If you’re not running around the fields and roads of Verdansk with a loadout weapon in your holster, you’re at the mercy of other players that have called in their special cargo. All is not lost though, for several armaments exist in the map that will allow you to defend yourself effectively. 

The following weapons will stand you in good stead against most opponents, while the other half will more than likely land you in the gulag. 

Best – Queen’s Guard (Stoner 63)

People don’t give the Stoner (or Light Machine Guns in general) that much love in the Call of Duty series, let alone a mode with the chaotic potential that the Battle Royale set up of Warzone has. With the reaction time and speed being two of the ultimately deciding factors in a large portion of the shoot-outs you’ll find yourself in, an LMG simply won’t step up to the task.

That said, this version of the Stoner has amazing damage over long ranges, a sight that will serve you well in most encounters, and has an enticing absence of recoil. Blue Lightning is an Epic Stoner 63 that one can find which is also really good, but Queen’s Guard is the best gun to be found on the floor in the LMG category.

Having an SMG or a shotgun of some description as your secondary is advisable, as this Stoner is all well and good for fighting in open spaces or beaming enemies from mid-to-long range, but anything in close quarters will see the slow ADS time and poor hipfire expose you.

Worst – Red Sparrow/High Plains Drifter (.357 Magnum)

I can confidently say that if I landed boots on the ground and got either of these pistols out of the first box I looted, I’d rather take my chances with the starting X16.

Generally picking up a pistol won’t get you very far, as they’re obviously more set to be back up weapons to be used in emergencies when you’ve exhausted your primary’s clip. The Uncommon Diamatti can beat out some assault rifles and SMGs in the right spaces and if your aim is up to scratch. Sadly, these two magnums won’t yield the same results.

A pistol never needs a sight of any kind, so already they’re starting out on the back foot. If the weapons could down people at decent range it wouldn’t be too bad, but it takes far too many shots and firing either of them will feel like you’re playing in slow motion.

Do yourself a favour and steer clear of these handguns. 

Best – Barrel Hunter (LW3 Tundra)

Some people might be alarmed that I’ve included the Epic blueprint of the new sniper rifle and not the Legendary one, that being Cursed Bullion, but this comes down to a very big element of the long-range rifle for me, and that is the optic.

Being the best sniper available from the Cold War category, the Tundra can only be found on the battlefield in its two fairly rare blueprint forms. You’ll more than likely come across one of the variants of the less effective Pellington instead, which aren’t terrible to pick up, but if you find one of the two Tundras (or even Old Growth), swap it out.

I personally really prefer the sight that Barrel Hunter has attached, mainly because playing on console/controller I use L3 to steady aim. With Barrel Hunter, this has no bearing as the sight doesn’t have a variable zoom, whereas Cursed Bullion does. This can mean that instead of pulling off a well-timed headshot, I change my zoom level and potentially get downed myself.

Worst – Gulf Stalker (Model 680)

This weapon is for me, one of the worst guns you could ever pick up in the current first season of Cold War and the sooner it drops out of rotation, the better.

Shotguns are very situational tools. In the right circumstances, you’ll almost never be able to survive taking a full thump to the torso from a shell or slug shooting firearm. For something that should be flooring people, Gulf Stalker seems like it’s firing marshmallows instead of actual bullets.

For starters, a silencer is never, ever needed on a shotgun. This seems to be a weird fetish of Raven that all of the Modern Warfare shotgun ground loot blueprints sport silencers, the others being the two Origins, New Horizon and Chopper.

The Model’s pump action design means that the time between shots feels like a small eternity, and that’s just more time than your enemy can be putting fatal shots on to you. 

Best – Gallantry (Mac-10)

If you haven’t been gunned down by the ferociously rapid Mac-10 in Verdansk or the smaller Rebirth Island yet, you’ve either been in some low tier lobbies or all the players you’ve met are fervently opposed to (or oblivious of) the current meta.

The Epic version of the Mac-10 is not to be sniffed at either but the sight that it bears isn’t necessary, however being a piece of ground loot there’s nothing you can do about that. The collectible Legendary Gallantry also suffers from an unneeded optic, but its 50+ round clip gives it the ammunition boost it needs to down three players (providing you land your shots) before you need to reload.

