This has been bugging me for a while. What the hell am I supposed to do with this stuff?

I understand that the depleted energy cells and Microfusion cells get recycled at the work bench (or at least they are supposed to) but I have thousands of "cases" and lead and other miscellaneous parts for weapons and when I go to the ammo press I can make 6 .308 rounds or 12 .45 rounds, or 3000 .12ga rounds.

I've been hauling cases and depleted this or that around and am only able to get a few rounds of whatever I'm trying to make each time I use either the work bench and ammo press.

I find it quite annoying that I have 14,000 "leads" and 500 .308 cases and 700 5.56 cases and 400 .45 cases and 200 depleted microfusion cells but every time I go to either the work bench or ammo press I'm getting 2 microfusion cells when I have hundreds in my back or 12 .308 rounds when I literally have thousands of available leads and cases. What gives?

I'm currently playing OWB and I've been mainly using my hunting rifle, the gauss rifle, all-american, pulse gun, and the sonic emmiter but for some stupid reason, no matter how many depleted mf cells or ecps/ecs I pick up I'm still only making one mfc or 2 ecps or 4 ecs.... same thing with .308, 5.56, and .45 ammo.

Also, where does one find or is it possible to make .223 ammo? I noticed the All-American can also fire .223....

Does anyone else have issues making or recycling ammunition?

I find crafting confusing, and don't use it much, but this may help:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_crafting

And 14,000 leads - it's a good thing ammo doesn't weigh anything in this game! :wink_smile:

It sounds like your simply missing a few components most likely the primer often you'll need to break down ammo you don't need to get the necessarally materials for the ammo you want.

Honestly, the crafting system is incredibly confusing. I only use it to make ammo. I understand I need to breakdown ammo to get the parts required to make ammo. But what I really don't understand is, say I'm trying to make .308 ammo I'd need to break down .308 ammo to make .308 ammo. But by doing so I'm going only get the ammo that I broke down back.

Example: I have 10 .308 rounds. I break down say five of those rounds to make five rounds. What's the point in doing it when I'm just going to have 10 rounds?

Unless I completely don't understand how it works.

It'd be so much simpler if you could buy a box of primers from a vender. I mean, you can buy "cases" from a vendor but you can't buy primers?

And I honestly don't understand the ratio on the right side of the screen when making ammo.

What is the number in the right column?? Is that how many you are making?

I agree its kind of confusing at first, but I got the hang of it. The Gunrunners sometimes sell Case Boxes for ammo. Primers for different types of guns, like Primer, Large Rifle, or Primer, Small Pistol. Then the Powder, Rifle, or Powder, Pistol. The numbers on the right of the words tells you how much of that material you will use to make one bullet. So if you were to make .308 rounds, then you'd use Case, .308, [a certain amount (I forgot)] of lead, [a certain amount] of Primer, Large Rifle, [a certain amount] of Powder, Rifle to make one bullet. Some of this information may be wrong, or maybe confusing. Sorry if its confusing.

yeah sounds like your missing the corresponding primers and powders for the cases


you can buy primers, powder, and cases from venders. gun runners has them in stock frequently and if you have OWB the sinks store sells "primer and powder packs"

for braking down ammo you lose some powder and i beleive you lose lead too, but its a decent trade off if your making hand load recipes like the .308 JSP and dont have the money for AP and HP, i dont have NV up right now so i cant give you the stats but it has increased DAM and it subtracts more from the enemies DT. another thing i only really think that your only ment to load rounds from materials you gathered and save that way you dont lose any raw materials from breaking down ammo you already have

You can break down ammo and sort of convert it into other types, provided you have the casing.
IIRC, 1 45-70 Gov't round equals 1 .308 round.
You can also buy the raw components. And even break down scrap metal and acquire lead.
And, there's handload ammo that's only acquirable through crafting.
The system isn't that confusing once you get the hang of it.

