Modern Warfare 3 has hundreds of attachments (with many being virtual lookalikes that essentially do the same thing slightly differently), which makes building guns an incredibly confusing process! Looking up class setups online can be clouded by tons of clickbait and low-effort junk, so if you're looking for highly-researched and performance-tested class setups from an actual Call of Duty expert, you are in the right place! In this guide, we'll take a look at the best loadout and attachments for the Lockwood 680 on 6v6 maps.
Best Lockwood 680 Build & Attachments
The Lockwood 680 is your classic one-pump champ, consistently one-pumping enemies in close range and two-pumping everyone else. It is also quite unique given that the 680's attachments tend to function differently on the Lockwood than they do every other shotgun.
Your exact one-shot range is 7.6 meters, and adding the popular Hammerforged Long Barrel extends that to 9.5 meters. It may seem like a big deal, but hipfire can be inconsistent and doesn't exactly guarantee you will start consistently one-shotting that far; the farther away your target is, the less effective your hipfire is as individual pellets become more likely to miss. Without ADS, you can't exactly bank on always reaping the benefit of that extended range, and with ADS, you pay the 300-400ms ADS tax when you could instead fire a first shot with a rapid follow-up shot.
The Crown Breaker Choke would appear to be the best Muzzle, and for the Lockwood 680, reports "Tighter Pellet Spread" - but doesn't reflect that in the Advanced Stats. I found that odd since it does offer that Tighter Pellet Spread on every other Shotgun, but I personally tested it and found that it is indeed not on the Lockwood 680. As such, the Bryson Choke is used on the Lockwood 680, while Crown Breakers are used on the Haymaker and Riveter. I see a lot of people using the Bryson Improved Choke, but it provides less pellet spread benefit and a completely forgettable increase to Damage Range; the Bryson Choke is best in slot for the Lockwood 680 in particular with the massive 40% reduction to Pellet Spread.
Another interesting facet of the Lockwood 680 is that the No Stock attachment actually gives very poor bonuses and is not worth using - only improving your Sprint/TacSprint speeds by 2/1%, respectively. Instead, the incredible XTEN Tactical Match Stock is used for its outstanding S2F bonus and improvement to Hipfire Maximum (the maximum amount of space the reticle can expand while moving, jumping, shooting, etc.). The Ebonhawk Tactical Grip provides an impressive S2F bonus with a nominal increase to TacStance and Strafe - a highly effective attachment for this playstyle. Finally, the classic Bruen Bastion Angled Grip makes a scheduled appearance being the best-in-slot Underbarrel for Hipfire.
Lockwood 680: Alternate Ammo Types
- Slugs (12 Gauge and Explosive): Both equally worthless. They don't one-shot to the chest at anything outside of point-blank range, so considering both recenter and rechamber speed, there is no use-case. I suspect these to be glitched.
- Bolo Shells: Significantly reduced the consistency of the one-shot kill from the hip, and did not actually appear to extend the Damage Range at all. Appears to be a total downgrade.
- Dragon's Breath: Despite what's advertised in the Advanced Stats, the Dragon's Breath rounds appeared to very slightly reduce the Damage Range and did not actually increase the damage, as the maximum range for a one-shot kill was almost exactly the same distance. If this attachment functioned as advertised, I could see a genuine use-case for it, but in its current state it is actually just playing with one less attachment slot.
Final Build: Lockwood 680 Attachments
- Muzzle: Bryson Choke
- Stock: XTEN Tactical Match Stock
- Bolt: Express Light Bolt
- Rear Grip: FSS Ebonhawk Tactical Grip
- Underbarrel: Bruen Bastion Angled Grip
Base | New | Base | New | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pellet Spread | 2.0° | 1.2° | Capacity | 6 rounds | 6 rounds |
Hipfire Min | 5.0° | 3.4° | Movement | 4.9 m/s | 5.0 m/s |
Hipfire Max | 7.0° | 3.4° | Sprint | 5.6 m/s | 5.6 m/s |
Sprint to Fire | 200ms | 154ms | TacSprint | 7.0 m/s | 7.0 m/s |
Our Testing Process: What does "Mathematically Optimized" mean?
It means that I have personally conducted over 30 hours of dedicated testing across the entire MW2 & 3 attachment set, endlessly consulted high-quality external resources and databases, and tirelessly tested performance across separate attachment combinations to produce what I believe to be the optimal build of a weapon for a specific purpose. Weapons are carefully crafted considering every possible detail - attempting to deliver the mathematically best possible performance in every category - mobility, handling, recoil, range, and accuracy.
With my builds, I believe you should see creative, never-before-seen uses of attachments that create incredible weapons. Do keep in mind that these weapons will not do the work for you - while they have all been precision-crafted to reduce horizontal recoil as much as possible, some of them still have quite noticeable vertical recoil, and it is on you to manage that vertical recoil correctly. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading about this build and every other build I have to offer on Fanbyte!
DISCLAIMER: If you test these in the Firing Range, please note that the Firing Range is currently glitched and shows more visual recoil and different damage performance than actually experienced in-game; it is best that you test these in a custom match or online.
