Hey guys,

Im trying to make some of my own ammo because its such a pain to buy ammo early on in the game in hardcoe mode.

I dont understand the basics to crafting and the wiki dosent fully explain how to craft. I know that it involves specific things like lead and gun powder.

And, whats the difference from Working and Reloading Benches? Why do they have working benches when i havent come across one schematic yet?

Any help at all will be wonderful...

Honestly, the only thing I ever use the ammo bench for is to make .45 Gov't rounds.

You get schematic by leveling up repair, pass dislodge option and taking the Handloader Perk.

What it does the best is turning stock standard rounds which bypass some DT and boost in power.

It's complicated, but you don't need schematics to operate work and reloading benches like you did in Fallout 3. Reloading benches are the ones that involve ammo for guns. You havve two types of recipes, Breakdowns and buildups, breakdown recipes are indicated by the word breakdown in the name. When you breakdown a recipe you break a bullet down to it's basic components: Lead, the bullet's casing, it's gunpowder (Small rifle, Large Rifle, Pistol, etc.), and it's primer type. When you build up a bullet, you combine it's basic componets to make the bullet.

Let's say I want to break down .45-70 bullets and build .308 bullets. I go over to the "Breakdown, .45-70" recipe and I "activate" it (X button for XBox 360). I then get a prompt asking how many times I want to use that recipe (Which goes up to 100 times). I then choose "accept" and I get kicked out of the Reloading Bench's menu and I get a notification of how many things I've recieved for using that recipe.

You recieve: x lead
You recieve: x .45-70 casing
You recieve: x Rifle Powder
You recieve: x Large Rifle Primer

I then go back to the reloading bench and select the ".308" recipe. I choose how many bullets I want to build and I choose "accept" then I get kicked out of the Reloading Bench's menu and I get a notification on how many bullets I get.

You recieve: x .308 ammo

When I ammo craft I only focus on a few different types of upper tier ammo. Govt Rounds, SWC.44 etc.

From the start of the game keep in mind what ammo type(s) you want to focus on. Find out what the materials you need and what ammo types breakdown to give you those materials. For example, breaking down .308 gives you the materials to create the GOVT round minus the casing.

ALWAYS look to see if a vendor is selling the materials you need. ALWAYS buy / collect scrap metal to breakdown to lead. Alot of the upper tier ammo takes ALOT of lead to create.

If certain material are very hard to find, such as the casings for .44 or GOVT rounds, buy the hollow point variations and use them. You will recover some of the casings after firing. This is one way to get those casings, but it is pricey.

SWC .44 is my fav. It is like a long mini quest just to get that ammo type.

Firstly, ramp up repair and take the "Hand Loader" perk. You eventually want to have a Repair of at least 80 so you can max out with a magazine to load certain rounds, such as .50BMG Match ammo.

Always buy scrap metal when available from a merchant, pick it up and keep it when you find it. You need it to melt down for lead and for weapon repair kits.

Don't sell gun ammo unless you need the money.....calibers you don't need can be broken down for lead, powder and primers to use to reload ammo you do use. For example, 20 gauge shotgun ammo gives you lead that can be used for any ammo, pistol powder for reloading pistol cases or 12ga, and shotshell primers for reloading 12ga.

Always buy primers, case boxes and powder when merchants offer them

Coin Shot.

I love how you can get some coins from a corpse after you've blown 'em away.

Is Coin Shot any good? I see no reason to make it instead of slug or magnum.

One trick is to always break down scrap metal into lead as soon as you can lead doesnt have weight in the game scrap metal does.

also break down all ammo types you dont need that can be used to make something you do as this also makes them weightless until you make the new ammo.

But scrap metal is needed for weapon repair kits.

Wepon repair kits arent needed with jury rigging.
When making special ammo you can buy most of the items from gibson and gun runners(cases,powder,primer,scrap metal)

I don't know, there isn't anything in the description for them. At least you can run up to someone and yell out "I'm Alice bit**es!"