Best PUBG SMGs, Ranked

An SMG wins the fights your assault rifle can't get to in time. The hot drop where everyone lands on the same roof. The door breach where the guy is already inside. The 10-meter sprint across an open compound where a full-auto laser of 9mm matters more than per-shot damage. PUBG: Battlegrounds is mostly a mid-range game, but the seconds where it isn't are the ones that kill you the fastest, and that's exactly the window an SMG owns.

This is a ranking of PUBG's submachine guns specifically — the close-quarters and early-game weapons, not the ARs or DMRs. There are six of them in the PC and console game: the Vector, UMP45, MP5K, Micro UZI, PP-19 Bizon, and the crate-only P90. We're ranking them against each other for the job they actually do, which is winning a room or a rush, not trading shots across a field. For the bigger picture across every class, see our full PUBG weapons tier list.

One honest caveat before the list, same as our AR ranking: PUBG has never published official weapon damage numbers. Every per-shot figure you've seen is datamined or community-tested, and balance patches shuffle them. So we rank on the things you can feel and verify — fire rate, ammo type, recoil when kitted, mag size, and how often the gun spawns — not a fake-precise damage spreadsheet. This is the PC and console game, which balances separately from PUBG Mobile.

Why an SMG earns a slot

Most players treat SMGs as a placeholder — the gun you hold for the first ninety seconds until you find a "real" rifle, then drop. That's half right. An SMG absolutely is your best friend in the chaotic opening when nobody has a kitted AR yet, because raw fire rate beats everything when both players are spraying from the hip at 8 meters.

But the better players keep an SMG well past the opening, as the close half of a two-gun loadout: an AR or DMR for range, an SMG for the rooms and rushes where an AR's slower fire rate and tighter handling actually lose. They feed cheap, common pistol ammo (mostly 9mm), they ADS fast, and they shred at the ranges where most kills happen. The SMG isn't a downgrade from a rifle — it's a specialist that's better than any rifle inside its window.

How we rank SMGs in PUBG

Four questions decide where an SMG lands, in roughly this order:

1. Close-range DPS. Fire rate times per-shot damage. This is the whole point of an SMG — how fast it empties health inside 25 meters. A faster gun that hits softer often out-kills a slow hard-hitter here.
2. Control when kitted. SMGs kick, but a comp, grip, and stock change how much. A gun you can hold on a chest at 30m is worth more than a buzzsaw that climbs off-target after five rounds.
3. Mag size and reload. Close fights are decided by who runs dry first. A bigger default mag (or an extended one) lets you take a second target without reloading into a gunfight.
4. Ammo and availability. Most SMGs feed common 9mm, so supply is rarely a problem — except the crate-only P90, which is gated behind both an airdrop and its own proprietary ammo.

SMGs are the one weapon class where fire rate usually beats raw damage. At 8 meters, the gun that lands more bullets per second wins, even if each bullet hits a little softer. That's why the buzzsaws sit at the top here and the slow, hard-hitters don't.

S-tier: the close-range kings

These are the guns you actively want to hold for close fights, not the ones you settle for.

The Vector is the highest close-range damage-per-second weapon in the game, full stop. Its fire rate is absurd, and at point-blank it deletes a full-health target faster than anything you can spray. The historic knock on it was a tiny default magazine — you'd dump it in a blink and get caught reloading. PUBG long ago rechambered it to common 9mm and an extended mag turns it from a glass-cannon novelty into a genuine room-clearer. Kit one with an extended mag, a comp, and a stock and you have the scariest sub-30m gun in PUBG. The trade-off is real, though: that fire rate burns ammo and its effective range falls off fast, so this is a commit-to-close weapon, not a do-everything one.

The UMP45 is the SMG you keep when you only keep one. It's the most controllable gun in the class with the best effective range, which means it doesn't fall apart the moment a fight stretches to 40 or 50 meters the way the Vector and UZI do. It used to be the 9mm "UMP9"; PUBG rechambered it to .45 ACP, which is still common ground loot, so feeding it is no harder than any other SMG. It won't out-DPS a Vector in a phone-booth fight, but it's the SMG that bridges the gap to AR range better than any other, and that flexibility is why it's the safe default for most players. Pair it with a longer-range rifle from our loadouts guide and you cover everything.

A-tier: reliable early-game workhorses

Strong guns that fall just short of S because they're tougher to control, shorter-ranged, or both — but they'll still win you hot-drop fights.

