M1014

Lore & Background

The M1014 entered service with various military and law-enforcement units long before the collapse that turned Chernarus into the lawless, overgrown wasteland players now navigate. In the game's fiction, these weapons were distributed to garrisons, border patrols, and police precincts as standard-issue close-range arms. When the societal infrastructure crumbled, the guns did not disappear; they simply changed hands. Some were abandoned in locked armories as their owners fled or perished. Others were buried under rubble in the ruins of police stations, their magazines still loaded with a few precious shells.

For the survivors of DayZ, the M1014 represents a tangible link to the organized world that no longer exists. Finding one in a dusty military warehouse, its polymer stock still intact and its gas system free of corrosion, carries a quiet weight. It is not the legendary rifle that will carry you across the map, but in the claustrophobic corridors of a farmhouse or the muddy trenches around a military compound, it is the weapon that keeps you alive when the first zombie or hostile player closes the distance.

The contrast between the M1014 and the common pump shotgun is a small but telling detail of DayZ's world-building. The pump is everywhere—farmhouses, hunting sheds, civilian homes. The M1014 is not. Its scarcity mirrors the scarcity of order itself: the military-grade gear is out there, but it is hidden, guarded, or buried, and reaching it often means walking through the most dangerous zones on the island.

In Their Own Story

The rain had been falling for three days, turning the gravel road outside the military checkpoint into a brown slurry. Kael pressed his back against the rusted hull of an abandoned transport truck and counted his shells. Four buckshot. Two birdshot. Not enough for what waited behind the chain-link fence.

He'd been tracking the M1014 for two weeks, following the old supply routes that the pre-collapse garrison used. The armory was supposed to be in the east wing of the compound, behind three locked doors and a courtyard full of the dead. He'd seen it from the ridge once, a grey shape in the window, and the memory had kept him alive through a night of fever and a close call with a bandit pair at the river crossing.

Now the courtyard was quiet. The dead had mostly moved on, drawn by something else—engine noise, maybe, or a gunshot from the north. Kael picked his way through the mud, boots sucking with every step, and reached the side door. The lock was already broken. Inside, the air smelled of wet concrete and old grease. And there, on a steel shelf between a stack of empty ammo crates and a dented helmet, it sat. The M1014. Magazine full. Eight rounds of buckshot, cold and waiting.

He slung it over his shoulder and walked back out into the rain, feeling, for the first time in weeks, like he might actually make it to the coast.

Reader's Guide

Stats: The M1014 is a semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun with an 8-round magazine. It accepts both 12 gauge buckshot and 12 gauge birdshot shells. Buckshot delivers heavier per-pellet impact at close range, while birdshot spreads wider and is marginally more forgiving at slightly longer distances. The weapon is lighter and faster to cycle than the pump-action shotgun, allowing quicker follow-up shots in a firefight. Exact in-game damage, weight, and durability figures vary with patches, so check the current DayZ wiki for the latest numbers.

Where to find it: The M1014 spawns in military and law-enforcement contexts. Look in military bases, armories, police stations, military warehouses, and occasionally in hardened civilian buildings that were once government or security facilities. It is noticeably rarer than the pump shotgun, so do not expect to find one in a random farmhouse. Military zones on the map, particularly those with multiple locked interiors, are your best bet.

Crafting: The M1014 is not a craftable item in DayZ. It must be found on the map. There is no recipe to build one from components.

Practical survival notes: The M1014 shines in tight spaces—hallways, farm interiors, vehicle interiors, and the muddy gutters around military compounds. Its semi-auto action means you can put two or three rounds into a target in the time it takes to rack a pump once, which is the difference between killing a threat and being killed by it. However, every shell you fire is gone. In a world where 12 gauge ammo is finite and hard to come by, discipline matters more than trigger speed. Aim for center mass, take the shot, and only cycle again if the threat is still standing. Birdshot is your friend at three to eight meters where the spread is manageable; beyond that, the pattern degrades quickly. Pair the M1014 with a sidearm or a bolt-action rifle for mid-range threats, and always keep a few shells in your pocket as emergency reserve. If you find one, do not fire it at a single zombie in a field. Save it. It will matter more when the bandits come.

Did You Know?

• The M1014's semi-automatic action gives it a meaningful speed advantage over the pump-action shotgun in close-quarters encounters, letting you cycle a second round before a pump user has finished racking.
• Because it spawns in military and police locations, the M1014 is inherently tied to the most dangerous zones in DayZ, making the act of finding it as much a survival test as a loot roll.
• Both buckshot and birdshot shells are interchangeable in the M1014, giving players flexibility in how they manage their limited 12 gauge ammo pool depending on the range of the threat.
• The M1014 is not craftable in DayZ; it can only be found in the world, reinforcing the game's theme that the old world's tools are finite and must be scavenged, not manufactured.