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The best Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War AK-47 loadout

Our favourite AK-47 attachments and gunsmith settings

Looking for the best AK-47 loadout? You’ll get your hands on the AK-47 assault rifle pretty soon into your multiplayer career. If you’re not familiar with the AK-47 from previous games, it’s a Soviet rifle that boasts high damage, but relatively low bullet velocity. It’ll take about four to five shots to the body to kill an enemy, depending on how far away they are – and three shots if you land ‘em all on the head.

Up close it’s the fastest killing assault rifle, and has the speediest reload time – with the 50 RND Fast Mag, reloads are almost instant. However, one particular configuration has pushed the AK-47 right to the top of the best Cold War guns.

Using the correct attachments, it’s currently possible to effectively eliminate recoil on the AK-47 – and even achieve negative recoil. This means that instead of the pattern going upward, it actually goes downward, which means you can hold down your left mouse button at head height and let the gun do the work for you. Amazing. This will almost certainly get patched pretty soon, so if you want to give this loadout a go, now is the time.

This video from Reddit demonstrates the negative vertical recoil in action. We don’t expect this to stick around for long – but here’s the AK-47 loadout we recommend:

Primary weapon: AK-47

  • KGB Eliminator
  • 18.2” VDV Reinforced
  • Spetsnaz Grip
  • GRU Elastic Wrap
  • VDV 50 Rnd Fast Mag

Secondary weapon: Gallo Sa12

  • 24.8” Task Force
  • STANAG 12 Rnd Tube
  • SWAT 5mw Laser Sight
  • No Stock
  • Speed Tape

Tactical: Stimshot
Lethal: Semtex
Field Upgrade: Field Mic

Perk 1: Flak Jacket, Tactical Mask
Perk 2: Scavenger, Gearhead
Perk 3: Ninja, Ghost

Wildcard: Perk Greed

The KGB Eliminator will help to conceal you from the minimap, with +85% muzzle flash concealment – and +17% vertical recoil control, at the cost of 10% shooting move speed and 10% horizontal recoil control. The 18.2” VDV Reinforced barrel gives you a whopping +100% effective damage range, and +40% bullet velocity – but you lose -4% sprinting move speed and -20% aim walking movement speed. The damage range buff from the barrel puts pretty much everyone in four-hit kill range, which is helpful.

If you’re tempted by the 20” Spetsnaz RPK Barrel, the additional 11% damage isn’t as good as it seems. The small damage buff doesn’t reduce the number of body shots you need to kill an enemy from full health. It does, however, mean you only need two headshots and one body shot to kill an enemy instead of three headshots, but the Spetsnaz barrel also gives you harsh penalties to recoil control – so it’s going to be much harder to hit those headshots anyway. In our opinion, focusing on recoil control is the way to go.

The Spetsnaz grip gives you a lovely additional +6% vertical recoil control, and +20% horizontal recoil control. The GRU Elastic Wrap gives you +30% faster ADS time, 90% flinch resistance, and the ability to aim while going prone, though it’ll cost you -10% shooting move speed, and -15% sprint to fire time.

The 50 Rnd Fast Mag gives you +67% magazine ammo capacity, max starting ammo, and ammo capacity, and +35% reload quickness – at the cost of 25% ADS time. If you prefer not to lose the ADS speed, try the 40 RND instead.

There you go – enjoy your ridiculous accuracy while it lasts. We’ve also got the best Cold War AUG loadout and the best Cold War Krig 6 loadout for your perusal.