Modern Warfare 2 Best M4 loadout: best perks and equipment

The M4 is probably the first weapon you used in Modern Warfare 2, and you’ll be happy to hear it’s an absolute banger. Brilliant in both mid range and CQC, plus it's versatile with the help of the right attachments. However, if you use our best MW2 M4 loadout, you can really see it shine.

Thanks to the sheer number of attachments available for the M4 thanks to the new gunsmith, you can really tweak this gun to work at any range, however we’ve opted to build it for mid-range fights.

Follow our Best Modern Warfare 2 M4 loadout to the letter and you’ll be able to handle most firefights with ease. In addition, we’ve listed out great lethal, tactical and secondary options to best compliment the M4.

• MW2 best M4 Loadout: attachments and why you use them
• Best M4 build: secondary, equipment, perks and field upgrade
• How to get the M4 in Modern Warfare 2

MW2 best M4 Loadout: attachments and why you use them

Here is our best MW2 M4 Loadout:

• Muzzle: FTAC Castle Comp
• Barrel: Hightower 20” Barrel
• Optic: Cronen Mini Red Dot
• Stock: Demo Precision Elite Factor
• Rear Grip: Sakin ZX Grip

The FTAC Castle Comp reduces both horizontal and vertical recoil. By default, the M4 has a bunch of vertical recoil and also drifts to the left. With the FTAC Castle Comp, not only do you make a dent in that vertical bump upwards and off-target, you also take a big chunk out of that nasty leftward drift, allowing you to focus primarily on holding straight down to keep shots accurate.

As for the Barrel attachment, the Hightower 20” Barrel is a great pick. Bullet velocity, damage range, and recoil control are all vital when building a mid-range AR, and the hip fire accuracy isn’t too shabby either for when things close and personal. The ADS speed reduction sucks, but thanks to our optic pick it isn’t too devastating, plus movement speed and hip fire recoil don’t hold a candle to the benefits this attachment provides.

Speaking of the Optic slot, the Cronen Mini Red Dot is a brilliant sight for short and mid range fights, since it doesn’t obscure your view too much at all. You can still see your surroundings for the most part, and it doesn’t slow down your ADS speed enough to matter in most cases. Also, the red dot itself being so small means you maintain a clear view of the person you’re shooting. All in all a brilliant sight.

For the Stock, we have the Demo Precision Elite Factory, a nice mid-long range stock that grants aiming stability and recoil control at the cost of overall mobility. It does prohibit a lot of high speed gun-running action that some players like, but frankly we believe a secondary weapon better fills that role. This alongside the other attachment makes the M4 a dream to handle.

Finally, the rear grip slot is taken by the Sakin ZX Grip. With this, you lose a bit of that aiming stability the stock provided, but in return you get a big payout of recoil control. Combined, the pros outweigh the cons, and it makes the M4 super smooth to use at mid range.

With all of these together, you’ll have an MW2 M4 loadout that’ll let you take on anyone as long as they aren’t right in your face or miles away. This means that for most fights, you’ll be able to trade shots wit the best of them.

Best M4 build: secondary, equipment, perks and field upgrade

Now that we’ve got a brilliant mid-ranged assault rifle primary thanks to our MW2 best M4 loadout, we’ve got to build a class around it to best compliment the star of the show.

• Secondary weapon: Vaznev-9Ks - strong close-range weapon that makes up for M4's weaknessess
• Perk 1: Overkill - allows for two primary weapons and more overal versatility
• Perk 2: Scavenger - allows for ammo pick ups off dead players, keeps you stocked up for far longer.
• Perk 3: Fast Hands - quick weapon swaps and reloads. Life saver, great for high intensity moments.
• Perk 4: Ghost - keeps you off UAV. Life and killstreak saver.
• Tactical: Stim - isntantly triggers health regen. Keeps you alive when under fire.
• Lethal: Drill Charge - great way of breaching through walls and killing campers.

How to get the M4 in Modern Warfare 2

Thankfully, you won’t have to put in much effort at all in order to get the M4. It’s acquired at level 1, meaning all you’ll need to do is grind out some levels on the gun to unlock the attachment slots.

That concludes our guide for the best MW2 M4 Loadout! For more Modern Warfare 2 content, check out our pages on people spending upwards of £30 on Burger King skins, as well as Modern Warfare 2 turning out to be a pretty good PC benchmark!