A Meta-analysis of the Best Weapons in Battlefield 5

16 min readFeb 10, 2022

The trusty Sten Gun. Ironically, not a top choice in these lists.

All the Wisdom of the Internet in One Place

Over the past many months of pandemic boredom I’ve revisited a favourite game of mine, Battlefield 5, and been surprised to see that it has as many if not more people playing it now than it had on release. In the main those players, like me, are playing at a level somewhere between hopeless and mediocre. Wouldn’t it be helpful if we all got some tips on which weapons were the best?

So I thought: why don’t I collate the recommendations from as many “best weapons of Battlefield 5” lists as I could be bothered to read and create a meta-analysis to show, on average, which weapons are broadly considered the best options and why.

Methodology

I collated the results from 20 different “best weapons” lists, focussing on reputable internet sources (an oxymoron, I know) and gamers with large followings on YouTube who seemed like they were good enough at the game to have an opinion worth listening to.

Each mention of a weapon got 1 point. And then I added up the points to create a Top 3 for each class. It’s not very scientific. However I put the results in a table, so that makes it far more authoritative.

Opinions, Opinions Everywhere…

“Best weapons” lists are an interesting mixture. Most people just listed the weapons that they thought gave the best chance of doing well, where doing well consists of killing lots of enemies. Other list makers deliberately left out weapons that they thought were broken (i.e. over-powered) like the ZH-29 sniper rifle, or “noobish” like the Type 2A SMG, and one didn’t like shotguns at all and refused to encourage their use while admitting they were extremely powerful.

Another thing that’s worth remembering is that weapon performance changes over time as updates to the game “rebalance” some weapons that are considered too powerful or not powerful enough, so some very popular guns may not be as strong today as they were on release.

Assault Class

Assault class is the bread and butter of BF5 — run around, shooting people and blowing stuff up. What’s not to like? The weapon choices are more or less between Assault Rifles and Semi-Auto Rifles, and it’s interesting that semi-auto choices dominate the recommendations here with one notable exception, the STG-44. The full results:

First Place: STG-44

The STG-44 (unlocked at Rank 13) is everyone’s favourite BF5 assault rifle, it totally demolished the competition in the Assault Class “best of” lists and got the nod from no less than TWELVE of the list compilers. It sort of looks like an AK47 and responds in a familiar way to people who are more used to modern-focussed FPS games.

The key word you see again and again in reviews is “versatility” — it’s a great combination of decent control, decent ROF (Rate of Fire), decent damage stats and strong-ish abilities at medium distances for a rifle capable of full-auto. Which makes it a good choice for blasting away at full auto in close encounters while still being able to do decent duty a bit further out where needed, but bearing in mind it’s kind of a compromise everywhere you use it.

Second Place: Turner SMLE

In second place with six votes comes the Turner SMLE (unlocked at Rank 10). It’s a semi-auto rifle which means it has most of the damage of a recon class bolt action, with a semi-auto ROF which helps give you a chance in closer quarters.

As always though, it’s a trade-off. It has higher damage than full-autos like the Stg-44, and much higher damage than medic class SMGs, but to take advantage you need to get those shots on target. If your accuracy is poor the advantage of a semi-auto goes out the window vs automatic weapons. And realistically you’re going to lose most short-range gunfights with SMGs unless you get the drop on your opponent and land the first hit. But then you gain relatively low shot-to-kill ratios out to 100m, so in the medium-range territory a semi-auto reigns supreme against other weapon types — again, assuming you can land those shots!

Worth mentioning that one of the upgrades available to the Turner (unlocked at Rank 3) is the Extended Magazine, which gives you 20 rounds to play with — combine that with the relatively fast (for a semi-auto) cycle time, and you’ve got a great weapon for those who like me tend to prefer being right in the heat of the action where pausing to reload is something you don’t want to do too often.

Also worth mentioning here that some of these lists came out before the MAS-44 was added in a later game update. The MAS-44 is almost identical to the Turner SMLE but has higher muzzle velocity which makes it a better option for hitting moving targets at distance. I personally think you could trade the MAS-44 for the Turner very easily.

