It is seen during the Soviet Red Army Campaign missions of Call of Duty: World at War. It is extremely powerful, being the only weapon that takes only one hit to kill anywhere at any range. In the mission Vendetta, it can be used. To find it, when you fend off the first large group of German soldiers while covering your comrades, after they advance, and after you fend off some Wehrmacht in close range, there will be a mounted MG42. Near it leaning against a wall will be the PTRS-41. The mission Heart of the Reichalso harbors this sniper rifle during the end of the mission in which it is located in a ruined building before stepping foot inside the Reichstag. It is also available in the mission Downfall in which you snipe the opposing German forces on the opposite side of the balcony and then provide fire support for your comrades on the bottom of the Parliament floor.The PTRS-41 is unlocked at level 57. It is often likened to the Barrett .50 Cal seen in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. In real life, its 6 foot length and 44lb weight would prevent it from being used as a conventional sniper rifle. It is designed to be used while prone for medium range engagements with a spotter/loader, and does not mount a scope. How it is held in-game is impossible, as the barrel would dip the weapon downwards. It also classed in-game as a bolt action rifle, even though the player uses it like the semi-automatic rifle it truly is.
The PTRS-41 and the Barrett .50 Cal are often compared to each other, though the PTRS-41 has a larger bullet and is much longer. They are similar in that they are both very loud with similar recoil. The PTRS does nearly the same amount of damage as all of the scoped bolt actions (multipliers aside) in-game. Note that it can fire faster than the other bolt action rifles (there is still a small pause between the shots, but not as much as bolt actions) and reloads quicker by placing a full magazine in instead of reloading each round one by one, though this becomes a slow reload when the bolt must be released during a full magazine reload. In this case, the bolt action rifle's reload would be far faster if you were to fire 1 or 2 shots and then reload, or use reload canceling. Also, the PTRS-41 does not sway as much as the bolt actions when scoped (4 degrees instead of 6). This makes it the second most accurate sniper, behind the M1 Garand. For sniping, the PTRS-41 outclasses all bolt action rifles in terms of rate of fire and accuracy, but ties them in everything else, as the base damage for all snipers is 70, which it should be higher for the PTRS because it has an extremely big bullet, roughly .57-.58 caliber due to it being an anti-tank rifle.
The general rule in a multiplayer game is that the PTRS-41 is a single-shot kill anywhere except the limbs when using theStopping Power perk. Without the Stopping Power perk however, it requires two shots to any section of the body except the head, chest, and neck. The PTRS-41 is extremely loud as shots can easily be heard from across even the largest maps. Also, the PTRS-41 is the only primary weapon that can do noticeable damage to tanks. Although it doesn't do very much (depending on where the shot hits it can do from around 10-30 damage, out of 1350 health), other guns do less than 1 damage per bullet. Unlike other sniper rifles the PTRS-41 is so powerful that it is possible to shoot off an opponent's limbs and send gore flying out from the opponent's body (this being due to the 14.5x114 caliber the PTRS is chambered in, which is much larger than that of any other sniper rifle).
Trivia
 | Call Of Duty 5 : World At War |
- Even though it is a semi-automatic rifle, it is categorized in World at War as a bolt-action rifle.
- On the back of the gun in CoD WaW, a Soviet hammer-and-sickle engraving can be seen.
- Even though there is the back half of the iron sight, there is no forward sight
- This is the only sniper rifle capable of blowing limbs off soldiers.
- In both Multiplayer and Zombie modes players tend to reload cancel after their character inserts the five round en-bloc clip to save time.
- The PTRS-41 produces a large sound similar to the Barrett .50 cal, which can be heard across most of the map.
- The PTRS-41 is similar to Call of Duty 4's MP44, as both weapons lack any Marksman challenges, don't have any unlockable attachments, and are the last weapons of their class to be unlocked.
- If you look closely at the PTRS-41 when you're out of ammo, you will notice that there is still a cartridge in the chamber.
- Converted to American measurements, the PTRS-41 uses a .57 caliber cartridge (as it was an anti-tank rifle), making it the largest caliber sniper rifle in any Call of Duty game, closely followed by the Barrett M82, which uses a slightly smaller .50 caliber cartridge.
- In real life, the PTRS-41 can have a bipod (it was an anti-tank rifle).
- The weapon is unlocked in multiplayer at a level equal to its caliber, 57 (the cartridge the PTRS fires is a .57 of an inch in diameter).
- Shooting a tank in the same area with Stopping Power and Deep Impact may do noticeable damage on a tank. It takes 105 shots in all with these 2 perks to destroy a tank.
- The PTRS-41 is wrongly classed as a Sniper Rifle as it is actally an Anti-Tank Rifle and in real life was used to penetrate armor on tanks which could be a reference to the Pack-a-Punch upgraded version of the PTRS-41, "The Penetrator".
- In real life, it usually takes two soldiers to properly operate this rifle.
