Trying to get to level 20 through combat only, at the moment im raiding the area between Tribal village and Fiend territory for experience, so far killing things like Big Horners, Fiends and Cazadores for experience.

Im wondering... although there is good $$ doing this, is there any caves or areas that have better experience kills with good loot so I can keep resupplying myself?

I was thinking of going feral ghoul hunting near the nuclear test site and also rading scorpion gulch.. are these good areas?

Oh and my current low level equiptment setup is a Cowboy Repeater & Leather armor

Thanks in advance.

I would say to hunt in the area between goodsprings and the tribal village, but using a cowboy repeater, you'd have some issues with giant radscorps...which are the reason to hunt there.

yeah, ive noticed the drawbacks of a cowboy repeater, excellent against un armored fast moving things like fire geckos and fiends even cazadores.. but yeah, radscorps have armor.. never thought of this, well ive got afew caps, might go change weapons, gonna go do boulder city quest so I can get rep for Great Khans to use their shop for armor piercing ammo now.

It's worth it to go get This Machine, if you really want to use rifles. It's an all-around excellent gun, and it uses .308 ammo, which is plentiful and is available in AP format.

planning on doing this when I get to level 12, part of the reason im power leveling fighting, level 8 at the moment lol, for some reason unknown to me getting to level 20 is the hardest part of the game, but once at 20 the whole leveling thing goes so fast that you'd wish it slow down haha

Go south of Legion Safe House and fight the ghouls. 50 exp a pop. It has reavers though.

Alternatively kill the bighorners to the nort-west of Legion Safe House and then the ones to the north of Legion Safe House.
Then fast travel to the area around Jacobstown and hunt Bighorners.
They give ridiculous amounts of exp for being so easily killed.

Alternatively alternativey: Raid Black Mountain, sell the stuff at Gun Runners, use [wait] for 3 days and 1 hour, then fasttravel back to Black Mountain and kill and loot all over again.
Rinse and repeat.

Killing Bighorners feels cheap to me. Way too much XP for such easy kills.

Yup, go for that one. At low level, with leather armor and a Cowboy Repeater.

Some areas which a low level character can actually handle:

There's several Viper camps along the road between Nipton and Novac. Relatively easy kills if you get the drop on them, and very decent loot.

Raided Farmstead has a large group of Vipers. I advise having Boone along; his rifle can be great help there.

If you don't mind a challenge, Morning Star Cavern offers some great loot. There's a Nightstalker pack outside and another one inside, but the inside pack is all about the Den mother; kill her, and they won't attack anymore, they'll just run back and forth. Be very careful with the outside pack; one on one they're not hard to kill but if they swarm you, you're dead. I suggest Explosives; Mercenary's Grenade Rifle makes short work of them.

Walking Box cavern- same thing, a pack of Nightstalkers outside and two separate small groups inside. Loot includes a set of Combat Armor.

Crescent Canyon has some Golden Geckos. Easy kills, fairly valuable hides.

REPCONN Test Site and REPCONN Headquarters both offer plenty of XP and loot, at relatively low risk.

The Fiends offer the best XP/loot balance though, and you earn good karma, too. There's a group of them near the Allied Technologies offices, although nearby NCR patrols may steal your kills.

thanks for the help guys

Black Mountain always has Super Mutants spawning every 3 days

Hunting? Just doing the quests I tend to hit the max level WAY before the end of the game.

Yeah doing some of the important quests can be rather rewarding in terms of XP

make it to Bitter Springs. there are quests to do there. also at callville bay, near there, are cazadores that respawn.