Am I correctly understanding how the modern firearms from the DMG work?

Question

I am having a bit of trouble in understanding how firearms work.

Let's take for example the hunting rifle (DMG, page 268). It has the Reload property, and it has 5 shots. Now suppose a creature has the extra attack feature, which let it deal two attacks. If the creature has the rifle, then the creature can make two ranged attacks during its first turn, and then during its second turn the creature makes another two ranged attacks. Finally, during its 3rd turn, the creature can only make one ranged attack, and in its 4th turn the creature can use its action to reload the rifle, which gives it 5 shots once again.

Am I right? Does each shot count as an attack?

Answer 1

The description of the Reload weapon property says (DMG, p. 267):

Reload. A limited number of shots can be made with a weapon that has the reload property. A character must then reload it using an action or a bonus action (the character’s choice).

If a creature had multiattack that allowed it to make two attacks with a firearm, assuming its weapon was fully loaded, then it could make two attacks the first round, two attacks the second round, then one attack the third round and would need to expend a bonus action to reload.

Whether you could use the other attack from multiattack is unclear. Perhaps simply reloading during the second round would be the better strategy. Although whether it needs to be emptied first is debatable.

Worst case, you would fire five firearm rounds every three combat rounds.