There are nearly sixty unique guns in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, and most of them sit there waiting for you to walk over. Those are not the problem. The problem is the fifteen that vanish forever if you pick the wrong line in a conversation.
- What you can lose forever
- The artifact that works as a key
- Journalist's stashes and two codes
- The full list by class
- Assault rifles, 22 of them
- Sniper rifles and DMRs, 13 of them
- Shotguns, 8 of them
- SMGs, pistols and machine guns, 16 of them
- The Gauss gun: where to get it, even though it isn't on the unique list
- Which of these are actually worth collecting
Looking for Stranger's Rifle? It is a unique Dnipro, the 5.45 bullpup assault rifle, and you get it in the Territorial War mission, but only from Duty or Zulu. Hand that mission to Freedom and you get Freedom's Bounty, a unique Kharod, instead: it is one or the other in a playthrough. The other forks like this one are in the first section below.
So we start with what you can lose, not with the list. The full roster by class is below and it is not going anywhere.
What you can lose forever
These are the guns tied to a choice: who you backed, who you spared, and which faction you finished the game with. There is no second pass on one save.
- Clapper or Warszawa, never both. The Destructive Power of the Mind. Side with Mavka and you get the Clapper, a shotgun on the M860 Cracker platform. Side with Zulu and you get Warszawa, an assault rifle on the ARev platform. The cleanest fork in the game: one keypress, two mutually exclusive guns.
- Freedom's Bounty or Stranger's Rifle. The Territorial War mission. Freedom hands over Freedom's Bounty, a Kharod variant. Duty and Zulu hand over Stranger's Rifle, a Dnipro variant. Again, one of the two.
- Mriya. A customised GP3A that Zulu gives you after the Duty ending. End the game any other way and it does not exist for you.
- Guardian. A Saiga D-12 shotgun. Mavka hands it over before the fight with Zulu on the Freedom path.
- Shah's Mate. The No Honor Among Thieves mission. The SMG sits in Shah's stash northwest of Slag Heap, and the stash only opens if you spare Docent.
- Labyrinth IV. A pistol in Dr. Kaymanov's basement at Mirage, Red Forest. You can only take it if you spared the doctor himself in The Last Wish.
- Beast and Encourage. A machine gun and a pistol, both dropped by Col. Korshunov during Down Below, and only if you are not on the Ward path.
- Sotnyk. Same Down Below, but the Strelok path: the rifle is on a table at Energetyk Palace after Korshunov goes down.
- Combatant. An assault rifle for showing the unusual PDA to Col. Korshunov. The condition is strict: the Ward sensors must not have been handed to Zotov beforehand.
- EM-1. A sniper rifle dropped by Scar in Leave No One Unsatisfied, if you are not on the Spark path.
- Drowned. An assault rifle you keep only if you hold on to the weapon during Boo's episode on the southern bridge at Slag Heap instead of handing it over.
- Special. The Mill in Cordon, northeast of the rookie village. This fork is gentler: the gun drops whether you kill Stets Leech or heal him, but you cannot walk past the episode.
One practical conclusion. Make a manual save before The Destructive Power of the Mind, before Down Below and before Territorial War. Those are the three places where the game quietly takes away a gun you did not know existed.
The artifact that works as a key
A case of its own, and the only one in the game. Luftgarde, a unique GP3A, sits in a room inside an Iron Forest tunnel, and the doorway is blocked by an anomaly. The only way through is with the Water Drop artifact equipped in a slot.
Water Drop itself arrived with the Cost of Hope expansion. Weight 3, endurance 3, radiation 3, and the inventory values it at 42,000 coupons. Two ways to get it: on the Freedom line it comes during the Dangerous Way mission if you side with Mavka, and on the Duty line you go to the DPP-2 building west of the Water Treatment Plant and drive it through four rooms with gunfire until it ends up on the second floor. Burers live nearby.
Nowhere else in the game does an artifact act as a pass. If you are collecting unique guns, plan this pair in advance: artifact first, weapon second.
All eighty-odd artifacts, their effects in numbers and their prices are covered separately in the artifact guide.
Journalist's stashes and two codes
Eleven unique guns sit in Journalist's stashes. This is the most underrated category: they are not going anywhere, they do not depend on any choice, and all they ask is that you walk there.
- Code 2021 opens the door of the thirteenth stash in Prypiat, and there are two unique guns inside it: the Hunter sniper rifle and the Margach D-12MT shotgun.
- Code 3456 opens the safe in Iron Forest near the Swyd-West Checkpoint, with an AKM-9B in 9x39 inside.
