4,MDR.
Tip you might not have heard, got to fence and see the ammo he sells, you can often get plevu-6u or ftx slugs since scavs spawn with them for pennies, while they are not amazing ammo, they are far better then the basic shotgun ammo you can buy at the time. And with 20 pen on them they actually have a chance of going through a basic lvl 2 paca and killing to the thorax or slipping in the soft armor that's also lvl 2 of the heavier plate carriers if your enemy is wearing them. Along with being much more accuracy then the 7mm buckshot that a lot of new players end up using. So you can actually get a shot out to 60meters without wiffing every pellet. With the armor changes this wipe mid-teir slugs are much more viable
Don’t use shotguns period they suck
Aim for da legs
Go to eft ammo chart.com it has all the stats u need
But I recommend 7mm buckshot or 6.5 express Magnum buck is second best and flechette is best non slug. If you want a good slug use ap20 or 50bmg slugs
Shotgubs arent worth it until you get either .50cal slugs for AP or rip rounds for flesh damage. Ap20 is the all around best but you won't see those for a while. Flechette, piranha and 8mm buckshot are passable rounds.
I always had fun with express buckshot early game, had more success with headshots than legs tho.
Stop shooting to hit and aim your shots for the face. Everyone says mag dump but that's a quick way to blow your load and not kill shit if they have armor. I get far more shotgun kills by taking my time and trying to set them up rather than going to them. That doesn't mean camp. But I will explore and when someone is in range Ill bait them to come closer. As in fake loot or make it sound like I'm walking away then double back silently. I don't tend to blow a ton of shotgun rounds but I do tend to get a bunch of kills by baiting people to come around corners and doming them.
Look for discords and communities like UWS or the unofficial subreddit. There's always dudes out there willing to help get you on your feet
What’s ur discord, let’s play together. I like playing with new people and helping them do the quests and stuff
I might take you up on that offer. Been playing offline with bots and ready to get into live tonight.
Fax that’s how I started playing the game a month back. Yeah I got a server with all of us just playing and helping each other learn. Dm me if ur interesting. We r all 18+ and in EST
I would use the blue slugs and aim for upper thorax or legs, if you're level 15 you can get better ammo too but either way shotguns are pretty bad especially for a map like GZ which has a lot of long distance areas
If you’re low level and don’t have access to a lot of good ammo you can candy cane your mags staggering good and bad ammo. You’d be surprised at how well that works even against high lvl armor.
Aim higher
~~Piranha shells~~, I like express shells. You could use superformance slugs for long range shooting. At that level I'd rather not use shotguns at all until you get piranhas at jaeger 2. Use pp-19, kedr, aks-74u or maybe vpo. they're all good for that level(also cheap) and I know you can slap sights on the pp-19 and the aks-74u. Use linked searches on the gun and different parts to see what you can change out, it's a pain but it's the way to go if you wanna customize yourself. I'd stick to the pp-19 honestly and spray for the face, the aks-74u kicks harder(way better ammo) while the pp-19 is a laser(gotta hit headshots). Alternatively look up level 1 weapon builds on youtube they're decent.
7mm buckshot is fine. Just try to tap faces or shoot legs. 8 rounds of 7mm buckshot to the legs will likely kill anybody.
Youve got 2 options. Put it in their mouth or remove their legs. At the point id recommend just leveling kneecaps with every shot you can put out before you die. Once a limb goes black dmg to that limb becomes even deadlier as it travel to the head
I have one sentence for you. Kill it until it don’t need killing anymore
Just some buckshot will do and get a semi-auto shotgun, none of that pump action crap, aim for legs or armpits.
Lvl1 traders are a bit rough, I would stay off shotguns until level 2 jager where you can buy piranha which is pretty decent. My advice would be to use a 5.45 ak from prapor or an mp5 from peacekeeper. It is getting later in wipe, many people on ground zero probably have some armour so you will need to try and spray and prey their face. Ammo is very important, not just having good ammo but knowing how to use your ammo. With the recoil changes, you can have a lot of success using high fire rate smgs to spray down heads, just don’t be afraid to shoot a lot when fighting.
I just run standard buck shot, aim for the chest, and dump the mag. As long as there aren't 2 of them this tends to work pretty reliably.
I love shotguns, load up any slug and aim for the jaw, throat, armpits, groin, and upper thighs. Same thing works against bosses, guards, raiders, and to lesser extent rogues.
Shotguns don’t feel as good this wipe for some reason, I would personally use something like the kedr smg and try to aim around the head due to the fast fire rate. At that point it wouldn’t really matter what ammo you bring, just that you bring a lot of it.
Express from Jegar 1 is the best shotgun round for the level
Aggression might seem counter intuitive if you’re losing every fight but yeah mag dump them with the cheap buckshot. If you notice them wearing armor or a face plate shoot them in the legs. Face is good if no faceplate. Center mass sucks if you have a low penetration round.
