M60 Machine Gun — left4dead

"Hey, that's an M60!"

"Shit, this is heavy!"

The M60 is a Special Tier weapon that was introduced in Left 4 Dead 2. It carries only 150 rounds and, after being depleted, is dropped. The Survivor will then revert to their secondary weapon, much like with the Grenade Launcher. Functionally, the M60 works as an Assault Rifle, and is internally classified as a modified AK-47.

The M60 is unique due to it being one of the few weapons that is capable of instantly killing a Common Infected in a single shot on any difficulty, causing them to gib into pieces due to the M60's high caliber rounds. It shares this instant kill mechanic with the Magnum Pistol.

Additionally, its low capacity is counterbalanced by it never needing to reload, and Ammo upgrades will convert all remaining ammunition in the gun, making it the most effective gun for using incendiary or explosive rounds.

The M60 appears in:

The Passing
No Mercy (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
Death Toll (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
The Sacrifice (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
Cold Stream
The Last Stand (Left 4 Dead 2 version)

Tactics

Using a Bile bomb along with the M60 can really help to clear an area when faced with a large amount of Infected.
Like the Grenade Launcher, it is not advised to use the Chainsaw with this weapon due to both having limited non-refillable ammo/fuel.
Upgrade the M60 with Laser Sights and Incendiary Ammunition, if you can. Doing so is an ideal way to get the BURNING SENSATION achievement, especially if the Gib Fest Mutation is in place.
When facing a small number of Infected, switch to your secondary weapon to save ammunition for larger groups.
If possible, save this weapon for the Gauntlet Crescendo Event in The Underground. It is especially effective in the narrow pipe area. It can also help you get the achievement TIL IT GOES CLICK.
During the finale of The Passing, the original Survivors may occasionally drop a M60 with a Laser sight attached for the new Survivors to use. Rather than carry this weapon around while gathering gas cans, it may be prudent to save it for the rush to the race car due to its limited ammo.
While rare, Incendiary Ammo and Explosive Ammo can be found and used with the M60. This will greatly boost the firepower of the M60 to even counter a Tank.
- Do not put the special ammo on the M60 if it is low on ammo however, as it simply swaps the M60s current ammo into the respective special ammo and will be a waste if it does not have that much ammo left.

Pros and Cons

Pros

No reloading required.
High DPS; can kill a Tank in Expert mode within 18 seconds, the fastest of any gun in the game by far.
Its 150-round belt gives it the highest ammo count of any weapon in the game.
Excellent for Crescendo events and Tank fights due to the aforementioned pros.
Instantly kills Common Infected regardless of where it hits, even on Expert Realism.
Makes the most use out of ammo upgrades compared to any other weapon in the game, with a maximum of 150 incendiary or explosive rounds with a fresh belt.

Cons

Ammunition cannot be replenished.
Low spawn rate; unlikely to even appear at all in some campaigns.
Accuracy identical to the AK-47, meaning that it is very poor for ranged encounters especially while on the move.
Ammo is easy to deplete, especially if fired in full-auto.
Usually requires the user to depend on their sidearm or melee weapon while waiting for a good time to use the gun.
Once depleted, the user is left with only their secondary-slot weapon (melee or pistol).
Unless the Gib Fest Mutation is in place, bots will not pick up the M60 and do not actively search for it.
Ammo upgrades convert remaining ammo instead of adding more rounds.
It's the only weapon that can't actually kill an advanced/expert tank on its own even if you were to deplete all of the gun's ammo.

Achievements

	TIL IT GOES CLICK	(20G)
	Using the M60, kill 25 Infected without letting go of the trigger.

