The G3SG/1 is a powerful semi-automatic sniper rifle available exclusively to the Terrorists. Along with the SIG SG550, it is known as being one of the most overpowered weapons in the game despite its disadvantages. For this reason, the G3SG/1 is usually banned on many public servers rendering it useless. In competitive gameplay however, the AWP is still a highly favored sniper rifle.
While wielded, the player's movement speed is lowered to 210 units per second (default speed is 250), meaning they suffer heavy speed reduction and are tied with the AWP and SG 550 for the lowest movement speed in the game. In Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, G3SG/1 has slightly increased movement speed to 215 units per second, tied with its counterpart, SCAR-20. The G3SG/1 is one of the many weapons able to shoot underwater.
When scoped, do not fire continuously like an assault rifle (unless you encounter a group of enemies). This is the most common mistake made while using this weapon. Instead try to leave an quarter to half of a second gap between two shots.
Crouching will reduce the recoil; it can be best used at long range to attack groups of enemies.
The G3SG/1 can be useful against a crowd of enemies if you can manage at least a single shot on each person, or multiple kills.
Due to the penetration damage, it is possible to wallbang by firing at the enemy behind thin boxes or walls.
Zoom in and mark the central red-dot (1.6 and Condition Zero) / center (Source) of the crosshairs with a wipeable sketch or marker pen of the color of the crosshair. This way the G3SG/1 can be used unscoped as a semi-auto battle rifle. This also works with the lower recoil sniper rifles like Krieg 550 Commando and the Steyr Scout.
Keep a Desert Eagle handy. Use the G3SG/1 for long ranges and switch to the Desert Eagle to deal with enemies who get too close. If your sidearm is not available, try to spray at the enemy without zooming in.
If you are armed with a SIG SG550 or Scout and find a G3SG/1 on the ground, exchange your rifle for the G3SG/1. It is an arguably better weapon and is sometimes better than AWP due to its semi-automatic capability.
In comparison to the Krieg 550 Commando, the G3SG/1 has 10 rounds less in its clip and has higher recoil. Due to this, some players with a higher latency will prefer the Krieg 550 Commando over the G3SG/1, however, the G3SG/1's first shot is more accurate than Krieg 550 Commando.
Use instant kill weapons like the AK-47 to headshot the user just before he can start shooting. However, since CTs cannot buy the AK-47, it is better to pick up from dead Terrorists.
Overpower with an AWP. However the luxury of missing a shot against the G3SG/1 user while using an AWP is not available.
Inexperienced user may fire this weapon constantly and get recoil high, use the sniper rifle that has lower recoil like SG550 or AWP to counter this user.
The G3SG/1 was introduced in Beta 1.0 and it was originally the semi-auto sniper rifle for both factions. After the introduction of the SIG SG550 in Counter-Strike 1.0, the G3SG/1 became a Terrorist-exclusive weapon. In Counter-Strike 1.6, some CTbots tend to pick up this weapon during sniper matches.
In earlier versions of Counter-Strike, this gun was relatively ineffective due to an awkward problem in which the amount of recoil was improperly increased by the game when the player had a ping of more than 0. A related problem was that the recoil of the first few shots was wildly high and inconsistent, and often times, the gun had to be "warmed up" by firing a few early shots before accuracy could be maintained at its full rate of fire. In later and current versions, the recoil issues were fixed and effectively reduced, allowing the gun to be very accurate when used at full rate of fire when zoomed.
The database file name for this weapon is g3sg1.
Many servers for the online play restrict this weapon for being too powerful (as it can kill a player within 2 shots or less). This weapon is also not available in Assassinationmaps.
In the older Counter-Strike games, whenever the user is reloading the weapon, it appears that the magazine is simply taken out of it and that same clip is put back into it.
Like the SG-550, G3 SG/1 in CSS is more deadly than its older versions for unknown reasons.
The G3SG/1 is an accurized version of the famous G3 rifle.
In real life, the G3SG/1 is can change from semi-auto to full-auto by flipping a switch at its side. In-game, the G3SG/1 can only fire in semi-auto mode.
In Source version, the fire selector switch is set at safe, therefore it should not be able to fire.
In a real world scenario, the G3SG/1 is a more sensible choice than the AWSM considering the general distance at which firefights occur.
It is somewhat odd that the G3SG/1 is a Terrorist weapon, as few Terrorist organizations were known to have used the G3SG/1. On the other hand, the G3SG/1 was used by several military and law enforcement organizations for many years. Counter-Terrorist bots may pick it up if their default weapon is other sniper rifle.
For the role of a Terrorist semi-auto sniper rifle, a more realistic choice would be the Dragunov Sniper Rifle or the Accurized version of AK series, which was used by insurgents in Iraq, rather than the Heckler & Koch G3SG/1.
Despite being Terrorist-exclusive, the G3SG/1 is commonly seen in Counter-Terrorist hands in menu screens in Global Offensive.
The G3SG/1 in Counter-Strike:Global Offensive looks similar as the sniper rifle in Left 4 Dead 2. It even has the same reload animations but it lacks a flashlight, has a 20 magazine instead of 30, has some different textures, and the reload animation is longer.