Fans of the heavy barrel from the Battlefield series may not want to hear this, but it seems that the attachment no longer comes recommended for Battlefield 4.
The heavy barrel attachment is frequently used on assault rifles and carbines, and adds to the gun’s accuracy and dispersion pattern, thereby increasing its range. The flip side was that it also caused recoil.
A player notes that compared to Battlefield 3, the attachment used to provide 75 % better spread, at the cost of 30 % more hip spread and 9 % vertical recoil. It also lowered the rate of damage dropoff in a wider range and increased carbine velocity to match what assault rifles had. Most importantly, when used with the foregrip it came out with 0.325x spread and 0.71x horizontal recoil.
In Battlefield 4, the attachment still improves spread, but this time by only 50 %, and then adds recoil by 50 %. It also no longer benefits from being used with the foregrip. However, most damaging to the attachment is the overall tweaks to all the guns in the game. Most guns now have better starting spread, speed increase per shot increases with a higher rate of fire, and upwards recoil has generally been increased, affecting the heavy barrel dramatically.
Overall, the heavy barrel is now relegated to weapons with not much vertical recoil or spread increase per shot. This would include all pistols, and any gun with a controllable recoil, such as the AK-12 and G36C. In the end, the lesser reliance to the heavy barrel is a good thing, since most guns have been adjusted in such a way that it is no longer deemed a necessity in use.
