Every Weapon Recipe You Can Craft in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners
Want to know more about the craftable weapons in The Walking Dead: saints & Sinners? Well here is your ultimate source for every craftable weapon in the game with some information and pros and cons for each, whether they’re guns, bows, melee weapons, or explosives. Most of these recipes can be acquired by upgrading your workbenches, while some can only be made by finding secret recipes out in the wilds of New Orleans.
Note that this list does not include the Tourist Edition weapons, as they are simply reskins of already existing weapons, though they might be added in the future. This article is also confined to weapons craftable in the first game, newer weapons added in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution are coming soon.
Categories:
Melee Weapons
Shiv
The Shiv is the very first weapon that you can craft from the Gear Workbench in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. It is a very basic knife that falls apart quickly and is not very sharp, so it will have some trouble getting through a walker’s skull. While it may not see much use outside of your first few scavenging runs, it is very cheap to make a lot of them to use as throwing knives, if that’s your sort of thing.
Bayou Slugger
The Bayou Slugger is the first two handed melee weapon that you can craft from the Gear Workbench in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. While it is much better at getting through a walker’s skull than the Shiv, it will use quite a bit of stamina every swing, so be careful using this against a large crowd of walkers. Still, this is a pretty easy melee weapon for beginners to use. It is far easier to land hits with this than with the Fire Axes, Hatchets, or Crowbars that you might have scavenged.
Night Shift
The Night Shift is an improved version of the Shiv. It is more durable and stabs through a walker’s skull more easily. Extraction from the skull is also faster and easier than with the Shiv. While it is not the most durable single handed melee weapon it is the fastest one handed knife and can be awfully satisfying to use in a crowd of walkers. It is also arguably the easiest melee weapon to throw.
Sheet Metal Cleaver
The Sheet Metal Cleaver is a very durable one handed melee weapon that can easily chop a big hole in a walker’s skull. While it may lack the finesse of a smaller blade there is a lot of power in its simplicity and ease of use. Though for the more theatrically inclined you can also use this cleaver to cut through a walker’s neck and decapitate it. Not to mention, decapitating a walker uses less stamina than chopping into its skull.
Grass Clipper
The Grass Clipper is basically a Katana, and it’s awesome. In terms of a two handed melee weapon it is the opposite of the Bayou Slugger. The Grass Clipper is light and does not use much stamina to either chop through a walker’s head or decapitate it, and it is very durable. Rapidly slicing your way through a crowd of walkers in a breeze with the Grass Clipper. Oh, and it’s a Katana during a zombie apocalypse, really what’s not to love?
4th And Pain
4th and Pain is a hidden recipe that is an upgraded version of the Sheet Metal Cleaver. It is a little more durable and cuts a little smoother. Overall a direct upgrade and arguably the best one handed melee weapon. At the very least it will last the longest out of all of them, and cuts the smoothest as well.
Samedi’s Hand
Samedi’s Hand is a hidden recipe and the only claw or fist based weapon in the game. It essentially amounts to a pair of brass knuckles with a couple of sharp blades coming out of it. Samedi’s Hand can be pretty unwieldly until you’re used to it, but offers similar stabbing action to the Shiv or Night Shift, while being a little more inflexible to use. Though it is very durable, and looks really cool.
Esteemed Mortal
The Esteemed Moral is a hidden recipe, and is definitely the largest and most menacing melee weapon in all of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinner’s flooded New Orleans. The buzz saw blades at the head of this thing easily chop through and piece of a walker that you want it to, and this blade will last you quite a while. Though like the Bayou Slugger it is heavy and a little unwieldly, and will take more stamina to swing than a lighter alternative, like the Grass Clipper, would.
Bows
Laminated Bow
The Laminated Bow is your basic bow in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, and is made at the Survival Workbench. Bows are the only quiet ranged weapons in the game, so taking anything out at a distance will require one, or really great skill at throwing melee weapons.
The bow is intuitive to use, if a little hard to aim until you get good at it. Also there are three arrow types, your typical pointed sticks, noise making “lure” arrows which are some firecrackers tied to a pointed stick, and a hidden recipe for explosive arrows, which is a small bomb tied to a pointed stick.
