Gun Glossary — Borderlands 2 Game of the Year eGuide

With few exceptions for uniquely titled weapons, each gun’s name is comprised of a prefix and a title: “Operational Strike,” “Auditing Competition,” “Ee’nastick Callipeen,” and so on. The first part is the prefix, the second part is the title. These names can tell you a lot about the guns they describe, if you know what the terms mean. This can help you determine how one gun’s performance differs from others of similar construction. It also alerts you to special traits guns can have that aren’t necessarily spelled out on the stat card.

Anatomy of a Firearm

As mentioned earlier, several components comprise each gun:

Body

The body of the gun, to which all other parts attach. The body contains the receiver and magazine, so it will determine what kind of reload the weapon will have. Is it breech loaded like the classically-built Jakobs? Loaded with a standard box mag? Drum loaded? Disc loaded? Just tossed aside Tediore-style? The manufacturer of the body is also ultimately the manufacturer of the entire gun, no matter where other parts of it got outsourced from. This governs some of the most important characteristics no matter what else is on the gun, since the differences between manufacturers are fundamental. The overall performance of any gun will always be in accordance with its manufacturer’s mission statement.

Barrel

The guiding cylinder through which a fired round first travels en route to its target. The barrel determines a lot about the ballistics of the fired round. How fast the round travels, how accurately it flies, how much impact force it’ll have, even the type of round fired in the first place, are all primarily influenced by the barrel. Of course, the barrel determines much of the gun’s overall performance.

Grip

The part the user holds to operate the weapon. Though a gun’s grip doesn’t have a direct effect on its payload’s performance, a good grip can mean all the difference in terms of fire rate, recoil reduction, reload speed, and just general gun handling. While the grip normally won’t affect the capabilities of a gun as other parts, its subtle contributions are seldom overlooked by experienced marksmen.

Sight

The part used to actually aim the weapon at what the user is trying to kill. Though many guns on Pandora have special scopes or sights attached to them, it’s common to find weapons that still use the trusty “iron sights” pegs to help users hit their mark. Usually, guns of Green rarity or higher will come with an aftermarket sight fixture. Whites usually aren’t that fancy. Regardless, aiming down any sight will greatly increase the user’s accuracy when firing. That’s why it’s called “aiming.”

Stock

The gun’s stock does a lot to help the stability of the weapon (the sway while you attempt to move around and aim), its accuracy (how true rounds fly from the barrel to the center of the targeting reticle), and how much recoil it has (how severe the jogging of the weapon is after discharge). Certain weapons, like pistols and some shotguns, don’t possess stocks. You can pretty much expect these weapons to either have crap accuracy, or kick like a mule.

Element

Maliwan specializes in elemental tech weapons, including a capacitor in every gun to produce an elemental effect. Due to their popularity, other manufacturers have licensed Maliwan’s tech to put into their guns as well, and one can find elemental tech variant of many weapons. The two exceptions are Jakobs and Torgue. Jakobs considers all this elemental tech to be too newfangled and different, and the only “elemental effect” Torgue wants out of their guns is EXPLOOOOODIIIIING!!

It is usually fairly easy to spot whether or not a weapon has been outfitted with elemental tech: its capacitors glow with a bright light depending on which element imbued inside; orange for flames, blue for electricity, green for corroding acid, and purple for Eridium-tainted Slag. Manufacturers might also decide to name the weapon “burning” or “shock” in order to hammer the point home.

Accessory

As with elemental capacitors and special sights, weapons of Green quality or higher might come affixed with an accessory or special modification. These mods enhance the weapon with a serious performance boost in one particular area. These boots are usually so significant that manufacturers will append a special prefix to the model of the weapon to signify its special-ness. There are all kinds of accessories: attachments, clamps, and clips that ensure bullets fly more accurately (or less accurately but with a higher rate of fire); laser sights, foregrips, and barrel mods to improve stability and accuracy; bayonets and blades to boost melee damage; receiver mods that cause more than one bullet to be discharged per trigger squeeze; and so on.

Accessory Prefixes

If a gun is equipped with an accessory or post-construction modification, the prefix will reflect it, and clue you in to the nature of the bonus.

