There are a lot of custom ammo types inHunt: Showdown 1896, and most weapons have a few different options as to what different custom ammo you can choose to run with them. Each weapon uses a different kind of standard ammo depending on the weapon type, and that affects what kind of custom ammo you can bring with it.
Each custom ammo type costs a certain amount of Hunt Dollars to equip, and brings different effects, both positive and negative. Some custom ammo is good and has little in the way of drawbacks, while others are pretty situational, and you’ll only want to bring with a certain plan in mind.
10Concertina Arrows
Used more as a utility, Concertina Arrows are an underrated addition to a loadout, and very easy to bring alongside one of the most consistent and best weapons, the Hunting Bow. Concertina Arrows are multi-faceted, and aren’t something that enemy Hunters expect to have fired at or near them.
Instead of arrows, you’ll usually be firing at enemies, Concertina arrows are generally meant as a quick and easy way to block access to a certain doorway or hallway. Enemies begin bleeding if they step into them, and have to either get rid of the wire, find a different route, or take the fight with you while they’re bleeding.
9Poison
Poison is another ammo type that, while it’s not the best ammo in the game by any stretch, does have some uses, and is probably just a little bit underrated. Poison ammo cannot penetrate surfaces, but that’s the only drawback to it as compared to regular ammo.
The benefit to poison ammo is that, while Hunters are poisoned, they cannot heal. This prevents what often happens during a fight, especially an exterior fight in medium range; you shoot the enemy, they take cover and heal, and before you get an angle again, they’re back at full health. Shoot them with a poison round and they can’t heal that off quickly, meaning you keep that advantage you gained.
8Incendiary
Incendiary Rounds might only have a very specific use case. But in the use case that they have, they can be very strong and produce results that no other ammo in the game can recreate. Hitting an enemy Hunter with two rounds of Incendiary lights them ablaze, forcing them to put the fire out or suffer burning away health chunks that they cannot (usually) heal back.
While most weapons aren’t going to get much benefit from this because of their slower rate of fire, others can benefit massively. Faster-firing pistols or lever-action weapons will reap the rewards of this. Weapons that two-hit kill to the body might suffer a shot onto an enemy’s arm, but those two shots will still set them ablaze. When it works, it works beautifully, and it’s earned its place on this list.
7Flechette
Flechette in a shotgun is a win-some, lose-some kind of situation. It has a severe drawback: the shotgun can usually no longer one-shot kill an enemy, regardless of the range. The benefit is enemies hit by the shotgun begin to bleed, forcing them to deal with the bleed or continue the fight ticking away health.
This is best highlighted on a shotgun blast outside of what would be one-shot range, anyway. Shotguns cannot one-shot kill with much distance, and so a shot that wouldn’t kill an enemy anyway has now caused them a DoT. It’s not always ideal, but it applies pressure to an enemy, and pressure forces a lot of people into mistakes.
6Slug
Another shotgun ammo, slug rounds do not, in fact, fire slimy-and-surprised slugs at the enemy. They do, however, fire a single shell as opposed to a cone of smaller projectiles, ensuring you do full damage to an enemy that you hit.
The drawback to this is that the shotgun is less forgiving. If you hit, you hit big. And if you miss, you miss big. It extends the range of the shotgun dealing full damage by a little bit and doesn’t roll the shotgun-spread-dice, so it’s a consistent ammo that, when it lets you down, at least you know you let yourself down, and RNG didn’t do it for you.
5Spitzer
Spitzer ammo cannot be equipped with most guns in the game, and while it’s expensive, it’s a solid ammo choice for certain players. The drawback to running Spitzer rounds is the damage, as they reduce the damage that the weapon does by a meaningful amount.
But they give both high penetration, meaning that the bullet can pierce through walls and Hunters, and they increase the muzzle velocity, essentially giving it the positive attributes of the FMJ and High-Velocity rounds, at the cost of damage. For Hunters confident they can hit their headshots, the Spitzer rounds can be helpful.
4Dumdum
Dumdum ammo is a bit of the opposite of Spitzer ammo; it reduces the muzzle velocity and penetration power, but it does do some extra damage in the form of bleeding. Dumdum ammo causes enemy Hunters to bleed, which applies a lot of pressure to the enemy, often forcing them to make a decision that’s going to end the fight one way or another.
Usually, Dumdum is going to go on weapons where the muzzle velocity isn’t a primary concern, anyway. The Springfield is an exception to this, but the great benefit to bringing dumdum on a Springfield is that it can cause an enemy to bleed to death fairly fast, considering this weapon already does heavy damage by default.
3Frag Arrows
Frag arrows are so multi-purpose that it would be criminal if they weren’t included in this list. The Hunting Bow allows you to bring both damage and utility into the match, and the frag arrows can be used for a wide variety of purposes, from mind games to splash damage to level destruction.
Enemy closed a door in your face? Frag arrow the door off its hinges. Enemy took cover around a corner? Frag arrow the corner. A hundred meters away but want to spook the enemy? Take a guess. They’re not going to figure out where it came from, meaning missing is more or less without consequence. The explosion from these cause bleeding, as well.
2FMJ
Full Metal Jacket rounds have a couple of purposes, and they’re both pretty big. Primarily, FMJ rounds cause increased bullet penetration, meaning even if your enemy is behind perfect cover, but you know where they are, odds are, you can hit them. This can make a very big difference in Hunt, where fights can last minutes at a time as they sometimes play out like a chess match.
FMJ rounds also retain their damage better over distances, keeping the damage drop-off from being as steep. This can turn a shot that would only wound an enemy into a kill on an enemy that’s already down some health.
1High Velocity
A reasonable argument could be made for either of these final two ammo types to make the top spot on this list, but high velocity is going to take the cake on this one because of how much easier it makes it to hit shots at longer ranges. In close range, high velocity is not going to be important. The bullet is going to be nearly hitscan at close ranges.
But in longer ranges, that extra muzzle velocity becomes exponentially more important, particularly now with bullet drop added into the game with the 1896 update. High-velocity ammo both gets the bullet where it’s going quicker and keeps it from dropping quite as quickly, making you amuch more effective sniper.