Compound Bow
The Compound Bow is a hidden recipe that is basically an upgraded version of the Laminated Bow with more durability and greater shot power. Overall it is a direct upgrade, and there is no downside over the Laminated Bow except possibly for the look of the weapon making aiming it a little different.
Explosives
Nail Bomb
The Nail Bomb is made at the Gear Workbench like all other explosives, and packs quite a punch. They’re easy to use, just throw it far away, and if it hits the ground hard enough it will explode.
Just be careful not to drop it at your feet, because you will easily kill yourself that way.
Sticky Proximity Mine
The Sticky Proximity Mine is a hidden recipe in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. To use it just throw it at a surface, the ground, a wall, a doorframe, wherever enemies will be. When it contacts a surface the mine will stop moving and stick to it. After a second or two it will arm. Then when an enemy comes close it will beep for a few moments and explode. Overall it is a very easy and effective trap. Just throwing it into a crowd of enemies and then running away is also pretty effective.
Timed Noise Maker Bomb
The Timed Noise Maker Bomb is a hidden recipe and a very effective tool for getting walkers off of your back, or taking out a crowd of walkers. Just dial the egg timer on the back to however many seconds you want it to wait before it explodes, and throw it.
The bomb will then make a ton of noise, attracting all nearby walkers, until the time is up. When it is the bomb explodes. This is a great way to clear an area of walkers, or two get walkers chasing you off of your back. Though the explosion of the bomb might just attract more.
Pistols
.30 Revolver
The .30 Caliber Revolver is the first gun that you can craft at the Guns Workbench, and is the weakest gun in the game. Still, a .30 Caliber bullet can punch through a walker’s skull as good as anything else, though for such a weak round this gun as a lot of recoil, and the revolver shoots very slowly, with a noticeable delay between shots.
All of the guns in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners have a lot of recoil. While you can fight human opponents with this weapon, you would be at a disadvantage to do so. The .30 Revolver is reloaded by opening the chamber with the A/X button (on Oculus/Meta Devices) and bringing bullets from your bullet pouch to it one at a time, then closing the chamber with the A/X button or by closing it with your hand or using the force of moving your wrist quickly to slap it shut. At least this lengthy reloading process means it will never jam.
.45 Revolver
The .45 Revolver and its ammo are hidden recipes which are are basically better versions of the .30 Revolver and ammo. While it has more recoil, the .45 Revolver does significantly more damage than the .30 Revolver does. Though it still has a low rate of fire and must be reloaded in the same way as the .30 Revolver does, and also does not jam.
Overall the .45 Revolver is a direct upgrade over the .30 Revolver, but its ammo is not nearly as common to find, so you’ll have to craft it.
FS92M 9MM Pistol
The FS92M 9mm Pistol is the most powerful pistol in the game. While it does less damage per round than the .45 Revolver, it holds almost three times as many rounds as the .45 (16 in the clip and 1 in the chamber) and has a much faster rate of fire. This, coupled with possibly the lowest recoil of all firearms, makes the FS92M extremely deadly.
Since the FS92M is reloaded via magazine instead of via individual rounds, reloading is faster as well. Just get rid of the old magazine by pressing the A/X button (on Oculus/Meta Devices) and then replace it with a new one. If there is no round in the chamber you’ll have to pull the slide back.
Be careful when this pistol gets to about half durability though, jams will become very common, to the point where this gun becomes hard to use when about 1/4 durability is left. To unjam you’ll have to pull the slide back. This severely slows down how quickly you fire and so takes away the FS92M’s biggest upside. Generally you’ll burn through more ammunition using this firearm, but it quickly outpaces the competition with sheer volume of fire.
Shotguns and Rifles
Double Barrel Shotgun
The Double Barrel Shotgun is the first two handed firearm that you can craft at the Guns Workbench of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. While it may not seem like much, it is very powerful at close ranges and easy to use. It has a huge spread of pellets, and so is best fired at close ranges. Still, it can easily take a walker’s head off if you just aim high. Though even at medium range the huge spread of the pellets can make it hardly effective at all.
After firing it twice, just reload it by pressing the A/X buttons (on Meta/Oculus devices) and taking two new shells from your ammo pouch and placing them into the empty chambers. Press the A/X button or flip the chambers closed yourself, and you’re ready to fire again. This means that the Double Barrel can be very slow to fire with this cumbersome reloading process. Though at least it will never jam.
