The .38 Calibre BB Gun

[danconnors]

I just put an entire 24 shot clip from an ugraded (hardened) .38 pipe rifle into an Alpha mongrel. Not only was the mutt not killed, it killed me, inside a suit of power armor. This particular caliber, in Fallout 4 anyway, is so useless you'd be better off using a BB gun. Both weapons merely make their targets angry, but BB's are cheaper and lighter..

In real life I own a .38 special revolver that I KNOW would do more than tick someone off. Maybe they could make a .38 Gatling gun conversion. Then I wouldn't mind using 50 shots from the gun to kill a mutt.

[sdack]

I'll bite *lol*

Does your .38 special revolver that you own look anything like this?

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/6/6b/Fallout4_pipe_pistol.png/revision/latest?cb=20151227015411

If not then you have your answer.

Those aren't mutts either. If you'd be looking like them and still could breath and run around like they do, trust me, you'd be tough as nails, too.

[Dinger]

well .. .. everything has a health AND armor rating

even if there isn t any actual armor ... sooo weapon deals 24 dam..

armor rating is 20 .. so each shot only deals 4 damage

[Xyzzy]

it does very well in .45 mode gun nut 3

[Claybot]

I turn the 38 pistol into a 38 SMG use it all the time. Very effective weapon if used in close combat. Even better if you can get your hands on a legendary version.

[Gordoinc]

Yes the bullet (and any damage) sponging is attrocious in this game. It gets worse as you proress, wait till you start spawning supermutant overlords.
You just have to learn to deal with it, for this and many games. Until game makers wake up to them selves and realize you do not actually need to damage sponge- grind to make a game challenging.

I would recommend if something takes little damage first shot, run back to your nearest settlement (letting the critter chase you), and let your turrets and immortal settlers deal with it.
You will still get the XP and loot.

[danconnors]

It's just frustrating. I have over 4,000 hours in this game, and I can't number the times I've tried to make an effective weapon that uses .38 ammunition. I've never suceeded. The .45 cartridge has a huge spread in the damage it causes, from a miserable 10 for a standard Tommy gun to somewhere in the 80's for a single shot combat rifle. There is no such spread for the .38. The best I've ever been able to get out of a .38 is around 30.

[SeriousCCIE]

I think the .38 is supposed to be used at the beginning of the game so that the gameplay seems balanced and yet challenging, then you ditch the .38s and give them to settlers, sell them, or scrap them.

I have like 10,000 rounds of .38 ammo and I give a thousand or two to wahtever companion and a legendary .38 something or other if I have them. poisners or kneecapping or whatever, and let them just go stupid with the ammo.

After you reliably can find better, there is little reason to keep pursuing a .38 weapon unless you want to add a challenge, which is totally fun when the expectations are correct. Often I use armor piercing .38s with a silencer to try to shoot weapons out of hands or cripple something -- or even just shoot the wall to draw attention away to where I laid mines or whatever.

But generally, after a certain point, .38s are just resources as opposed to weapons.

[sdack]

Originally posted by danconnors:

It's just frustrating. I have over 4,000 hours in this game, and I can't number the times I've tried to make an effective weapon that uses .38 ammunition. I've never suceeded. The .45 cartridge has a huge spread in the damage it causes, from a miserable 10 for a standard Tommy gun to somewhere in the 80's for a single shot combat rifle. There is no such spread for the .38. The best I've ever been able to get out of a .38 is around 30.

I've once found a Staggering Powerful Automatic Pipe Rifle. It's been my recon weapon ever since. It does 36 damage and with the ability to stagger (on top the stagger you get from the full Commando perk), is it very effective at stopping an enemy's attack. The damage isn't great, but silenced is it decent enough to kill small wildlife, insects and low-lifes. In the very rare cases where I accidentally run into a strong opponent, because I failed at spotting the enemy is it still helpful to make a retreat.

And isn't it the point of a small calibre to be ineffective? Isn't this the lesson you're supposed to learn here?

