MW4 November 13 Weapon Buffs: M4 Range +26%, 25% Less Flinch, Every AR & SMG Change

Quick answer: On November 13, 2026 Infinity Ward shipped a broad MW4 weapon balance pass. Assault Rifles take 25.4% less flinch when shot, SMGs 15.6% less, LMGs 19.3% less and pistols 17.8% less. Eight ARs got longer damage ranges, led by the M4 (max damage range 27.94 m to 35.31 m, +26%), and five SMGs got buffs, led by the Wz.55 Striga (+34% mid damage range). CSG-35, ISO Nightshade and PPSh-41 lost their last damage drop-off. No max damage value went down on any gun; the only downgrades are +9.6% flinch received on the Oris 8.6 and launchers now receiving flinch. The tuning is listed under Multiplayer; Warzone's own notes had no November 13 entry when we checked.

Three days after the November 10 hitscan update pushed instant-hit range to about 35 meters, Infinity Ward followed with the numbers players had been waiting for: real damage-range changes, weapon by weapon. This guide lays out every weapon change from the official MW4 Season 1 patch notes, explains what flinch received and flinch inflicted actually mean, and tells you which guns are worth re-leveling this weekend.

What changed in the MW4 November 13 update?

The November 13 entry is a "Happy Friday" update with four parts:

• Weapon tuning: flinch cuts for four weapon classes, longer damage ranges for most ARs and SMGs, plus touch-ups to shotguns, marksman rifles, one LMG Apex and four pistols.
• Smoke and aim assist: aim assist is now disabled when you shoot through Smoke Grenades or the Smoke Wall Field Upgrade in Multiplayer, "including gaps in the smoke from gunfire or explosions." Raven added the same rule to Warzone a day earlier, on November 12, which we cover in the MW4 aim assist guide.
• Live events: higher Wager Match trophy drop rates in all Multiplayer modes and in DMZ, plus fixes for the DMZ Resupply Run event flow. See our Wager Match trophies guide for what the trophies buy.
• Fixes: Operators not saving in Create a Class after Prestiging, Cronen Osprey and CSG-35 Special camos missing from the Shared Camos tab, and several X01 conversion bugs in DMZ.

Infinity Ward summed up the goal in one line:

"This week's weapon update is focused on improving the Attacker's experience by reducing flinch and extending the base operational range of most SMGs and Assault Rifles." — Infinity Ward, MW4 Season 1 patch notes, November 13, 2026

The studio says the pass was built on "data from hundreds of thousands of engagements" and that it will keep "a sharp eye on these updates over the weekend," with more changes expected next week.

What is flinch in MW4, and why does a 25% cut matter?

Flinch is the camera kick you get when a bullet hits you while you aim. The patch notes split it into two numbers:

• Flinch received: how far your own aim gets knocked off target when someone shoots you. Lower is better for you.
• Flinch inflicted: how hard your weapon knocks the other player's aim when you hit them.

Infinity Ward cut both. For ARs, pistols and LMGs, received flinch dropped much more than inflicted flinch; for SMGs the two cuts are almost equal. Infinity Ward frames the pass as improving "the Attacker's experience": when you are the one being shot, your aim should stay on target better than at launch.

Weapon class	Flinch received	Flinch inflicted
Assault Rifles	-25.4%	-7.8%
LMGs	-19.3%	-13.3%
Pistols	-17.8%	-4.5%
SMGs	-15.6%	-15.5%
Launchers	Now receive flinch	No change listed

Some weapons override their class number:

• Hyeon Burst: flinch received only -5.6% (not the AR-wide -25.4%), flinch inflicted -7.8%.
• Mar-9 and its Mar-9E1 Apex conversion: flinch received -20.7%.
• Oris 8.6: flinch received +9.6%, the one weapon-specific nerf in the update.

Attachments moved too. Aim Grips now cut flinch received by an extra 2.0%, Heavy Stocks by an extra 1.1%, and every Ammunition Type attachment now adds 30.8% more flinch inflicted. If you run an ammo attachment, your hits now shake the target's aim noticeably harder than they did on November 12.

Which MW4 Assault Rifles got buffed on November 13?

Eight ARs got range or handling changes. Max damage values did not move on any of them; the gains come from damage tiers reaching further.

