Borderlands 2 Weapons

Construction
The components of a given weapon determine its name, rarity and characteristics.
 * The body of a weapon is the receiver, frame, or the midsection of a rocket launcher. What body a weapon has is determined by the manufacturer of that weapon.
 * The barrel grants the weapon its Title.
 * The material a weapon is made from, its surface texture, depends on the weapon's rarity. Each manufacturer has weapon textures of increasing quality for non-unique weapons. Quality varies from (common), through  (uncommon),  (rare), and  (very rare), with the weapon's stats being boosted more by each increasing rarity level.  weapons use their manufacturer's purple-quality skin.  (legendary) weapons gain the highest bonuses, but are generally not directly comparable to lower-level weapons with the same barrel and body due to their various special effects, and have their own unique materials rather than using a standard one for their rarity.
 * All additional non-default parts, including the weapon's grip, determine the weapon's Prefix and grant bonuses of various kinds to its stats.

Types

 * Pistols : Versatile class of weapons usually suited to short-to-medium range combat, typically with fast reload speed. Sub-types include auto-firing machine pistols with larger magazines but lower accuracy, middle-of-the-road repeaters, and revolvers with longer range and higher accuracy but slower reloads and lower ammo capacity.
 * Submachine Guns : High rate of fire and low recoil, good at close range and decent at medium range. Usually lower per-round damage than pistols of lower level, but greater rate of fire means higher DPS, and tend to have high capacity magazines.
 * Shotguns : Fire multiple pellets, effective at close range but lowest accuracy of any weapon type. Sub-types include single-barrel fast-firing weapons with larger magazines, medium-range weapons with low spread, and multi-barrel weapons with huge per-shot damage but slow rates of fire and frequent reloads.
 * Assault Rifles : Versatile medium/long range weapon. Sub-types include accurate, high-damage semi-auto weapons, general-purpose burst or automatic rifles, and high-capacity light machine guns with heavy recoil. Special assault rifles can fire grenades or rockets with standard rifle ammunition, though at a cost of multiple rounds per shot.
 * Sniper Rifles : High-damage, accurate weapons which are most effective at long range, usually with very limited magazine size and slow rates of fire. They are almost always equipped with scopes, and often have a bonus to Critical Hit Damage. Unlike the original Borderlands, fully automatic sniper rifles are not limited to a single very rare model.
 * Rocket Launchers : Powerful shoulder-fired weapons with many positive firing characteristics, but low ammo capacity, long reload time and expensive ammo. Subtypes include high-velocity cannons, low-velocity cruise missiles with devastatingly high damage and shotgun-like spread launchers.

Weapon Manufacturers

 * Bandit : Bandit weapons feature very large magazines, increased reload times and average values in other stats. Bandit weapons seem to have a lower chance of mounting scopes or other optics than weapons from other manufacturers. Bandit weapon names are usually misspelled, and the weapons have a "rough and ready" look with exposed bolts and screws.
 * Dahl : Dahl weapons are burst-fire when the player is aiming down the sights, and single-fire when firing from the hip. Dahl weapon names are typically "operator" terms found in modern military fiction, and are visually based on western high-tech firearms with parts like MagPul PMAGs.
 * Hyperion : Hyperion weapons have "reverse recoil," with heavy initial scope wobble which becomes steadier as they are repeatedly fired. Hyperion weapons have a corporate naming theme, and are sharp and angular.
 * Jakobs : Jakobs weapons specialize in high power, and are always semi-automatic or bolt action. Jakobs guns often fire as fast as the player can pull the trigger, though this effect can actually end up on weapons which only have one shot between reloads. Jakobs weapons have an Old West naming theme, and have an old-style look with wood furnishings and engraved metal at higher levels.
 * Maliwan : Maliwan weapons always feature an elemental effect, and sometimes use more than one ammo per shot. Maliwan weapons have a "ten dollar word" naming theme (Consummate, Acuminous, etc) and use flowing, organic shapes.
 * Tediore : Tediore guns are thrown in an arc instead of reloading, similar to a grenade. Rocket launchers are thrown overarm and travel straight initially, but randomly deviate off-course. Does damage proportionate to the amount of ammo left in the magazine (remaining ammunition is lost on reload), but has a very small explosion radius. Tediore weapons tend to be named like mass-produced generic products (New and Improved, Original, Basic, etc) and have a blocky aesthetic.
 * Torgue : Torgue weapons always deal explosive damage, and some variants fire rockets or grenades using bullet ammunition. All Torgue guns shoot slow, mini-missiles as normal ammunition, unless stated other-wise. Torgue weapon names are typically crude sex puns/innuendo and the weapons themselves usually have a bulging, rounded appearance, with large projecting exhaust pipes or ports on the barrels.
 * Vladof : Vladof weapons are known best for their high rates of fire, and come with large (But not Bandit sized) magazines. Vladof weapon names have a "revolutionary" theme (Glorious, Worker's, etc) and appear similar to Russian/Soviet Cold War-era hardware, with parts including RPG-7 grips, AK-pattern magazines and so on.

E-Tech
E-Tech weapons are -quality weapons that are very rare, being purple-quality weapons which spawn with a special Eridian barrel instead of a normal one. E-Tech weapons use Eridium technology attached to the weapon to convert bullets into other projectiles. E-Tech weapons are characterised by the hexagonal 'petals' on their barrels, which flare outwards from the weapon as it is being fired. While their stats vary, they often have superior damage to regular weapons of their level at the cost of using multiple ammo per shot.

Weapon Names
This section list the basic Titles of all the randomly generated weapons in Borderlands 2, by the barrels which assign them. It excludes the names of Unique and Legendary weapons from these manufacturers.

See also: Borderlands 2 weapons by title, and Borderlands 2 weapons by prefix

Unique & Legendary Weapons
These weapons are variants of the above models with special effects and bonuses added and their own Titles. Unique weapons are always of blue or purple rarity and are typically assigned as special rewards for quests or given for defeating named enemies. Legendary weapons are always of orange quality and are only dropped by the toughest enemies on Pandora. As with all loot, there is a very small chance of both types of weapons being found from any suitable loot source, but it is exceptionally rare.