What are the best Payday 3 weapons? Payday 3 is a game that utilizes a relatively small arsenal of weapons but allows for vast customization to ensure you can build the perfect gun. It doesn’t matter whether you’re loud and proud or a stealth king, the Payday 3 best weapons are the ones that help you earn the biggest reward from your heist.
If you’re lucky enough to avoid any Payday 3 error codes and the Payday 3 servers are up and running, you’re going to need to equip yourself with some guns. We’ve selected a few base and pre-built weapon options in Payday 3 that we think offer the most versatility and will help make the most of the FPS game’s improved gunplay mechanics. We also include one honorable mention for all the Payday 3 guns listed here, to give you an alternative approach if our best recommendation isn’t right for you.
What are the best Payday 3 guns?
Here are the best Payday 3 weapons to use:
- Assault rifle: Car-4 Monument
- Pistol: Signature 403
- Marksman rifle: SA A144
- Shotgun: Porch King
Car-4 Monument
First up is the bread and butter of your loadout: the assault rifle. You start life in Payday 3 with the Car-4 base model equipped, and it’s an okay starting rifle, but the best assault rifle in Payday 3 is the Car-4 Monument.
Unlocked at infamy level 100 and only purchasable using C-Stacks, it’s going to be quite the grind to unlock, but is well worth the effort. The Monument has super low recoil which is going to help you land headshots with ease. The damage isn’t too high, but no assault rifle in Payday 3 is really focused on damage, it’s about the volume of shots fired. Making those shots count is crucial and the Monument is the best weapon for the job.
Our honorable mention goes to the VF-75, unlocked at level 77. Payday 3’s version of a SCAR rifle has high damage output and great base accuracy, but its lower mag capacity is a big drawback.
Signature 403
Our vote for the best pistol in Payday 3 goes to the Signature 403. There are some tasty pre-built options in the game, but given how crucial pistols can be for stealth runs, you want to have more agency over the attachments you can use.
Unlocked at level 59, throw every dollar you have at the Sig and make sure you level it up to gain access to its attachments. It’s a great firearm to rely on if your primary ammo dries up and does great damage, albeit limited by range, without having a nasty recoil.
Our honorable mention for best pistol goes to SP M11 Hard Cough, a pre-built silenced pistol unlocked at infamy level 86.
SA A144
We have selected the SA A144 as the best marksman rifle in Payday 3. While the base gun might seem unassuming, once you start playing around with attachments, this gun really can do it all. There aren’t too many situations that call for a marksman rifle in Payday 3’s starting heists, but if you back yourself to always find the critical hits, you can become a valuable member of any squad. The SA A144 is unlocked at infamy level 15.
Our honorable mention for best marksman rifle is the A114 Sentinel, unlocked at infamy level 49. This is a pre-built version of the same gun focusing on accuracy and manages to maintain its damage output despite adding a silencer.
Porch King
The Porch King shotgun will have you screaming ‘freedom!’ as empty shells gracefully fly through the air – in fact, we would dual-wield it if we could. This pump action is the best shotgun in Payday 3 and there’s no disguising that this isn’t for fans of the stealthy approach. Cooked up to stop police in their tracks, it also manages to keep recoil relatively low and its stability is very impressive.
Unlocked at infamy level 93, it might take a while to unlock, but when you see what it can do to dozers, you see exactly why we recommend it. So, even if the shotty approach isn’t for you, it’s great to have the high-damage output strapped to someone on your team.
All Payday 3 guns
Here are the 17 base weapons you can unlock in Payday 3:
- Assault rifle – Car-4: Available immediately.
- Pistol – Signature 40: Available immediately.
- Shotgun – Reinfeld 880: Unlocked at level two.
- Pistol – J&M Castigo 44: Unlocked at level ten.
- Marksman rifle – SA A144: Unlocked at level 15.
- SMG: FIK PC9: Unlocked at level 18.
- Assault rifle – Northwest B-9: Unlocked at level 21.
- Pistol – Stryk 7: Unlocked at level 25.
- SMG – Ziv Commando: Unlocked at level 29
- Assault rifle – KU-59: Unlocked at level 35
- Pistol – SP Model 11: Unlocked at level 38
- Shotgun – Mosconi 12 Classic: Unlocked at level 43
- Marksman rifle – Reinfeld 900S: Unlocked at level 53
- Pistol – Signature 403: Unlocked at level 59
- SMG – SG Compact 7: Unlocked at level 65
- Pistol – Sforza Bison: Unlocked at level 70
- Assault rifle – VF-7S: Unlocked at level 77
And that’s all you need to equip yourself with the best Payday 3 weapons. Now that the Payday 3 release date has finally arrived, you’re going to want to know about the best Payday 3 settings to run the game smoothly on your computer. If you’re still not sure whether to make the jump from Payday 2, you can read our Payday 3 review to see how we got on with the heist sim’s next generation.