ItemsOct 9, 20265 min readCS2Sell

M4A1-S skins guide: Printstream, Knight, Hot Rod and other notable finishes

The M4A1-S's notable CS2 skins, from 2013's Dark Water to the 2025 Solitude: where each came from, its rarity, the float caps that limit exteriors and which have Souvenirs.

The M4A1-S has fewer finishes than the M4A4, but more of them are restricted to a narrow float window, so exteriors matter a lot when you shop for one. This guide covers its best-documented finishes: where each came from, its rarity and float range, and which versions exist.

The rifle

Valve added the M4A1-S and the USP-S on August 14, 2013, with the Arms Deal update that also introduced weapon finishes. It is a silenced Counter-Terrorist rifle with a 20-round magazine, ten fewer than the M4A4, according to the Counter-Strike Wiki. In Global Offensive the two M4s shared one loadout slot; CS2's loadout, introduced in June 2023, gives each side five rifle slots, so you can carry both. Our M4A4 skins guide covers the other one.

Finishes with tight float caps

Finish	Collection	Released	Rarity	Float range	Exteriors
Dark Water	Arms Deal	Aug 2013	Restricted	0.10–0.26	MW, FT
Bright Water	Bravo	Sep 2013	Restricted	0.10–0.22	MW, FT
Knight	Cobblestone	Jul 2014	Classified	0.00–0.10	FN, MW
Hot Rod	Chop Shop	May 2015	Classified	0.00–0.08	FN, MW
Icarus Fell	Gods and Monsters	May 2015	Restricted	0.00–0.10	FN, MW
Blue Phosphor	Control	Dec 2020	Classified	0.00–0.08	FN, MW
Fade	Sport & Field	Oct 2024	Covert	0.00–0.08	FN, MW

Knight has brass inlays with a renaissance armour theme. It is the only Classified skin in the Cobblestone Collection, one of the three collections Operation Breakout introduced in July 2014. Because the collection's only Covert is the AWP | Dragon Lore, ten Knights in a trade-up contract can only produce a Dragon Lore, as our Dragon Lore history explains. Souvenir Knights came from the ten Cobblestone souvenir packages, from ESL One Cologne 2014 to Boston 2018.

Hot Rod is a chrome base coat "candied in transparent red anodized effect paint", from the Chop Shop Collection that arrived with Operation Bloodhound. Blue Phosphor uses layers of metallic blue over a chrome blue base and came from the Control Collection in Operation Broken Fang. Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell and Blue Phosphor come from map and operation collections, so none of them can be StatTrak; Dark Water and Bright Water came from cases and can.

Fade is the M4A1-S's newest low-float finish, a Covert from the Sport & Field Collection that launched with the Armory on October 2, 2024. As on other Fade skins, the paint seed rotates the colour gradient, which is what traders' fade percentages measure; our fade percentage guide explains the scale. Valve took Sport & Field out of the Armory on July 8, 2026, so the Armory no longer hands out new copies.

Five M4A1-S finishes that only exist in Factory New and Minimal Wear

Case Coverts

Finish	Case	Released	Float range
Cyrex	Operation Breakout Weapon Case	Jul 2014	0.00–0.50
Hyper Beast	Chroma 2 Case	Apr 2015	0.00–1.00
Golden Coil	Shadow Case	Sep 2015	0.00–1.00
Chantico's Fire	Chroma 3 Case	Apr 2016	0.00–0.99
Mecha Industries	Gamma Case	Jun 2016	0.00–0.80
Player Two	Prisma 2 Case	Mar 2020	0.00–0.84
Printstream	Operation Broken Fang Case	Dec 2020	0.00–0.80
Vaporwave	Gallery Case	Oct 2024	0.00–0.60

Case skins can roll as StatTrak. Hyper Beast is "a beastly creature in psychedelic colors", and the same design also appears on the AWP, Five-SeveN and Nova. Mecha Industries is described as built from hardened ceramic panels. Player Two shows animated versions of a GIGN agent and the Pop Dog character; Valve described the Prisma 2 Case as "lightly based on Anime/Manga themes".

Printstream is a stark black and white design with pearlescent highlights. It arrived in December 2020, four months after the Desert Eagle version from the Fracture Case; the USP-S got one in 2022 and the AWP in 2025. Vaporwave, from the Armory's Gallery Case, shows a Greco-Roman statue among distorted imagery, and its range stops at 0.60.

Map collections and Souvenirs

Four M4A1-S finishes come from map collections that appeared in Major souvenir packages:

Master Piece (Classified): the Overpass Collection from Operation Breakout, custom painted with wildstyle graffiti. Overpass packages at 18 Majors, from ESL One Cologne 2014 to Copenhagen 2024, produced Souvenir copies.
Control Panel (Classified): the 2018 Nuke Collection, colourful dials and switches over a blue base, with Souvenirs from 11 Nuke packages between London 2018 and Budapest 2025.
Welcome to the Jungle (Covert): the Ancient Collection from Operation Broken Fang, with a golden pit viper and ancient iconography. Ancient packages at eight Majors from Stockholm 2021 to Budapest 2025 carried it.
Imminent Danger (Covert): the 2021 Vertigo Collection from Operation Riptide, a patchwork of safety signs, found in six Vertigo packages from Stockholm 2021 to Shanghai 2024.

The CS2 era

Black Lotus is the Classified M4A1-S from the Kilowatt Case of February 2024, the first new case after CS2's launch. Solitude is a limited-time Armory item that Valve added on August 14, 2025: a Classified "mountain terrain pattern" that followed the XM1014 version from March 2025. Party Animal, a neon animal print, is the Classified M4A1-S of the Harlequin Collection, which joined the weekly care package drops in January 2026. The Genesis and Dead Hand collections each added a Restricted M4A1-S, Liquidation and Electrum.

M4A1-S finishes from the Gallery Case, Kilowatt Case, Armory and Harlequin Collection

What to check before you trade

On a capped finish, compare floats within its own window: a Knight at 0.09 is near the worst that skin gets, and a Dark Water can't go below 0.10. The float guide covers the tiers. For Souvenirs, the gold stickers show the event, which also tells you whether a copy came from a package or a 2026 Souvenir-O-Matic craft. On CS2Sell, the float range and Souvenir filters on Buy narrow listings quickly.