DP-28

Lore & Background

The DP-28 entered Soviet service in 1928 as a replacement for the older Maxim and Lewis-pattern machine guns at the squad level. Its distinctive drum magazine, perforated top cover, and belt-feed mechanism made it instantly recognizable on the fields of the Spanish Civil War, the Winter War, and the Eastern Front of World War II. Degtyaryov's design emphasized reliability in mud, snow, and sand, and the weapon remained in Soviet and Warsaw Pact arsenals well into the 1960s.

In PUBG the DP-28 carries that same identity of brute, sustained firepower. Where the M249 leans into a higher rate of fire with lighter 5.56 rounds, the DP-28 hits harder per bullet and feeds from a 100-round drum that lets a single operator pin down a position for an extended window without swapping mags. The trade-off is a punishing vertical recoil pattern that demands a firm two-handed grip and a stable stance to keep the spray on target past fifteen metres.

The weapon's presence in military crates and airdrops signals that it is meant to be a reward for aggressive looting rather than a default pick. Players who find one early in a match often build their entire loadout around it—pairing it with a secondary pistol or a shotgun for close-quarters insurance—because the drum's capacity means fewer reload pauses in a prolonged engagement.

In Their Own Story

The crate sat open in the middle of the Pochinki crossroad, its contents glinting under the overcast sky. You dropped your M416, felt the drum click into the receiver, and the weapon sat heavy and cold in both hands. A scuff of boots echoed from the second-floor window across the street. You braced the stock into your shoulder, squeezed the trigger, and the first three rounds punched a neat cluster into the shutter. By round ten the spray had climbed, and you were dragging it back down with your wrists, the drum already half-empty. The enemy never came out. The drum was empty, and the silence that followed was louder than the gunfire had been.

Reader's Guide

So you rolled a DP-28 out of a military crate and now you're holding this thing. First thing you notice: it's full-auto only. No semi, no burst. You're committing to the spray or you're not shooting at all. The 100-round drum is the whole point—you can lay down a suppressive line across a doorway or a road and keep it going while your teammate flanks, and you won't be swapping mags every four seconds like you would with an AR.

The feel, though, is a workout. Vertical recoil kicks hard and early, and by the time you're on round twenty the muzzle is climbing. A vertical grip and a compensator are basically mandatory if you want to keep the pattern on a human-sized target past twenty metres. I'd pair it with a red-dot or a 2× for the mid-range lane-holding role, and keep a shotgun or a pistol in the secondary slot because the DP-28 is slow to pivot and you do not want to be caught in a hallway with it.

Where it shines is the 15-to-60-metre window. That's where the 7.62 rounds hit with enough punch to chip through a level-2 vest in a handful of shots, and the drum means you can outlast an M416 or AKM in a sustained exchange. Past 80 metres the recoil pattern becomes a guessing game and the 5.56 M249 or a scoped DMR is going to beat you. So play the DP-28 as a lane-keeper, a suppressor, a 'I'm holding this angle so you can push' weapon. Lock a position, let the drum talk, and reload when it clicks empty. That's the whole job.

Did You Know?

• The real DP-28 was designed by Degtyaryov and adopted by the Red Army in 1928, replacing older Maxim-pattern guns at the squad level.
• In PUBG the DP-28 is the only LMG in the base arsenal that fires 7.62×39 mm; the M249 covers the 5.56 mm niche.
• The DP-28 is full-auto only—there is no semi-automatic or burst fire mode to fall back on.
• Its 100-round drum magazine is shared visually with the real weapon's iconic perforated drum, making it one of the most instantly recognizable silhouettes in the game.