Basically, if you see this, pick it up. The majority of players will be packing a custom Mac-10 or even this very blueprint itself once they’ve got their loadout, so having it on you will at least give you a fighting chance if you haven’t had the option to call in your own classes yet.

Worst – Blood Red Summer (SCAR)

The SCAR is a pretty unrepresented weapon in Warzone in general. It hits quite hard, but being an assault rifle its firing rate is slower than an SMG yet it lacks any real range compared to its contemporaries. Not only that, its recoil comes with a hefty kick, making it difficult to track targets at any distance.

Despite being a Legendary blueprint, Blood Red Summer takes one of the SCAR’s worst attributes and exacerbates it, turning the issue of controlling the continuous fire of the gun into something akin to manning the leash of a rabid Rottweiler. By removing the stock of the rifle your mobility is better, but the sight of the gun coupled with the heavy magnitude of kick when shooting makes it simply not worth your time.

By contrast, the Epic SCAR (Mother of Pearl) is worth grabbing, as the attachments it sports actually allow it to outgun most enemies that haven’t got their hands on a loadout yet, so it’s worth picking up in the early game. 

Best – Ground Patrol (FFAR)

The FFAR is probably the best assault rifle that came over from Cold War, and even its Common and Uncommon variants are pretty good (in some cases better if you prefer the unique iron sights), but Ground Patrol is one of the deadliest weapons that any Warzone account can get ahold of.

The FFAR is to assault rifles is what the Mac-10 is to SMGs. Burning through its bullets incredibly quickly and paired with a high damage output makes it a deadly weapon to possess. Having it fly out of a crate of loot is a fortuitous find, and one of the best things you can collect in the first or second circle if you’re yet to get that mythical $10,000.

Any of the three FFARs you come across is worth picking up, Ground Patrol just has the added benefit of a red dot sight to make it more universally appealing.

Worst – Pathfinder/Sporting Precision (MK2 Carbine)

Possibly the worst and therefore least used gun in the whole of Call of Duty Modern Warfare’s selection, these blueprints do nothing to make the precision rifle a more appealing selection.

In my humble opinion, other actual sniper rifle blueprints like Cult Classic, Fracas, and Witching Hour aren’t that great, and you’re much better off picking up one of the aforementioned Tundras or the Kar 98k. Comparative with either of the two versions of the Carbine though, a thermal AX-50 with lethargic ADS is an upgrade.

The sights on both of the weapons are terrible, the gun has all-round awful stats for a weapon that’s meant to allow the user to engage at range, they’re simply just outclassed in every way by almost every other weapon.

Don’t pick them up.

Best – Natural Order (Groza)

I don’t feel it’s been fully adopted or recognised by most people yet, but the Groza is an insanely good assault rifle, with strong stats in more or less every category, and with the right attachments can give it practically zero recoil.

After the FFAR, the Groza is probably the best new assault rifle. Natural Order steps in to pick up the minor areas of weakness of the base Groza, giving it better recoil control and a beefier magazine to make it even more viable.

The Groza also has an Epic version (but has no unique blueprint name) that’s very reliable which is also worth grabbing. 

People are sleeping on the Groza right now. Go wake them up. 

Worst – Stone’s Throw (Milano 821)

While not inherently bad in its own right (although the Milano is definitely the weakest of the SMGs under the Cold War umbrella), Stone’s Throw pales in comparison to other blueprints you can find around the map like Ashen Skies, Harpy, and Big Trouble.

This Rare Milano when viewed in isolation is okay, but it sits at the bottom of the list when you look at any other SMGs you could grab. A pistol like Avalanche or the Uncommon Diamatti would probably be a better way to defend yourself, as Stone’s Throw just has average statistics when it comes to the defining attributes like rate of fire and damage.

Kitting out a Milano with the best possible attachments would only place it somewhere in the middle of the pack when compared to all possible weapons, so the forced set up that this blueprint has leaves you with a gun that doesn’t stand up to much.