The M4 is a weapon returning in Warzone and Modern Warfare 3.
Available to all players thanks to a new feature 🫰 dubbed Carry Forward, you'll be able to acquire, use, and level the M4 in both Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 🫰 if you've acquired it previously in the last game.
It's also available to unlock for anyone who's entirely new to MW3 🫰 or Warzone.
In this guide, we'll be going through how to unlock the M4 in Warzone and Modern Warfare 3, what 🫰 the best loadout and attachments are that you'll want to equip, as well as the best class build you can 🫰 use to complement the use of the weapon.
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Warzone 🫰 and MW3 M4 best loadout and attachments
For the M4, we're picking attachments that provide it with extra damage range, stability, 🫰 and essentially a general collection of add-ons that boost its effectiveness.
Below we've listed the five best attachments for use with 🫰 the M4 in Warzone and Modern Warfare 3, and after we'll dive into what makes each of them worth picking:
Optic: 🫰 Slimline Pro or Hybrid Firepoint
Slimline Pro or Hybrid Firepoint Stock: Corio Precio Factory
Corio Precio Factory Rear Grip: Phantom Grip
Phantom Grip 🫰 Muzzle: FTac Castle Comp
FTac Castle Comp Barrel: Hightower 20" Barrel
The Slimline Pro is a good – albeit basic – call 🫰 that'll increase the weapon's precision with a clean and easy-to-use red dot sight. There's also the Cronen Mini Dot and 🫰 Cronen Mini Pro which are the same optic sights functionally, just in different colours of green and blue respectively.
An alternate 🫰 option we could also recommend here is the Hybrid Firepoint, an optic that has the ability to toggle between a 🫰 standard, top-mounted reflex sight – much like the Cronen Mini Red Dot – and a 4.3x magnification-scope that will help 🫰 for the more of the longer sightlines you'll find in MW3's larger maps such as Wasteland and Terminal.
The Hybrid Firepoint 🫰 optic we suggested as an alternative for its two magnification levels that can be seamlessly swapped back and forth between 🫰 whilst aiming.
For the M4's stock, we're going with the Corio Precio Factory, granting additional stability and recoil control, making it 🫰 easier to hit enemies from further away.
With the Phantom Grip, you'll get a boost to your Aim Down Sight (ADS) 🫰 speed and Sprint to Fire Speed. On the other hand, the Forge-Tac Castle Comp for the Muzzle attachment helps with 🫰 recoil control and will assist in keeping the weapon steady.
As an alternative, you could always take a suppressor – such 🫰 as the HMRES Mod Suppressor – so you'll be able to take a stealthier approach whereby your shots don't reveal 🫰 your location to other players on the minimap.
As for the barrel, the Hightower 20" Barrel is a good shout, giving 🫰 some high fairly significant boosts to the gun's effective damage range and bullet velocity, whilst improving its overall recoil by 🫰 just under 10%. There are some hits to mobility and ADS speed, but if it's too much of a decrease 🫰 for you, other attachments and perks should be able to offset some of that.
The Gunsmith view of the M4 with 🫰 our recommended attachments.
Generally, how you build your weapons is entirely up to you, and if there's another attachment you think 🫰 would be good to try, there's no harm in doing so. You can even throw it on and quickly test 🫰 the gun out at the firing range from any point inside of the loadout, gunsmith, or weapon selection screens.
As a 🫰 final note, it's worth mentioning that if you're an owner of the Vault Edition of Modern Warfare 2, you'll have 🫰 access to a large selection of the M4's attachments, including many of the ones mentioned above, right away without the 🫰 need to level any weapon or complete any unlock challenges.
Warzone and MW3 M4 best class build, vest, perks, gear, and 🫰 equipment
Since the M4 is a pretty versatile weapon, we're thinking about it being used in a run-and-gun playstyle, albeit with 🫰 a solid close-range backup option, with the M4 dominating more of the medium-range sightlines.
With the M4 being usable in both 🫰 Warzone and MW3, each with their own loadout elements, we'll be looking at how to achieve similar build playstyles in 🫰 each.
Starting with Warzone, let's take a high-level view of the components that make up our perk and equipment recommendation for 🫰 the M4.
Best Warzone M4 Loadout
Perk 1: Scavenger
Scavenger Perk 2: Double Time
Double Time Perk 3: Stalker
Stalker Perk 4: Resolute
Resolute Secondary: Expedite 🫰 12
Expedite 12 Tactical: Flash Grenade
Flash Grenade Lethal: Frag Grenade or C4
The aim for the perk set here is to provide 🫰 extra mobility and snappiness, elements that'll complement the M4's higher rate of fire, whilst staying stocked up on various key 🫰 resources.
The latter of the two will be achieved by equipping Scavenger, a perk that'll allow you to restock ammo, armour 🫰 and cash from defeated enemies.
Left: The perk selection we're recommending for use with the M4 loadout in Warzone. | Right: 🫰 The full recommended Warzone loadout for the M4.