Equal Second Place: Gewehr-43

In equal second place, also with 6 votes comes the Gewehr-43 (unlocked at Rank 1). Like all the semi-auto rifles, you’re getting higher damage scores while losing out on ROF vs an assault rifle. As always accuracy is key here — if you fail to land your shots, things can go South for you pretty quickly. But if you are accurate, you’re getting a beast of a gun with guaranteed 3-shot kill out to 100m which is better than the Turner or M1 Garand (which came in at 4th place).

To balance things out though, this gun has a relatively slow ROF, so at close quarters the Garand or the Turner are probably better options. It also suffers from relatively heavy recoil, so close quarters battles where some fast shooting is required are not for the faint-hearted, and reload times of the 10-round magazine are glacial. Having said that, I really like this gun and it does seem to drop enemies in the 10–30m “close but not that close” zone with satisfying ease, and if you combine it with a scope it’s great at longer distances too.

Quick shout-out to the Karabin 1938M here. It was another late addition to the game, so not available when some of these lists were compiled. It has virtually identical stats to the Gewehr 43, but you get much less recoil so it’s more controllable. As always, the Gods of BF5 give with one hand and take away with another, so the trade-off is a slower reload time than the Gewehr, but it’s worth a look as an alternative.

Medic Class

The Medic class! If your favourite pastime is running into the thick of the fight blasting wildly in all directions, the Medic class is for you. Pretty much all the SMGs live here so this is the best place for all those close-quarters, spray-and-pray weapons. And if you’re an insufferable peacenik who just wants everyone to be friends you can still bank tons of points here by patching up and reviving your teammates.

The full results:

First Place: Suomi KP31

Like the Assault class, there’s a stand-out winner here with the Suomi KP31 (unlocked at Rank 1) getting 10 votes across all lists. The main factor everyone calls out here is the sheer volume of bullets this thing throws out per second. The ROF is crazy high, bested only by the ridiculous Type 2A of which more later. In addition it has decent hip-fire accuracy stats, which makes it a great choice for run-and-gun scenarios where getting the gun up to aim is something you won’t always have time for.

As always there’s a flipside. For one the base level 20 round magazine is small when you consider that emptying it on full auto will take only 1.5 seconds. If you work through the ranks hover, you can eventually get teh Extended Magazine specialisation with gives you 50 rounds. Because accuracy is not my strong point, I get much joy from this weapon until I got that. Range is also limited meaning this is strictly for close range work, but that’s the bread and butter of Medic class anyway. You can’t heal and revive people from 100 metres back.

Second Place: Thompson M1928A1

You have to put the time in to get the Thompson, as it’s only unlocked at Medic rank 20. People who recommended this did so often either by itself or alongside the KP31 / Type 2A — i.e. they just liked all the high RPM guns, and that’s very much what the opinion was about this — a great alternative to the quite similar KP31.

Looking at the raw stats (courtesy of awesome stats emporium sym.gg) it’s basically the same as the KP31 in terms of damage/distance etc:

The slightly slower base ROF gives you a marginally longer time-to-kill (TTK) and add to that base recoil is heavier than the KP31, albeit delivered in an easier to manage vertical pattern, so you might think it’s a strange choice for number 2. When you rack up the specialisations though, you get features to improve the recoil and slap on a huge 50 round magazine so at that point you get something pretty special, and of course it’s an iconic gun that people like to wield. You just need to put some work in to get there.

Third Place: ZK-383

In third place is the ZK-383 (available by default, except you have to pay 1700 CC for it). This one wasn’t available at the initial game release, and might even have placed higher if it had been. Again, it’s an SMG but a key difference between this one and the bullet-stormers like the KP31/Thompson/Type 2A is its relatively low rate of fire — a base ROF of 514 RPM makes it significantly more sedate than many of its rivals, so why did people give it a top spot?

