Fallout: New Vegas weapons

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This page lists all weapons in Fallout: New Vegas.

The content is not described in full detail on this page. For details, please see the respective articles. For weapons in other Fallout games, please see "Weapon". For an overview of Fallout: New Vegas content, please refer to "Portal:Fallout: New Vegas."

 

	For an overview of unique weapons only, see Fallout: New Vegas unique weapons. For the weapon stat comparison tables, see Fallout: New Vegas weapons/Comparison.

Guns

“Guns are the most common ranged weapons of the Mojave Wasteland. They are numerous and varied and ammunition is relatively easy to acquire.”— Fallout: New Vegas loading screens

Pistols

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Normal holdout weapon: May be concealed regardless of Sneak skill.

² Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50

Rifles

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Scoped by default.

SMGs

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50

Shotguns

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50

Heavy weapons

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Scoped by default

Energy weapons

“Energy weapons are less common and varied than guns, but have a small number of ammunition types and can be quite potent.”— Fallout: New Vegas loading screen

Energy pistols

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ May only be acquired if one has chosen the Wild Wasteland trait.

² Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50.

³ Frightens abominations.

⁴ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Energy rifles

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ May only be acquired if one has not chosen the Wild Wasteland trait.

² Scoped by default.

Energy heavy weapons

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Explosives

“Explosive weapons are best used when dealing with crowds or in situations where precision is not a high priority."”— Fallout: New Vegas loading screen

Projectile

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Scoped by default.

Thrown

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Normal holdout weapon: May be concealed regardless of Sneak skill.

² Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50

³ May only be acquired if one has chosen the Wild Wasteland trait.

⁴ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Placed

¹ Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50

² Custom-built weapon

³ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Melee

“Most Melee Weapons are completely silent, making them excellent stealth weapons.”— Fallout: New Vegas loading screen

Bladed

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Normal holdout weapon: May be concealed regardless of Sneak skill.

² Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50.

³ Ignores DR/DT.

⁴ Includes double normal weapon damage in V.A.T.S.

⁵ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Blunt

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50

² Includes double normal weapon damage in V.A.T.S.

³ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Thrown

¹ Normal holdout weapon: May be concealed regardless of Sneak skill.

² Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

Unarmed

Unique weapons are highlighted with a darker background

¹ Normal holdout weapon: May be concealed regardless of Sneak skill.

² Improved holdout weapon: May be concealed if Sneak ≥ 50.

³ Includes double normal weapon damage in V.A.T.S.

⁴ Does bonus damage to robots and power armored foes.

⁵ Ignores DR/DT.

Other

Despite being in the weapons category on the Pip-Boy 3000, these items are not used offensively.

Quest items are highlighted with a darker background

Unused weapons

Cut content

¹ Available in all add-ons except Courier's Stash.

Behind the scenes

Specific rifles

“Even the "max" ranges of sight in F:NV are actually very short for firearms in the real world. Take one of the longest shots in the game: hitting Aurelius of Phoenix at Cottonwood Cove from the Sniper's Nest (where the Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle is found). We calculated it out and that's under 200 yards, I think. Apparent distances are skewed in the engine because the field of view is 70 degrees by default.”— Joshua Sawyer

“In general, I prefer to give weapons functional names and avoid getting wrapped up in specific designations used by manufacturers or the military. Because our weapons must, for technical reasons, occasionally differ functionally from the weapons upon which they are based (different caliber, charging handle placement, receiver height, stock shape/length, etc.) giving them a more utilitarian name helps negate some of the potential pedantry over those deviations.

There are no AR-15s, Colt Commandos, Browning Hi-Powers, BFRs, M1 Garands, Winchester 1886s, 1887s, or 1892s in Fallout: New Vegas -- just Service Rifles, Assault Carbines, 9mm Pistols, Hunting Revolvers, This Machine, Brush Guns, Lever-Action Shotguns, and Cowboy Repeaters.

That's also why there are no M1911s or Thompsons in Honest Hearts, but you'll find plenty of .45 Auto Pistols and .45 Auto Submachine Guns.”

