%
Signature Series
Sound Effects Library
Tactical Guns
Carried By Police. Issued To Armies.Stolen By Criminals.
Machine Gun, Pistol, Rifle and Shotgun Sounds From Real Service Weapons
When a script calls for a detective’s sidearm, a squad’s service rifle, or the gun a criminal actually carries, most libraries hand you gunfire sorted by caliber, with no sense of who would use it or why. TACTICAL GUNS starts from a different premise: every one of its 25 weapons is carried by police, issued to armies, or used by criminals. One purchase covers a police procedural, a military scene, and a criminal underworld sequence, each one built from the actual weapons those characters would carry, with matched handling recorded for almost every one.
Watch The Trailer
Carried. Issued. Stolen.
Every weapon in TACTICAL GUNS is one carried by police, issued to armies, or used by criminals. That’s the reason each weapon made the list, not caliber or category alone.
Matched Handling, Weapon by Weapon
Almost every weapon ships with its own recorded handling: grab, mag change, safety, reload. That’s the sound before the shot, the detail that makes a character read as competent, or desperate, before they ever fire.
Twenty-Eight Channels, Multiple Distances
Every shot is captured across up to 28 channels, from point-blank out to 100 meters, delivered across eight named perspectives. Cut between an interior take and a rooftop vantage point using material actually recorded for that perspective.
Built for Any Production Pipeline
UCS-tagged metadata keeps every weapon and fire mode addressable across DAWs, video editors, and game engines alike. For tactical and law-enforcement titles specifically, individual shots stay triggerable for event-driven, physics-based systems.
What’s Inside
Included Sounds – Keywords
AK47
Assault Rifle
Awm
Bipod
Bullet
Burst
Close
Desert Eagle
Distant
Dryfire
Firearms
Foley
Full Automatic
Glock 17
Grab
Guns
Gun Handling
Heavy
HK G36
M14
M16
M60
M82a1
Machine Gun
Magazine
Mechanical
MG3
Ortf3d
Pistol
Pkm
Reload
Remington
Rifle
Safety
Saiga 12
Selector
Shotgun
Sig Mcx
Single Shot
Smg
Sniper
Steyr Aug
Submachine Gun
Svd Dragunov
Tavor Tar-21
Trigger
Uzi
VZ-61 Skorpion
TACTICAL GUNS – Construction Kit
Every Shot, Multiple Distances, Multiple Perspectives
Every weapon was recorded firing at multiple distances, from point-blank out to 100 meters, captured across up to 28 channels and delivered across eight named perspectives: Collar and Wrist at 0m, AB pairs at 1m/2m/3m, MS pairs at 5m/15m, XY pairs at 5m/100m, Ambisonic (AmbiX) at 50m, and a high/low ORTF3D array at 20m. The same shot is available close and distant, narrow and wide, mono to spatial 360° surround.
Authentic Weapon Handling
Nearly every weapon in the library ships with its own recorded handling: grabbing the weapon, adjusting grip, working the safety or mode selector, loading and unloading the magazine, and reloading at two speeds. Two weapons use disclosed substitute handling instead of a dedicated session: the Kel-Tec KSG uses SPAS-15 handling, and the Tavor TAR-21 uses AKS-74U handling.
Technical Specifications – Edition: Construction Kit
0 Files
0 Sounds
Size: 0 GB
24bit / 96kHz
Stereo
L • R
Windows + Mac
TACTICAL GUNS – Designed
Close, Distant, Heavy, and Mechanical Mixes
The Designed layer contains 850+ pre-assembled sequences per weapon category (assault rifles, machine guns, pistols, rifles, shotguns, and submachine guns), each mixed as Close, Distant, Heavy, and Mechanical variants across single shots, bursts, and full auto.
Built From the Same Construction Kit Elements
Every Designed sequence is built from the same shot and handling recordings available in the Construction Kit, not separately produced, so the mixes reflect the same weapons and the same recorded detail throughout the library.
Technical Specifications – Edition: Designed
0 Files
0 Sounds
Size: 0 GB
24bit / 96kHz
Stereo
L • R
Windows + Mac
Construction Kit and Designed Content Combined
THE BUNDLE – The best of both worlds at a discounted price.
The Bundle includes the full Construction Kit (every shot and every handling recording, across all 25 weapons) plus the complete Designed layer, at a reduced combined price. It’s the right choice for sound designers who want both the raw material to build scene-specific gunfire from scratch and the pre-mixed sequences to drop in under deadline.
