Ammo in Apex Legends: Types, rarity and differences

With an ever changing weapon meta, an important component to Apex Legends is ammo. Every weapon utilizes different ammunition. Some legends prefer fighting up close, and others sniping from distance. Regardless of your playstyle, it's important to know details surrounding your favorite weapons and their ammo.

Season 14 has seen the return of the Volt to ground loot. It's return, and the heavy distribution of energy ammo thus far this season, has brought Volt users out of the woodwork. While Apex Legends ammo distributions change with the weapon meta, the current loot percentages for ammo are as follows:

If you are a consistent shotgun user don't fret! While the spawn rate of shotgun shells is by far the lowest, the spawn rate of the shotguns themselves is relatively common and it only takes 16 shells to fill an inventory slot. This means even though the ammo alone does not spawn very often, you can pick up your shells from the numerous shotguns in the loot pool.

As previously mentioned, energy weapons are absolutely having their day in the sun right now. There are five weapons that use energy ammo with one of them currently in the crafter (Devotion).

Energy weapons come with a variety of perks. Two of the most noticeable and valuable are the projectile speed and the flight path. These weapons have very low projectile drop due to their speed which is most prevalent in mid to long range engagements.

Heavy ammo weapons can hang their hat on the fact that they tend to have a higher DPS (damage per shot). This positive is counter balanced by the fact that heavy weapons usually have a slower rate of fire and more bullet drop. This can make using them at range challenging for those that don't know recoil patterns. There are currently 5 weapons that utilize heavy ammo:

Weapons using light ammo usually have a much higher fire rate but do less damage per round. Recoil control is integral with weapons with higher fire rates (R-99, R-301, RE-45, M-600 Spitfire). This makes light weapons (particularly those with faster fire rates) good for short to medium range. The bullet drop on light weapons is pretty substantial in comparison to some other weapon categories. The weapons that use light ammo are below:

Sniper ammo is used by the four weapons in the loot pool. It is the second rarest ammo in the loot pool and 28 rounds fills a slot in your inventory. A huge benefit to utilizing snipers is the ability to deal collateral damage to your enemies. Snipers are powerful enough to fire through enemy legends and deal damage to multiple opponents with a single round (with the exception of the charge rifle). The four weapons that use sniper ammunition are:

Shotgun shells are statistically the rarest ammo type in Apex Legends. Although this may seem like a viable reason to avoid their use, shotgun availability and the need for less ammo bolsters their cred. Shotgun shells break apart and fire pellets at enemy targets.

Pellets do varying damage for the three shotguns in the loot pool. They are high risk and high reward weapons that are most effective up close. While the bullet drop on shotguns is low, the pellet spread promotes shotgun use in close quarters if you want high damage dealt to your opponents. The three shotguns in the loot pool are below.