Yes. I sadly have to drop my explosive and bleeding .50 sniper rifle because they're extra [censored].

Now I'm sticking with Violent. It recoils like hell, but at least has 25% extra damage.

You're welcome. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It makes the hunting rifle actually worthwhile at higher levels.

I totally agree about a variable zoom scope. I generally stick with the long scope just to maximize my reach since I have a weapon specifically tailored for midrange combat (Overseer's Guardian with a reflex sight), but there are times that it would be really nice to have a medium scope or a short scope too. Being able to adjust the zoom amount would be great. I haven't seen any mods for this. I'm sure something like this will come out eventually. It may not be an infinitely adjustable zoom, but I'm sure someone will be able to create a mod that just incorporates the three zoom levels of the short, medium, and long scopes all into one scope. Something like that probably won't come out until the Creation Kit is out though.

I typically play with a sneak/sniper build, so I'd love this. It would make things so much better.

No, there's no reason. If fans of particular weapon want to have it OP, they should go for mods. No reason to unbalance game for rest of us.

.50 already have more damage then .308 while in reality .50 BMG have nowhere near mythical properties people attribute to it. It have very good penetration, but tests on ballistic gel showed that damage it does is about equal to .308.

http://citadelofmyths.freeforums.net/thread/94/50-bmg-reality-myth

http://carryingthegun.com/2012/08/30/army-myths-the-50-cal-will-killharmmaim-even-if-you-miss/

The .50 Caliber Hunting Rifle is absolutely underpowered. Compare the statistics of the .50 Hunting Rifle to the .308 Caliber Combat Rifle:

.50 Hunting Rifle

Damage: 84

Fire Rate: 4

DPS: 5.6

.308 Combat Rifle

Damage: 75

Fire Rate: 49

DPS: 61.25

While the first shot of the .50 Hunting Rifle is slightly more powerful than the .308 Combat Rifle after the first shot the Combat Rifle absolutely hammers the Hunting Rifle. The Combat Rifle can get another 12 shots off before the Hunting Rifle gets off a second shot. That slightly more powerful (9 dmg, 12%) first shot of the Hunting Rifle is realy only useful if you are able to kill your target with a single shot. Even then the small difference in base damage means that most opponents would be equally dead if shot with the .308 Combat Rifle. If your first shot doesnt kill your target, you miss the first shot or you need to shoot a second target quickly then the Combat Rifle is far superior to the Hunting Rifle. In the time it takes for the Hunting Rifle to reload you could fire another 3-4 aimed shots or up to 12 rapid fire shots. That makes the .50 Caliber Hunting Rifle inferior in every ingame situation that I can imagine. Even taking into account the damage multipliers from Perks the difference in damage between the Hunting Rifle and Combat Rifle is IMO too small to justify carrying a Hunting Rifle (except for Role-Playing reasons).

The real question for me is how the Hunting Rifle should be tweaked to make it actually worth using after you get your first Combat Rifle. In my opinion the Combat Rifle should maintain a DPS advantage over the Hunting Rifle, however the first shot advantage of the Hunting Rifle should be MUCH more powerful. I'm not sure what it would do to game balance but my gut feeling is that the Hunting Rifle should be between 25-50% (Base DMG 105-126) more powerful than the Combat Rifle. That would make it worth carrying to allow for a one-shot kill of higher level enemies while not making it too overpowered.

Voted Yes. I caved in though, and modded in the M82A3. It's what you're looking for.

I despise most of Bethesda's weapons. That's the one thing they should have borrowed unapologetically from New Vegas (along with ammo types and handloads for that matter)...then added on their mod system. Of course they did their "own thing," and it falls way flat for such a great game overall. Weapons are very disappointing in this game.

If you want that overpowering feel in the vanilla game, just use The Last Minute Gauss Rifle (buy it from Ronnie at the Castle)...It figures, being Bethesda, their one great rifle has to be a dopey looking oversized energy weapon.