As for the mobility boosts, that comes in three forms: Double Time will 🫰 increase the duration of Tac Sprint and reduce its cooldown time, whilst Stalker will buff your strafe and ADS movement 🫰 speed, and Resolute will grant a further movement speed boost upon taking gunfire damage.
When it comes to translating this build 🫰 over to MW3, there's a slightly different set of perks and loadout options to consider, but we'll still be taking 🫰 a effective-enough approach that'll achieve similar goals via different means - let's take a high-level look at it.
Best Modern Warfare 🫰 3 M4 Loadout
Vest: Overkill Vest
Overkill Vest Perk 1 – Gloves: Scavenger Gloves
Scavenger Gloves Perk 2 – Boots: Lightweight Boots
Lightweight Boots 🫰 Perk 3 – Gear: Mag Holster
Mag Holster Secondary: Expedite 12
Expedite 12 Tactical: Flash Grenade
Flash Grenade Lethal: Frag Grenade or C4
Frag 🫰 Grenade or C4 Field Upgrade: N/A
Whilst you could pick the Infantry Vest if you want a more simplistic and standard-style 🫰 COD class with all the usual options you'd expect, we're opting for the Overkil Vest, allowing us to take an 🫰 extra primary weapon whilst retaining the full suite of perks, with additional weapon handling and reload buffs, at the cost 🫰 of not taking a Field Upgrade option.
The full class build we're recommending for use with the M4 assault rifle in 🫰 Modern Warfare 3.
Specifically, the Overkill Vest grants the ability to reload whilst sprinting and increases weapon swap speed, essentially granting 🫰 the direct effects of both the Commando and Quick-Grip Gloves. The effects don't stack with the perks unfortunately though, so 🫰 if you don't pick another, you'll gain the effects of Marksman Gloves which isn't a terribly bad pick, but not 🫰 what we're going for in the first perk slot.
We're picking an option that'll help us stay stocked up on ammo 🫰 - with the Scavenger Gloves, any enemy you eliminate will drop a pack that once collected, will give a handy 🫰 injection of ammunition to both weapons, keeping you stocked up as you play.
In the second perk slot, we're taking the 🫰 Lightweight Boots which will give you an increased base movement and swim speed, whilst our third perk, Mag Holster, will 🫰 increase reload speed.
Together with the Vest and perk selection, you'll be stay stocked up on ammo both in reserves and 🫰 in your current mag, with the ability to reload quicker and whilst sprinting alongside quicker weapon swap speed which is 🫰 perfect for the primary weapon we're taking in the secondary slot.
The Expedite 12 is a shotgun that's also from Modern 🫰 Warfare 2, but it's one of the highest damage shotguns in the game, and with the Expedite L-Bolt attachment equipped, 🫰 it gains a much faster fire rate on top of its already impressive stopping power.
Left: A potential custom attachment build 🫰 you could use with the Expedite 12 shotgun. | Right: The Expedite L-Bolt attachment that, when equipped, will grant a 🫰 much faster fire rate that'll let you spray and pray faster all whislt retaining high stopping power.
When it comes to 🫰 lethal and tactical equipment, you can pretty much take whatever you feel comfortable, or what complements the gun being used.
We'd 🫰 recommend the standard Frag and Flash Grenade combo is a solid choice as always, but you could instead opt for 🫰 C4 if you want to try out some more tactical placement of explosives that might be handy in some of 🫰 the more objective-based modes on offer.
As mentioned with the general build of the gun, your preference is always worth keeping 🫰 in mind when considering what to use, but this loadout should give you an idea for one of the ways 🫰 in which you could build a playstyle around the M4.
How to unlock the M4 in Warzone and Modern Warfare 3
The 🫰 M4 is one of the weapons returning in Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 from MW2.
Thanks to Carry Forward, if you 🫰 unlocked this gun in Modern Warfare 2 - unlocked by reaching player level 4 - you'll be able to equip 🫰 it in any of your custom loadouts right from the getgo, as soon as you reach level 4 again, this 🫰 time in MW3.
If you didn't play MW2, you can still unlock this gun in MW3, but it will take a 🫰 fairly significant amount of time to do so - at least by comparison.
To unlock the M4 here in Warzone and 🫰 Modern Warfare 3, you'll need to reach player level 55 and complete the associated challenge that will then become available 🫰 - you'll be able to see this in the weapon selection menu within the loadout screen.
An example of the kind 🫰 of unlock requirement that will show before you've reached level 55. If you haven't yet unlocked the M4 or haven't 🫰 yet reached level 55, this is what the gun will show as its unlock requirement.
Once you've got the gun unlocked, 🫰 you'll be able to equip, level, and customise it to your liking with any of your compatible attachments.
If you're on 🫰 the hunt for more guides on Warzone and Modern Warfare 3, be sure to check out some of our other 🫰 guides on offer, such as posts about the best loadouts of other returning MW2 weapons such as the Kastov 762 🫰 and TAQ 56, or guides on newer guns such as the Holger 556. Additionally, if you're on the hunt to 🫰 see what's trending in the current meta, have a read of our best guns guide.