“One of Obsidian's programmers was a tank driver in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany and later deployed to Iraq in the early 90s. His issued sidearm was a beat-to-hell Ithaca M1911. If you know your M1911 history, that should give you an idea of how old it was.”— Joshua Sawyer, responding to a question whether weapons in New Vegas would really work due to age

“Nah, I’m satisfied with them. Fallout 1 and 2 delved into 90s weapons designs (e.g. the P90c) and the mid-90s is when the M4/Picatinny rails entered the scene. There are a lot of rifles in F:NV and I think the more modern appearance of the marksman carbine and assault carbine help visually distinguish them from the rest of the lineup in a good way.”— Joshua Sawyer, responding to a question on if he would change the Assault Carbine or Marksman Rifle.

General implementation

“The process was iterative and went through a lot of revisions. There were a few questions I asked for deciding what would get included and what would not:

• What are iconic Fallout weapons that should return?

In my mind, the 10mm pistol and SMG had to return, as did the minigun, sawed-off shotgun, flamer, and a few other choice weapon.

• What are players’ role-playing expectations within this setting and what weapons will help the expression of those roles?

We can’t account for every type of character a player might imagine, but we knew a lot of people would want to be a) Mad Max b) post-apocalyptic cowboy/cowgirl c) wacky bazinga science person d) agro military operator e) sneakthief stealth murderer.

Supporting those concepts throughout the game necessitated an array of thematically appropriate equipment options that was available from the beginning and allowed for power growth through the end game. That’s why you can use revolvers and lever action rifles from the first two hours (.357 Revolver and Cowboy Repeater) through the Battle of Hoover Dam (Hunting Revolver and Brush Gun).

• What weapons share common ammunition types to avoid resource/loot problems?

There are only a few weapons that use an ammo type that isn’t used elsewhere. Western-style weapons make some of that easy since a lot of revolvers and lever-action rifles used the same rimmed ammo types. Ammo types like .22 and .308, were also easy to use in multiple weapons.

• What are weapons with distinctive/iconic looks that can stand out from each other?

Service and battle rifles are based on distinctive historical weapons, the slim 9mm pistol is easy to distinguish from the bulky 10mm, and even the lever-actions are relatively easy to distinguish from the bolt-action and sniper rifles.

• What are weapons that can be modified in distinctively different ways from each other to allow for orthogonal growth within a subtype of weapons (e.g. lever-action rifles).

If all weapons of a certain type can be modified in the same way, upgrading those weapons becomes less interesting, especially since we expect players to stick with thematically consistent weapons (not always, of course, but…). This is why the cowboy repeater and brush gun feature top eject: it prohibits the use top-mounted scopes, allowing the trail carbine to be modified in a way that the other two lever-actions cannot. The unique cowboy repeater does have a scope, but it’s a side-mounted scope, like the one used by Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

• What are different ammo subtypes that can be used that offer distinctly different properties from each other to allow for another axis of differentiation.

Different ammo types have different variants. This is not only true within a category (e.g. revolver/lever-action rimmed rounds) but of course between categories. In F:NV, you can’t get armor-piercing rounds in a lever-action or a revolver – except for That Gun/the 5.56mm pistol. Weapons that fire .44 magnum can also fire .44 special. Similarly, .357 magnum weapons can fire .38 special, but .44 magnum also has a semi-wadcutter variant, while .357 magnum has a jacketed flat point variant. The differences are minor, but significant enough to make a difference to players who want to fiddle around with ammo subtypes.”— Joshua Sawyer, Tumblr

“I didn’t think of making the F:NV guns differ from F3 as much as I tried to return to what I believed was the spirit of Fallout 1 & 2 guns: a mix of common real-world guns, some real-world niche guns, and some completely fictional guns.

