Many Battle Royal games – including Fortnite – utilize a shotgun as the lifeblood to a player’s weapons arsenal. As a result, your knowledge of the up-to-date shotgun meta will directly impact your success in both competitive and casual scenarios.
In the case of Fortnite, a shotgun deals the most damage in the least time from close range. Since you’re going to be in a box or fighting around builds most of the time, this weapon acts as the introduction of a foray to enemy boxes.
You should be well-acquainted with your shotguns; enough that you never lose a close fight. Sometimes the difference between life and death is understanding your shotgun pull out times and using it to your advantage.
With that in mind – let’s get into Season 5 shotguns!
Shotgun Types and Capacities
As of the v15.50 Fortnite patch, there are four shotguns in the core and competitive loot pools right now. Charge, Pump, Lever, and Tactical Shotguns are your current options.
Here’s the following capacities, damage, and fire rates for the aforementioned shotguns:
Charge: 4-5 bullets, high damage, low fire rate
Pump: 5 bullets, high damage, medium/low fire rate
Lever: 6 bullets, medium damage, medium/fast fire rate
Tactical: 8 bullets, low damage, fast fire rate
Shotgun Pull-Out Times
The following shotgun pull-out times were tested during the v15.40 patch by Reddit user u/Luigi_420_. Epic is always tweaking this class of weapons so be sure to check back in from time to time to make sure there haven’t been any recent changes.
Here’s a written breakdown of the findings:
All tests were recorded in 60FPS and slowed down to 10%
Charge Shotguns
– 24 / 60 frames
– 0.40 second pull out time
Purple & Gold Pump Shotguns
– 26 / 60 frames
– 0.433 second pull out time
Gray, Green, & Blue Pump / All Lever Shotguns
– 28 / 60 frames
– 0.466 second pull out time
All Tac Shotguns
– 30 / 60 frames
– 0.50 second pull out time
How to Take Advantage of this Information
Charge shotguns emerged midway through Chapter 2 and have become the preferred close range weapon for master aimers.
One of the biggest perks you get from the charge shotgun is the fastest pull out time to deal massive damage before your opponent can respond.
Understand that if you choose to get a higher damage or one-shot potential weapon (Charge or Pump), we advise you use a high fire rate follow-up weapon like an SMG.
This follow-up weapon is less critical for a higher fire rate shotgun since you’ll rely on the follow-up weapon less.
Here are two loadouts that will synergize around the shotgun:
Tactical Shotgun: Blue AR, 3 slots for utility and heals
Charge Shotgun: Purple AK, Green SMG, 2 slots for utility and heals
All you have to do now is get to the battle bus and start practicing. That is if you want that elite level of consistency.
If you’re really serious about elevating your game, consider booking a coaching session with GamersRdy. Our expert coaches can tailor loadouts and loot paths to your strengths and ultimately offer you a better chance to place in events!