Bolt Action Rifle
The Bolt Action Rifle is the opposite of the Double Barrel as it fires only a single bullet, and is very accurate and precise. Each bullet is extremely powerful too, capable of killing humans with a single body shot. Wherever you line up the sights, that is where the bullet will land, and whatever that bullet hits won’t forget it.
The big downside of this firearm is its reloading process. As the name implies you need to pull back the bolt after every shot, you don’t get two tries like the double barrel. Pulling the bolt back is a little clunky, and never feels really smooth or intuitive. This is a problem a lot of VR games have with bolt action weapons.
While you can quickly fire again after cycling another round, the precision of the weapon also makes it easy to miss shots in a high stress situation and quickly run through the five bullets in the magazine. To refresh the gun with bullets the magazine also needs to be replaced by pressing the A/X button (on Meta/Oculus devices) to drop the old one before replacing it with a new one.
This is what keeps the Hunting Rifle from being a great gun, how hard it is to cycle and reload. Especially because it is terrible at taking out walkers, since any bullet will do against a skull, all of that power goes to waste.
Nova 1014
The Nova 1014 is the last firearm that you get access to by upgrading the Guns Workbench, and wow is it worth it. This is arguably the most powerful firearm in the game due to its high rate of fire (when you get the hang of it), ease of aiming, and high damage per shot. Since the Nova 1014 is a shotgun its bullets have a spread to them, though a much less significant spread than the double barrel. This means that you won’t need to aim with exact precision, and the cone of pellets does a ton of damage, often killing human enemies in a single shot, and easily taking out a walker’s brain.
You won’t need to worry even if they survive though, the pump action of the gun to chamber another round is very quick and smooth, meaning you can get another shell out of the barrel in just a moment. Reloading individual shells into the chamber does take a while, but with a capacity of 8 shells (the same shells as the Double Barrel uses) you will hardly ever run out of ammo in combat. The one downside is that the Nova can jam, but to clear a jam you just need to work the pump an extra couple of times. Luckily jams generally only happen at very low durability with this gun.
If you want the classic zombie apocalypse shotgun experience, then the Nova 1014 Pump Action Shotgun has got it for you.
Lever Action Rifle
The Lever Action Rifle is a hidden recipe that is a fantastic upgrade to the Bolt Action Rifle. It uses the same ammo type as the Bolt Action and has all of the same strengths. Similar damage per shot and fantastic accuracy. The Lever Action has the upside of also helping one of the Bolt Action’s greatest strengths, its terrible bolt cycling and reloading times.
The Lever Action, as the name would make you think, rechambers new rounds by pulling the lever on its bottom, instead of cycling a bolt. While it can be a little annoying and unwieldly at times, it is far better and faster than the Bolt Action’s bolt, and so lets you fire many more of its powerful rounds far faster.
This makes the Lever Action a clearly superior upgrade. The one downside is each bullet needs to be reloaded individually into the side of the rifle. Though with a huge ammo capacity of 12 rounds this is hardly ever a problem.
AR-416 5.56MM Rifle
The AR-416 Rifle is a hidden recipe assault rifle that is the only automatic weapon in the game. Though if you’d prefer something slower there are burst and semi automatic fire modes as well, that can be selected by putting one hand over the selector switch on the side of the rifle and pressing trigger. This and the huge magazine capacity of 30 rounds (with 1 in the chamber as well) makes the AR-416 the gun capable of sustaining the greatest volume of fire in the game.
That being said it’s not perfect. Each bullet does decent damage, though like the FS92M 9mm its strength is in the amount of bullets being fired. So when your stream of rounds touches a human opponent they’ll melt away. Though the recoil, like all guns in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, is awfully high. This makes landing headshots on walkers a little difficult, and no matter what you’re shooting at you will likely use a lot of ammo.
Loading is done by pressing the A/X button (on Oculus/Meta Devices) to release the old magazine, and then placing a new magazine in the catch. If the chamber is empty you’ll need to pull back the tab at the rear of the firearm (just above the buttstock and above the grip, it will glow) to load a round into the chamber. The AR-416 is also prone to jamming when it is at low durability, and pulling that tab back will also clear a jam.
All in all if you’re a good shot there is no better weapon than the AR-416, though compensating for its recoil can be frustrating. As far as naked damage output goes though, there is nothing better in The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.