Thompson Rust: Stats, Damage, Ammo & Best Skins

Ask any veteran what the best value gun in Rust is and a lot of them will say the same thing: the Thompson. It is not the flashiest weapon on the map, it will not win a long range duel, and it gets outclassed by the AK in almost every stat sheet. But the Thompson in Rust is the gun that carries more players through the mid game than anything else, because it is cheap enough to lose, easy enough to control, and it hits just as hard per shot as an MP5.

This guide covers the whole gun: how to craft the Thompson, its exact stats, every round it can fire, how much damage it actually does, the attachments it now takes, how it stacks up against the Custom SMG and the MP5A4, and whether its 100-plus skins are worth the money. Every number here is checked against the in-game item data, not guessed.

• What is the Thompson
• Thompson stats
• How to craft it
• Ammo it uses
• Damage and TTK
• Attachments
• Thompson vs Custom SMG vs MP5
• Thompson skins
• Is it a real gun
• Pro tips
• FAQ

What is the Thompson in Rust?

The Thompson is a mid-tier submachine gun, a craftable step up from your first bows and pipe guns and the gun that most players use to bridge the gap to an Assault Rifle. Its in-game description calls it “a medium damage machine gun,” which undersells it a little. For a weapon you can build at a Workbench Level 2, it hits surprisingly hard.

Mechanically it is a full-auto SMG that feeds on pistol ammo, the same rounds a Revolver or Python use. Its whole identity is reliability: a manageable recoil pattern, a tight aim cone, and strong per-shot damage. The trade-off is a smaller 20 round magazine and a slower fire rate than the other SMGs. It will not out-spray a Custom SMG up close or reach out like an AK, but it does the one thing a mid-game gun needs to do, which is win the fights you are actually going to be in.

The Thompson fills a very specific role: the affordable spike. The moment you get a Workbench Level 2 and can craft one, your kill potential jumps massively for the scrap you put in. That is why so many wipes revolve around rushing WB2 and putting a Thompson in everyone’s hands, then saving the expensive kits for raids and roams.

Thompson stats

Here is the full stat line, pulled straight from the in-game item data. Nothing here is a world-beater, but everything is solid, and “solid” is the whole point of the Thompson.

The two numbers that define the Thompson are the 37.5 damage and the 0.5 degree aim cone. That damage figure is identical to the MP5A4, which is a much rarer gun, and the tight cone means the Thompson keeps its accuracy over a longer distance than you would expect from an SMG. The catch is the 20 round magazine, the smallest of the three SMGs, so you cannot afford to spray and pray with it the way you can with a Custom SMG.

How to craft the Thompson

The Thompson is a blueprint you have to unlock, unlike the Eoka or the Custom SMG being cheap early options. Once it is learned, it costs 100 Wood, 10 High Quality Metal, 1 Metal Spring and 1 SMG Body, and it must be crafted at a Workbench Level 2 or higher.

1. Get to Workbench Level 2. You cannot craft or even research the Thompson without a WB2. Building one takes 500 Metal Fragments, 20 HQM and a handful of blueprint fragments.
2. Unlock the blueprint. Learn the Thompson at a research table for 60 scrap, or unlock it through the Workbench Level 2 tech tree. It is not known by default.
3. Gather the parts. The Wood and HQM are easy, but the SMG Body and Metal Spring are components you loot from crates and barrels or craft from metal. The SMG Body is the piece most players are short on.
4. Craft it. A Thompson takes 30 seconds to craft at a WB2, dropping to 15 seconds at a Workbench Level 3.

What ammo does the Thompson use?

The Thompson fires pistol ammunition, the same rounds used by the Revolver, Semi-Auto Pistol, Python and other SMGs. There are three types, and knowing which to load is a small edge a lot of players miss.

For nearly every fight, the standard Pistol Bullet is the right call because it is cheap to craft and easy to sustain. HV Pistol Ammo travels faster, so it is a small upgrade for hitting people at the edge of the Thompson’s range. Incendiary Pistol Bullets deal the most raw damage at 42 and set the target on fire, which is nice, but the low velocity makes them harder to land past close range. All three do double damage on a headshot, which is where the Thompson does its real work.

Thompson damage and time to kill

This is where the Thompson earns its keep. At 37.5 damage a body shot and 75 on a headshot, it hits harder per bullet than the Custom SMG and ties the MP5A4. Combined with 462 RPM, it pushes out close to 289 damage per second while the trigger is down.

In practice, a naked or lightly armored player at 100 HP goes down to three body shots, and far fewer if you are landing headshots. Against a fully kitted player in metal armor the count climbs, because armor soaks a chunk of every hit, but the Thompson’s low recoil makes stacking those hits realistic even for newer players.