- The rest need no codes: AR416 Monolith in the Sphere, Lullaby at the Chemical Plant in Army Warehouses, M860 Monolith in a ruined minivan west of the Detention Center in Garbage, Model Competitor in a train car east of Yaniv Station Base, PTM Monolith in the rafters at Zalissya, Riemann northwest of Rostok Base among gravity anomalies, SA-U Gabion at the Arms Depot in Duga, Veteran in the rafters at Horodyshche Hamlet in the Swamps, Viper Monolith east of the Northern Checkpoint in the Lesser Zone.
The full list by class
Everything else follows. An asterisk marks the ones tied to a choice, covered above.
Assault rifles, 22 of them
| Weapon | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| AKM-9B | Iron Forest, safe near Swyd-West Checkpoint, code 3456 |
| AR416 Monolith | Journalist's Stash in the Sphere, Lesser Zone |
| Clusterfuck | Three Captains mission, northernmost crane at the Port Cranes, Zaton |
| Combatant * | Show the unusual PDA to Korshunov, Ward sensors not given to Zotov |
| Decider | Uninvited Guests mission, Concrete Forest and Cement Factory |
| Drowned * | Keep the weapon during Boo's episode, southern bridge at Slag Heap |
| Freedom's Bounty * | Territorial War for Freedom |
| GP37V2 | Dropped by Skull at the end of White Noise |
| Grom S-15 | Crater north of the Burning Fire Depot, Cooling Towers, underwater |
| Jagerblick | Residential building in Pripyat, cabinet above the doorway |
| Leichtfuchs | Dropped by Myklukha after the Arena fight in Rostok, Status Quo |
| Lullaby | Journalist's Stash, Chemical Plant in Army Warehouses, second floor |
| SA-U Gabion | Journalist's Stash, Arms Depot, Duga |
| SOFMOD | Crate in the southeast building, Railway Maintenance Facility, Zaton |
| Sotnyk * | Down Below on the Strelok path, table at Energetyk Palace |
| Special * | The Mill in Cordon, kill or heal Stets Leech |
| Spitfire | In Search of Past Glory, X5 Lab, up the yellow ladder |
| Stranger's Rifle * | Territorial War for Duty and Zulu |
| Trophy | Chemical Plant silos, grenade into the open silo, safe in the white-smoke one |
| Unknown Stalker's AR416 | Trade the Orthodox Icon to Pomor, The Poppy Field |
| Valik Lummox's AKM-74S | Water Tower, Lesser Zone northwest of Zalissya |
| Warszawa * | The Destructive Power of the Mind, Zulu's side |
Sniper rifles and DMRs, 13 of them
| Weapon | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| Cavalier | Happiness for Everyone, building southwest of the Military Unit, Duga |
| EM-1 * | Dropped by Scar, Leave No One Unsatisfied, not on the Spark path |
| Honta's Drahunka | A School of Life side mission, Hunter's Hut, Zaton |
| Hunter | Thirteenth Journalist's Stash in Prypiat, code 2021 |
| Justice | Dropped by General Tachenko, Shadows of the Past |
| Luftgarde | Iron Forest tunnel, needs the Water Drop artifact |
| Lynx | Reward from Strider at the end of Hot on the Trail |
| Maximum | Desk in the Monolith stash room, Module IB at the CNPP |
| Merc | Stash behind Powerplug at Rostok Depot, An Invisible Threat |
| Mriya * | Speak to Zulu after the Duty ending |
| Partner | On the Edge mission, Lens' garage in Zalissya |
| Veteran | Journalist's Stash, Horodyshche Hamlet in the Swamps, rafters |
| Whip | Table in Dr. Kaymanov's house, Mirage, Red Forest |
Shotguns, 8 of them
| Weapon | Where to get it |
|---|---|
| Clapper * | The Destructive Power of the Mind, Mavka's side |
| Guardian * | Mavka hands it over before the Zulu fight, Freedom path |
| M860 Monolith | Journalist's Stash, ruined minivan west of the Detention Center, Garbage |
| Margach D-12MT | Thirteenth Journalist's Stash in Prypiat, code 2021 |
| Predator | Blue box in the slanted building, eastern Izumrudne, Zaton |
| Rifled Barrel | The Forgotten side quest, Otter's chest in the ventilation shack |
| Sledgehammer | Round 5 of the Arena, The Freedom Colosseum side mission |
| Texan | Southwest bunker, Abandoned Science Campus, Jupiter, two Pseudogiants inside |
SMGs, pistols and machine guns, 16 of them
| Weapon | Class | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Gangster | SMG | A Minor Incident, VPC Mirror switchboard room |
| Rat Killer | SMG | An Act of Mercy, Dusty Cable Tunnel, Yaniv |
| Riemann | SMG | Journalist's Stash northwest of Rostok Base |
| Shah's Mate * | SMG | Shah's stash northwest of Slag Heap, spare Docent |
| Spitter | SMG | Sashko Cheery's body, Thug's Den, Garbage |
| Viper Monolith | SMG | Journalist's Stash east of the Northern Checkpoint, Lesser Zone |
| Deadeye | pistol | Automatic reward for the Ad astra per aspera main mission |
| Encourage * | pistol | Dropped by Korshunov in Down Below, not on the Ward path |
| Gambit | pistol | Gift from Dr. Kryvenko, The Forge of Progress |
