A submachine gun with bleed an extra 25 points special abilty. Think about it...

There is a clip (?) mod for the alien blaster at your crafting table. It switches ammo type to fusion cell (same as most energy weapons) and reduces damage by 1 (50 goes to 49). There are other mods, but that is the only one I had the parts for. You also need like max level Science perks.

I'm still using a heavily modded pipe pistol (.38) because the ammo is everywhere. I also have a heavily modified bolt action pipe rifle with a long barrel and scope as a sniper rifle. Not much luck with the double barrel (loading too slow). I also still have the laser musket from Concord but can't modify it much yet.

i think you need 4 science

Okay. I got a new favorite. I've found a laser rifle with unlimited ammo capacity effect (meaning, it'll never have to reload). So I kept it with plans of upgrading it... I collected a handful of other laser rifles from these Gunners I've killed and turned their modifications into those little mods so that I can use them on the special one (I don't have any of the Science perks)... And... I kinda turned this laser rifle into a mini laser gatling gun that can never stop shooting, unless I run out of ammo...

It's fun to use.

I'm transitioning from the heavy mod pipe pistol to a heavily modded 10mm. I also bought Old Faithful (though I couldn't resist some minor modification to that). I also now and transitioning from my .308 pipe rifle to a modded hunting rifle. The .308 is great for taking out turrets at a distance.

My silenced 10mm with recon scope called Ten Mike Mike.

My fully tricked out hunting rifle called Reacher.

These are my favorites, so far.

My silenced 10 mm. Pistol with +50 radiation damage, seems to double when I sneak attack someone like the normal damage does I call it "The Goul Maker"

Believe it or not, my go to weapon for quit a while was my heavily modded 10mm pistol. I used it all the way up until I got the Deliverer a couple days ago. They're perfect little weapons for stealth characters. Combined with Gunslinger (I'm at level 4 Gunslinger) they'll take down most basic enemies in 2-3 shots.

Edit: lol, just saw the above post. Great minds think alike.