Thompson attachments

A recent quality-of-life update gave the Thompson a bit of a glow up. On top of the usual sight and muzzle slots, it now takes underbarrel attachments like the Flashlight and Laser Sight, which most older guides never mention.

• Holosight or Simple Sight. A cleaner sight picture is the single most useful add-on for most players. It makes tracking a moving target far easier.
• Muzzle Boost. Adds fire rate for more damage per second, at the cost of a little accuracy. A strong pick on a close-range gun like this.
• Muzzle Brake. Cuts recoil hard so your spray stays flat, trading away a slice of damage and range.
• Silencer. Hides your muzzle flash and quiets the shot so you do not paint your position across the map, at a damage and velocity cost.
• Extended Magazine. Bumps the mag from 20 to 25, which is a big deal on the SMG with the smallest clip.
• Underbarrel Flashlight or Laser. The new slots. A laser tightens hip-fire, and a flashlight lights up dark rooms for building pushes.

Thompson vs Custom SMG vs MP5A4

Rust has three submachine guns, and the question of which to run comes up every wipe. The short version: the Custom SMG is the cheap fast one, the MP5A4 is the best but hardest to get, and the Thompson sits in the sweet spot in the middle.

The Custom SMG fires faster and holds more, but at only 30 damage a shot it is the softest of the three, and it is really a spray weapon for point-blank fights. The MP5A4 is flat-out the best SMG in the game, matching the Thompson’s 37.5 damage but with a 600 RPM fire rate and a 30 round mag, except it sits behind a Workbench Level 3 and mostly comes from loot.

The Thompson is the pick when you want MP5-level per-shot damage without the MP5 price tag. You lose fire rate and 10 rounds of magazine, but you gain a gun you can craft a wipe earlier and mass produce. The old saying holds up: run Thompsons, celebrate MP5s.

Thompson skins

The Thompson is one of the most-skinned weapons in Rust, with well over 100 workshop skins ranging from a couple of dollars to genuine collector prices. Popular paid skins include the Heat Seeker, HellCore, Popstar, Valkyrie, Deep Ruby, Black Diamond and Factory New, while skins like Winnie, Dilanzito and others were given out as Twitch Drops.

Here is the important part, because people search it constantly: Thompson skins are purely cosmetic and are not pay to win. A fifteen dollar Heat Seeker fires exactly the same as a plain wooden Thompson: identical damage, identical recoil, identical everything. You are paying to look good, not to shoot better. Skins do trade on the Steam Community Market for real money, so an expensive one holds value, but no skin will ever win you a fight that the base gun could not.

Is the Thompson a real gun?

Yes. The Rust Thompson is modelled on the real-world Thompson submachine gun, the classic American SMG better known as the “Tommy Gun.” The real Thompson was designed around the end of the First World War, became infamous in the hands of Prohibition-era gangsters in the 1920s, and then served widely as a military weapon through the Second World War.

Rust’s version captures the look of the later, stripped-down military models, the boxy receiver and wooden furniture without the drum magazine of the gangster-movie version. Like the real thing, it is a close-quarters bullet hose that trades range for punch, which is a pretty faithful nod to a gun that was built for trench and street fighting rather than long-distance accuracy.

Thompson pro tips

• Aim for the head. At 75 damage a headshot, the Thompson kills unarmored players in two head hits. Its tight aim cone makes tap-firing at heads viable further out than you think.
• Tap or burst at range, spray up close. The 0.5 degree cone means single taps stay accurate at medium range. Save the full-auto spray for in-your-face fights where every pellet lands.
• Mind the 20 round mag. It is the smallest SMG clip in the game. Reload behind cover the instant a fight pauses, and consider an Extended Mag if you keep running dry.
• Mass produce them. The Thompson’s whole strength is that it is cheap enough to always have a spare. Keep a box of them at base so a death is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
• Do not raid with it. Guns are terrible against structures. A Thompson will not open a wooden door in any reasonable time, let alone anything metal. For raids you want explosives, and you can price them out with the raid calculator.
• Recycle spares you do not want. A looted Thompson you will not use gives back 60 Wood and 6 HQM plus a chance at the components in a recycler, so it is never truly wasted.

Rust Thompson FAQ

Sources

• Facepunch Rust Wiki, Thompson (smg.thompson) item page, for the shortname, craft cost, ammo types, damage, recycle output and research cost.
• RustClash Rust Wiki, Thompson, for the fire rate, aim cone, magazine size, reload, draw, per-round damage and attachment effects.
• Corrosion Hour, RUST Thompson, for the crafting details and its role against the Custom SMG and MP5A4.
• whenisforcewiperust.com weapons guide, blueprints guide and raid calculator, for progression and raid-cost cross-checks.