I also felt like Fallout 1 (especially) had great gun progression. I really liked how even though the Desert Eagle .44 did more damage than the 10mm pistol, it had a lower ammo cap. Also, because the .44 Magnum ammo is relatively rare (IIRC) when you get the first DE from Garl, it promotes more deliberate, considered use of the weapon and suggests keeping the 10mm pistol around as backup. That sort of overlapping/orthogonal progression is great and I tried to achieve it in F:NV. I always tried to make the “upgrade” of a weapon have one thing that was obviously inferior to / different from the previous version. With the .357 Magnum Revolver and .44 Magnum Revolver, the .357 is slightly more accurate and can never suffer a malfunction/jam.

F3 did some things with ammo types that I understand and appreciate from a game design perspective but I felt contrasted too much from real-world weapon/ammo design. The fact that a handgun and a rifle shared an ammo type is nice for gameplay, but .32 is an odd caliber to use for a number of reasons. One of the things that bothered me most was the use of a similar ammo type in a revolver (typically using rimmed cartridges) and a bolt-action rifle (typically using rimless cartridges and headspacing at the front of the cartridge). Because I liked a more (American) western aesthetic for F:NV, I decided to use rimmed “cowboy cartridges” for revolvers and lever-action rifles. This was extremely common back in the day and can still be done with modern revolvers and lever-actions in the same caliber. The hunting rifle (.32 in F3) went to .308, which we reserved for high-powered rifles and didn’t use in handguns.

In general, when we used real-world weapons and ammo types, I tried to go with ones ordinary people (well, Americans, anyway) were familiar with: .22 LR 9mm, 10mm, .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, 5.56mm, .308, .50 MG. The ones that were made up (12.7mm) or less familiar (.45-70 Gov’t) were generally reserved for later weapons.

The real-world weapons were also sort of a “greatest hits” list: the 9mm based on the Browning Hi-Power, the .357 based on the Colt SAA, etc. - classic designs for people familiar with them that looked great for players who weren’t familiar with them. At times we had to adjust the design for animation/gameplay purposes, e.g. the Automatic Rifle in Dead Money is recognizable as some kind of BAR knockoff, but it differs in some significant ways.

I based the anti-materiel rifle on the Hécate II because honestly I was/am sick of seeing Barretts in games and I think the Hécate II looks better.”— Joshua Sawyer, Tumblr

“Can I ask why you don't use the original weapons' actual names? Like why do you call the M16 a "Service Rifle"? Is it due to liscencing issues?
Joshua Sawyer: It's partially for that and also because they aren't "really" those weapons. We take liberties for animation and aesthetic reasons. Rather than provoke players into debating how "legit" a weapon is, I'd rather just give weapons a functional name that gets the basic idea across and leave it at that.”— Joshua Sawyer, Formspring answers, archived at RPGCodex

“200 years old rifles? I know nothing of guns, but is this like, something that happens, or just stretching reality for the sake of the setting?
Joshua Sawyer: Is this honestly the first time you've considered that many of the firearms in Fallout were made Pre-War? Come on.

EDIT: Re-reading my response, it sounds rude. Apologies. I'm not sure if this is a genuine or disingenuous question, partially because the majority of questions are anonymous.

The majority of firearms in use in the Fallout setting are likely Pre-War in manufacture. Things that would make conventional firearms stop working: rust (seizing), dry rot (anything wood or rubber), alkaline corrosion/buildup (anything with batteries).

A lot of firearms (and other things, but especially firearms) put in long-term storage are coated in a substance called cosmoline that can prevent rust (and other processes) for a long time. It's unlikely that all of the weapons in Fallout were coated for storage, so it's just a hand-wave of the setting.”— Joshua Sawyer, Formspring answers, archived at RPGCodex

“Who made up all of the energy weapons?
Joshua Sawyer: I tuned all of the EW stats (too low for a lot of them, unfortunately), but the EWs were modeled and textured mostly by Mitch Ahlswede, Paul Fish, and Aaron Brown.”— Joshua Sawyer, Formspring answers, archived at RPGCodex

