Everything you need to know about weapon attachments in Apex Legends

Apex Legends offers a complex and competitive online shooter experience with diverse gameplay mechanics. One of its distinguishing features is the wide array of weapon attachments available, allowing players to customize and improve their guns. These include the likes of barrel stabilizers, laser sights, optics, stocks, extended magazines, bolts, and hop-ups. Learning and understanding these attachments is crucial for success in the game. Here’s a concise guide on attachments in Apex Legends.

Extended magazines

Every gun has a limited ammo clip in Apex Legends and these ammo clips can be enhanced using extended magazines. With the exception of shotguns, every other weapon can take extended magazines. The type of magazine depends on the ammo. Different types of weapons use different types of magazines. For instance, a weapon that uses heavy ammo will take an extended heavy magazine. Like with all types of loot, magazines are color-coded.

• White Extended Magazine – Common (Small ammo clip increase)
• Blue Extended Magazine – Rare (Moderate ammo clip increase)
• Purple Extended Magazine – Epic (Large ammo clip increase)
• Gold Extended Magazine – Legendary (Large ammo clip increase with auto-reload on sheath perk)

It’s worth noting that the CAR SMG can take both light as well as heavy magazines, owing to its ability to fire both types of ammo. Bangalore provides a pretty decent TL;DR on magazines: “Clips are what civvies use in their hair. This one’s called a magazine.”

Weapon stocks

Stocks are essentially parts that improve how a weapon handles. There are a number of benefits they provide. While shotguns, SMGs, ARs, and LMGs take standard stocks, marksman weapons and sniper rifles take sniper stocks. They improve handling characteristics like aim-drift reduction, sheathing/unsheathing time and reload times. Like with magazines, stocks are also color-coded and provide additional improvements to handling depending on the tier.

• White Stock – Common (Small improvement in handling)
• Blue Stock – Rare (Moderate improvement in handling)
• Purple Stock – Epic (Large improvement in handling)

Weapon stocks do not have a legendary tier. As of Apex Legends Season 17, shotguns can also take weapon stocks, benefitting from the same improvements that other weapons receive.

Shotgun bolts

Bolts are a unique attachment to shotguns only. Up until Season 16, shotgun bolts were the only attachment shotguns that applied other than sights and weapon-specific hop-ups. They improved a shotgun’s rate of fire and reload time. Since Season 17, shotguns can also take stocks, gaining an additional rate of fire in addition to the buff they receive from bolts. However, bolts no longer buff a shotgun’s reload speed. Additionally, Season 17 also added the gold shotgun bolt. Here’s how they work.

• White Bolt – Common (Small rate of fire increase)
• Blue Bolt – Rare (Moderate rate of fire increase)
• Purple Bolt – Epic (Large rate of fire increase)
• Gold Bolt – Legendary (Large rate of fire increase with auto-reload on slide perk)

The rate of fire improvements from shotgun bolts stacks alongside the buff provided with the stock.

Barrel stabilizers

There’s a specific list of weapons that take barrel stabilizers in Apex Legends. This list excludes shotguns, SMGs, and pistols entirely. Some ARs, LMGs, snipers, and marksman weapons can attach barrel stabilizers. These include the R-301, Nemesis, Spitfire, Devotion, Rampage, G7 Scout, and Longbow DMR.

Additionally, the Hemlok AR and the L-Star LMG also take barrel stabilizers when they’re part of ground loot. Barrel stabilizers, as the name suggests, improve the weapon’s recoil pattern. They also do not have a legendary tier. Here’s how they work at different tiers.

• White Barrel Stabilizer – Common (Small recoil improvement)
• Blue Barrel Stabilizer – Rare (Moderate recoil improvement)
• Purple Barrel Stabilizer – Epic (Large recoil improvement)

It’s important to know which weapons take barrel stabilizers and to have realistic expectations on how much of a difference they make to the weapon’s recoil pattern. Guns like the Devotion and Rampage, with generally poor recoil patterns, benefit greatly from them.

Laser sights

These are the alternative to barrel stabilizers for smaller weapons like pistols and SMGs. Most pistols and SMGs in Apex Legends can take laser sights, which improve their hip-fire spread. Tighter hip-fire spreads, combined with lighter weapons, enable quicker movement during close-range gunfights. Weapons like the P2020, RE45, R99, Volt, and Prowler SMGs all take laser sights.

• White Laser Sights – Common (Small hip-fire spread improvement)
• Blue Laser Sights – Rare (Moderate hip-fire spread improvement)
• Purple Laser Sights – Epic (Large hip-fire spread improvement)

Weapons like the RE45 and the Prowler SMG become significantly more effective with laser sights. The RE45 is an automatic pistol with a really fast rate of fire. Pistols are much lighter than other weapons, and enable faster movement. Meanwhile, the Prowler SMG is unique in that it already has an improved hip-fire spread thanks to its burst fire, which improves further when using laser sights.

Optics

Optics are essentially sights that improve over a weapon’s standard iron sights and play a crucial role in enabling long-range gunfights for most weapons. They generally make aiming easier, with more pronounced reticles and a scope that magnifies the view while ADSing. Apex Legends come with a decent range of optics. Gold optics provide threat vision, highlighting opponents caught within the sights in red. Different types of weapons take different types of optics. HCOG optics have fixed magnification whereas holo optics can be zoomed in or out.

Hop-ups

Hop-ips in Apex Legends are attachments that provide bonus perks to weapons. Here’s the complete list of hop-ups.

Evidently, there’s a long list of hop-ups in Apex Legends. It’s important to learn how these attachments enhance your weapons so that you’re keeping an eye out for the right loot. Apex Legends also features a diverse list of ordnances. You can read our guide on those as well.

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