The system is fairly simple if you take a little time to look at it, each round consists of lead, powder, case, and primer. Lead is universal although different rounds require different amounts, cases are specific to a caliber such as .357 or 5.56 and can be used in any recipe for that caliber, powder is broken down into pistol or rifle what you get depends on what round your breaking down and the same with making rounds ie you can have 500 pistol powder but if you don't have any rifle powder you can't make any .308 since its a rifle round, primers are the most comples since their separated in pistol or rifle and then broken down into small medium and large. What you need to do is look at what your trying to make and off to the right their be a little chart showing the components needed and then your number of eac if your lacking you can buy components from vendors or look at what other rounds you have and break down ones with the components you need. After you do it a few times its rather simple I toi thought it was complicated at first but its really not bad.

The system is probably confusing to people who aren't familiar with firearms technology.

A cartridge, or "round" of ammunition, is a self contained unit that is fed into a firearm which contains all the ingredients needed:
- a casing, to protect, contain and organize the parts.
- a bullet, which is the projectile launched from the weapon
- a quantity of powder, which is what gives the propulsive energy behind the bullet
- and an impact-sensitive explosive, the primer, used to ignite the powder.

You can break down ammo to get all of these ingredients back. When you fire a round of ammunition, the bullet is gone (hopefully into your target), the powder is burned up, and the primer has been struck and detonated. The only thing you can get back is the casing.

Casings are specific to each different cartridge type. .357 magnum and 9mm use different cases.

Powder interchangeable: Pistol powder is used by pistols and shotgun shells, rifle powder is used by rifles.

Primers have more types and less commonality, but some are still cross-compatible. There is "small pistol" (9mm, .357), "large pistol" (10mm, .44), "small rifle" (5.56mm, 5mm), "large rifle" (.308, .45-70), and "shotgun" (all shotguns).

This means that it is very easy to break down 5.56mm rounds and turn them into 5mm rounds, because the only thing different about them is the casing. But you gain nothing toward creating .44 magnum rounds because the only thing they have in common is lead.

"Lead" is the only common ingredient in all ammunition and can be easily had by recycling scrap metal.

From the SINK in OWB you can also purchase Primer & Powder Packs, which give you a good amount of powder and primers for all ammo types. Quite worth buying in my opinion.

I am quite familiar with catridges. I'm no expert but am fairly familiar with them. No, the entire crafting system makes no sense to me. But I will pay more attention to the numbers this time.

its quite simple once you get the hang of it. every bullet needs a primer, a case, some lead and some powder. there are 6 different types of primer:
large pistol(10mm, 12.7mm, 44magnum and .45)
small pistol (9mm, .357 magnum)
small rifle(5.56mm, 5mm)
large rifle(.308, 45-70gvt)
shotshell (20gauge and 12 guage)
50 MG (for anti material rifle)

pistol powder will only work in pistol calibers (e.g 9mm, 357 magnum, 44 magnum, 10mm and 45), and rifle powder will only work in rifle calibers (308, 5.56, 50 mg etc)

a bigger bullet needs more powder and lead, so you wont be able to make as many 50mg rounds compared to say 44 magnum rounds.
you get lead from scrap metal (200 lead form 1 piece) and everything else from either the sink or the gun runners, and the cases are from either you shooting people, or taken from dead people you've shot (but can still be bought from the gunrunners)

as well as this, you can break down one ammo type into another ammo type (so long as you have the necessary primers/powder/cases), say you break down 100 9mm rounds. they're kinda useless later on in the game. you need some 44 magnum rounds for that shiny new revolver you just bought. you would need some large pistol primers, some lead (optional) and some .44magnum cases. those 100 9mm rounds would give you quite alot of powder, some small pistol primers and quite alot of lead. you then remake the .44 magnum ammo through the reloading bench. sorted. hope this helps, if not my typing went in vein.

RJ,

That is helpful. I've printed out what rounds make what based off of what you said.

On a side note, I know you can break down scrap metal into lead but I've noticed you can't do the same to scrap electronics to get....electronic parts.....why is this?

Also, kind of unrelated. But I just annoyed myself to no end. I was in X-13 and was wandering around the observation decks and I came across a work bench. As I clicked on it the game crashed right to the desktop. I normally keep multiple saves in each area. Last time I saved was when I first entered X-13. I'm so annoyed for being lax in my saves this evening. Oh well, tomorrow is another day to go through X-13 yet again....