“Why do the energy weapons in the Fallout series tend to fire like conventional automatic weapons rather than ever using a continuous beam? I'm thinking specifically of guns like the gatling laser, that fires a series of beams rather than one unbroken one.
Joshua Sawyer: I think continuous beam weapons are cool. We actually tried implementing a continuous beam weapon in F:NV and it was a colossal mess. We put a fair amount of time into it, but it was causing tremendous problems, so we pulled it out.”— Joshua Sawyer, Formspring answers, archived at RPGCodex

“why don't laser wepons in NV use iron sights?
Joshua Sawyer: There were a variety of animation and model issues with the laser weapons that delayed any attempts to add iron sights prior to implementing "true" iron sights. Once that system was in place, we realized that we would need to do a certain amount of work well into beta to make true iron sights work for laser weapons. Because the weapon artists were already heavily tasked and the QA staff had a huge amount of content to go through, I decided that it was too late to implement the required content. On their own, the weapons don't actually require that much work to modify for iron sights. The timing was just really bad.”— Joshua Sawyer, Formspring answers, archived at RPGCodex

“'Why do energy weapons not have iron sights?' Part of it is that we were adapting a lot of the Fallout 3 energy weapons, which... are just very bulky, and when we went to try to put iron sights on them, it was actually kinda hard. That's the real reason. Y'know, we could've put in the effort to redesign the weapons, but we didn't. Just didn't seem like there was enough time to do that. So, apologies for that. But that's why.”— Joshua Sawyer

Unique weapons

“I decided very early on that unique weapons should at least have unique textures and sometimes have unique models. By accounting for this early in development, production was able to incorporate it into the schedule. Most unique variants were textured/modeled around the same time as the base weapon, IIRC.

Deciding what weapons would get unique variants was a little more difficult. The first consideration was to make sure the uniques weren’t all bunched up in one type of weapon, so there should be unique weapons more or less equally spread across different categories.

After that, it was more arbitrary and based on feeling/inspiration than anything practical. I always figured people would want to see the return of the .223 pistol, a unique 9mm pistol and sniper rifle seemed obvious, and when we made Honest Hearts, not including a unique .45 would have been a high crime.

Over time, there were also gaps I saw that became opportunities for new uniques. The Survivalist’s Rifle was created to fill a gap between the sniper rifle and the service rifle and to get more use out of the 12.7mm round.

When I started as a game designer at Black Isle, I worked on the original Icewind Dale. We used (a lot of) words to tell the story of a unique item. Fallout: New Vegas didn’t have text descriptions for items, so the story had to be told through the appearance of the weapon or armor itself. Details like the writing on A Light Shining in Darkness and the Survivalist’s Rifle or the bits and pieces of info that can be gleaned from the Desert Ranger Armor are all part of that. Many players never notice them, or if they do notice them, it’s just part of the aesthetic of the item, but for some players, those details tell the story of the item and fill in details about the world and its history.”— Joshua Sawyer, Tumblr

Bugs

•    Scoped guns will occasionally display a blank "computer terminal" screen instead of the scope. This bug completely blocks the weapon's view when using the "scope". Fix for this bug for the Xbox360 is clearing your systems cache and reloading the game. It eventually "goes away" on its own, or by restarting the console, but the cause for start/end is not yet determined. This also makes it hard to use a terminal since no screen or text appears unless you have the weapon out. This can also be similar when Lockpicking as the tumbler may disappear, although it is not impossible to still attempt to pick the lock, depending on the difficulty.^[verified]
  • Can be fixed by making a new save and restarting the console.
•   Occasionally weapons dropped by the player will have the red "Press A to steal x" marking as if the weapon was previously owned, regardless of whether or not it ever was owned by an NPC. This can be fixed by opening the console, clicking the weapon, and typing the "setownership" command.^[verified]
•   With heavy energy weapons that use a backpack as an ammunition supply as well as the katana with a sheath, removing a weapon that has one will cause it to remain on your back. This happens with multiple backpacks, so they clip through each other. This can be corrected by equipping the weapon that caused this, then unequipping it.^[verified]
•   Sometimes when using melee weapons, you get blood splatter on the weapon and the blood refuses to come off of the weapon. You can fix this by leaving the game and coming back.^[verified]
•   Rarely the weapon models can become small.^[verified]
• Sometimes, when you fire until you have no ammo left, the gun will still shake like it is shooting. It won't make a sound or inflict any damage.^[verified]

