How to Reload in WARDOGS: Magazines, Loose Ammo & Refilling Mags Explained

WARDOGS handles ammunition more like Escape from Tarkov than Battlefield: every magazine is a real, individual item with its own round count and ammo type. That means ammo management starts at the vendor before you ever fire a shot - and if you skip the loose ammo step there, you'll be down to your last rounds five minutes into your first fight. Let's walk the full loop.

Step 1: Buying Magazines at the Vendor

After you pick a weapon at the equipment vendor, open its Ammo tab. The magazine builder walks you through three steps, left to right:

1. Select your magazine - you'll only have the default unlocked at first (for the AK74, that's a 30-round mag chambered in 5.45×39mm).
2. Select the ammo type to fill it with - Standard (FMJ), Flesh Damage (HP), or Armor Piercing (AP).
3. Click the ready magazine on the right (highlighted green) to add the filled mag to your loadout.

The three-step magazine builder: mag (1) + ammo type (2) = ready magazine (3). The first click loads it into your weapon.

Your first click puts the magazine into the weapon itself. Click it again and the game will stop you if you don't own a backpack yet - spare magazines have to live somewhere.

Step 2: You Need a Backpack for Spare Mags

Buy a backpack from the Gear tab first (the free Pouch works for game one), then come back and click the ready magazine again. Each additional click now adds another filled mag into your backpack, taking up grid space.

With a backpack bought, the second click drops a full 30/30 spare mag into your backpack storage (capacity shown top right).

Step 3: Buy Loose Ammo (Don't Skip This)

This is the step that separates players who stay in the fight from players who run dry. Head to the Loose Ammo tab along the top of the vendor menu and find the caliber that matches your magazines - for the AK74, that's the red 5.45×39mm boxes.

The Loose Ammo tab (1): each click on an ammo box (2) adds 10 rounds to a stack in your backpack (3), charged per click.

• Every click adds 10 rounds, each charged separately.
• Rounds stack in one backpack slot - up to 80 for 5.45×39mm (stack sizes vary by caliber).
• Buy the caliber your magazines actually use. The tab lists every caliber in the game, and nothing stops you from buying the wrong one.

Why loose ammo instead of more filled mags? Space. One stack of 80 loose rounds takes a single slot and refills nearly three AK74 mags - the same slots' worth of filled magazines would hold far less total ammo. Loose ammo is the compact fuel; magazines are just the containers.

Reloading in Battle: What R Actually Does

Reloading mid-fight. R swaps to the next magazine in your backpack - in whatever state it's in.

In battle, R works like you'd expect - right up until it doesn't. Here's the crucial mechanic:

WARDOGS tracks every magazine individually. Rounds never magically redistribute between mags, which means after a couple of firefights your backpack is a collection of partially-empty magazines - and it's your job to consolidate them.

Refilling Magazines Mid-Match

To top your mags back up during a match:

1. Press Tab to open your inventory.
2. Find your loose ammo stack in the backpack (right side of the screen).
3. Drag the loose ammo onto an empty or partially filled compatible magazine.
4. The refill animation loads the mag one round at a time - you can stop at any moment by closing the inventory.

Drag the loose ammo stack (75/80) onto the partial mag (11/30) and it refills round by round. Note the Combine Ammo keybind (C) in the top right.

The Space Trade-Off: Mags vs Meds

Early on, this whole system is a space-management puzzle. The backpacks you can afford in your first matches are small, and healing items compete for the same slots as your ammo. A realistic early loadout looks like this:

• 1 magazine in the weapon (30 rounds)
• 1 spare magazine in the backpack (30 rounds)
• 1 stack of 80 loose rounds (roughly 3 more mags' worth)
• The rest of the space for bandages and meds

That's about five magazines' worth of ammo in total - plenty for a life, as long as you keep consolidating. Resist the urge to fill every slot with ammo: running out of bandages kills you faster than running out of bullets, and the weight system punishes over-stuffed backpacks with slower movement and worse handling anyway.

Ammo Types: FMJ, HP, and AP

One more wrinkle: magazines don't care which compatible ammo type you feed them. An empty mag that held Standard (FMJ) can be refilled with Armor Piercing rounds from a fresh loose stack - useful when the lobby starts showing up in Level 3 vests. The three types:

• Standard (FMJ) - even damage against all target types. The default, and fine for everything.
• Flesh Damage (HP) - better against unarmored targets, worse against armor.
• Armor Piercing (AP) - better against armored targets.

Just remember what you loaded where. The mag tooltip shows its contents (e.g. "Loaded: 30x Standard (FMJ)"), but mid-fight you won't be reading tooltips - so keep it simple and run one ammo type per weapon until you're comfortable.

Frequently Asked Questions