Well this doesn't bode well for Black Ops 6's iteration of Gunsmith. Helpful CoD YouTuber TheXclusiveAce recently published a breakdown of Blops 6's barrel attachments and determined, amazingly, that most of them are essentially useless.
I wish that was an exaggeration, but the math checks out: Because of how CoD's ballistic model works, most guns are hitscan up to 30-40 meters. The game does not communicate that element of its gunplay anywhere, despite the fact that that 30-40 meters is longer than ~90% of gunfights in Blops, so increasing velocity with the Gain-Twist Barrel is mostly pointless. The same goes for the Long Barrel: With the exception of aggressive SMG damage falloff, the default damage range on Blops 6 guns is so forgiving that you're unlikely to notice a time-to-kill difference by using it. Considering the third barrel option, the Reinforced Barrel, just increases both velocity and range, you can forget about that one in most situations, too.
That leaves the Short Barrel that increases mobility (handy for fast-paced playstyles) and the CHF Barrel that increases headshot damage—even this one is only situationally effective depending on the gun, since extra headshot damage doesn't always mean it'll take fewer shots to kill. The lesson here, which has actually been true for the last handful of CoDs, is that you're better off focusing on attachments that improve the gun's handling, like grips and underbarrels, and ignoring ballistics (unless you're going for longshot kills with an SMG).
Why does Black Ops 6 have prominent attachments that barely do anything? It could be a simple oversight, but the more likely reality is that Treyarch didn't design these barrel attachments for Blops 6—they're for Warzone, where huge maps and long gunfights mean you absolutely want the most potent mix of velocity/range on all of your guns.
That's all fine and good, except that they still serve little purpose in 6v6 Blops multiplayer—a game that millions of people are
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