Designed, Construction Kit, Bundle: What's the difference?
Technical Specifications – Edition: Bundle
0 Files
0 Sounds
Size: 0 GB
24bit / 96kHz
Stereo
L • R
Windows + Mac
Frequently Asked Questions
What we recorded
TACTICAL GUNS records 25 weapons chosen for being carried by police, issued to armies, or used by criminals. Each one’s real-world use was checked against public sources during research, part of the same premise that shaped which 25 weapons made the library, not caliber alone. Where a weapon’s service record couldn’t be verified, it’s described by sound and specification only, not by a claim the library can’t support.
Assault Rifles
AK-47
FN FAL
HK G36
IMI Galil
M16
SIG MCX
Steyr AUG
Tavor TAR-21
Sub Machine Guns & Shotguns
RAK PM63
UZI
VZ 61 Skorpion
Kel-Tec KSG
Remington 870
Saiga-12
Machine Guns & Rifles
M60
MG3
PKM
AWM
M14
M82A1
SVD Dragunov
Pistols & Revolvers
Arsenal Firearms Strike One
Glock 17
IMI Desert Eagle
Smith & Wesson Model 29
The Shot Sessions
The shot sessions captured every take across up to 28 channels simultaneously, each perspective tied to its own distance from the shooter. DPA 4062 mics on the collar and wrist (0m each) captured on-body detail. The AB perspective was recorded at three distances with three different pairs, Sennheiser MKH 416 at 1m, Audix D6 between shooter and muzzle at 2m, and DPA 4007 at 3m. The MS perspective was recorded at two distances, Sanken CMS50 at 5m and Sennheiser MKH8050/MKH30 at 15m, and the XY perspective at two more, Sennheiser MKH8050 at 5m and Sony PCM out at 100m. Schoeps ORTF3D (20m) and a Sennheiser AMBEO VR mic (50m) added 3D capture for immersive formats. Each shot is delivered across eight named perspectives: Collar, Wrist, AB, MS, XY, Ambisonic (AmbiX), and ORTF3D High/Low. A DPA 4062 pair at shoulder height was part of the recording rig too, but isn’t delivered as its own perspective file.
The Handling Sessions
A separate set of sessions covered handling, the mechanical sounds around the shot rather than the shot itself. Grabbing the weapon, working the safety, loading and unloading the magazine, reloading fast and slow. This was recorded per weapon wherever practical. Two exceptions use disclosed substitute handling instead of a dedicated session: the Kel-Tec KSG uses SPAS-15 handling, and the Tavor TAR-21 uses AKS-74U handling.
The Designed Layer
The Designed layer was built last, mixing the raw shot and handling material into ready sequences by category and intensity: Close, Distant, Heavy, and Mechanical. The finished library covers both the component-level workflow and the fast, pre-assembled one.
What’s so special about this library?
The Core Question
Most gunfire libraries sort their content by caliber or weapon type and stop there. A 9mm shot is a 9mm shot, regardless of whether it belongs in a police procedural, a war film, or a heist. TACTICAL GUNS starts from a different question: who actually carries this weapon, and what does that mean for the scene it’s dropped into? A Glock 17 in a detective’s hand and an AK-47 slung over a soldier’s shoulder aren’t interchangeable gunfire, they’re different characters, and that real-world context, not caliber alone, is what shaped which weapons are in this library.
Three Worlds, One Library
The campaign’s own structure makes the point concrete: every weapon in the library belongs to one of three worlds: carried by police, issued to armies, or used by criminals. The highlights below cover a few from each; the full arsenal breakdown follows them.
Carried by Police
The Glock 17 has been standard issue for the Austrian military since 1982 and is carried widely across police departments in the US and Europe. The Remington 870 was long the standard patrol shotgun in American law enforcement: heritage service, not current-day standard, as many departments have since shifted to patrol rifles. These are the street-level weapons: a stakeout, a raid, a traffic stop that goes wrong.
Issued to Armies
The AK-47 is, historically, the most widely used rifle in the world, in heavy and ongoing service across Russian forces and militaries throughout Africa and Eastern Europe. The PKM holds the same territory in a squad support role, confirmed across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The AWM was adopted by the British Armed Forces as its long-range sniper rifle, fielded by the 16 Air Assault Brigade, the Royal Marines, and the RAF Regiment. The set is rounded out by service rifles including the FN FAL, SIG MCX, and M14. The HK G36 has been standard issue for the German Bundeswehr since 1997; the IMI Galil served Israeli infantry for decades and was adopted as the standard army rifle of Colombia and South Africa (as the Vektor R4); the M16 has been the standard rifle of the US Armed Forces since 1964 and remains in service with dozens of allied militaries; the Steyr AUG is the current standard rifle of Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Tunisia; and the Tavor TAR-21 became the standard infantry rifle of the Israel Defense Forces in 2018.
