WARDOGS Ammo Guide and Chart

Ammo is the quiet half of the WARDOGS cash economy. A weapon is bought once per life; the ammunition is what you keep paying for, every reload, every death, every rebuy. And because the round you feed a rifle can cost more than the rifle itself, the ammo chart is not a footnote to the weapons list — it is where loadout budgets are actually won and lost.

How Ammo Works in WARDOGS: Bought by Caliber, Every Life

The official FAQ describes WARDOGS as a game built around “projectile ballistics and ammo types” plus “weight system and inventory management” — ammunition is a first-class system, not a checkbox. The rules the beta established:

Rule	How it works
When you buy	At the HQ vendor, as part of the per-life loadout purchase
What you buy	Rounds by caliber — any weapon chambering that caliber can fire them
Load choice	Standard (FMJ), flesh damage (HP), or armor piercing (AP), chosen at the vendor
Magazines	Separate purchase from ammo; you need the correct magazine and the correct caliber
On death	Ammo is gear like everything else — bought again next life
Visibility	The kill feed names your ammo per shot, including caliber and exact damage

Buying by caliber is the detail that changes everything. It means ammunition is a shared resource across your arsenal — a sidearm and a submachine gun on the same round draw from the same box — and it means the running cost of a gun is set by the box it feeds on, not the price printed on the gun.

The vendor itself splits ammunition across six tabs: STANDARD (FMJ), FLESH DAMAGE (HP), ARMOR PIERCING (AP), CARTRIDGE, ROCKETS, and MISC. The last three were empty in every build the community recorded, but ROCKETS is the tantalizing one — helicopters, tanks, and artillery are all purchasable, and something has to arm the weapons that answer them.

The Three Ammo Loads: FMJ, Hollow Point, and Armor Piercing

Every rifle caliber comes in three loads. The game describes them on the item cards, in its own words:

Load	Card text	Pricing pattern (community-recorded)
Standard (FMJ)	“Standard ammunition. Deals even damage to all target types.”	Baseline price per caliber
Flesh Damage (HP)	“Increased damage against flesh. Decreased damage against armored targets.”	2 to 4.5 times standard — the expensive one
Armor Piercing (AP)	Card never surfaced in recordings; built for armored targets	Rarely more than 1.75 times standard

The critical honesty note: none of the loads carries a published number. How much more hollow point takes off an unarmored player, and how much armor piercing recovers through a plate, has never been printed by the studio. The loads are a real purchase decision with real prices — and no published math behind them. Treat any damage claim beyond the card text as community impression, not data.

Shotgun shells split differently: 12 Gauge comes as buckshot or rifled slug, a choice about projectile count rather than terminal effect, and neither has carried a recorded price.

The Full WARDOGS Ammo Chart: All 14 Calibers

Community recordings catalog 14 calibers. Ten have box prices attached; the rest have never been seen priced. Weapon mappings are confirmed where noted, inferred from class elsewhere.

Caliber	Chambered by	Box price	Loads seen	Notes
5.45×39mm	AK74	Not yet priced	FMJ	Confirmed via the kill feed naming the AK74’s round
5.56mm	Rifles (roster TBA)	Not yet priced	FMJ, HP, AP	AP performance debated by beta players
7.62×39mm	Rifles (roster TBA)	Not yet priced	FMJ	Recorded as a distinct caliber from NATO 7.62
7.62mm	Rifles and DMRs (TBA)	Not yet priced	FMJ, HP, AP	The NATO-length full-power round
7.62×54mmR	Marksman weapons (TBA)	Not yet priced	HP at $18/round	The only caliber with a recorded HP price and no FMJ price
9mm	SMGs and sidearms (PP-19 shown)	Not yet priced	FMJ, AP	PP-19’s 30-round magazine used as the community’s sizing example
.45 ACP	Sidearms (TBA)	Not yet priced	FMJ, HP, AP	Full three-load spread documented
.45 Colt	Revolvers (expected)	Not yet priced	—	Recorded, never priced
.308 Winchester	Sniper/marksman (TBA)	Not yet priced	FMJ, HP, AP	HP runs 4.5× standard — the steepest premium tracked
.338 Norma Magnum	Nothing yet	Not yet priced	Three loads exist	37 weapons confirmed for EA vs 33 in the alpha — a long-range rifle is expected
.50 AE	Desert Eagle ($900)	$20/box	FMJ $4/round, HP 4.5×, AP 1.8×	The best-documented caliber; two clean unarmored hits down a 100-health target
.50 Cal	AMR 50 (mapping inferred)	Not yet priced	FMJ, HP, AP	The only inverted caliber: standard dearest, AP cheapest
12 Gauge	Shotguns (TBA)	Not yet priced	Buckshot, slug	Splits two ways, not three
40MM	MGL-40 grenade launcher	Not yet priced	Standard	Documented as “highly effective at destroying flesh and unarmored targets”

Two footnotes on reading this table. Per-round prices are derived, not printed — the community computes them as the difference between a loaded and empty magazine, divided by capacity, which is why boxes consistently work out to exactly 5 or 10 rounds. And the .50 Cal row’s weapon mapping is our inference from the AMR 50’s name and anti-materiel role, not a dev statement.

