Magazine size can matter more than it seems on pistols, especially in longer fights where reload timing can interrupt your damage flow.
Tainted Clip increases magazine capacity for pistols while reducing reload speed, which sometimes shifts weapons toward longer firing windows before needing to reload.
This can feel more noticeable on certain builds where having extra shots available changes how comfortably you can stay in a fight before resetting.
How To Get Tainted Clip?
Tainted Clip is obtained through Orokin Vault runs on Deimos, where Dragon Keys are required to unlock hidden vault doors during missions.
Each completed vault awards one corrupted mod from a shared pool, meaning the drop is always random with no guaranteed result per run.
Since there is no vendor source or direct purchase option, farming requires repeated vault runs until the mod eventually drops.
Tainted Clip Effects
Tainted Clip increases pistol magazine capacity, giving you noticeably more shots per reload cycle, which helps keep damage flowing longer before you need to pause and reload.
The reload speed penalty makes each reload take longer, which can slightly interrupt pacing in fights where you’re constantly cycling through magazines or staying under pressure.
This becomes more noticeable on faster firing pistols, where you tend to burn through ammo quickly and rely on smooth reload timing to keep pressure on enemies.
On weapons that already have large magazines, the extra capacity stretches uptime even further, letting you stay on target longer before any downtime kicks in.
It also works well on heavier pistols where each shot matters more, since the added magazine size gives a bit more room to secure kills before needing to reset.
Tainted Clip Stats
Rank | Magazine Capacity | Reload Speed | Capacity |
0 | +10% | -5% | 6 |
| 1 | +20% | -10% | 7 |
2 | +30% | -15% | 8 |
| 3 | +40% | -20% | 9 |
4 | +50% | -25% | 10 |
| 5 | +60% | -30% | 11 |
Verdict
Tainted Clip is basically a straight magazine boost for pistols, giving you more shots before a reload which can feel better in longer fights or sustained engagements.
The reload speed penalty is there, but in practice it’s usually manageable since most builds either don’t rely on constant rapid reloads or can offset it with other mods.
It fits best on pistols with larger ammo pools or heavier hit styles, where squeezing out extra shots per magazine matters more than shaving seconds off reload timing.