Notes

The M60 is based on the eponymous American M60 general purpose machine gun.
The M60 has the highest ammo capacity of any weapon in the game, but has the lowest reserve capacity as well.
The in-game M60 holds 150 rounds at a time, but it is modelled with a 100-round belt box.
The M60 has an unusable bipod which remains folded in gameplay.
The weapon gibs all Common Infected in the same manner as explosive rounds and the Heavy Machine Gun, resulting in a lot of gore if it was enabled.
The M60 has the same accuracy and recoil statistics as the AK-47.
If the M60 is used to kill a Common Infected with Incendiary Ammo, they might run around on fire despite missing half of their body, possibly including both legs or even being headless.
The M60 does not appear in any campaign other than Death Toll, The Passing, The Sacrifice, Cold Stream, No Mercy, and The Last Stand. However, in any other campaign than these six, it can be spawned from the console, unlike the unique melee weapons to their campaigns.
- In an update, Valve changed the Left 4 Dead 2 maps specifically not to precache the M60.
- Custom maps pre-cache the M60 by default, but very few at the moment enable it to spawn. To spawn the M60 via Hammer, make a "weapon_rifle_m60_spawn" entity.
When the M60 is spawned with the console in a campaign other than the campaigns where it spawns normally, it does no damage until a safe room has been reached.
While the M60 and Sniper Rifle are both chambered in 7.62x51mm, the M60 cannot be refilled by any normal means (such as from ammo piles). A possible explanation may be that M60 pickups are the only source of the disintegrating ammo belts that machine guns such as the M60 feed from.
The M60's ammo, via a bug, could be replenished. On finding an M60, as long as it has at least one round left, go back to where it was found. on arrival, pick up a weapon that is by where it was, and it will respawn in its original location with 150 ammo. This will not work if there is no weapon by where the M60 used to be, or if the M60 is equipped it with a laser sight. If that is the case, the bug would not work. This particular bug was patched on the PC version on the 9th June 2010, and on 360 on the 2nd July 2010.
The M60 can be refilled with full ammo if you kill the Survivor who is holding it. If you wait for them to appear in the closet, they will respawn with a fully loaded M60.
While reserve ammo cannot be obtained (likely for balancing reasons), the M60 has an unused reloading animation. It is the same as the AK-47, since the M60's functionality in-game is based on that of the AK-47. The only way to see this in-game is through server mods that create an incredibly rare glitch, servers with modified weapon mechanics, or through using a program such as Cheat Engine to give oneself reserve ammo for it. Probably easiest way of giving M60 reserve ammo however is changing cvar ammo_m60_max (set to 0 by default) to something else with script, though this doesn't allow you to refill M60 from ammo piles. For example, setting ammo_m60_max to 300 would give M60 300 reserve ammo.
The M60 features in a Mutation called "Gib Fest", where Survivors wielding the gun have infinite ammunition for it.
During the finale The Port in The Passing, Francis and Zoey can occasionally be seen using the M60. They can also occasionally throw a fully-loaded M60 with laser sight attached for the new Survivors to use as well.
- Also, when playing ported L4D campaigns, Francis may say the same quote he says upon picking up an Auto Shotgun after picking up an M60—Those bastards think they're sick now, wait'll they get a taste of this.
It is unknown why the M60 cannot gib a Riot Infected, as the Infected is wearing only a law-enforcement issue armor, and the M60 is using the 7.62×51mm NATO round, from which normal armor only provides minimal protection. This could be a developer oversight.
Even though this weapon is very heavy, it does not affect running speed.
- Despite the Survivors saying that the weapon is heavy, when any Survivor that carries the M60 performs an idle animation such as scratching their head/neck or wiping their nose, they tend to hold it with one hand, as seen with Nick below. This is because the animators neglected to create new animations for using this weapon, likely to save memory.
With the exception of Ellis, the weapon is almost never referred to by its actual name by the Survivors, who usually call it various nicknames such as "big gun" or "belt gun". Despite this, the M60, M16 Assault Rifle and the AK-47 are the only guns to be called by their real life names in official media.
The M60 on No Mercy finale can be "cloned" in Survival Mode by firing it once and picking up the one directly next to it.
Both the worldmodel and viewmodel clip through the Survivors' hands.
The M60 in the Left 4 Dead games is a possible leftover weapon as its original model was retired from U.S. service around the 1980s, and the games are set in 2008 However, it is possible that the M60 remained in several numbers as a surplus weapon and as such became available during the disaster.
The third-person model for the M60 is missing its trigger and ammo belt.
Prior to the 2020 Last Stand update, the M60's cartridges had a plain black texture.

Gallery

External Links

M60 in action

Weapons
Primary Weapons
Tier 1	Chrome Shotgun / Pump Shotgun / MP5 / Silenced Submachine Gun / Submachine Gun
Tier 2	AK-47 / Combat Rifle / M-16 Assault Rifle / SG 552 / Auto Shotgun / Combat Shotgun / AWP / Hunting Rifle / Scout / Sniper Rifle
Special Tier	Grenade Launcher / M60 Machine Gun
Secondary Weapons
Sidearms	M1911 Pistol / Magnum Pistol / P220 Pistol
Melee Weapons	Baseball Bat / Cricket Bat / Crowbar / Fireaxe / Frying Pan / Golf Club / Guitar / Katana / Knife / Machete / Nightstick / Pitchfork / Shovel
Special Tier	Chainsaw
Other Weapons
Grenades	Bile Bomb / Molotov Cocktail / Pipe Bomb
Upgrades	Explosive Ammunition / Incendiary Ammunition / Laser Sight
Fixed Weapons	Heavy Machine Gun / Minigun
Items
Usable Items	Explosive barrel / Fireworks / Gas can / Oxygen tank / Propane tank
Special Items	Cola / Gnome Chompski
Featured in both games / L4D1-exclusive / L4D2-exclusive (Counter-Strike weapons / PC-exclusive)