I want to make Ammo, but honestly, I have no idea what I have to do to make certain ammo, please, explain this to me as if I were a 2 year old, thank you!
[Attemping to make 5mm, 5.56mm, 10mm]

my best advice?

dont

it's one big confusing waste of time! buy ammo you need and sell ammo you dont

enjoy!

I don't care what anyone says. No matter what people do to explain it, I still stare stupid. I just ignore reloading benches as 'props' at this point.

But I'm constantly picking up still like "Case [something]" so it's gotta be used for something, I just wish I knew how to make stuff on the bench that's all. Could be useful.

I've stared at the reload bench for a while and darn is it hard to understand. Also I feel it doesn't really add value outside of roleplaying purposes. (might be fine if you roleplay someone who doesn't steal ammo and only uses a certain type of weapons.)

It's pretty simple really: you break down the ammo types you don't want that contain the components required to craft the ammo type that you do want. I do agree that it's easier just buying ammo though.

I can remember in Fallout 3 that I used to hate having ammo I never used so the Reloading Bench is sick, but what's frustrating is not being about to understand what I should and shouldn't be breaking down. I don't know what Conversation, or Breakdown means, like it's all just... I know nothing about bullets, haha, I'm too girly to understand bullets.

It's pretty useful. Especially if you use Guns primarily. I think the issue is that they didn't make it a little more obvious for people not familiar with how actual hand loading works. The custom ammunition is great for upping damage vs unarmored enemies and being able to switch out your ammunition (when the vendor y'know, doesn't have 200+ rounds of what you want) is great.

The problem is that they sort of assume you know what all the components and recipes mean. Ideally it should've been simplified out to something like 'Components' and 'Cases' as opposed to Powder/Primer/Lead/Case/etc. Having Large Rifle components and .308 cases means you can craft .308 rounds for example, rather than needing Large Rifle Primers, Rifle Powder, .308 cases, etc. It also would cut down on inventory clutter.

So yeah, It's a good system that needs to be simplified a little if it's used again.

Unfortunately for me I use .308 ammo mainly. Which only leaves breaking down .40-70 Govt. ammo to get the casings I need. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any .40-70 ammo to break down (Gun Runners sells it, but that defeats the point buying it), and it also requires Repair 65 to do.

If you horde ammo like no tomorrow, depending on the ammo you need to create it could be very useful. However in some cases, it's just easier to sell a bunch of crap you don't need and just buy the ammo you need outright.

I have multiple playthroughs to get used to it so I'm not worried.

EDIT: I have not bought any other type of ammo besides the regular ammo. How do I switch ammo types?

Answer to directly above: In your items page, once you have a gun selected, scroll over to the ammo list and the ammo types that you can use with that weapon will be bright.

To OP: Yea, its useful if you can get some Primers, which are unique to the gun type (small pistol, large pistol, ect.).The shells come naturally, and you can buy jars of powder from the gun runner outpost next to that New Vegas border neighborhood.

A few tricks here.

-Buy powder and primers of the correct type. After purchase drop the jars/boxes and pick them up to get the accusal ingredient added to your inventory. It's stupid, but that's how it is.

-Scrap metal can be converted into lead. 10 units converted will leave you enough lead to press alot of rounds. and lead weighs nothing. <_<

-Likewise spent cases also weigh nothing and more importantly cost nothing. For the ammo you use allot of vacuum up every last spent case you find in a vender's inventory.

-Then there is the breakdown of ammo types you don't use. Tends to be more useful for strait lead as the powder/primers tend to be of the wrong types for my needs.


Due to a less-than-intuitive interface, the system behind the reloading bench is bewildering at first. Once figured out it can save you A TON of caps on ammo costs. I'm feeding a .308 hunting rifle for only the cost of the powder and primers. For me it's like 16 caps for 25 rounds.

Savescumming trial, how does it work?

You break down ammo. If you don't know what that means, try it. But to put it succinctly and as I would explain it to a 2 year old. You're turning the ammo into its component parts. If you still don't understand what that means, then language is an insurmountable barrier.
Then you use those components to build the stuff you actually want to use.

It's very easy to use when you break it down.

All bullets consist of multiple parts. A casing to hold the propellant. Powder to act as a propellant. The actual slug/bullet/etc. which you form from lead. Primer to ignite the powder.

Breaking down ammo is the easiest way to learn how to make ammo. In the bottom right corner, it will show you exactly what you will yield from breaking said item down. Then, when you scroll back up, you can forge ammo from the components you received.

Special ammo might require more powder, primer or even rarer ingredients (i.e. 12 ga. coin shot, which uses Legion currency as shrapnel).

Can you make hollow points or armor piercing at the benches?

This I'm not sure of. It might require Hand Loader which I don't have (yet).

Once you get hand loader it's really good.

I use it for .45-70 Gov't ammo, I can't find that stuff anywhere. The gun runners sell the hollow point variety, but I like my Brush gun to do my armor piercing work also (I have the cowboy perk), so I need the reloading benches to make my awesome SWC Hand Load rounds. Also I like magnum shotgun rounds and hand loaded .357 mag for my cowboy repeater.

I haven't figured out the point of the coin shot shells though, seems like they are just way to waste your money.

Coin shot absolutely chews up unarmored opponents. It is wonderful in a Riot Shotgun.

But is it worth 40 caps per shot? Plus the trouble of exchanging caps into coins at the casinos?

It's definitely worth it, as far as I'm concerned.

Talk about shooting money at your problems....

...If it works, it works.