The key thing people call out is its increased accuracy vs the others, with lower recoil and with the bipod making it even more stable when prone. So even though it hands out the same damage bullet-for-bullet as the KP31 and Thompson but with a lower ROF, the extra stability means if you struggle a bit with accuracy in the heat of battle you are more likely to get shots on target with the ZK-383. At at the end of the day, if your bullets don’t land it doesn’t matter how many of them you’re firing.

That stability also means you’ll stand a much better chance at medium distances as well. Add to that the larger 30 round magazine, and the possibility to add the “light bolt” specialisation to get the ROF up to the 700 RPM level, and the ZK-383 is a really nicely balanced weapon.

I wanted to give a mention to the Type 2A in 4th place, with its eye-watering 1028 RPM base rate of fire, because although it got a few mentions it also suffered from some reputational problems — with a few people calling it out as a noob cannon and basically a bit of a joke. I’m not sure why, but I suspect the bad rep from some quarters kept it from getting a top three spot.

Support Class

Poor, lonely, unloved Support class. It was interesting how many BF5 experts said the Support class was kind of a waste of time, with a selection of poor weapons and limited options. You’ll see fewer votes here as some of the pollsters only gave one weapon in Support class a vote, while giving two or three weapons recommendations in other classes. Still, we got opinions and here they are.

First Place: KE7

First place (equal with the FG42) goes to the KE7. I’m putting KE7 first though as one great thing about this gun is you don’t need to rank up to get it, it’s in your armoury from minute one, which is unusual across these lists. There are basically two classes of machine gun in Support class, the Light Machine Gun (LMG) which you can carry around, and the Medium Machine Gun (MMG) which is only really usable when you’re static. LMG’s rule the roost in the popularity stakes because of that ability to be used while moving.

Many people compared the KE7 to a heavy assault rifle — it delivers the same damage/distance as the STG-44 but has a slightly lower ROF, a smaller magazine, and you could be forgiven for thinking “why bother?” Of course compared to the assault rifles it makes a big satisfying noise, and it does have a higher muzzle velocity and is generally more effective at distance, so there’s that. And of course if you want to trade up to other weapons in the class like the FG42 (rank 16) or the ever-popular Lewis Gun (rank 10), you have to start somewhere.

Equal First Place: FG42

The FG42 requires you to do the hard yards in support class into you get to rank 16 to unlock. But once you get there you get yourself an LMG with similar “it’s like an assault rifle” properties of the KE7 but with a higher ROF than the Stg44 for close quarters action.

The trade off is some heavy recoil unpleasantness at full auto, and a miserly 20-round magazine that needs reloading often. The wisdom of the pollsters seems to be that if you are good at controlling recoil, this is a powerful weapon at short ranges with some medium range capabilities when prone using select fire. EA actually classifies this as a Close Quarters Battle LMG in some of their communications, so that tells you what they think the best use case for this gun is.

Third Place: M30 Drilling

The M30 Drilling (unlocked at rank 13) is a real oddity among BF5 weapons. This is a shotgun that also features a single shot regular bullet load to add some distance capability as well.

As you’d expect with a shotgun, this delivers a massive amount of damage in a single shot, and is frequently a one-shot kill at short range. Set aside that is the fact that you only have two of those bad boys before you need to reload, and reload is slow. So you’re not going to last long in a tight space full of enemies with this unless you plan your escapes to cover for those reloads.

Like all shotguns, there are people who fundamentally don’t like this weapon, in the same way people fundamentally don’t like the Type 2A. More than one list compiler came out against the whole shotgun class generally and felt they were the last refuge of the low-skilled player. Whatever you feel them though, the M30 Drilling is certainly an interesting weapon with a funky gimmick and unlike the typical semi-auto shotgun you can’t just run around blasting away wildly with it, you have to use some skill and judgement to get the best out of it.

Honourable mention should go to the Lewis Gun (unlocked at rank 10) here, with a general opinion that when you get the specialisations (massive magazine etc) is one of the best all round guns in the game.