Used by Criminals
The VZ 61 Skorpion is the strongest weapon in this library for documented criminal use: confirmed use by the IRA, the Italian Red Brigades, the Red Army Faction, and, more recently, organised crime gangs in Sweden and the UK. The AK-47 belongs here too, as one of the most trafficked rifles in the world. The Uzi carries a “criminal gun” reputation that owes more to pop culture and desirability than to a documented crime record; it’s included here on that understanding, not overstated.
The Full Arsenal
Twenty-two of the library’s 25 weapons carry a documented real-world claim strong enough to place them in one or more of the three worlds; the rest are included for their sound and technical profile, without an unsupported claim attached.
Distance and Perspective
The distance and perspective range solves a separate, practical problem. A scene rarely stays at one distance or one camera position, and re-recording or pitch-shifting a single perspective to fake another is audible. Capturing every shot across up to 28 channels, from point-blank to 100 meters, means the cut from an interior to a rooftop vantage point uses real material recorded for that exact perspective, not an approximation of it.
The Handling Layer
The handling layer addresses what happens before and after the shot, which is often what actually sells a scene. A character checking the safety, working a slide, or reloading under pressure tells the audience more about their state of mind than the gunfire itself. Matched per weapon, that handling turns a static prop sound into a performing one.
Use cases:
- Police procedural and crime drama scenes needing service-accurate sidearms and patrol shotguns
- War and military film and TV needing real service rifles and squad support weapons
- Organised crime, heist, and trafficking sequences needing weapons with a real criminal-use record
- Game audio teams building tactical or law-enforcement combat systems that need real spread across sidearms and shotguns, not another pile of rifles
- Editors cutting between interior and exterior or near and far camera positions within the same gunfight
Tips:
- Match the weapon to the scene’s real-world logic first (who would actually carry this), then to the sound. Carried, issued, or used is the fastest way to narrow 25 weapons down to the right one
- Use the Collar or Wrist perspective for a first-person or close interior cut, then switch to the AB or ORTF3D perspective at distance for the same event without an audible seam
- Layer the handling recordings ahead of the shot to build tension before a scene turns; a mag check or a safety click reads as character, not just mechanics
- Start from a Designed mix for a fast edit, then drop down to the Construction Kit shot and handling elements when a scene needs a perspective the mix doesn’t cover
Search the BOOM Library website and you’ll find that there’s no shortage of libraries created around firearms. There’s plenty to choose from, so why make another?
Quite simply, we felt there was a gap for weapons that don’t fit into convenient historical or genre segments. We wanted to give sound designers access to what we call ‘real world’ weapons. Some are the same sidearms detectives carry on duty. Others are the rifles issued to soldiers on their first day. And some are the weapons that, illegally, end up with people neither group wants to see armed.
That’s what TACTICAL GUNS is about. It features twenty-five weapons, chosen by who uses them and why, not by era or type. Learn more about the background in this blog.
Read More
Compatible Software
BOOM Library sound FX come as WAV files. This means you can import and work with them in any software that can handle this file type. Here are the most common audio and video editing software tools that work perfectly with our sound FX.
Most Common Audio Software
Logic Pro
Nuendo
Pro Tools
Cubase
Reaper
Ableton Live
Most Common Video Editing Software
Premiere Pro
Final Cut Pro
After Effects
Vegas Pro
Media Composer
Da Vinci Resolve
UCS Compatible Metadata embedded
To provide you with the fastest and easiest workflow possible, all files contain extensive metadata like file description & keywords. Metadata can be read and processed by audio management tools. Some digital audio workstations feature an included search tool that can also read embedded metadata. Here are the most common audio management tools:
Soundminer
Basehead
Soundly
Royalty-Free License
One purchase. Every project. Forever.
No per-project fees
Use in unlimited projects after a single purchase
No sync reporting
No PRO registration or broadcast cue sheet required
Worldwide & perpetual
No territory limits, no expiry date on your license
Movie & TV
Games
Trailers
Web
Advertising
Music
Live
& more
Sounds may not be resold or redistributed as audio assets. Studio / team licenses available.
