First of all love the game. In real life I also love guns. When rifles are held by the character they are held right handed but the charging handle and the ejection port are on the left side of the rifle thus making them all left handed weapons. This is incorrect (or at least impractical) for a couple reasons: (1) hot brass shoots wildly out of the ejection port, if they're shooting out the left side its basically towards the character, into the field of vision and potentially landing on the character (2) when shooting, ideally you want to maintain your sight picture supporting your rifle with your lead (left) hand and using your right hand to pull the trigger/reload/ pull the charging handle. With all this being on the left, the character drops his/her lead hand to pull the charging handle, essentially dropping the sight picture and forcing him/her to reaquire it. This seems kind of a glaring error to me

Glaring error not so much. It is done fully intentional, to show you the action when shooting (bolt action will be in your line of sight) Is it stupid? Absolutely in my view, but I guess some designers / suits deemed it ok for the sake of something happening on the screen while shooting your gun *shrug*

Yeah I got nothing else, just edited this as it was the same explanation as above (slow typer). Though it would be messed up that all the guns were left hand shooters as they are not that common in todays world. I mean they are out there just a heck of alot more right hand shooters.

Intentional huh? Weird. There are soldiers that do shoot backwards in real life, its rare, but as long as they get 40 out of 40 on their Basic Rifle Marksmanship its fine. Still that hot brass going down the neck collar....

Well, treat it like those action movies. All of the things happening in those regarding firearms are also wacked out, but anything for sales I guess

Considering you can be shot with rifles, mini-guns, missiles, be chased by a suicide nuke mutant, take radiation damage while being chewed on by some glowing mutant hound, hot brass doesn't seem so bad. Oh and take a molotov to the face.

Welcome to my (wrong handed) world. I am, and also shoot left handed. I have been a bit wary of shooting rifles since the idea of brass pelting me in the face when I'm shooting isn't exactly my idea of fun. Recently, when I was in the market for a shotgun, one of the reasons why (correction, the single biggest reason why) I chose an Ithaca, was for the fact that the shells both load and eject from the bottom. No shells pelting me in the face, they all land at my feet.

But for the problem of the animations being backwards...this has been brought up previously but other people, and it was (IIRC) concluded that it was indeed intentional, to actually show the animation. I don't think that Beth is alone in this inaccuracy in firearms.

Unrelated: Another thing which bothers me about firearms in Fallout 4 is Arturo consistently referring to magazines as clips. For crying out loud, the vast majority of people have never even seen a clip, let alone actually use one with a weapon. Every time I hear him say that, I want to [censored] smack him with one of those rolled up newspapers we find around the commonwealth.

Yeah, the left handed weapons are very dumb in a game that only has right handed characters. It's distracting emotion to make me not want to use the hunting rifle.

I notice this a lot too, but at this point saying 'clip' is basically slang, so it doesn't bother me too much. Characters in Fallout wouldn't likely even have a means of knowing about the distinction, as actual clips are never even seen or used in any of the games besides New Vegas.

But one would like to think the ARMS DEALER would at least have a clue.......

With all do respect, it's not basically slang, it's fundamentally wrong. Most people, I believe, use the term clip when referring to a magazine mostly, out of ignorance on what they really are. That's okay, I get that, but it gets annoying when the term gets repeated over and over even though the person(s) saying it ought to know better...especially those who are in the business of selling weapons and armor.

Irregardless of whether the NPC's know the difference, Bethesda, the ones who developed the game, know...or ought to know. They should to be doing research on the subject, and this kind of oversight (intentional or not) is inexcusable.

Meh, when someone says "clip" even though that's technically incorrect I know what they mean.

Slang has no respect for it's original language. Gay and joyous used to mean the same thing a century ago. English evolves and I doubt the average person today knows the original meaning of 'clip' or 'gay'.

I know it's wrong. But that doesn't mean it ain't slang. If enough people use a word in the place of another word (even when said usage is born of ignorance), it's considered slang. Saying clip is probably the most common mistake made when referring to modern weapons and ammunition (besides perhaps the meaning of "AR", something that Bethesda also got wrong).

I'll admit that it can be frustrating given that actual clips are something that would come up in the same vein of conversation as a magazine, but to be fair, it is any easy mistake to make. One that is so common that even regular gun users who know the distinction sometimes slip up and make it.

I also agree that an arms dealer absolutely should know the distinction. At least in the modern day. But it's very possible that one living two hundred years later would not know the correct terminology.