AR	Change	Before	After
M4	Max damage range	27.94 m	35.31 m (+26%)
Oden	Mid damage range 1	50.04 m	58.42 m (+17%)
Cronen Squall	Max / mid damage range	26.42 m / 37.34 m	27.94 m / 43.18 m (+6% / +16%)
Hyeon Burst	Max / mid damage range	21.34 m / 42.93 m	22.86 m / 45.72 m (+7% / +6%)
Kastov 762	Max / mid damage range	26.67 m / 42.16 m	28.7 m / 44.07 m (+8% / +5%)
Patriot XMR	Max damage range, min damage	33.53 m, 22	35.56 m, 24
HAN 86	Max damage range	30.48 m	32 m (+5%)
Axion	Mid damage range 1, velocity	38.61 m, 470 m/s	40.13 m, 500 m/s

Three details are easy to miss:

• M4: the 26% jump means its 23-damage tier now reaches 35.31 m, close to the roughly 35 m average true hitscan range from the November 10 update. Infinity Ward gives 35 m as an average across weapons, not an M4-specific number, so treat the overlap as approximate.
• Patriot XMR: its 24-damage mid tier was removed and the minimum damage raised from 22 to 24, so beyond 50 m it now hits for 24 instead of 22. It also gained muzzle velocity (620 to 640 m/s) and a slightly faster ADS out time (0.4 s to 0.39 s).
• Hyeon Burst: besides range, its neck and upper torso multipliers rose from 1.1 to 1.13.

Which MW4 SMGs got buffed, and what does "removing the last damage drop-off" mean?

Infinity Ward said it wanted to remove "the last damage drop-off of SMGs that were being overly punished at range." In the tables that shows up as a deleted damage tier: the lowest step is gone and the minimum damage rises to meet the one above it.

SMG	Change	Before	After
Wz.55 Striga	Max / mid damage range	11.94 m / 21.34 m	14.61 m / 28.7 m (+22% / +34%)
PPSh-41	Max / mid range, min damage	10.8 m / 20.19 m, 13	13.34 m (+24%) / 21.34 m, 14
ISO Nightshade	Max / mid range, min damage	11.68 m / 20.45 m, 14	12.45 m / 22.99 m, 16 (+14%)
X-58 Nyx	Max / mid damage range	10.8 m / 19.94 m	11.94 m / 21.59 m (+11% / +8%)
CSG-35	Mid range, min damage	19.18 m, 13	19.81 m, 14

What that means in practice:

• CSG-35, the Season 1 Battle Pass SMG from our Season 1 weapons unlock guide: past about 26 m it used to drop to 13 damage per bullet. Now it bottoms out at 14.
• ISO Nightshade: the biggest floor raise. Beyond about 28 m it does 16 instead of 14, and between 23 m and 28 m it does 16 instead of 15.
• Wz.55 Striga: no tier was removed, but its 23-damage tier now reaches 28.7 m instead of 21.34 m, the largest single range gain on any SMG.

This continues the SMG-buff direction from the October 28 weapon tuning update.

What changed for shotguns, marksman rifles, LMGs and pistols?

Smaller passes, but two of them matter:

• Mosin-Nagant (Marksman Rifle): the headline reads like a nerf, with max damage range down 63% (40.13 m to 14.99 m). It is not. Infinity Ward split the profile into four steps: 95 damage to 14.99 m (was 93), 93 to 44.96 m, a new 86 tier to 58.42 m, then 60. Compare at any distance and the new number is equal or higher. The biggest gain is 55.6 to 58.4 m, where a hit used to do 60 and now does 86. If you chase long shots, check our MW4 longshot distance guide.
• FiNN LMG with the Adverse Apex: max damage range 15.98 m to 21.34 m (+34%), mid range 35.05 m to 38.61 m, and arm and hand multipliers raised from 0.86 to 1.0, so arm and hand hits no longer lose damage. Leg and foot hits went from 0.86 to 0.9. More on Apex conversions in our Apex attachments explainer.
• Mar-9: max damage range 19.81 m to 21.34 m, mid range 28.7 m to 30.23 m; the Mar-9E1 Apex goes 25.15 m to 27.94 m.
• Shotguns: Rezi 12 mid ranges pushed out 4% to 13%; Warlord mid range 1 from 3.81 m to 4.06 m.
• Pistols: Krait P68 headshot multiplier 1.3 to 1.4, mid damage 39 to 40 and minimum damage 30 to 32; .50 GS mid range 42.04 m to 43.56 m and minimum damage 45 to 46; Sang 9mm mid ranges about 8% longer; Mojave .357 with the Lawless Apex mid range 12.19 m to 13.72 m.

Does the November 13 weapon tuning apply to Warzone and DMZ?

