What’s up guys, my name is Ace, and today we’re going to be breaking down the assault rifles in Black Ops 6, comparing them side by side in all of the areas that count, to find out which one is best, or at least help you decide which one is best for you. Since there isn’t necessarily a clear winner in all areas, some will be best in a certain range or playstyle, whereas others will be best for a different playstyle. So without further ado, let’s dive right into this with our range and time-to-kill comparison.
Table of Contents
Extremely Short Max Damage Ranges?
The first thing I want to point out with all assault rifles might look weird if you’re looking at the advanced stats, their maximum damage ranges are very short they’re often much shorter than SMGs, which may seem odd if you’re just looking at that, but just know for all of these assault rifles, if we’re talking body shots, that maximum damage range is irrelevant, it’s your second damage range that matters because it’s going to take you the same number of shots to kill in both of those ranges.

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Now I’ll get into why they added this short maximum damage range in just a little bit, but before we do that, compare the time-to-kill values in these within their effective damage ranges.
Time to Kill Ranking
So when they’re taking the fewest number of shots to kill to the body, the fastest-killing assault rifle is the Goblin Mk.II, which is the semi-auto assault rifle, so assumes you are hitting the fire rate cap, and it is the only three-shot kill assault rifle in the game to the body. Then after that, the AS VAL is the next best here at 268ms with a 5-shot kill. Then the AK-74 is next after that at 276ms. Then for both the Model L and the XM4, they have the same time to kill at 300ms, although the Model L is a 4-shot kill with a slower fire rate compared to the XM4, which is a 5-shot kill. Then after that, the AIMS-85 kills in 320ms, and finally, the slowest killing assault rifle right now is the GPR-91 at 336ms.

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Range & TTK Chart
As for the effective damage ranges, not the maximum damage range, but the second one, the AIMS-85 comes out on top here, so it doesn’t have the greatest time to kill, but it carries that time to kill out noticeably farther than some of the other assault rifles, out to beyond 55m. Notably, the Model L also has an excellent effective damage range at just over 50m, so those two excel when it comes to ranges, and it’s not like the other assault rifles suck in this area, it’s just those are the two standouts.
And then I want to point out that the Goblin MkII also has a pretty weak effective damage range compared to the others, so at least to a degree, that makes up for the fact that it has the fastest time to kill. One last thing I want to point out with this chart here that I think is worth mentioning is that longer ranges, which you don’t tend to see too many long-range gunfights, but if you do get into those ranges, the XM4 will come out on top here with a time to kill value of 375ms.
Headshot Potentials
Now so far, we’ve only been looking at body shots with these assault rifles, now let’s talk headshots, because they did get a notable buff from the beta build of the game, and headshots can make a difference by mixing them in with body shots. So let’s have a look at the chart here, hopefully, this isn’t too complicated, but the main thing I want to point out here is in that maximum damage range, that short range they added up close, for all of the assault rifles aside from the AS VAL, we can mix 2 headshots in with body shots to reduce the number of shots to kill within that range.

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The AS VAL on the other hand will take 3 headshots mixed in with body shots to cut that down, but I left the time to kill values there so you can see how fast we can potentially kill with these guns if we are landing multiple headshots mixed in with body shots right up close and personal. Then I just added the number of headshots required in the other ranges as well, as you can see, generally beyond that short maximum damage range.
it is going to require at least 3 headshots mixed in with body shots for those headshots to do anything useful. Now there is an attachment that boosts headshot damage, this is the CHF barrel, however, that goes beyond the scope of this video, we’re just looking at the assault rifles without attachments today, keep in mind I’ll be looking at each gun individually in great detail including attachment data as well as the best attachment combinations.
Recoil Comparison
I specialize with and if you guys want to make sure you catch those gun guides as they come out and you haven’t subscribed already, make sure you do that. Now is a good time to start looking at our recoil comparisons with all of these assault rifles to see how they stack up against each other as well as what kind of recoil patterns they have and you can also keep an eye on the visual recoil of each of these guns in the background as they’re playing and then once these clips finish playing out.