See also

• Fallout weapons
• Fallout 2 weapons
• Fallout 3 weapons
• Fallout 4 weapons
• Fallout 76 weapons
• Fallout Tactics weapons
• Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel weapons
• Fallout: New Vegas ammunition

Weapons in Fallout: New Vegas Unarmed Fists Ballistic fist (Two-Step Goodbye*) · Industrial hand* · Power fist* (Greased Lightning*, GRA*, Salt-Upon-Wounds' power fist*) · Saturnite fist*, Saturnite fist super-heated* Gauntlets Bear trap fist · Bladed gauntlet (Cram Opener) · (Fist of Rawr (Fist of the North Rawr )) · Mantis gauntlet (Embrace of the Mantis King!) · Yao guai gauntlet* (She's Embrace*) Gloves Boxing gloves (Golden Gloves) · Displacer glove (Pushy) · Scientist Glove* (Corrosive glove*, Dr. Klein's glove*, Dr. Mobius' glove*, sterilizer glove*) · Zap glove (Paladin Toaster) Knuckles Boxing tape · Brass knuckles* · Dog tag fist (Recompense of the Fallen) · Spiked knuckles* (Love and Hate*) Meleecut Bladed Bowie knife* (Blood-Nap*) · Bumper Sword (Blade of the East, Blade of the West) · Chainsaw (GRA) · Cleaver* (Chopper*) · Combat knife* (Chance's knife*) · Cosmic knife* (Cosmic knife clean*, cosmic knife super-heated*) · Fire axe (Knock-Knock) · Hatchet* · Katana · Knife* · Knife spear (Knife spear clean) · Machete (Broad machete, Liberator) · Machete gladius · Proton axe (Protonic inversal axe) · Ripper* (GRA*) · Shishkebab (Gehenna) · Straight razor* (Figaro*) · Switchblade* · Thermic lance Blunt 9 iron (Nephi's golf driver) · Baseball bat (GRA) · Cattle prod · Dress cane · Lead pipe* (The Humble Cudgel)* · Nail board · Old Glory · Police baton* · Pool cue · Rebar club (Nuka Breaker) · Rolling pin ·Shovel · Sledgehammer · Super sledge (Oh, Baby!) · Tire iron* · War club* · X-2 antenna Thrown Proton throwing axe (Protonic inversal throwing axe) · Tomahawk · Throwing hatchet · Throwing knife* · Throwing knife spear · Throwing spear Other Binoculars Guns Pistols .357 Magnum revolver* (Lucky*) · .44 Magnum revolver* (Mysterious Magnum*) · .45 Auto pistol* (A Light Shining in Darkness*) · 5.56mm pistol* (That Gun) · 9mm pistol* (Maria*) · 10mm pistol* (Weathered 10mm pistol) · 12.7mm pistol (Li'l Devil*) · Hunting revolver (GRA, Ranger Sequoia) · Police pistol* · Silenced .22 pistol* Shotguns Caravan shotgun (Sturdy caravan shotgun) · Hunting shotgun (Dinner Bell) · Lever-action shotgun · Riot shotgun · Sawed-off shotgun* (Big Boomer) · Single shotgun SMGs .45 Auto submachine gun · 9mm submachine gun (Vance's 9mm submachine gun) · 10mm submachine gun (Sleepytyme*) · 12.7mm submachine gun (GRA) · H&H Tools nail gun · Silenced .22 SMG Rifles Anti-materiel rifle (GRA) · Assault carbine (GRA) · Automatic rifle · Battle rifle (This Machine) · BB gun (Abilene Kid LE BB gun) · Brush gun (Medicine Stick) · Cowboy repeater (La Longue Carabine) · Hunting rifle (Paciencia) · Light machine gun (Bozar) · Marksman carbine (All-American) · Service rifle (Survivalist's rifle) · Sniper