Last week, Counter-Strike 2 received a major update that completely reworked how weapon reloads work in the game, making ammo management a lot more realistic while also drastically altering the competitive meta of the shooter.
For the uninitiated, the March 18 CS2 update introduced an overhaul to the weapon reload functionality. Since the update, reloading a weapon now automatically discards any bullets left in the current magazine, while the traditional reserve ammo system has been replaced with a magazine-based system.
All weapons in the game, except a few shotguns, now carry a limited number of full mags instead of a shared pool of bullets.
With ammo reserves replaced by full magazines, several weapons saw significant changes in their overall ammo capacity. Some weapons in the CS2 arsenal saw a major boost to their total ammo, while others’ ammo counts were lowered, effectively silent-nerfing some guns without actually changing any obvious stats like DPS or magazine capacity.
CS2 Reload Rework: All Weapon Nerfs and Buffs
Shortly after the update, prominent CS2 content creators began comparing the before-and-after ammo counts of every weapon, sharing their findings across social media platforms.
Without further ado, let’s check out a list of all the nerfs and buffs that the CS2 reload overhaul update introduced to the competitive shooter.
Buffs
The following weapons were directly buffed as a result of the March 18 CS2 update:
- Galil AR (+50 Bullets)
- M4A4 (+30 Bullets)
- P250 (+13 Bullets)
- CZ75-A (+12 Bullets)
- FAMAS (+10 Bullets)
- PP-Bizon (+8 Bullets)
- R8 (+8 Bullets)
Nerfs
- SSG-08 (-70 Bullets)
- Dual Berettas (-60 Bullets)
- Five-SeveN (-60 Bullets)
- Glock-18 (-60 Bullets)
- MP9 (-60 Bullets)
- G3SG1 (-50 Bullets)
- SCAR-20 (-50 Bullets)
- Tec-9 (-36 Bullets)
- MP5-SD (-30 Bullets)
- MP7 (-30 Bullets)
- UMP-45 (-25 Bullets)
- AWP (-20 Bullets)
- M4A1-S (-20 Bullets)
- MAG-7 (-17 Bullets)
- Desert Eagle (-14 Bullets)
- MAC-10 (-10 Bullets)
Unchanged
- P2000
- USP-S
- Nova
- Sawed-Off
- XM1014
- Negev
- M249
- P90
- AK-47
- AUG
- SG 553
These changes will undoubtedly impact the pick rates of several weapons in pubs and competitive play alike. Some guns, like the M4A1-S, may see a sharp decline in usage due to the lower magazine count, while others, such as the P2000, might finally find their way into more loadouts.