| Labyrinth IV * | pistol | Dr. Kaymanov's basement at Mirage, spare the doctor |
| Model Competitor | pistol | Journalist's Stash in a train car east of Yaniv Station Base |
| Night Stalker | pistol | Rooftop of a house in Swinery, north of Burnt Forest |
| PTM Monolith | pistol | Journalist's Stash in Zalissya, rafters |
| Skif's Pistol | pistol | Starting weapon |
| Beast * | machine gun | Dropped by Korshunov in Down Below, not on the Ward path |
| Glutton | machine gun | Underpass exit, Rostok, behind the Y-III-12 door |
The Gauss gun: where to get it, even though it isn't on the unique list
People ask about the Gauss gun more than any weapon on the list above, and yet it isn't on the list. That's because the regular Gauss gun isn't unique; only its prototype, the EM1 that Scar carries, is. Per the series wiki it does 500 damage with 80% armour penetration, holds 10 rounds, weighs 7 kg and costs 120,000 coupons. Technicians won't upgrade it, only repair it. Patch 1.1 raised its damage, and neither Update 2.0 nor Cost of Hope touched it.
- "In the Name of Science", the earliest guaranteed one. It starts on its own at the beginning of "Dark Times" if you gave Shcherba the Lab X5 documents in "In Search of Past Glory". Collect four collars (Malachite, Red Forest, Garbage, Zaton), find the jammer in the bunker on the hill and destroy it. Recalibrate it and you only get coupons. After "Subtle Matter" Shcherba calls you to the Covered Warehouse in the Chemical Plant area, a trap with psi radiation and bloodsuckers, so bring a psi-block. Then Dvupalov hands you the Gauss gun, at 50% durability according to Game8.
- Prometheus cinema in Prypiat. The story takes you there in "The Road to the Foundation": second floor, drop through the hole, the gun is on a wooden table. Grab it before the pseudogiant shows up. You can get in earlier by blowing the barricade with a grenade under the double doors, but save first.
- Monolith drops. At Yaniv Station during "The Boundary" Game8 calls the drop guaranteed while GameRant calls it rare, so your mileage may vary. At the very end most of the Granite-3 squad carries Gauss guns, but by then the game is nearly over.
- The 20-round magazine. It sits in a locked ground-floor room of the Friendship Kindergarten in Prypiat; climb in through the window with the board sticking out. It can't be bought, only found.
No trader sells the gun itself. Gauss Cartridges are sold by Bison in Prypiat, and Monolith bodies drop plenty. The EM1 is taken from Scar after the fight at the Generators: it kills any human in one hit and holds 99 rounds, but you only get it past the point of no return, so it lasts a fight or two. The wiki and GameRant disagree on which endings it appears in.
Which of these are actually worth collecting
Fifty-nine unique guns get collected for the achievement and the shelf. In practice you need far fewer, so here is an honest shortlist of what is worth a detour.
- The ones you cannot miss anyway. Deadeye arrives on its own for the story, Lynx is the reward for Hot on the Trail, Skif's Pistol is yours from minute one. That is the baseline and it needs no running around.
- From the stashes. The thirteenth stash in Prypiat on code 2021 is the best value in the game: two unique guns for one entrance.
- From the choice-locked ones. Settle the Mavka versus Zulu fork by what you actually shoot with. Want the shotgun, go to Mavka for the Clapper. Want the rifle, go to Zulu for Warszawa. A gun should not decide your story, but knowing the fork exists beforehand helps.
- Worth a dedicated trip. Luftgarde, because the Water Drop comes with it, and that artifact is genuinely good for weight and stamina on its own. One trip, two useful things.
If you are still putting your kit together, our breakdowns of every artifact and every detector sit next to this one: without a detector half the artifacts above are simply invisible.
Sources and caveats
The full roster of unique weapons, their classes and where they come from: the Game8 database for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, checked on 30 August 2026. The weapons added by the Cost of Hope expansion and the way rewards attach to the Freedom and Duty routes were additionally checked against KeenGamer's breakdown. The Water Drop artifact's stats and how to get it: Game8. The link between the artifact and the door to Luftgarde is described by KeenGamer.
A caveat about the forks. The conditions under which a gun does or does not drop come from those databases rather than from the game's code, and patches have changed them more than once. Before an irreversible choice a manual save is more reliable than any list, ours included.