Recon Class

So here we are at everyone’s favourite pastime — sniping. Ignore the name “recon”, it’s the sniper class. Snipers attract some bad press at times: with careful use of cover and good accuracy a skillful sniper can deal out the hurt at every distance right up to just outside the close-quarters level, helping the team in both offense and defense; while on the other side of the coin a lazy sniper will just camp out somewhere annoying getting easy kills without contributing much of anything to the team. Those people are the worst!

First Place: ZH-29

The ZH-29 (unlocks at rank 10) is a self-loading rifle, so you get the benefits of a much higher ROF vs the bolt-action rifles that dominate this class. It doesn’t have the at-distance capabilities of its bolt-action siblings, but realistically most sniping you see is at the less than 100m range anyway.

With it’s relatively high damage factor guaranteeing a 2-shot kill out to 100m and the fast cycle rate thanks to its self-loading nature, it’s pretty devastating as you can land both hits on a target before they have time to react. As a result of this maybe, you can find quite a few pundits on the internet claiming this gun is broken and way overpowered.

Most people though were more happy to nominate the ZH-29 and pointed out that although the potential damage figures are impressive, it still takes to skill to get the best out the the weapon and it’s not a noob cannon that some claim it is.

Second Place: Kar98k

Now we’re onto the traditional fare of the sniper class, the bolt action rifle. All of these bad boys dole out a ton of damage so it becomes a question of where you see yourself using them — out at a distance, where you can take your time but need good muzzle velocity and power, or closer in where cycle time and recoil matter more.

The Kar98k is the last unlock in the class — level 20, so you have to be patient to get your hands on this one. It shares the highest muzzle velocity in class with the Krag-Jorgenson (which also received a few nominations) but gives higher damage. That high velocity means it’s the weapon of choice for people wanting to pick of enemies at distance, especially if the target is moving.

The flip side to all this long-distance loveliness is the slow ROF and reload time, even compared to other rifles in this class, which means getting into close quarters is not advised. But that doesn’t stop people.

Third Place: Gewehr 95/30

Finally, we come to the Gewehr 95/30 (unlocked at rank 6). This gun is all about damage. It has a whopping 80 damage per shot out to 30m (compare 75 for the Kar98k and 60 for the Krag-Jorgenson). This makes it very effective for taking out slightly injured targets at closer range in a single shot, as well as the usual longer distance work favoured by bolt-actions.

The ROF is better than the Kar98k/Krag meaning time-to-kill is lower across the board. On the other hand, lower muzzle velocity and damage drop-off makes distance work more of a challenge. Some of the pollsters who nominated this gun put it down as a compromise choice between the high ROF of the Enfield, useful for close in work, and the better at-distance stats of the Kar98k.

Honourable mention here should go to the Type 99 Arisaka. This gun was added in a later game update, and is available from the get-go without needing to rank up. At the same time stat-for-stat is basically exactly the same as the Gewehr 95/30, so a great choice for players just starting out.

Conclusion

Although in the full list it seems like there are a lot of weapons mentioned in each class, what’s really interesting is how many weapons never get a mention. So from that we can see that there are consistently good performers that get top marks time and time again, and duffers that are only worth picking for novelty value. With any of the guns from the lists above you’re getting something that in skilled hands can regularly deliver the smackiest of smackdowns in the right circumstances.

It’s worth remembering, as you’re getting smashed over and over again by some level 2000 player, that BF5 guns only really come into their own when you earn the specialisations that speed up aiming, or reload times, or increase magazine capacity etc. Without them the weapons are always going to struggle vs fully maxed out competitors.

It’s also worth remembering that some of the polls listed below were taken before weapon rebalancing updates that reduced the effectiveness of some guns, or improved some that were lame on release. For the fullest picture of what the guns are like now I recommend the stats website sym.gg that will tell you all you need to know to make the right choice for your style of play.

Resources

The stats were culled from these sources, with general opinions gathered from a whole range of places.