The BEST Compact Ammo Rifle! Marathon Mastery | Hunt: Showdown 1896

Intro

Hi guys, Rex here!
The marathon is a compact ammo pump-action rifle. It comes with just one variant – the swift, which reloads faster than usual with the use of a speed-loader, if you’re missing more than 6 bullets.

Speaking of reloading, the Marathon ejects a bullet every time you start reloading, so you might want to consider running the Bulletgrubber trait with this weapon. The marathon deals 113 damage, which means it will typically kill with a couple of chest shots, and the default velocity is 430 meters per second, which is a bit low.

It can run 4 special ammo types, namely FMJ, High Velocity, Incendiary & Poison Ammo.

FMJ has higher penetration power and better damage retention over distance than regular ammo, but lower velocity.

High velocity ammo, as you might expect, increases the bullet speed and drop range, but has a slightly higher recoil.

Incendiary compact ammo will set hunters on fire with the first shot up to 20 meters away, provided they’re not running the Salveskin trait.

Finally, poison ammo applies the poison effect impact, which prevents any healing and simultaneously impairs hearing and vision for the duration of the effect. One thing to note, however, is that poison and incendiary ammo have no penetration at all.

I ran the Marathon for a couple of days. Because the Swift is a pure upgrade from the base Marathon, I only ran the Swift variant.

For my sidearm I ran the Rival shorty, which helped me cover the close-range encounters where the Marathon is lackluster.

This video features my best rounds. At the end of the video, I’ll give you my thoughts and recommendations for the Marathon – but without further ado, let’s dive into it!

Thoughts & Recommendations

After having played the Marathon for a couple of days, I have to say this weapon never fails to bring an amazing gameplay experience! The iron sights are very tight and easy to use, and the gun sounds and feels great in general.

Out of all the available ammo types, High Velocity is in my opinion by far the best option in the current state of the game – as it brings the velocity from 430 to 555 meters per second, making it much easier to land shots with on range.

I didn’t use the Bulletgrubber trait for games because I didn’t see the need for it, however this did end up costing me a few bullets overall. You can easily get by without this trait if you don’t reload excessively, and at the same time it’s fairly easy to restock from special ammo boxes since you get more with compact ammo than other ammo types.

Taking the Rival Shorty for close range was a great call as it allowed to perform well both in close-range and in medium- to long-range encounters, however this required me to run the Quartermaster trait every game, which somewhat limited my trait selection options on newly recruited hunters.

Having a weapon for close-range is particularly important if you play solo, as the Marathon usually won’t cut it if you’re being hard pushed by multiple opponents. For this purpose, any shotgun, a bow or even dual pistols would work well.

What do YOU think about the Marathon, and what is your favorite secondary weapon to run with it? Let me know in the comments, and until next time I’ll see you in the Bayou!