A fully modded-out laser musket (Mr. Happy) with a six-crank charge and beam focuser. It may not be the most effective for close quarters, but I never get tired of that satisfying *ka-choom* every time it fires, and the exploding brain matter that follows...

Old Faithful, modded into a one shot kill sniper rifle and a nearly unmodded Deliverer with just the top damage mod for lots of vats attacks from stealth (lots of one shots enough to kill a cemetary full of ghouls)

for melee its a Extended Ripper. all you have to do is stand there and hold the button, barely even aim and melee enemies will run up and kill themselves on the blade... its lethal in vats due to the massive amount of bleed even without a legendary prefix (i would love one with a good prefix)

at start before i can do these tho, i use a Auto Pipe Rifle i have dubbed "metal Storm" thats maxed out giving it almost no recoil when ADS and can burn a Deathclaw pretty easily (and your ammo) i use it like a mini Minigun for tough enemies while a Long Barreled Double Shotgun i name "Pa's Fishing Aid" after a cut item from fallout 3 is used to one shot most weaker enemies.

i also have a .44 pistol call the "Marston" which has a legendary bleed prefix... its really good in vats with head shots since the bleed will kill anything the crazy base damage does not. i have not used it in ages tho due to the low amount of ammo i have for it.

i dont really use anything else than these items... i dont use the Metal Storm or Pa's Fishing Aid anymore since they are effectively replaced by Old Faithful and the Deliverer and that Ripper.

.50 surpressed sniper rifle with circular scope and Kellogg's 44.

Gatling laser

Gama gun, Atom's glow will light my path and he will split all of those who block my path in his image.

Always good fun with that ripper! I also find that unique knife to be a real asset for stealth *STAB AND TWIST!* attacks.

Me too. I switch it between .45 and .308 depending on how much ammo I have.

Gause rifle. its stupidly better then every other gun.

350 damage and 66 fire rate, hits energy resistance not ballistic. Charge up for even more damage if you are fighting a boss or something that may not die in one shot otherwise. Its supressed too, so I can do it stealthy.

Nothing else is even in the same ballpark.

I play around with other weapons on easy enemys to be cautious on ammo. I have a neverending combat rifle and a plasma shotgun that are both fun, and a silenced 50 cal that is good for sniping easier stuff.

Maybe it's just me, but I swear the ripper does less damage than before. I recall finding one in Fallout 3, and then the game was effectively over: give or take a couple, it vaporised every enemy in the game in about two seconds.

Wastelander's friend - fully maxed with a silencer

You can literally clear out a building and no one will know, plus 2 shots to a limb and thats usually all it takes.

I literally named my first fully modified pipe rifle The Go To. It had extra energy damage and could gooify enemies. It lasted the first 40 levels of my character. I eventually replaced it with a tricked out combat rifle that fired two projectiles per shot.

I was happy with my shotgun and hunting riffle till I found this plasma infused combat riffle that seems to really kick a?

Yea IIRC that ripper had the ability to penetrate armor, so bye bye anything armored - eye targeted attacks with better critical perk LOL. plus it had a good base damage to start with.

I like this updated ripper too because with a proper setting it can disarm enemies with an absolute ease.

Semi auto Overseer's Guardian modded just the way I like it is my go to gun.

Le Fusil Terible is for close encounters, but even with recoil suppressing mods, it still kicks like a mule.

I found a legendary 10mm with the name something like double shot which has a much higher damage with the flavor of shooting two bullets at one time. I found it in the glowing sea on a legendary radscorpion. I modded it to the max with having gun nut 3 and science 1. With 4 in gunslinger it deals a little over 80 damage. I named it Double Death.

Across four characters I've only got Wounding once, but it's on a shotgun and it's extraordinarily powerful if you get it early enough. I guess that later on the 25 bleed out takes less of a health bar. I've got the explosive damage on a combat rifle on another character, which is not quite as nice but is still well worth having.

Pickman's knife, already mentioned several times, is good in VATS wih multiple targets but it struggles with larger health bars

Has anyone found a Legendary combat shotgun? My two favorite weapons are combat shotguns and sniper rifles (plasma or laser is fine but I generally just use bullets). But have found very few if any legendaries in these two weapon types.

I did find one legendary double-barrel but that isn't the same.

It seems to be my Rapid Fire .44 Pistol

For a while it was a kneecapping pipegun because it was hilarious against deathclaws. Then I found a junkies .44 while addicted to everything but Calmex, fun little hand cannon kills most things in one shot. So now I'm on survival mode to balance things out, but all my non-junky weapons are mostly useless now.

@Anthropoid: Yup, ive found a few legendary combat guns, 2x freezing combat shotgun and a junkies combat shotgun and i think one unique named legendary. I think I have a mighty combat sniper, not sure since i dont use rifles. I havent found any legendary double barrel shotguns though, which im sure of since ive been looking for one

A fully decked out Assault Rifle named The Destroyer.

turns out the Explosive Shotgun is buckets of fun.

Moi. I found a combat shotgun that did 25% more damage at the expense of recoil. I don't remember what it was called, because I immediately took it to a workbench and gave it a rude name, but I do recall being at the top of Libertalia at the time.

My gun of choice is definitely the Overseer's Guardian converted to a .308. Good as a short ranged semi-auto rifle or as a long ranged sniper rifle. Although I've been trying to find a double shot hunter rifle too so I can convert that to 50 Cal and have it as my main sniper rifle.

Yes, I have an explosive .45 auto combat rifle, and it is the one i like to play with the most during big street fights. The explosive bullets can kill nearby enemies that you don't even hit, which is pretty cool. Clustering up is not a good tactic, raiders! Always plenty of loose limbs laying around afterwards.

my choice in 'guns' is none other than a Deathclaw Gauntlet. With weighted armor slots, it's quite fun to rip through Mirelurks of any kind like a can opener, or stab my claws into a human being as they keel over telling them "No tears, only dreams" before violently pulling them out of his/her intestines. If only I could dual-wield them and rip a man in two!

As for actual Guns, revolvers, all the way. Accurate, deadly, good fire rate, great AP cost, easy to acquire bullets.