Dangerous Horse Riding Weapon tier list

Weapons in Dangerous Horse Riding exist to knock other horses off letter keys, not to pad a DPS spreadsheet. You are still in first person, still holding rope reins, still sharing a 25-player server, and still one missed jump from the canyon. This list ranks the guns we can name — starter crossbow (20 damage), pistol, SMG, sniper, rocket — plus the Rope Tool from the January lobby revamp. The Rope Tool is utility. It is not a damage slot. Full handling notes sit on the weapons guide. Horse spend still comes first; read the horse tier list before you dump a win streak into a rocket.

Criteria:

1. Does this gun help you finish more often than it yeets you off a key?
2. Time-to-kill on a horse, not on an avatar. Riders shoot the mount. Ice Horse reports of 200 HP mean a 20-damage crossbow needs about ten clean bolts.
3. Projectile delay. Hitscan fantasies get people killed on “G.”
4. Access. Everyone spawns with the crossbow. Shop guns cost coins from flags. There are no known gamepasses and no live codes to skip the shop.

ShanKSRT’s ratings overview and Deltia’s beginner write-up are the public sources behind the 20-damage crossbow number and the shop order. We do not invent magazine sizes we have not seen.

S — SMG, when the lobby is a herd

SMG is S in crowded servers and A on empty ones. Close-to-mid spray deletes starter horses and punishes anyone still learning corners. On a 25-player server during a peak-hours memory (the all-time peak was about 8,951 concurrent on 25 July 2025), the trail bunches on the first keyboard straight. An SMG turns that bunch into coins if you keep your own mount on the letter. If you spray while turning, you die to the same physics as everyone else.

Buy SMG after a horse you can actually steer. A glass-cannon rider with an SMG still falls off “F.” Use the shop planner so the first stack is HP or controllable speed, then the gun.

A — sniper, pistol as the bridge

Sniper is A on mid-range keys: long flats, the stretches between letter clusters, anyone sitting still to aim a crossbow. Projectile travel still exists; lead the horse, not the rider hat. Sniper is worse in a knot of bodies because the fire rate loses to SMG. It is the right buy when you already finish and you want to pick off the person camping a checkpoint rather than join a spray duel.

Pistol is A-minus / B-plus as the first shop gun. It outpaces the crossbow without the SMG’s ammo panic. If coins are tight, pistol plus a shop horse beats sniper plus the starter mount. Deltia’s shop screenshots treated pistol as the natural step off 20-damage bolts. That still reads right in 2026.

Both guns inherit the shift-lock bug: if you draw the weapon before enabling shift lock, camera and reins fight each other. Enable lock first. Details on the controls sheet.

B — rocket, situational only

Rocket is B overall and S in one screenshot. Splash knocks several horses off a wide key and also knocks you off a thin one. On letter paths the explosion is a team-wipe tool, including your team of one. Use it when:

• The key is wide enough that you can stop after the shot.
• A herd is stacked on a corner you already cleared.
• You accepted that this run is a fight, not a finish.

Do not buy rocket first. Do not fire rocket on a connector the width of a stirrup. If your average session is the tracker-typical six minutes, a rocket death is how that number happens.

C — crossbow for late game; fine for learning

Starter crossbow is C once anyone on the server has an SMG, and B on day one. It is free, it teaches projectile delay (aim high), and 20 damage is enough to finish a wounded horse. It is not enough when three other riders look at you. Stay on it while you learn how to play. Replace it when you can reach the flag on purpose. Keeping the crossbow as a “skill gun” after you have coins is how you donate HP to people who already shopped.

Crossbow still has a job: last-hit a mount you do not want to over-commit an SMG spray on, or fight at a range where spray blooms off the key. That is a niche, not a loadout.

Rope Tool — utility, not DPS

The Rope Tool arrived with the studio revamp event (Rope Tool, new horses, rebuilt lobby, late January window). Reins were already a rope in first person. The tool is the featured version of that idea: more control over the mount, not a damage number. Rank it as utility S, DPS unranked. It does not replace SMG. It does not knock a Gray Stud off a cliff by itself. If the lobby puts it in a tool slot next to guns, do not spend your combat budget as if it were a rocket.

After the revamp, relearn spawn-to-shop before you test fire. Buttons move. The controls page is the first place we patch keybinds when they do.

Spend order that matches the tiers

1. Finish a few runs on the starter crossbow. Getting Started and how to win matter more than the shop.
2. Buy a shop horse (see horse catalog).
3. Pistol if coins are low, SMG if the server is full.
4. Sniper when you already win fights at mid range.
5. Rocket last, and only if you like chaos more than coins.
6. Never wait on codes. None are active.

A community comment claimed Checkpoint 1 may cost 1000 coins. If that report is true on your lobby, a rocket that blows you back behind the booth is even more expensive than it looks. Label the fee as a player report.

Combat habits that outrank the gun

• Shoot the horse, not the rider.
• Do not aim while your hooves are on a corner.
• If Ice Horse (200 HP reported) is on the trail, do not start that fight with a crossbow unless you have time and high ground. Guide: Ice Horse.
• Secret mounts are not extra magazines. Flipped Horse and Gray Stud still fall if you ride them like jokes in a gunfight.
• Scripts that promise gun mods belong on the scripts hub with the ban warning, not in this ranking.

The Tier List Hub exists so horses and weapons stay separate lists. A good mount with a crossbow still beats a rocket on a horse you cannot steer. Rank the gun after the trail, not before it. When the shop adds another firearm, it will land on this page by finish rate, not by how loud the muzzle looks in the lobby.