No More Room in Hell 2 Weapons Tier List: Best Guns & Melee

The best No More Room in Hell 2 weapons in 1.0 are the M7A1 for armored targets, the X12 Super for close-range emergencies, the Fire Axe for raw melee damage and the Sledgehammer for crowd control. Torn Banner says the game has 38 melee and ranged weapons, but has never published the breakdown. This guide ranks the 34 with verifiable 1.0 stats: 15 firearms and 19 melee weapons.

NMRIH2 weapons tier list: all 34 ranked

This is a stats-first, general-purpose tier list, not an official ranking. Firearms are judged on headshot breakpoints, armor penetration, capacity, weight and ammo pressure. Melee weapons are judged on charged damage, headshot and limb breakpoints, stability, reach, stamina cost and weight. A specialized squad can make a lower-tier weapon work; this list answers the broader question, “What should I keep when backpack space is tight?”

Firearm tier list and acquisition methods

“Field loot” means the weapon can be found during a run. Exact map-by-map spawn coordinates are not published for the 1.0 loot system, so this table does not invent fixed locations. The Rochester 1873 is the only non-starter gun whose post-launch Loadout availability is explicitly confirmed by the August 13 announcement.

Melee weapons tier list and acquisition methods

The ranks below match the full No More Room in Hell 2 melee weapons tier list, where every placement is explained against the 1.0.3.0 numbers. “Loadout confirmed” means Torn Banner explicitly named that item in its August 13 post-launch availability or price update.

How many weapons are in NMRIH2?

Two numbers circulate, and both are real.

38 is Torn Banner's figure, from the official Early Access retrospective (August 6, 2026) and the Road to 1.0 video, where it is phrased as melee and ranged combined. The studio has never said which categories sit inside that total.

34 is what has been measured: 15 firearms and 19 melee weapons, each with damage, headshot, stability, penetration and weight values pulled from the game's files by the community.

The gap is four entries and nobody outside Torn Banner can say what fills it. The game does have four explosives (M67 frag grenade, pipe bomb, Molotov and the deployable Proximity IED), and 34 plus 4 happens to land on 38, but that is arithmetic, not a source, so this page doesn't count them. Shorter melee lists elsewhere are omissions rather than removals: the Crowbar is named in an achievement condition, and the Hockey Stick's Loadout price was changed by an official post two days after launch.

Every gun in NMRIH2 and its stats

Read the table against the health values behind it: a Walker has 100 HP, a Shambler 70, a Prime 130. Shotgun damage is per pellet (10 pellets per shell). Penetration is the armour stat: construction and firefighter helmets need 1, riot helmets 2, National Guard helmets and riot shields 3.

Three things fall out of those numbers:

• Headshots are the whole game. The M1911 and Model 13 both do 100 headshot damage, exactly a Walker's health. The MC-15 and Gruber Ranch Rifle (130), plus the M7A1, Hunter 85 and M14 (150), clear a Prime's 130 HP in one head hit. That is our reading of the table, not a claim the source makes.
• No gun knocks anything down. Knockdown needs 100 stability damage and the best firearm manages 80 (Hunter 85).
• Most pistols can't beat a helmet. The M9A3, M1911 and both .22 LR Grubers have 0 penetration. The Model 13, Rochester 1873, MC-15 and Gruber Ranch Rifle (2) get through riot helmets; only the M7A1, Hunter 85 and M14 (3) beat National Guard armour and shields.

Every melee weapon in NMRIH2

Melee has three attacks: quick, strong and charged. Stability damage is the stagger stat: 0–19 flinches, 20–49 interrupts, 50–99 staggers, and 100 knocks the zombie down, where it takes double damage from every source. Reach is in game units, useful only for comparing weapons.

What the table tells you:

• Only two weapons knock a zombie down by themselves: a charged Sledge Hammer swing and a charged Baseball Bat swing, both at 100 stability. Nothing else in melee reaches the threshold, but your kick does, on up to three zombies at once.
• Only one weapon takes a leg off in a single charged hit. Legs have 70 HP and arms 60; the Fire Axe does 100 charged limb damage. Hatchet, Machete, Shovel and Treetrimmer sit at 60, which is an arm but not a leg. The Cleaver (40) and Kitchen Knife (30) do neither.
• Running dry undoes all of it. While stamina-starved you lose 10% damage, 50% limb damage and 50% stability damage, and stamina takes 2 extra seconds to start recovering.

Names drift between guides: Kitchen Knife = Small Knife, Hatchet = Hand Axe, Large Wrench = Giant Wrench, Large Pipe = T-Junction Pipe, Fierra DB12 = Double Barrel or DT11.

Ranking them against each other is a separate job: see the NMRIH2 melee tier list, and distrust any list that doesn't name its game version.

Explosives, throwables and the missing four

The verified sheet also documents three throwables and one deployable explosive. They happen to bring 34 documented guns and melee weapons to 38 items, but Torn Banner described its 38 as “melee and ranged weapons,” so this guide does not use explosives to pretend the official count has been reconciled.

Firefighter zombies are immune to fire, so a Molotov is area denial rather than a universal answer. Explosives also cost 0.50 kg each, the same base weight as a box of heavy ammunition.

What 1.0 changed about weapons

• Your starting kit is now a Model 13 revolver and a Mallet, with the Small Pipe pushed to a higher loot tier.
• Six melee weapons were retuned (Mallet, Machete, Hatchet, Baseball Bat, Shovel, Fire Axe) alongside broad melee attack-speed buffs.
• The Baseball Bat nerf is narrower than it looks. The patch line reads stability 65/75/100 → 20/40/100. The charged value is 100 before and after, so 1.0 cut the bat's damage panel and left its knockdown alone.
• Loot moved. Tier 3 weapons now spawn deeper into maps, and guns spawn with varying leftover ammo depending on difficulty, so check the magazine before you spend a backpack slot.
• Loadout prices changed on August 13 in Torn Banner's launch-week post: Hockey Stick 800 → 400 credits, Long Pipe 1200 → 800, Satchel 450 → 1500, with the Baseball Bat, Tree Trimmer and Rochester 1873 re-enabled. Pulling the strongest items out of the Loadout was deliberate; you're meant to loot them in-run.

How to get weapons in NMRIH2

There is no verified “M7A1 always spawns in this room” list for 1.0, and Raven Rock is missing from the maintained community spawn data. Loot is distributed through the run, with the strongest Tier 3 weapons pushed deeper into Objective maps. That means acquisition is about where you are in the run and whether an item is currently sold in the Loadout, not a permanent weapon unlock page.

Weight is the other filter, and ammo counts toward it: the Fire Axe and Sledge Hammer weigh 3.00 kg apiece, while the Machete and Hatchet hit for 34 charged at barely a third of that. Perks shift things too (Headhunter adds 10-20% melee headshot damage, Hard Blow 15-30% stability on two-handed swings), so see the Nightmare build guide, or the beginner guide if you're new.

NMRIH2 weapons FAQ