This Budget Loadout Hits HARD! Romero & Conversion | Hunt: Showdown 1896

Hi guys, REX here — and welcome to the first video in my budget loadout series, where I’ll be covering cheap but reliable setups I genuinely recommend you try out.

Together with my community, I’ve set an upper price limit of 600 Hunt Dollars per loadout. I’ll try to keep things as cheap as possible without sacrificing efficiency — and I’ll show you where you can cut costs even further if you want to run these on an absolute budget.

Today we’re running the Romero, one of the cheapest weapons in Hunt: Showdown, coming in at just 66 Hunt Dollars — and despite that price tag, it’s one of the most reliable one-tap weapons in the entire game.

The Romero’s strength is simple: raw stopping power. With buckshot, this thing absolutely deletes people at close range. I’m also running half penny shot, mainly for PvE utility — breaking doors, clearing tankier AI, and helping with bosses when needed.

For my sidearm, I’m pairing it with one of my all-time favorite budget pistols: the Conversion with FMJ.
The pistol itself costs 55 Hunt Dollars, FMJ adds another 50 — and suddenly you’ve got a sidearm that can punch through cover, handle mid-range fights, and completely carry engagements when needed.

If you add Fanning on top, the Conversion turns into an absolute laser beam at close range.

For tools, I’m running knuckle knife, medkit, flare pistol — or fusees if you want to save a bit more — and decoy fuses.
This setup gives me a lot of flexibility — especially the decoy fuses, which I use to mask movement, apply pressure, or force enemies to reposition before committing to a fight.

Consumable-wise, I’m keeping it simple:
A small vitality shot and a small regeneration shot for extra healing, plus a large stamina shot to keep my momentum high in the early game.

On top of that, I’m bringing a waxed dynamite, which works extremely well alongside decoy fuses — either to catch enemies off guard or land a clean entry frag when pushing aggressively.

Trait-wise, I’m taking the usual essentials:
Necromancer for revives, Vigilant to spot traps in Dark Sight – which is especially important when you’re playing a shotgun – and Kiteskin, because if you play shotguns long enough, you will jump off things you shouldn’t. For teamplay, resilience is a must-have trait, as you revive with full health.

Whenever I have the points, Fanning is a no-brainer with this setup.
Beyond that, traits like Dauntless are incredibly strong in close-range fights, letting you shut down explosives, flares, and chokes — and Witness gives you amazing situational awareness once players start dropping.

This loadout is cheap, aggressive, and punishes mistakes hard — exactly what a budget setup should do.
The total cost for this loadout is 506 Hunt Dollars — or 516 if you run the Talon version of the Romero like I am in this video — but you can easily cut the price further by skipping the large stamina shot or FMJ on the pistol.

If you want to learn more about the Romero, I have a full mastery breakdown of this weapon on my channel, which I’ll link in the description. But without further ado — let’s dive into it.