.50 cal for sniper shots. No silencer.

Then again, I wear POWAH AHMAH and typically use automatics for general use. It's good for a few shots to help bring down problem enemies before charging in with, say, my automatic fiery laser shotgun or my 10mm auto, with the "exploding bullets" quality.

For extreme long range, I use a silenced .50 cal with long range recon scope. Second sniper I carry around, is a Combat Rifle chambered for .308 with silencer, and "magic" ability of double damage to foes at full health with short range scope. Makes for a fine "close-quarter" rifle that is precise (one shot, one kill when undetected)

I have a lot of perks supporting rifles and sneak attacks, since I am not bothered with settlements, so lot of "free" points. Full Rifleman, Full Ninja, 4 point sneak, 2 perk sandman, full lone wanderer and full bloody mess. Needless to say, I lay waste to anything when undetected, no exceptions. Staying undetected is a big part of my damage, so I don't use energy weapons, which gives away more info about my whereabouts than I like.

Closequarter weapons is a silenced combat rifle, modified for close quarters, that fires two shots at once, and a silenced combat shotgun with double damage on crits.

I carry a Two-Shot Assault Rifle, modded to be semi-automatic, with a drum magazine holding 80 rounds, a recon scope and a silencer. The accuracy when hip-firing is quite bad, due to the two-shot modifier, but it still chews through BOS Knights like butter (on survival difficulty). For bigger things, like legendary Sentrybots, I carry a silenced Gauss Rifle, though I still need a good modifier for that one, and for close encounters a silenced two-shot Combat Shotgun. With 6.3x sneak attack multiplier(Ninja + Mr.Sandman + Deacon's perk), nothing survives the first shot.

Depend on use,.50 or musket is perfect for the very heavy damage first shot or long range snipping
For other use I prefer no scope

I like your style friend.

Combat rifle modified to .308, and a .50 modified hunting rifle for ballistic.
"Six crank" laser musket and Gauss rifle for energy weapons.
Missile launcher with targeting computer for heavy. (Actually, it should be called a rocket launcher until you add a targeting computer ).

My plasma sniper does 108 balistic and 108 energy damage im doing fine

I'm planning on having a nice mix. A loud .50 Hunting Rifle, a suppressed .308 Combat Rifle, a six-crank Laser Musket, a Plasma Sniper Rifle, and the Gauss Rifle. Heck, I'm around Level 14 on this character and my primary weapon so far has been Pipe Revolver Rifle with a short scope. First thing I'm going to do when I get Gun Nut 3 is convert it to .308, even though I've already got a Hunting Rifle fully modded up, minus the .50 conversion. I've also got plans to have an example of almost every other non-automatic weapon in the game.

I play in a manner where I can only carry one long arm and one sidearm at a time (when not in power armour) so it's nice to mix my style up somewhat every now and again. The different rifles have different ranged scopes on so I can pair them up with varying pistols depending on what I'm doing. It's nice to have the option to utilise the Mister Sandman suppressed damage bonus or just go in guns blazing as well and rely solely on Rifleman/Gunslinger. I don't enjoy sneaking all the time, even though I'm specced into it and it's the most powerful I can be.

Yeah, i too like to have a silenced and loudened rifle when playing a sniper

Though in addition to those i also have melee weapon, pistol and shotgun. Sometimes a missile launcher or Fat Man too. Hey, i need a full arsenal, i'm an https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G46On53zyVQ

I'm a sniper nut in this game so I carry a musket (nothing much survives a 6-crank), a plasma (177/177 damage so far, things just turn into green glowing ash... from range), and my trusty .50 (suppressed, there's something to be said by a .50 cal boom, but the silent death from far away is very gratifying). Funny thing is I equipped by companion (Curie currently) with a pistol and for some reason they tend to get real close to targets, so they sort of tank while I angle for a shot.

I do have Overseer's Guardian a very very good gun, probably the best in the game: 4 shots so far off of VATS for fast movers, manual shots for when things are far but charging me. If I could have two of these I would definitely turn one into a sniper.

I have a Gauss but waiting until Gun Nut 4 to try it out; however, in my game EC ammo is fairly scarce (not so much .50 or .308 or fusion cell).