This page went up as a watch. A known-issues tracker said Infinity Ward was working on bullet impact problems on the front end Firing Range dummies and had a fix dated November 10, and nothing official carried either the defect or the date. Both now exist in the official patch notes, so the watch is over. The fix shipped. The part worth your attention is the sentence Infinity Ward attached to it.
Confirmed, and it closes the reported version of this page. The fix is written into the official Call of Duty patch notes for Modern Warfare 4 Season 1 under November 10, the date Insider Gaming's known-issues tracker had been carrying since November 9. The notes go further than the tracker did: they state that the Firing Range is an offline simulation, is not on a dedicated server, and uses a different bullet collision system on the dummy than on players. What is still unstated is what the additional Firing Range improvements are.
What shipped, and the caveat attached to it
- The fix. Bullet collision issues specific to the front end Firing Range were addressed. Slower-velocity ballistic bullets now correctly show hitmarkers on the dummy even when they travel inside it for more than one frame.
- The caveat, in their words. Infinity Ward says that while they strive for parity, the Firing Range is an offline simulation, is not on a dedicated server, and the target dummy uses a different bullet collision system than players do.
- What the caveat means in practice. The range was not only broken for two and a half weeks. It is also, by design, a different system from the one that resolves your shots in a match. A fixed range is honest about itself now, not identical to live.
- Still vague. The tracker promised additional Firing Range improvements alongside the fix. The notes do not say what they were, so there is no way to tell what else moved under you.
Why hardcore SnD cares
Hardcore Search is decided by shot counts, and with max health at 22 since the Season 1 update the gap between a two-shot and a three-shot kill is the gap between winning a one-life duel and losing it. The range is where that number gets established, defended, and passed around a crew. Today it reports impacts correctly again. Today it also became official that the range is not a dedicated server, which means it was always a model of your gun, not a measurement of your round.
- Recheck anything you locked in since launch. A build you settled on from range feel between October 23 and today rested on bad impact reporting. The suppressor and barrel decisions are the ones to redo first.
- Promote private match for the final read. The range is good for comparing attachments. A live body on a dedicated server, with a teammate taking the shots, is the only way to settle a shot count you plan to bet a round on.
- The new guns are the sharpest case. The Cronen Osprey and CSG-35 arrived with Season 1, so every read anyone has on them came from the range during the window it was wrong.
The range tells you about your gun. The server tells you about your round. Only one of those ends a match.
What is not confirmed
Nobody has quantified the gap. Infinity Ward now says the dummy and players use different bullet collision systems and stops there, with no numbers and no list of which weapon classes drift the most. There is also no statement that the November 10 fix brings the range to parity, and the wording is deliberately the opposite of that. Until someone puts figures on it, treat the range as a comparison bench and the server as the verdict.