Project Zomboid Weapons Guide: All 7 Melee Categories and 3 Firearm Types

 

    Project Zomboid's own Weapon page on pzwiki.net — "revised for the current stable version (42.20.4)" — splits every combat item Knox Country spawns into melee and ranged. Melee breaks down into seven subcategories; Firearms breaks down into three — Handguns, Shotguns, and Rifles — naming 22 individual guns. This guide works from that page's text and its two stat legends, quoted directly where the source's wording is the evidence. One caveat up front: the page's weapon tables render as flat runs of numbers once the text is extracted, with no column headers attached to each row — so no specific damage, range, or condition figure is assigned to any named weapon below, only each category's documented traits and the legends' own definitions.

 

Melee Weapons: Two Types, Seven Subcategories

 

 

    "Weapon items are used to defend the player against zombies and other players or animals," and "a lot of items, including regular household items, can be used as a weapon," found "scattered throughout Knox Country in various containers, vehicles, or corpses." Melee is "much quieter than firearms (but not 100% silent)." The contents list its seven subcategories — axe, long blunt, short blunt, long blade, short blade, spear, and improvised — with "a corresponding skill that makes the player use the given melee type more efficiently" for every category "excluding improvised."

 

    Grip rules apply across all of them. Some one-handed weapons "leave the secondary hand for things like containers or light sources with no drawbacks," but can't be swung two-handed for extra effect. Others want both hands, though some "can be used in a primary hand in a pinch" — at a cost: it "will reduce the damage by 50% and massively increase endurance costs." "Heavy weapons can only be held in two hands," full stop; small ones fit the belt "in slots 2 and 3." The legend also warns against reading Attack speed at face value: "it is important to take the base speed stat with a grain of salt and to try to compare it only within weapons of the same attack type," since "a base speed 1 spear will swing significantly faster than the base speed 1 hammer."

 

What Each of the Seven Melee Categories Does

 

 

    Axes are "typically two-handed weapons that can be used to cut down trees for logs effectively," usually with "very high base damage numbers," pairing well with "the Ax-pert trait from the lumberjack occupation." Long blunts "have wider variety than long blade weapons and are easier to find," and — like Short blunts — "do not damage the clothing of zombies or players on hit." Axes and Long blunts share a "bruiser" bonus: "10% damage increase" at level 3 "and 20% damage increase" at level 7. Short blunts are "one of the most versatile one-handed weapons, being able to critically hit without the jaw stab bonus."

 

    Long blades are "strong weapons, especially valuable end-game," but "deal damage to clothing." Short blades carry a unique instant-kill jaw stab, "indicated by the raised hand of the player when in aim mode," requiring the player "to be stationary and to have good timing." Real caveats apply: striking too early "leads to a regular attack," most short blades "break easily, with common cutlery breaking especially fast," a stuck weapon "need[s] to be recovered from the corpse," and "the jaw stab attack can't be used against players."

 

    Spears are two-handed, share the level-3/level-7 bruiser bonus, and add two insta-kill options: one usable "when zombies are 1.7 tiles or more away from any other zombie," and a sprinting charge attack that "does have a noticeable cooldown animation and is unsafe to do in groups." Improvised weapons close the list with a firm limit: they "do not have a corresponding skill," so "their damage cannot be improved and condition lower chance only takes maintenance skill into effect."

 

Firearms: Handguns, Shotguns, and Rifles

 

 

    Firearms get their own legend. Maximum range here means "range after which critical chance goes down to 0%" — unlike melee's definition. Accuracy is the "base chance of successfully hitting the target, before modifiers." One build-specific note stated directly: "as of build 42.20.4 accuracy only matters in PVP and animals by default, with zombies rolling only the damage modifiers of the shot."

 

    The page names 22 firearms across three subsections. Handguns (7): B-F Pistol, M1911 Pistol, M9 Pistol, Magnum, Patrol Revolver, SN38 Revolver, and Toy Cap Pistol. Shotguns (5): Double Barrel Shotgun, JS-2000 Shotgun, JS-3T Tactical Shotgun, Sawed-off Double Barrel Shotgun, and Sawed-off JS-2000 Shotgun. Rifles (10): JS-14 Rifle, L92 Carbine, L94 Rifle, M16 Assault Rifle, M1A Rifle, MSR700 Rifle, MSR788 Rifle, MSR7T Tactical Rifle, Toy Cap Rifle, and Trapper Carbine. That's 7 + 5 + 10 = 22, matching the figure above. As with melee, per-gun ammunition type, magazine capacity, and damage don't survive the table flatten cleanly enough to attach to any single name, so those specifics are undocumented here.

 

Practical tips, from what the source confirms

• A two-handed weapon swung one-handed "in a pinch" costs 50% of its damage and far more endurance — build around the grip a weapon actually wants.
• Long blunt and short blunt weapons don't damage clothing on hit — useful if you're looting rare outfits off zombies intact.
• Don't compare melee Attack speed across weapon types — the page warns a base-speed-1 spear swings much faster than a base-speed-1 hammer.
• Short blade jaw-stabs can't be used on players, and a stuck blade has to be recovered from the corpse — plan the follow-up, not just the stab.
• As of build 42.20.4, firearm accuracy "only matters in PVP and animals by default" — zombies roll only the damage modifiers of a shot.

 

Running your own Project Zomboid server

 

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Conclusion

 

    pzwiki.net's Weapon page confirms a clean split: melee organized into seven subcategories — axe, long blunt, short blunt, long blade, short blade, spear, and improvised — each with documented traits and a shared stat legend, and Firearms organized into three subsections — Handguns, Shotguns, and Rifles — naming 22 guns between them (7 + 5 + 10). The flattened tables don't support attaching a specific damage, range, or condition number to any single named weapon, melee or firearm, so this guide reports category-level facts and the legends' own definitions instead of guessing at a mismatched column. Use the traits above to pick a fighting style, then check the in-game tooltip for exact numbers this capture couldn't reliably map.