How to Detonate Sticky Bombs in GTA 5 (PS, Xbox, PC)

To detonate sticky bombs in GTA 5, press Left on the D-pad on PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, or G on PC. The trick is everything around that button: how to throw them from a car, why the remote sometimes does nothing, and why GTA Online plays by different rules than Story Mode.

Sticky bomb controls on every platform

Equip the sticky bombs from the throwables slot of the weapon wheel, aim, then place or throw (Reported, StrategyWiki and Gameranx). Aimed at a wall, a car or the ground in front of you, the bomb sticks where it lands.

That last row explains most of the confusion online. On PC, G does double duty: it quick-tosses your equipped throwable, then detonates what you’ve placed (Reported, StrategyWiki and GTA BOOM). On console, D-pad Left on its own detonates, and you only throw with it while aiming. So, as long as sticky bombs are your selected throwable, you can keep your rifle out, lob one under an enemy car and blow it without opening the wheel.

How to throw and detonate from a car

From behind the wheel, the bomb goes out the window. Hold L1 (LB on Xbox) to aim your drive-by weapon, which breaks the side window, then press R1 (RB) to throw. The same D-pad Left press then sets it off, as YourSixGaming shows in this quick tutorial (Reported).

One catch on console: in a vehicle, D-pad Left also changes the radio station, and holding it opens the radio wheel (Reported, GTA BOOM). Tap it, don’t hold it. PC players don’t have that clash, since the radio wheel sits on Q. And mind the blast radius: a sticky bomb dropped beside your own car will total it.

Story Mode vs GTA Online: what changes

The bomb itself, two M112 C-4 sticks with a remote timer taped on and a small red light, is the same in both modes. It’s a redesign of the weapon that debuted in The Ballad of Gay Tony, GTA IV’s second episode. Ammu-Nation sells it as “a plastic explosive charge fitted with a remote detonator” (Reported, GTA Wiki). The rules around it differ, though.

When you hit the planted limit, the oldest bomb disappears as you place the next one (Reported, GTA Wiki). Online, that cap of five is the real constraint: you can’t wire a whole street the way Trevor can.

Where to get free sticky bombs

In Story Mode, several missions hand them out (Reported, GTA Wiki):

Free pickups also sit around the map: the second floor of the unfinished building at Vespucci Boulevard and Prosperity Street in Vespucci Canals, a house yard in West Vinewood, and several underwater wrecks, including the one under the train bridge in Banning. After Minor Turbulence, check the Merryweather cargo plane crash site north of Stab City in the Alamo Sea.

In GTA Online, you’ll find them in the Facility security room once the Security upgrade is installed, on the catwalk above the sleeping quarters in the Hangar, and in a box near the rival operation during one of the Bunker resupply missions.

Tips that make sticky bombs deadlier

• Tanks melt faster. Sticky bombs deal 28.57% more damage to tanks than a normal explosion: three take out a Rhino in free roam, six a TM-02 Khanjali or an APC (Reported, GTA Wiki).
• The door trick. Online, open a car door on the side nobody uses and stick the bomb inside it. When the door shuts, nobody else can see it, a cheap stand-in for a car bomb.
• They’re fragile. A bullet sets one off, and so does ramming a car into one planted on a wall. If someone shoots an armed bomb in your hand while you’re in a vehicle, the vehicle goes up, armor or not.
• Stay in range. If the press does nothing, you’ve likely walked too far for the remote (Reported, Sportskeeda). Back up toward the bomb, not onto it.

Planning a bigger job? Our GTA 5 story mode heists guide covers the Merryweather and Big Score approaches, and the best weaponized vehicles in GTA Online shows what you’ll be blowing up, or hiding from. The Shooting Range that raises your Online carry limit is covered in our GTA Online bunker guide, and Story Mode’s weapons and explosive ammo cheats are in our GTA 5 cheat codes list.