The MP5K arrived in a later update and slotted in as one of the most beginner-friendly guns in the game: low recoil, a fast and controllable spray, and a full kit of attachment slots. It doesn't have the Vector's raw DPS ceiling, but it's far easier to keep on target, which for most players translates to more landed bullets and more wins. If you're newer to close-range fights, this is arguably the SMG you should be reaching for over the twitchier options.

The Micro UZI is the purest early-game gun in PUBG: it has a brutal fire rate and is a monster from the hip in the first thirty seconds of a hot drop, before anyone has armor or attachments. The catch is everything past about 15 meters — it has the worst effective range of any SMG and heavy recoil, so it goes from terrifying to useless very quickly as the fight opens up. Land on a UZI, win the opening scramble, then trade up. The PP-19 Bizon plays the opposite game: its standout feature is a massive 53-round helical magazine built in, so it can hose down multiple targets or hold a long spray without the mid-fight reload that gets people killed. It's not the hardest hitter, but the sustained-fire and second-target capability is genuinely valuable in squad pushes. It doesn't appear on every map's loot table, which is the main reason it sits in A rather than higher.

B-tier and the crate pick

• P90 (5.7mm, crate-only). Here's the asterisk. The P90 is a care-package weapon with a fast fire rate and a 50-round magazine, and it feeds its own proprietary 5.7mm ammo that drops alongside it in the crate. On paper it's a fantastic close-range gun. In practice it's crate-only — you'll hold one a handful of times across hundreds of matches, and when the crate ammo runs out the gun is done. We rank it B as a practical pick precisely because availability is part of the score. When you do find one, it's an upgrade over any world-spawn SMG for as long as the ammo lasts — but you can't plan around a gun you almost never have.

That's the honest bottom of the class: there's no genuinely bad SMG in PUBG right now, just the crate gimmick (P90) and the specialists (UZI for pure opening aggression, Bizon for sustained fire) that ask you to know what you're using them for.

SMG vs AR up close

The question under this whole ranking: if a fight starts at 10 meters, do you want an SMG or your assault rifle? For most players, most of the time, the answer inside ~20-25 meters is the SMG. Here's why:

• Fire rate. The top SMGs (Vector, UZI, MP5K) cycle faster than any AR, so they land more bullets per second at the range where every bullet connects.
• Handling. SMGs ADS faster and swing onto a close target quicker than a heavier rifle.
• Hip-fire. SMGs are far more usable from the hip in a panic-close fight, where ADS-ing first can cost you the half-second that decides it.

The flip side: the moment the fight stretches past roughly 30 meters, the AR's flatter recoil and per-shot damage take over and the SMG falls off a cliff (the UMP45 holds on the longest). That's the whole logic of a two-gun loadout — SMG for the room, rifle for the range. Build the recoil control that makes either one sit still in our recoil control guide.

Which SMG should you actually run

The strongest setup isn't two SMGs — it's one SMG paired with a longer-range rifle. The SMG covers the rooms and rushes; the rifle covers everything past 30 meters. For the full two-gun blueprint and attachment priority, see our loadouts and attachments guide.

The short version:

• Safe default: UMP45. Most controllable, longest reach, common .45 ACP — you'll never be mad you kept it.
• For maximum close-range damage: Vector, with an extended mag. Nothing out-DPS's it inside 25m.
• If you're newer or want it easy: MP5K — low recoil, very forgiving.
• For a pure hot-drop opener: Micro UZI — win the scramble, then trade up.
• For sustained squad-push fire: PP-19 Bizon and its 53-round drum.
• If a crate drops near you: P90, for as long as the ammo lasts.

Quick Action Checklist

• Default to the UMP45 — most controllable, longest range, common .45 ACP ammo
• Pick up a Vector for the highest close-range DPS, but feed it an extended mag immediately
• Grab the MP5K if you want the most forgiving, low-recoil SMG to learn on
• Treat the Micro UZI as a hot-drop opener — win the scramble inside 15m, then trade up
• Keep the PP-19 Bizon for squad pushes — its 53-round drum means no mid-fight reload
• Take the P90 out of a crate when you find it, but never plan around a crate-only gun
• Pair your SMG with a longer-range rifle, never two SMGs
• Use the SMG inside ~25m and swap to your rifle past 30m — that's the whole point of the pairing
• Treat any specific damage number as approximate — PUBG never published official values