Like its smaller cousin, holding the trigger down produced sustained fire, with the drawback of decreased accuracy. The wielder snapped opened the blaster and removed the old cartridge from the buttstock, and then snapped it back in place. To replace the tibanna cartridge was more difficult.
To replace a charge pack, the user hit the pack release button located directly behind the pack and slide out the pack, and slide in a new one. The weapon's tibanna gas cartridge carried enough gas for up to 500 shots, depending on the power settings of the weapon, while the charge pack lasted about 50 shots. Even so, the DC-15A was very powerful and deadly in the hands of the skilled clone troopers that received extensive training in its use. While the use of blasters allowed a clone trooper to carry significantly more ammunition than a projectile weapon, the DC-15A was a heavy 9.5 pounds, and despite the weapon's size it is not a true dedicated repeating blaster rifle the inherent instability of plasma gas in blasters reduced the weapon's accuracy under sustained fire. The DC-15A blaster rifle was one of the standard issue weapons for clone troopers.