All-in-all, it probably is an example of Bethesda not doing their homework or not looking at the dialogue with enough scrutiny to catch someone's mistake. There is plenty of that in their games. But in this case, at least it's an example of it occurring in a way that can easily be explained away in-game.

The game was made by artists & programmers, not military marksmen. So I figure that all the weapons & their animations were made to "look good", not be technically correct. And to be simple & straightforward - like, all the animations being made around the gun being held in the right hand. Which means that the left hand has to be doing all the stuff - like working bolts, replacing magzines, etc.

(And yeah, this thread has popped up at least every couple weeks since the game came out, all started by gun enthusiasts who are very knowledgeable about how Guns Really Work.? )

It doesn't really take a gun enthusiast to recognize that a weapon is left-handed or to see why this isn't practical on the scale we see it on in the game. I like guns. I own quite a few and shoot them fairly regularly. But I am no enthusiast. Even so, this bugs the crap out of me.

I buy all my clips from kleo. I like the large capacity clips the most.

Eh, as someone who did some target shooting back at Scout camp in the '80s, and a little in college? "Own quite a few and shoot them fairly regularly" seems like the definition of enthusiast to me.

Lol fair enough. Probably depends on where you're from. There ain't a lot to do here so it's a nice way to kill some time and coyotes. But when I hear the term 'gun enthusiast' I think of people who know and understand all sorts of firearms in and out and like to talk about them and whatnot. I know plenty of folks who are waaaay more gun nutty than I am. They go to gun shows and events, and buy new ones (and attachments had such) at every opportunity. And not just grown-ups. I know a girl who's like 12-13 who's traveled to all sorts of these things and could school me on gun facts and probably outshoot me too. I just do some of that stuff every now and then, and fun as it is I can't hold a candle to what many of these people know. So I don't really feel like a gun enthusiast. I guess if you dropped me into a place with them less deeply rooted into its culture, I might look like one.

It's just one of those things that only bug a certain smaller demographic of their customer base. Like how I'm sure some scientists/engineers would get pissed off by small problems in the game (not the obvious huge ones that we all know are [censored].)

We notice it because we're familiar with guns and it contrasts what we've seen and know, and so it irks us a bit. I've gotten over it as I don't spend much time looking at the general animations anymore like I did when I first started playing.

Funnily enough, though. I've never heard anyone complaining about the use of 10mm ammo, which was invented in the late 80s if memory serves, which is after our timeline 'splits' with the Fallout universe, so it makes no sense to me that the caliber would exist in that universe, let alone as widespread as it is. Probably just the devs wanting to have something different than the 9mm that is ever-common in any game involving guns.

edit: invented in 83, not late 80s. my mistake.

Thing is though its an alternate world. How do you know someone else didn't invent it at some point? There are things that bug me in the game, I live in Mass and see things that just aren't right with the area, but I just chalk it up to the alternate reality.

I didn't know that 10mm ammo was invented in the 80s. That's interesting. Even so, Fallout's technology was never limited to "50s" and "retro futuristic 50s". Those were originally just a subtle backdrop that went along well with the Cold Warish late prewar times. In the first game (where we were handed a 10mm pistol as we left the vault), it was barely even there at all, and indeed it never truly became ultra-prevalent until Fallout 3. We have seen guns and tech throughout the series that date or are based off of post-50s concepts. Hell, the synths and androids are directly based off of sci-fi technology that was made popular in 70s culture with Bladerunner. No giant computers or vacuum tubes to be found.

Love all the senseless arguments back and forth. You do realise that no-one in the game has hands right? And that they dont feel pain so hot lead in the face is probably foreplay for them. Hang on they dont have genitals either so foreplay is out.


They aren't real, the guns aren't real, the bullets aren't real. Who cares whether theyre left or right handed when their hands aren't real.

isn't that how the majority of shooters look nowadays?

and as someone who never had a gun in his hand, I really don't care tbh

they're not supposed to be realistic... this isn't an Arma game

Well, technically there are clips in other FO games, because some of the weapons used in those games use clips, like the M1 Garand, which is in FOT and I'm not sure if it in FO 1 or 2 or not, can't remember. Also, some of the hunting rifles may use clips. We just pick up the ammo those in those games and don't carry around clips or mags. But anyway

Yeah well, the games are supposed to be a simulation of the FO Universe, and thus what is in the game should be considered realistic to the FO World, and consistent. Seeing how the FO Universe has forever had "realistic" guns that parallel our universe, and include weapons from our universe, I can fully understand why this bothers people, me included.