It provides a Damage Threshold of 4 as well as a bonus of 2 to Critical Chance and 5 to Sneak. It can be repaired with combat helmets. The headdress itself is the mandible of a bighorner or another animal, decorated with tribal markings and feathers, with the back being comprised of spent shotgun shells. The base of the helmet is similar to a vault security helmet, but with a skull-like design painted on its base.
The strands on the back of the helmet appear to be composed of shotgun shells.
By using the same method to obtain two copies of Salt-Upon-Wounds' power fist, one can obtain two helmets. To do this, take the helmet or power fist off his person, drop it, retrieve it from the footlocker (after the cut-scene), then go back to where it was dropped and pick it up for the second copy. Note that the dropped item may disappear when returning to it. A way to get around this is to store the helmet on a nearby corpse, but not on Salt-Upon-Wounds, as his body will disappear after the quest ends.