A CHEAP Rifle That SLAPS?! Frontier 73C Mastery | Hunt: Showdown 1896

Intro

Hi guys, REX here!

Today we’re diving into the Frontier 73c, a compact ammo rifle with three distinct variants: the default iron sight, the marksman, and the silencer.

While it’s one of the cheapest rifles in the game with relatively low base damage, don’t let that fool you — the Frontier can absolutely hold its own in the right hands.

Stat-wise, it’s almost identical to the Ranger 73, and you can even lever it to increase your rate of fire in close to mid-range fights.

The default variant comes with clean and easy-to-use iron sights, making it a straight-up headclicker in the right hands.

The marksman variant adds a medium-range scope, giving you solid control and precision from a distance. This used to be my favorite scoped rifle before I got into sniper scopes!

Then there’s the silenced variant, which offers an extremely satisfying stealth experience thanks to its unique sound profile.

It does come with some trade-offs — like lower damage, slower velocity, and reduced bullet drop range — but it’s still a solid pick for sneaky plays.

Let’s take a look at the stats for the three unique weapon variants

The default and marksman both fire at 400 meters per second, while the silencer slows that down to 340 meters per second.

The Bullet drop range is 140 meters, or 120 with the silencer.

And for damage, you’re looking at 110 base, while the silencer sits at 104 — reflecting the 5% damage reduction following Update 2.4 for all silenced compact and medium rifles.

Now let’s talk about the five special ammo types available for the Frontier:

First up we have FMJ ammo

FMJ increases penetration power. It also increases your damage falloff range from 20 to 30 meters, meaning your shots stay effective at slightly longer distances.

On the downside it increases recoil, reduces velocity, and shortens your bullet drop range a bit — so you’ll need to adjust your aim accordingly.

Next, we have High Velocity ammo.

This ammo increases your bullet speed by 100 meters per second, bringing it up to 500 m/s.

That’s a huge bonus for hitting moving targets and landing long-range headshots, especially with the marksman variant.

You also gain a 20-meter boost to your bullet drop range.

It does come with slightly reduced damage and more recoil, but if you’re confident with your aim, the tradeoff is well worth it.

Third, we have incendiary ammo.

Incendiary behaves almost the same as regular ammo, but with one big difference — it can ignite enemy hunters.

One hit within 20 meters can light someone on fire and beyond that range, it takes two hits to trigger the burn.

Incendiary can’t penetrate walls or surfaces, which can be problematic depending on the situation.

The fourth ammo type is poison ammo.

Poison ammo also mirrors base stats and lacks penetration power like incendiary ammo.

It poisons the target, blocking healing and impairing both vision and hearing for several seconds, which is super annoying to deal with mid-fight.

That said, antidote shots will cancel the poison effect entirely, and you never know who has an antidote shot active going into a fight!

The fifth and final ammo type is subsonic ammo

Subsonic is the stealthy option. It drastically lowers bullet speed and drop range, but it also reduces the sound of your shots.

When paired with the silencer, it makes your gunfire even quieter, which is ideal for sneaky flanks and ambushes.

Outside of the silencer build, though, the lower performance makes it a hard sell.

In this video, I’ll be putting all three Frontier 73c variants to the test!

At the end of this video I will give you my thoughts and recommendations, so stay tuned, but without further ado let’s dive into it!

Thoughts & Recommendations

After having played the Frontier variants for a couple of days, here are my thoughts!

First off, and as I already mentioned in the intro, I used to absolutely main the marksman variant for this rifle.

This made it such a nice and nostalgic experience to pick it up again now that it’s been a while – and MAN does this rifle still perform!

Unfortunately, since the time I used to play this rifle a lot, the velocity has been nerfed to just 500 with high velocity ammo while it used to be 600 back in the day.

This seemingly wasn’t a huge problem though, as I racked up 9 headshots with the marksman in one of my first rounds.

As for the iron sight and silencer variants – both are incredibly fun and rewarding to play.

Since they improved the iron sights on the silencer with the 1896 update back in August it is actually quite decent now!

As I mentioned in the intro, levering greatly improves this weapon, just like it does for the Ranger 73 and the infantry 73 variants, and I would highly recommend running levering with both the regular Frontier and the silencer variant when you can.

For the Marksman I typically pick quartermaster and pair it with the hunting bow, but if you don’t have the points you could run a LeMat pistol with FMJ and slugs to have a bit of firepower in close range!

As for ammo types, I personally prefer HV on the marksman and either HV or FMJ on the other two variants.

Incendiary and poison can both work well, but this mostly preference.

Subsonic is hardly ever worth it in my opinion, but if you are going to play it – play it with the silencer for maximum stealth!

Overall, this was an incredibly fun challenge with a weapon I am both familiar with and very fond of – but now I want to hear YOUR opinion!

What do YOU think about the Frontier 73c family, and what is your favorite variant and ammo type combination?

Let me know in the comments, and until next time I’ll see you in the Bayou!