GTA Online – The New Contract DLC’s Heavy Rifle – A Closer Look

GTA’s new DLC released 3 brand new weapons. The Heavy Rifle, Stun Gun and Compact EMP Launcher. New weapons in GTA (or any fresh content) is a rarity so we take a deep dive into each of these to see how they perform. This piece features ‘The Contract’ DLC’s Heavy Rifle, and we’ll feature the other two separately soon after.

Where can you buy the new weapons?

Two places. The Heavy Rifle is available in any Ammu-Nation store. The Stun Gun and Compact EMP Launcher is only available in the new Armoury. So to get those two weapons, you need to buy an Agency property first and upgrade it with an Armoury.

Tip: if you buy the Heavy Rifle at the new Armoury instead of Ammu-Nation, you will receive a 12% discount.

The Heavy Rifle – Overview

Promoted as: The no-holds barred 30-round answer to that eternal question: how do I get this guy off my back?

This gun actually has a bit of history in GTA 5. Also called the ‘The Vom Feuer Heavy Rifle’, this assault rifle was cut from story mode years ago but fans were aware of it from the game files. Nearly a decade later, we finally get our hands on it – fittingly through the first ever story mode inspired DLC.

The Heavy Rifle is available in GTA Online from Ammu-Nation for a price of $450,000. It is customisable with a scope, foregrip, flashlight, suppressor and extended magazine. It’s also customised with a unique livery pattern (featuring the Families).

‘The Contract’ DLC’s Heavy Rifle can be bought from Ammu-Nation.

So how good is it?

We compared this with both regular rifles (also called MK1 variants) as well as against the upgraded MK2 rifles.

The weapon is well balanced and has a similar rate of fire to the Advanced Rifle, achieving 493 rounds per minute. It also has a fairly high damage at 34 per shot.
It fares very well against regular rifles (MK1) thanks to the rate of fire and damage delivered.
Compared to the Military Rifle (the only other rifle released in 2021), it’s better balanced but delivers 8% less damage, which can drop further at a distance.
Against the MK2 weapons however, the Heavy Rifle isn’t as competitive due to it’s lower accuracy and spread. In other words, it has a harder time against targets at a distance.
The vertical recoil which was a problem with the very similar Advanced Rifle is not an issue with this one.
Just like all the other rifles, you can take out a player with 1 shot to the head, but only up to 24 meters away. This is slightly less than the other rifles in the game.

To sum up, it’s a good rifle at close to medium range, arguably better than the current best MK1 in that class (the Advanced Rifle). But you are unlikely to want to use it if you already have a MK2 rifle (or even the Combat MG).

Nim