Pistols

Accessory Effect	BANDIT Prefix	DAHL Prefix	HYPERION Prefix	JAKOBS Prefix	TEDIORE Prefix	MALIWAN Prefix	TORGUE Prefix	VLADOF Prefix
Melee damage +	Baynaneted	Close Quarters	Action	Bowie	Evisceration	Perma-Sharp	Thrusting	Patriot’s
Accuracy +	misles	Floated	Earnest	Straight Shootin’	Punctilious	Dependable	Explicit	Righteous
One trigger squeeze fires two shots	Dubble	Twin	Redundant	Two Fer	Binary	Two for One	Double Penetrating	Dva
Stability +	Marxmans	Tactical	Core	Gunstock	Elegant	Clean	Stiff	Resolute
Magazine size +	Extendified	Loaded	Maximized	Loaded	Surfeit	Jam Packed	Crammed	Unending
Damage +	murduerer’s	Neutralizing	Win-Win	Dastardly	Potent	Super	Hard	Purging
Fire rate +	Rapider	React	Dynamic	Trick Shot	Expeditious	Peppy	Intense	Vengeful

Assault Rifles

ACCESSORY EFFECT	BANDIT Prefix	DAHL Prefix	JAKOBS Prefix	TORGUE Prefix	VLADOF Prefix
Damage +	Nassty	Attack	Boss	Nasty	Ferocious
Fire rate +, accuracy -	Wyld Asss	Feral	Wild	Wild	Rabid
Melee damage +	Nifed	Breach	Razor	Stabbing	Skewering
Bullet speed +	Fast Bulets	Deep	Cowboy	Slippery	Swift
Stability +	Taktikal	Patrol	Horse	Rhythmic	Resolute
Magazine size +	Expandifide	Onslaught	Flush	Plump	Exspansive
Accuracy +	Akurate	Scout	Deadshot	Rigorous	Severe

SMGs

Accessory effect	BANDIT Prefix	DAHL Prefix	HYPERION Prefix	MALIWAN Prefix	TEDIORE Prefix
Melee damage +	Cuting	Bladed	Cutting Edge	Acuminous	Perma-Sharp
Accuracy +	Akurate	Deft	Analytical	Guileless	Guaranteed
Damage +	Murduring	Stopping	Rightsizing	Consummate	Hefty
Bullet speed +	Bulets Go Fasterifed	Flying	Proactive	Impetuous	Brisk
Stability +	Ballanced	Stoic	Corporate	Lucid	Quality
Reload speed +	Agresive	Skirmish	Social	Apt	Refill

Rocket Launchers

Accessory effect	BANDIT Prefix	MALIWAN Prefix	TEDIORE Prefix	TORGUE Prefix	VLADOF Prefix
Magazine size +	Roket Pawket	Plenteous	Bonus	Deep a	Worker’s
Accuracy +	Snyper	Pertinent	Ultraprecise	gaa dunk ga	Victorious
Melee damage +	gratuitius	Proximate	Multi-Use	pokee doke	Revolt
Reload speed +	fast actons	Prudential	Stocking	dippity	Ruthless
Weapon swap speed +	Quik Drawler	Parataxis	Swapper’s	fwap a	Moscovite’s
Rocket speed +	Speeedee	Punitory	Rocket Speed	fidle dee	Paritisan
Fire rate +	Rappid	Predacious	Bustling	dum pa	Turbulent
Damage +	Big	Puissant	Large	derp	Rugged

Sniper Rifles

Accessory effect	DAHL Prefix	HYPERION Prefix	JAKOBS Prefix	MALIWAN Prefix	VLADOF Prefix
Melee damage +	Cartel	Contingent	Tl’kope	Sublime	Britva
Accuracy +	Surgical	Longitudinal	Siah-siah	Dandy	Zammechat
Critical damage +	Night	Venture	Tumtum	Gentleman’s	Razrez
Stability +	Liquid	Cohesion	Chikamin	Fashionable	Dobby
Magazine size +	Operational	Resource	Hyiu	Monstrous	Bolshy
Fire rate +	Suppressive	Operational	Klook	Banbury	Skorry
Damage +	Pacifying	Auditing	Skookum	Barking	Gromky

Shotguns

Accessory effect	BANDIT Prefix	HYPERION Prefix	JAKOBS Prefix	TEDIORE Prefix	TORGUE Prefix
Melee damage +	Slising	Restructuring	Barbed	Swiss	Bad Touch
Magazine size +	Drumed	Scalable	Sidewinder	Extra Large	Desperate
Projectile count +	Redy Stedy	Social	Well Kept	New and Improved	Sinewy
Bullet speed +	Sketer	Potential	Huntin’	Original	Potent
Critical damage +	Critikal Hit	Critical	Doc’s	Royal	Juicy
Reload speed +	Quik Loadeder	Reactive	Texas	Basic	Impetuous
Stability +	Assssult	Practicable	Rustler’s	Gentle	Casual