Not confirmed. In the official notes the whole Weapon Tuning block sits under the Multiplayer header. The DMZ section says only that "the team is actively looking at TTK in DMZ" and is "currently playtesting updates." When we checked Raven's Warzone Season 1 patch notes at 03:50 UTC on November 14, the newest entry was November 12, with no damage-range changes.

That is different from the hitscan change, which Infinity Ward called "global" for every mode. Until Raven posts its own tuning, treat these damage profiles as Multiplayer numbers. If you play the X01 Black Site in DMZ, watch for the separate DMZ TTK update the notes promise.

How do the November 10 and November 13 updates work together?

The two updates fix different halves of the same complaint, that MW4 gunfights felt inconsistent past close range:

• November 10 (hitscan, written into the notes November 11): bullets land instantly out to about 35 m, and ballistic bullets beyond that connect 34 ms faster. That fixed whether your shots register when you expect.
• November 13 (tuning): full or near-full damage now reaches further on most ARs and SMGs, and you get knocked off target less. That fixed how much those shots are worth and whether you can stay on target.

The M4 is the cleanest example: its top damage tier now ends at 35.31 m, close to the roughly 35 m average hitscan range. Infinity Ward wrote that "with the ballistic improvements that went in earlier this week, these weapons should be more reliable, stable, and lethal at range." For every earlier fix, see our running MW4 patch notes tracker.

Which MW4 guns should you re-level after the November 13 buffs?

This is not a meta ranking; the studio says more tuning is coming next week. But the patch tells you where to spend grind time:

• M4: the largest AR max-range gain, and the gun most likely to change how mid-range fights play.
• Wz.55 Striga: the largest SMG range gain; its 23-damage tier now reaches 28.7 m, so it holds up in longer lanes than before.
• Oden and Cronen Squall: +17% and +16% mid damage range on two higher-damage ARs.
• ISO Nightshade: the largest minimum-damage increase of the buffed SMGs (14 to 16).
• Mosin-Nagant: if you are working through Marksman Rifle camo challenges, the extra damage at 40 to 58 m matters.

Shared attachments you already unlocked carry across compatible weapons, but each gun's remaining attachments and its Apex still come from weapon levels, so weapon XP is the bottleneck. Our weapon leveling guide and the Shipment decoy-grenade XP farm are the fastest free routes. For the full arsenal and unlock levels, see every MW4 weapon at launch.

The guns changed. Get your setup ready. Bot lobbies, camo and weapon leveling for the buffed M4, Striga and Oden, handled by pro players on timesaver.gg.

• MW4 Bot Lobbies: easy lobbies to test the new damage ranges, level up and clear camo challenges
• MW4 Weapon Leveling: max any gun and unlock every attachment
• MW4 Mastery Camo Unlock: finish the mastery camo grind on your new main
• MW4 Account Leveling: reach the level cap and unlock every perk and killstreak
• All MW4 services

FAQ

Can I buy this loadout instead of farming it? Yes: this loadout costs $32.61 on Timesaver, and a Timesaver pro completes it by hand within 4 hours. How handover works and what happens if something goes wrong: account safety.

What did the MW4 November 13 update change? It cut flinch received by 25.4% on Assault Rifles, 19.3% on LMGs, 17.8% on pistols and 15.6% on SMGs, extended damage ranges on eight ARs and five SMGs, disabled aim assist through smoke in Multiplayer, raised Wager Match trophy drop rates, and fixed Prestige and camo-tab bugs.

Was the M4 buffed in MW4? Yes. On November 13, 2026 its max damage range went from 27.94 m to 35.31 m, a 26% increase. Its damage values, 23 max and 19 min, did not change.

Did anything get nerfed on November 13? Only two things: the Oris 8.6 now takes 9.6% more flinch, and launchers now receive flinch. The Mosin-Nagant's max damage range dropped from 40.13 m to 14.99 m, but a new damage tier means it does equal or more damage at every distance.

Do the November 13 weapon changes apply to Warzone? Not confirmed. The tuning is listed under Multiplayer in the MW4 notes, and Raven's Warzone patch notes had no November 13 entry as of November 14. Warzone did get the aim-assist-through-smoke change on November 12.

What is the difference between flinch received and flinch inflicted? Flinch received is how much your aim kicks when you are shot. Flinch inflicted is how much your gun kicks the enemy's aim when you hit them. For ARs, pistols and LMGs the update cut received flinch much more than inflicted flinch; for SMGs both dropped by about 15.5%.

Is more MW4 weapon tuning coming? Yes. Infinity Ward said it will monitor the changes over the weekend and is "looking forward to additional updates next week," and that DMZ time-to-kill changes are in playtesting.