This Valorant shotgun reload bug lets shotguns fire non-stop

Shotguns aren’t always a popular class of weapon in competitive first-person shooters. An oversight by Riot Games could quickly change all that.

The Bucky is one of Valorant’s two shotguns, and normally players have to sit through a long reload after they use the weapon’s five chambered rounds. But a recent video shows a new way to keep the Bucky firing for much longer by reloading between each shot. The resulting 10-round shotgun could be a devastating tool for defenders in close quarters.

The weapon normally fires five shots before it has to reload, and that reload animation takes a little over three seconds to finish. The time spent reloading leaves players defenseless and open to counterattack, and five shots isn’t all that many for a weapon that seems slightly underpowered. By instead reloading after every shot, the Bucky can fire ten shots in a row before players have to rack the slide on the gun.

The process is called animation canceling, and it’s present in many games. Most games register the weapon as reloaded well before the reloading animation is finished, and skilled players can take advantage of this by either firing the gun or switching back and forth between weapons to cancel the end of the reload animation. Here, the process effectively turns a gun with five rounds in its magazine into one with ten, a 100% increase by just mashing the reload key and fire.

The Bucky wasn’t changed in Valorant’s gigantic patch that just dropped either, so it looks like this might be here to stay. Luckily, WIN.gg also has a few tips and tricks for getting the most out for Valorant’s abilities – check it out below.