rifle (Christine's CoS silencer rifle, Gobi Campaign scout rifle) · ‎Trail carbine · Varmint rifle (Ratslayer) Heavy Weapons K9000 cyberdog gun (FIDO) · Minigun (CZ57 Avenger) · Shoulder mounted machine gun Other Codac R9000 Energy Weapons Pistols Alien blaster  · Compliance Regulator* · Flare gun* · Laser pistol* (GRA*, Pew Pew*, missing laser pistol) · Plasma Defender (GRA) · Plasma pistol* (GRA*) · Pulse Gun · Recharger pistol (MF Hyperbreeder Alpha*) · Sonic emitter - Gabriel's bark* Sonic emitter - opera singer* Sonic emitter - revelation* Sonic emitter - robo-scorpion* Sonic emitter - tarantula* Rifles Gauss rifle (YCS/186) · Holorifle · LAER (Elijah's advanced LAER) · Laser RCW · Laser rifle (AER14 prototype, Van Graff laser rifle) · Multiplas rifle · Plasma rifle (Q-35 matter modulator, Van Graff plasma rifle) · Recharger rifle · Tri-beam laser rifle (GRA) Heavy Weapons Arc welder · Euclid's C-Finder · Flamer (Cleansing Flame) · Gatling laser (Sprtel-Wood 9700) · Heavy incinerator · Incinerator · Plasma caster (The Smitty Special) · Tesla cannon (Elijah's jury-rigged Tesla cannon, Tesla-Beaton prototype) Other Big Mountain Transportalponder! · Laser detonator Explosives Thrown Dynamite* · Fire bomb* · Flash bang* · Frag grenade* (Holy Frag Grenade ) · Incendiary grenade · Long-fuse dynamite* · MFC grenade* · Nuka-grenade* · Plasma grenade* · Pulse grenade* · Tin grenade* Placed Bottlecap mine · C-4 plastic explosive* and detonator* (Loyal's detonator)* · Demolition charge · Fat mine* · Frag mine · Gas bomb · MFC cluster* · Plasma mine · Powder charge · Pulse mine · Satchel charge · Time bomb (Time bomb, high yield*) Projectile 25mm grenade APW · Fat Man (GRA, Esther) · Grenade launcher · Grenade machinegun (Mercy) · Grenade rifle (Great Bear grenade rifle, mercenary's grenade rifle, Red Victory grenade rifle, Thump-Thump) · Missile launcher (Annabelle) · Red Glare Cut content In-game Deathclaw gauntlet · Gas grenade* · Meat mine · Stun grenade · Starlet's hand wraps · X-13 field disruptor pistol Developmental Debug megapistol · Plasma rifle always crit · Plasma rifle weak · The Disintegrator · The Faderator · Scorpion rifle · Spider rifle · Slave's Burden Not in-game Bug Spray · GP machine gun · Heavy rail cannon · Heavy riveter · Light rail cannon NPC weapons Companion Arcade Gannon's Ripper · Boone's scoped hunting rifle · Follows-Chalk's .45 Auto pistol* · Follows-Chalk's war club · Joshua's Pistol Whippin' .45* · Lily's assault carbine · Lily's gauntlet · Lily's Vertibird blade · Mysterious Stranger's .44 Magnum · Miss Fortune's Bad Luck Bringer · Waking Cloud's yao guai gauntlet* NPC Oliver anti-materiel rifle · Poisoned bladed gauntlet · Poisoned cleaver · Poisoned fire axe · Poisoned hatchet · Poisoned machete · Poisoned mantis gauntlet · Poisoned throwing spear Parentheses () denote unique weapon variants, italics denote weapons available through add-ons, * denotes holdout weapons.