Brother Tallest, sir, I find that ammo production falls into two basic catagories:

1. Production of base ammo (regular ol' nuthin' special bullitz, like 9mm, shot shells, .44, etc.), and

2. Produciton of handload super-uber ammo (like .308JSP (jacketed soft point), .44SWC (semi-wadcutter), etc.)

There are two problematic issues with the above:

1. Production of base ammo stocks requires that you collect all the requisite parts to press the cartridges. As RJ has so helpfully supplied above, you need the cases, primers, powder and lead specific to each type of cartridge you wish to produce. The powder will usually be your constraining consummable. Collecting cases, reducing scrap to lead and buying boxes of primers from Gunrunners is not where you'll have issues. But you will consistently run out of powder unless you break down similar, but unused, cartrdiges. I personally find the returns on the investment in time and resources to mostly not be worth it for base stock ammo, with the possible exception of early in the game, if neccessary.

2. Production of handloads, once you take the perk, is much more rewarding. The handloaded ammo is much superior in most respects to base ammo, with the possible exception of it having a weapon condition modifier that will wear your gun out quicker. I feel, for the most part, that the trade-off is worth it. Now, the easiest way to produce handload ammo is to simply reduce the base ammo of the caliber you desire, and then immediately build the hand load ammo with those components. Here's the catch: handloads take a higher quantity of lead and powder, so you will be breaking down 100 .308 rounds to only make about 70 or so .308JSP rounds. You can of course suppliment this production by using the methods outlined by RJ and above (see #1), but by the middle stages of the game, your preferred base ammo type is usually so abundent that losing some as "waste" in the process to build hand loads is no big deal.

TL/DGAF: Making base ammo is a pain and I only do it if I have to early in the game. Making handloads is well worth it, but the easiest way to make them is to just break down the base ammo and "upgrade" to the handload, thereby losing some in the process.

-Gunny out.

Yes I do love my .44 Swiss Cheese ammo. :fallout:

Good information here. I think I need to search the vendors more, I never look for primer or gun powder.

I never looked at it that way. I do have nearly 500 standard .308 rounds and .45 rounds. I'll have to give this a try tonight if I get a chance.

But I'm still having an issue with creating enough MFCs and the like.

I guess what I really news to do is pay more attention to the ammo types I do use and figure out which ones I don't use that can help create those that I do use. Wow, does that even make sense?

The Vigilant Recycler perk dramatically increases (doubles?) the number of "drained" cells you can scavenge and makes converting drained cells into full ones more efficient. Or try carrying around a recharger pistol to deal with weak enemies that don't really deserve a shot with something more powerful. Or keep an eye out for "Bulk" MFCs, which are quite cheap and almost as good.

It's actually incredibly easy. Crafting is one of the coolest elements of the game. I love the fact I can make my own food and ammo and even weapons.

Let's say you have all the ingredients for a gun ammo type but you need large pistol primer or whatever.....well think logically what would large pistol component be....oh a . .44 magnum pistol is a big pistol, so buy or grab some .44 ammo and break it down to get he large pistol primer.

And energy weapons advanced ammo is ridiculously easy.....you just need the required science skill, a workbench, and a good amount of ammo to convert microfusion cells into max-charged microfusion cells.

Part of my problem with energy weapons is I never play an energy weapons char. I went into OWB with plenty of standard "hard ammo" because I had 90 in guns but only 40 in energy weapons. When I first went into OWB I had about 400 MFC and 300 MFCOC and 200 MFCMC but quickly burned through them. Hard ammo seems fairly ineffective against robots but works well against X-17 and Lobotomites.

I call it "sandwich" :hehe:

trust me dude, with the exception of the gatling laser and tesla cannons, with energy weapons you always ALWAYS want to use max-charged ammo. Anything less is just not being combat effective. Put it this way, max-charged cells and high critical multipliers is what makes energy weapons superior to guns.

Quartermaster Bardin at Hoover Dam sells lots of energy weapons ammo, buy it, wait, buy it again, convert the ammo into the ammo you need, max charg it. Boom, your good to go.

This thread is very informative. I'm glad I made it. I hope I can get an opportunity to play again tonight so I can convert all my ammos over to ones I can actually use.