Just a little thing that bugs me: shouldn't the Commonwealth be littered with a Pre War pistol that chambers .38? My thought would be some crappy police service revolver (kind of keeps with the 50s cop aesthetic.)

like the .38 pistol from Fallout 3 that was virtually useless?

Exactly.

I mean, it doesn't make sense otherwise.

And where's the .22?

Not every location will include the same exact weapons. Though I wouldn't mind a little .38 revolver redemption. As I said, the gun was practically useless in Fallout 3, especially when the hunting rifle was a superior weapon and used the same ammo type.

Oh, I don't expect it to be even remotely useful. Just there to account for the vast amounts of .38 ammo in game.

Well, the .22 was useful due to it's being naturally silenced, otherwise you'd either have to have killed Mr Burke or gone to that Fort at the top of the map for a silenced 10mm.

I really liked the .45 from Honest Hearts too. Give me a Two Shot Advanced .45 w/Suppressor and I'll be happy as a hog in sh.... wait, no, can't afford to get banned. Again. @_@

I never really liked the silenced weapons in 3. Mostly because I prefer to have the firepower to take out my enemies before they see me, and the silenced pistols left something to be desired when it came to damage. O'l painless was my go to, that and Lincolns repeater as back up. Though I suppose they could have added the .22 pistol to the game and allowed the player to turn it into a rifle, thereby giving it more damage. It's not really needed when you can add a silencer to weapons now. I'm sure they had reasons to remove certain weapons from the game.

It was .32 not .38 and the unique version was pretty damn good. With the right perks, even a regular one was decent for taking out mole rats and raiders.

I have never wondered. .38 is one of the most common calibers and you really don't need another style of pre-war gun in game that fills the same role as pipe pistols to explain the presence of the ammo.

.22 also isn't necessary in game. You can craft silencer mods for many weapons.

Ah, my mistake.

I had Ol' Painless and Lincoln's Repeater too. Also, The Terrible Shotgun(?) and the Victory Rifle (Survivalist's until I got my Lockpicking up).

Most single shot rifles will be in my repertoire in any game. A 10mm SMG for Ninja Ops, a Silenced 10mm for recon and picking off weaker targets, maybe a few grenades/mines too.

I roll the same setup in pretty much every game. I cannot wait for Mods to come to consoles and FINALLY clean up those memory leaks and Ash/Goo Piles.

For all the pre war pipe pistols that apparently folks started to make, if one of the gun and ammo magazines are suggesting.

This probably bothers me more than it should. But why is it that when I break into a high tech military bunker that hasn't been touched since pre-war times I still find homemade pipe pistols and leather and raider armor. Doesn't make any sense.

Loot being randomly generated.

I doubt there are many locations where we can be completely positive we're the only ones to visit since before the war. Not that it changes randomized loot being random, but whatever.

From a gameplay perspective that's obviously why they did it. It just ruins the immersion for me though. I wish there were more, [censored] realistic weapons we could find and use instead of being stuck with the pipe rifle early game.

Dont even remember such a location honestly so I cant say.

I rechambered a explosive combat rifle to .38 just to use to use the ammo. Want to talk about funny. Get a group of ghouls, fire off a few rounds at them. Then you got a group of armless headless ghouls running around it's quite the scene.

You can rechamber firearms in Fallout 4? With the crafting system or modifications system?

Crafting. Though not all weapons can be. I know the combat rifle and hunting rifle can be. Not sure about anymore. Now that I think of it pretty sure it was an explosive hunting rifle I used the .38 with not the combat rifle. Though I'm pretty sure the combat rifle can be rechambered but then again it's early in the morning here and may be totally off.

This got me thinking.

Can you change the slides on the handguns? Can you change the butt stocks? Can you put attach more accessories on the firearms like slings for the rifles? Can you attach bipods for the rifles?

You can change the stocks on the rifles. As for the others maybe a PC mod for that. I don't know I'm on the PS4.

because its a video game....

Currency.

Which, being a medium for story telling, still hopes to suspend disbelief in its audience. The OP is outlining a part of the narrative that interrupts that suspension. OP doesn't need to be re-informed about what media the story is being told in.