Escape from Tarkov is almost a ‘milsim’ game, boasting realistic weapon handling, healing mechanics, and weight-based physics. It’s a survival game, an extraction shooter, and a first-person shooter wrapped up in one, and for newcomers, it can be drastically difficult to understand. It’s a complex game with a steep learning curve, and one of the toughest things to understand is how ammo works in Tarkov. Fear not – we’ve put together a guide to help you understand how the Tarkov ammo chart works.
For those hunting for the best ammo in Escape from Tarkov, there’s a revelation in store: it’s not easy to get the game’s best bullets. There’s a Tarkov ammo chart that’s densely populated with dozens of different bullet types and categories, and understanding the nature of Tarkov ballistics can be a mind-bending experience for some. In this guide, we’re breaking down how bullets work in this hyper-popular extraction shooter and telling you where to find the best and latest Tarkov ammo chart.
How To Find The Best Tarkov Ammo Chart
Escape from Tarkov is like a live service game in that the developer, Battlestate Games, is always tweaking how things work. With each major update, there are changes applied to weapons, ammunition, healing items, and more. This means that a bullet type that worked well months ago might not be so effective now. It’s annoying for some players, as it means that there’s a constant need to be plugged into a top-tier Tarkov ammo chart.
To get a full breakdown of the Tarkov ballistics model, you should use the following resource:
This is a dynamic resource that is updated with each change, and it’s the best way to learn about how bullets work in Tarkov. However, in February 2024, Battlestate Games posted its own ballistics spreadsheet, breaking down each round and listing their attributes according to the most recent updates. That’s available here, but it’s not as easy to navigate as the Tarkov ammo chart found on the linked wiki page above.
How to Read The Tarkov Ammo Chart
Every round in Tarkov, from the best bullets to the worst projectiles, is broken down by the same characteristics:
- Damage (DMG or DAM)
- Penetration (PEN)
- Armour Damage %
- Accuracy %
- Recoil
- Fragmentation Chance
- Light Bleed %
- Heavy Bleed %
- Speed in Meters-per-Second
- Effectiveness Against Armour Class (only mentioned on the Official Wiki)
Let’s highlight what that looks like with one of the best bullets in Tarkov, 5.45x39mm BS gs:
- DAM (43), PEN (54), Armor DMG % (57%), Accuracy % (-4), Recoil (+10), Frag. Chance (17%), Speed in Meters-per-Second (830 ms), and effectiveness against armour type is at the maximum level for all except Tier 6 armour, where the effectiveness is 5/6.
That means that the BS round has some of the best-in-class armour penetration abilities, but it does add 10 points to its base recoil value. It has a low chance of fragmenting on impact, and while it doesn’t deal as much impact damage, it’ll pierce almost any kind of armour on impact.
That’s how to understand ammo in Tarkov in a nutshell.
It’ll take a long time to understand the Tarkov ballistics model – there are hundreds of different rounds and (unfortunately) almost all of them are terrible. This is a game where ammunition matters, and if you’re using a weak or cheap bullet type, you can expect it to do almost no damage against your enemies. There are also certain circumstances in which a particular ammo type will need to be used. For instance, ammunition with high ‘flesh damage’ is perfect when trying to get ‘leg kills’ in Tarkov.
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