[KoalafiedKiller]

I've never legitimately used a pipe weapon in this game since you're given a 10mm in the vault and I never had an issue with ammo with it, so pipe weapons just feel painfully unnecessary from the get go.

I think Beth messed up on the weapon crafting system because a good crafting system should make all weapons viable throughout the game, assuming you have the skills and resources to upgrade them. The hunting rifle and tommy gun are two big victims here, aesthetically cool and good for role playing but their usefulness plummets the second combat rifles pop up.

The armor system is better since no type of armor is objectively better than any other type, as long as they're in the same weight category. I started the game in leather armor and at level 106 I'm still in leather armor (though it's now heavy/sturdy). It fits the look of my character and I'm not forced to use storm trooper armor simply because it has better stats.

[Claybot]

I go through so much 38 that I usually have to buy more. Alot probably comes down to play style. I only use a 10mm pistol/silencer (single shot), 38 SMG and 50 cal sniper rifle/silencer and a sword for melee, everything else goes to my settlers or is scrapped. My settlers usually have better armour and weapons than I do, but thats the way I like to play the game. Makes it whole lot more interesting. Tried all the laser,plasma etc when I first started playing might use them once or twice if I have it and have run out of ammo on one of my primaryies.

Same goes for Power Armour might use it for 1-2% of the game.

[ghpstage]

While a .38 is never going to compete favourably against say, a combat rifle, if you use it well it can prove to be very effective in its own right.

The light weight and ammo being everywhere makes it very useful for mopping up the weaklings that are found everywhere, especially as an automatic.
Suppresors allow you to repeatedly get sneak attack bonuses against a target, and to a ridiculous degree with an automatic. This actually makes it viable against even high level enemies.
The high RoF with single shot can let you pin enemies to the floor using sniper rank 2 making killing them an exercise in having enough ammo, and you can always add a few grenades or bayonet stabs to the mix.

I still use them with my level 90 automatics character, and I don't have the sneak perks, nor even all of the sneak attack boosting ones and manage to bring down things as tough as SM Primuses.

[SeriousCCIE]

I wish I could put all that .38 ammo into a lunch box and make a bomb out of it, instead of caps. I mean, boom, not ka-ching.

[Shahadem]

The 0.38 is a low velocity projectile and the bullets have no metal coating. It really shouldn't be a huge surprise that they do little damage. I think the 0.38 ammunition could be thought of as ammunition that was produced during the Post War years after the bombs fell. The ammunition is of poor quality because it is probably using black powder and uncoated lead bullets and has all been produced within the last 50 years. We should probably be amazed that the things even fire at all.

[danconnors]

Low caliber is kind of a relative thing. The 5.56mm slug is much smaller than a .38cal., but it does a lot more damage coming out of an assault rifle. I believe that if a society exists that can produce ammo for a 2mm gauss rifle, it should have no problem producing excellent ammo in .38 calibre.

My own .38 revolver I load with .38+P rounds, which have a muzzle velocity only about 100 feet per second slower than a .357 Magnum. They are also hollow points, expanding on impact. I would definitely not want to be shot with it.

[mfree]

Does it actually declare anywhere that this particular ammo is .38 *special*? With the split in timelines happening literally just after WWII, could there be a shot that all the .38 pipe guns are chambering .38 S&W? Because that is particularly anemic stuff...

.45 is still likely .45acp, .44 is... never says magnum, does it? .44 special is an option. Does .50 say BMG? Lots of .50 caliber cartridges that aren't Browning's. .45-70... that's a given, it's a specific identifier. 10MM is a far post-war development, no telling there. 5.56mm may not have ended up with a 45mm long case, 5mm is post-WWII *and* doesn't really have a modern counterpart, 2mm EC is science fiction, and so on...

I do kind of appreciate that .22lr and other rimfires are nonexistant. First, they'd be nearly useless... second, they're impossible to reload, meaning whatever was around pre-war was *it*. If you can come up with a priming compound without blowing your fingers off, you can make ammo in the apocalyptic wasteland out of obtainable resources.