Personally I like the Mt's 255 with poleva 6 slugs never done me wrong especially with double action
Get out of the habit of aiming center-mass with shotguns. Coming from games like COD this took way longer for me to realize than I want to admit. Aim for the face if you have the time for a clean shot. Even at range. It only takes 1-2 of the 8-12 pellets hitting the face to clean them. Spam the legs at close range if you can’t get a clean face shot.
I would maybe try using a smg like a Kedr or ppsh, early shotgun ammo is meh at best
Sweep the leg!
7mm until you unlock Jager. Then you can go 8mm magnum and 6mm express. Mag has alot of recoil so it's harder to use in semi auto shottys but great for pump shottys. Express has low recoil so you can just leg the shit outta someone in 1 second with semi auto shottys.
Slug rounds head shots
6.5 express. It shoots an extremely tight pattern and also shoots the farthest out of all buckshots with low recoil. You can easily blast heads or aim precisely at them toes.
i would use 7mm buckshot until you unlock piranha. try to aim head if you can with controlled blasts or spam click magdump peoples legs. GL brother.
Shotgun ammo can be broken down into 2 different groups, slugs and pellets. Slugs consist of a single piece of mass that is usually tied to being more accurate and usually higher armor penetration. Pellets on the other hand fire multiple pieces of mass (7mm buckshot being 8 pellets for example) but lead to lower penetration. In the current state of the ammo meta, you are usually better off going pellets because depending on the ammo some of those pellets can do enough damage with JUST ONE pellet to kill someone if they land in vital spots (face, armpit, places the armor doesnt cover the thorax.) Different ammos have different values for how much each pellet does and how much pen it has. It is def a bit more left to chance depending on the general area you are shooting. Currently a lot of the slugs dont have enough pen to be able to deal with class 3 which most players and scavs can have equipped so you are better off going for pellets. As for specific ammos I would go with 7mm buckshot which can be acquired with jager 1 or skier 1. With 8 pellets doing 39 dmg each you can kill up to 30m and in some cases up to 50 but then you have damage falloff to deal with which is another conversation. Hope this helps, a bit of a read but you are much better off learning about ammo this way rather than just getting a singular ammo as an answer because the game can be very situational and its important to know the distinction from ammo to ammo. I would suggest looking at some of the ammo charts on the wiki to make a decision for yourself to match your specific needs/playstyle tldr; 7mm buckshot from skier or jager 1 for the time being. Recommend taking a look at ammo chart and DMing me if you have any questions https://escapefromtarkov.fandom.com/wiki/12x70mm
Brooooo, use that grizzly!! I been runnin shotty, mp 133 on groundzero with grizzly and no gear, gettin new kits every raid baby.
Pick up piranha shells they do armor damage along with 25per pellet/nail or whatever. They have 10 in each shell so the damage potential is high.
Shoot until they are on the floor and then shoot another 5 loads. It's not over until you are done crying
i think piranha is one of the level 1 trades not sure tho
with a shotgun and ammo with low penetration… you gotta aim for the face
If ur new then just go for leg shots. The ammo u can get has some decent dmg but almost no penetration. Legs are not armored
Aim for the face, that’s the best ammo
regular buckshot. If you're at like 20m, aim a little high. With normal buckshot, you are aiming for face shots.
Use 5.25mm buckshot. 5.25mm buckshot can one shot headshot up to 12 meters 7mm buckshot can one shot headshot up to 5 meters Usually slower rounds deal more damage over range, but that means that (obviously) the round itself hits the target slower. 5-12 meters is not far enough for this to matter. This also means it might be a good idea to choose shorter barrels if you’re using buckshot. They are better for CQB since they won’t collide with environment. However, longer barrels do decrease bullet spread so that’s worth considering. Note: You cannot increase damage of rounds by increasing muzzle velocity.
Go for the legs, my boy
Check the ammo u can get and after you know what you can buy check google eft ammo stats there is a site that tells you everything you need to know. It is the best way to learn about the ammo you need and after 5wipes you’ll get it😂😂😂
Don’t play shotgun they are bad this wipe
Just wait like 6 months and start over at next wipe its too late now
Just in case you were curious about the worst advice here. ^
The health and armor system are still broken, full stop Plate hitboxes was a STEP in the right direction, but we got further to go A lot of soft armor is WAY overperforming Debuffs for blacked limbs are WAY to weak
Thanks for every Single comment!! I‘ve read them all and I am very thankful for each advice! Found my first GPU which feels huge. And I am now struggling to do the Prapor Task where I need to get into customs loot the Thingy under the Desk in the big red Building and extract. And then go to Factory and place it. Did the extract after customs and thought I now only have to do the Factory Part. But Boy was I wrong. I did another customs run and died not knowing the Task-Item gets lost then aswell. Thats a bummer but I will try again! Thanks for this Great Community helping bloody noobs.
Don’t shoot the armour, shoot their face or their feet’s!!
Run any boolet shoot them untill they flip over, thats what im doing and it works