The latest weapon to the Apex Legends armory was the lever-action assault rifle, the 30-30 Repeater. This unique rifle is one of the trickier guns to master, but with a good understanding of how it works, any player can easily send their opponents back to the lobby with this classic firearm.
The Repeater is a timeless weapon on Fuse’s homeworld of Salvo and is naturally a favorite of his. With Season 8 of Apex Legends well underway, the Repeater has proven its worth as a decent medium-to-long-range weapon and may prove to be more useful once the Chaos Theory event balance changes hit the Apex Legends live servers.
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As a long-range, semi-automatic assault rifle, the 30-30 Repeater is more of a heavy ammo counterpart to the G7 Scout and behaves very differently to any of the other assault rifles in Apex Legends. Most notably, the Repeater does not use a swappable magazine like most other weapons and instead needs to be loaded one bullet at a time. By default, the Repeater can hold six bullets, and up to 12 with a purple heavy magazine, making for a lengthy reload.
The lever action of the rifle also means its rate of fire is very low for an assault rifle, so to compensate it can hit almost as hard as the Longbow DMR. A standard shot to the body will do 42 damage, and a headshot will do 74 when the opponent has no helmet which means three well-placed headshots will be enough to knock down an enemy, even if they have a white helmet equipped.
However, the Repeater can hit even harder when players patiently aim their shots thanks to its ability to charge bullets. Aiming for a moment will cause the bullet to charge up and gain increased damage. Players will know the bullet has been charged due to the glowing bars on either side of the sights that fill up, as well as the distinct clicking sounds. Charged body shots deal 57 damage, while a charged headshot can deal up to 100 damage if the target does not have a helmet.
This high damage easily puts the 30-30 Repeater on par with the G7 Scout and some of the sniper rifles when in capable hands. Although, its unique features can make it a bit of a specialist weapon and is best used as a weapon for dealing poke damage from higher ground or a well-covered position. This also means that the Repeater has low ammo consumption, so players should not worry about carrying more than two stacks of ammo and should focus on finding the right attachments and weapon pairings for a victory.
An extended magazine is always useful for any weapon, but for the Repeater, it has the added downside of making reloads even longer. This means playing around cover to reload safely and not being too aggressive is crucial to succeeding with the Repeater. Having a gold magazine, which gives any weapon equipped with one an auto-loading feature, makes the Repeater far more usable in intense fights as it removes the need to always be seeking good cover that is out of reach from your enemies to reload.
In terms of optics, the 2x HCOG is a great all-rounder option thanks to its unobtrusive appearance and simple reticle making it great for medium ranges. A relatively low magnification means players will struggle to maintain accuracy at longer ranges though, so the 2x-4x variable zoom sight, which also comes attached to the fully kitted gold 30-30 Repeater by default, is another good optic for players to keep an eye out for as it offers the maximum zoom for an assault rifle weapon, giving Repeater users the best possible chance of hitting long-range shots.
Despite the high damage of the Repeater, the slow rate of fire and type of optic that players will be using means the Repeater stands almost no chance in a close-range fight, even if players are excellent at hip-firing. Almost any fully automatic weapon pairs well with the Repeater, and the high fire rates and fast handling of the Alternator, R-99, and Volt SMGs make them excellent choices. Players should definitely avoid pairing the Repeater with sniper rifles, other heavy ammo weapons, and other assault rifles.
The 30-30 Repeater is a powerful assault rifle but lacks the versatility that other weapons have. Despite that, it is still a useful backup weapon to have due to its great range. Apex Legends players have also theorized that the Repeater could be added into a new “Marksman” weapon category that could also hold the G7 Scout and the leaked compound bow weapon. Players could see this change with the launch of the Chaos Theory collection event, which also coincides with the Nintendo Switch launch of Apex Legends.
Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and will come to Nintendo Switch on March 9.