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I will show you guys the side by side comparison, which as you can see here with the XM4, we’ve got quite a bit of horizontal recoil, I mean the initial shots generally kick upward with a slight lean to the left and then it cuts quite hard to the right, so you want to try to secure your kill before it starts cutting to the right, the AK-74 is kind of similar, it kicks almost straight upwards for the first 10 or so shots before it starts taking off a little bit more to the right, the AIMS-85 has sort of a mirrored recoil pattern compared to the XM4.
So it starts upward to the right and then it’ll cut pretty drastically over to the left, the GPR-91 kicks almost straight upwards, there’s a little bit of a zigzag there and it does slightly lean to the left, but there’s not much horizontal recoil, although there is the most vertical recoil out of all of the assault rifles, vertical recoil is generally much easier to control though, then with the Model L
it’s got quite a bit of a zigzag pattern to it and also a fairly high magnitude of vertical recoil, the Goblin Mark II doesn’t have much recoil, I mean it’s a semi-auto, so typically you would see less recoil with the semi-auto, however, if you pay close attention, there is a pretty big jump between the first and second shot fired, and that is quite important, especially for longer ranges.
if you’re fighting against people who are using cover, that second shot will often go above their head, and this just leaves us with the AS-VAL, which pretty much just kicks up a little bit to the right, so there’s your recoil comparison and that could also help you make some decisions with attachments as well because some of them need some horizontal recoil attachments, whereas others may excel more with vertical recoil attachments.
Iron Sight Comparison

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After that I did want to give you guys a quick side-by-side look at all of the iron sights with these, just so you guys can see what they look like, how obstructive they are, and which ones you may like more than others, I love that AS-VAL iron sight, as well as the AK-74, I like those open ones that don’t block your view too much, and therefore with those two in particular, I don’t see myself using optics all that often, unlike many of the other assault rifles, and now let’s talk handling.
Handling Comparison
since this is quite important in this game as well, so let’s start it off with our aim-down sight time comparison, there’s a pretty wide range of aim-down sight times by default with the assault rifles, on the faster end, the GPR-91 is just 225ms, and the AS-VAL is just 230ms, both of those values are quite fast for an assault rifle historically in Call of Duty.

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whereas most of the others are right around average in what you’d expect for an assault rifle outside of the AK-74, that one is noticeably slower than the rest at 290ms, so it is something to account for, then when it comes to our sprint-out time, and tactical sprint out time, keeping in mind there is a bit of rounding involved with the tactical sprint out time, it is very difficult to hand test accurately.
So with these, they all fall within a pretty similar range of roughly 180ms for our standard sprint out time, and roughly 290ms for our tactical sprint out time, but once again for a standout here, the GPR-91 is the fastest at 165ms, whereas again, the AK-74 is the slowest here at 205ms.
But finally, for our handling stats, I want to look at our reload add time, and the reload add time is not the time that they’re going to be showing you in the menus, this is our true reload potential, and it excludes any unnecessary animations which can be canceled out. Keeping in mind this is assuming you aren’t using a magazine attachment, I will be covering the mag data in my gun guide series, but not in today’s video, that’s just a little too much for a video like this. But the big standout here is the AS VAL, now it only has a 20-round magazine, and it has a high fire rate.
So you’re burning through those mags very quickly, but when you need a reload, it’s almost instant, it’s just 1.1 seconds, which is extremely fast. Whereas on the slower end, approaching 2 seconds, we’ve got the Goblin Mark II as well as the AK-74.
Mobility Comparison
And this just leaves us with one set of really important stats to look at here for our comparison, and this is our mobility stats. And diving right into our base movement speed, so this is our walking speed without sprinting, all of the assault rifles hover between 4.8 and 5m per second, and the two fastest are the GPR-91 and the Goblin Mark II, then when it comes to our standard sprint speeds, they’re all actually surprisingly quite fast, but the GPR-91 does come out on top once again at 6.6m per second, and then finally we have our aim walking speed, keeping in mind this is your forward movement speed when aiming and walking, and in this area, they’re all pretty similar, but the AIMS-85, GPR-91, and Goblin Mark II are just a little bit faster than the others at 3.3m per second.

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Black Ops 6 Best Assault Rifle
And there we go, that’s gonna wrap it up for today’s comparison, with most of the important stats to know with all of the assault rifles that are in the game, and at the end of the day, I don’t think there’s necessarily one clear winner all around in the assault rifle category, and getting into the subjective territory here, I’m just gonna share my thoughts and opinions.

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I think most of the assault rifles are quite good. I personally really didn’t like the GPR-91, that’s the one big exception, while it has great handling and mobility stats, it just kills very slowly, and I just found that I lose so many gunfights that I would otherwise be winning with other assault rifles.
Some of my personal favorites are the XM4, the Model L, and the Goblin Mark II, I am somebody who tends to like semi-autos though,
Wrap Up
But honestly, I’m happy using any of them aside from the GPR-91. Now of course, these are just my opinions based on the testing I’ve done, as well as the limited amount of gameplay time I have with these assault rifles, and this is where I want to know from you guys in those comments down below, what is your current favorite assault rifle in Black Ops 6, or if you can’t pick just one, maybe name your top 3.
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