WARDOGS Ammo Prices: The Ladder Runs Backwards

Here is the counterintuitive part, and it is consistent across every priced caliber: hollow point is the expensive load, not armor piercing.

• HP runs 2 to 4.5 times standard, steepest on .50 AE and .308 Winchester.
• AP sits in the middle, rarely more than 1.75 times standard.
• .50 Cal inverts entirely — the only caliber where standard is the dearest box on the shelf and AP the cheapest.
• Tracers are free. Every load has a tracer variant at the same price. The single recorded exception is 7.62×54mmR hollow point, where the tracer costs $28 against $18 — one oddity against dozens of data points that agree.

The spread across the whole catalog is 25× — $10 to $250 a box — which is wider than the price gap between most rifles firing those rounds. One community-recorded data point makes the running cost concrete: a 30-round AK magazine loaded with armor piercing was priced at $155, meaning the ammunition in the magazine cost roughly a tenth of the weapon itself.

Ammo vs Armor: What Armor Piercing Actually Does

Armor in WARDOGS is real money — L3 armor at $2,000 is pricier than every confirmed gun except the AMR 50. Ammo is the intended counter, and the card text is all anyone outside the studio knows:

• FMJ deals even damage to all target types — the neutral round.
• HP trades armor performance for raw damage against flesh — the farmer-killer.
• AP is built for armored targets — how much it actually recovers through a plate is unpublished.

Beta players have two consistent complaints worth knowing before launch. First, several report AP unlocking late in progression, which leaves mid-level players with hollow point as their best option against armored opponents — a round the game itself says is weakened by armor. Second, players testing 5.56 AP against armored heads still needed multiple hits to secure kills. Both claims are forum reports, not measurements, but they point the same direction: expect the armor-versus-ammo balance to be one of the most-patched relationships in Early Access.

What Ammo Costs Your Wallet Every Life

Because gear drops on death and cash persists between matches, ammunition is a recurring expense in a game where every life is a purchase order. The budget math:

1. Match the caliber to your bankroll. A cheap rifle on an expensive caliber is a trap for new wallets; check the chart before you buy the gun.
2. Budget ammo as a percentage of the weapon. Until EA-day prices land, plan an extra 10 to 20 percent of the weapon’s price for a basic load — more if you are buying specialty rounds.
3. AP is cheap, HP is not. The backwards ladder means upgrading to armor piercing barely moves the bill, while hollow point can multiply your ammo line by four.
4. Count deaths, not kills. At roughly $6,000 to $9,000 for an equipped kill (community-measured), most loads pay for themselves on one conversion — but you rebuy ammo on every death, not every kill.

The doubling mechanics in the Hot Zone change the risk side of this math, and the full income map is in our money guide.

Magazines, Loose Rounds, and Backpack Space

Ammo interacts with two more systems the FAQ confirms: inventory management and weight.

Your backpack is a square-slot grid, and magazines occupy real space — a 30-round PP-19 magazine is 2×1, so an 8×2 pack fits exactly four. The community-standard workaround: carry two loaded magazines plus a stack of loose rounds instead of four magazines. Loose rounds pack denser, and you can top magazines up between fights.

Magazine handling works the way extraction-shooter players expect: drag loose ammo of the correct caliber onto the correct magazine to load it, and extract rounds back out of a magazine when you want the space. The practical consequence for looting — a magazine you scavenge is also an ammo box you can empty into your own caliber.

Loadout Planning: Match the Ammo to the Job

The load is a bet on what you will shoot this life:

If you expect…	Buy…	Why
Unarmored scavengers and fresh spawns	FMJ or HP	Even damage, or premium damage the card promises against flesh
Geared players on objectives	AP	The anti-armor answer, at a surprisingly small premium
Vehicles and FOB structures	Anti-armor weapons, not ammo	No rifle load replaces the AMR 50 or launchers
Long lives, deep rotations	Loose rounds over extra magazines	More shots per backpack slot

Pair this chart with the full weapon price table, the best loadout builds, and the best gun rankings — then re-check every price here on September 10, when Early Access opens and the beta numbers finally face the live vendor.