i'm not really feeling this million diff types of bullets thing just yet, and the loading bench is just outright confusing

is it like custom weapons in FO3 where i'll find "recipes" for some ammo later? or is that list you get in the begining all of them right away?

for now i'm planning on avoiding it all together and just selling the ammo i'm not using in order to buy more of what i am using, didn't seem like that bad of a system to me in the countless other rpg's that do it that way.

i just worry if it's going to cost me a ton of money in the long run in order to punish me for not using the stupid bench

thoughts?

You can find recipes, better tables have better recipes, and there is a perk that lets you retain some of the brass you shoot and it unlocks all the reload recipes.

As it stands, saluaging my shots hasn't come into question (I'm not needlessly firing when I don't have to) but it is a lot of work (cases, powder, lead and more) just to craft bullets. So far I've been able to just buy out the 10mm, 5.56, shotgun and .357 ammo from vendors and caravans I come across. If it becomes more scarce, I'll look into collecting the components and fashioning the bullets.

In real world, repacked ammo has a higher chance of exploding in your gun (I had this happen to someone by me while plinking IRL one time - he was using repacked ammo) I wonder if repacks in FO:NV will risk the same issue.

Where exactly? I can't find jack all.

Ive found reloading to be about worthless. You can buy most of the stuff from the Gun Runners (Ingredient-wise) but, its about the same as buying ammo! You can tear apart some of your less used ammunition, but I just sell it.

Honestly, the weapons benches/camp fires/tool benches can be worthless if you want them to be. Yet, if you like gathering ingredients Oblivion Alchemy style, they can help. As far as I know, making ammunition makes it 'lower-grade' and will wear down your equipment much quicker.

I'm currently only using .357 and 5.56 with the odd .20g and have never run into ammo problems, the vendors carry alot, and restock periodically. Plus your bound to find boxes of whatever in the various dungeons. Having a companion helps immeasurably with ammo, as you dont have to use so much.

Buying surplus ammo damages your guns faster. They only hand load i've seen that damages is Magnum 20 gauge.

Im using .357 Magnum,JFP's for the cowboy repeater which do: Dam x1.25,Target DT -3.00 ,Gun spread x.80.

yea i got a good 4 hours of playing in last night and i'm doing just fine without making any ammo, crap just clogs up your invetory when dealing with a vendor, goooood riddance

The big benefit to using the benches is being able to re-jigger your ammunition from one type to another. Change 9mm to .357 for example. I've used it for that purpose plenty, but the specialty ammo has so far been seriously disappointing (even with the Hand Loader Perk, which I already regret taking.) There aren't any recipes I can see for the much coveted Armor Piercing varieties, which is sort of what I need a lot of at the moment.

The different ammos don't really become useful until you get the Living Anatomy perk. Once you know what damage thresholds each enemy has, you can decide which ammo to use against which enemy.