I've seen referance to "hand loaded" ammo as being better then regular. I tried breaking down my ammo and remaking it, but all I got was a Case of Ammo.. no special stats or improvements. So what is the deal with ammo crafting. Worth it? Just good for conversions.. Is it any better.

/confused

you can reload it into a different type of ammo for example, you can break down .20 shotgun shells and make .20 shotgun magnum shells, so they deteriorate your gun slower.

So making just the stock version like 10mm is it the same or worse then the stuff you buy?

I'm at level 14 now and still cannot find a way to unlock armor piercing/JSP bullets at the reloading bench. Google is no help either. Anybody here make any progress on this?

There is 'surplus' ammo available at some stores (like in Goodspring), where you can buy a box of .223 ammo that works in the 5.56mm Service and Varmint rifles, but it isn't as effective and lowers condition faster. Same thing I suspect, with the .38 Special that will likely work in the .357 Magnum.

These conversions, BTW, work in real life too. Just not the other way around!

How is it possible to fire .38 Special rounds out of a .357 Magnum weapon? Wouldn't a .357 barrel be too narrow for a .38?

I have a ruger GP100 357 and I shot .38 rounds out of it to save money, keep it loaded with .357 hollows when stored for intruders

pretty much, yeah

The barrel and chamber are wide enough to use both. However if the gun is chambered for .38 Special, it won't have the structural integrity to fire the higher powered .357 Magnum round.

No, Despite the numbers the .357 Magnum and the .38 Special are the same diameter. The .38 Special is just a shorter casing than the .357 Magnum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.357_magnum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.38_Special

Same as the 'normal' ammo purchase, near as I can tell. I broke down a load of 5mm and reloaded as 5.56mm, and that's what I got. The 'surplus' .223 Remington amount in my inventory didn't change.

Oops. Double tap.

There is a perk you need to unlock hand-loading, which I believe has a similar name (something like Hand-Loader, IIRC). My current character will definitely be getting it since she's a survivalist RP (I am also playing in HC mode) and would naturally know how to make her own ammo.

Otherwise you can either reload your empties (if you can find the parts, and so far I haven't found anyone who sells Primers) or unload other bullets to make more of a caliber you are using. If you do the latter be careful which bullets you break down, since there are heavy and light types and they do not mix (i.e. you cannot convert 10mms to .357s).

Not that I've had much reason to reload my empty cases, despite saving them up, since I can buy quite a bit of ammo from just 3 stores and am currently not using any automatic weapons.

Is that the case? Well that svcks. Don't you need high Survival for that perk? Is that the only way you can hand load AP and HP rounds?

Also, another question while we're on this subject. Why is there no option to breakdown .38 special rounds? Is this something that gets unlocked by this perk or by some other means?

EDIT: damn server issues, accidental re-post.

I haven't tried anything with .38s yet so I don't know how/if you get the ability to break them down.

Hold over a recipe and look at the requirements. You have to have the skill AND the raw stuff to make them. You don't make them out of air you know.

Anyone know what to break down to make .50 BMGs?

Primers seem to be the big bottleneck - it would have helped immensely if they were available (at least the small pistol primers and the regular rifle primers) from the merchants that you can reach early. I forsee that being added in a mod.

I'm still on the fence about the Survival skill. It looks promising when combined with hardcoe mode, but I think it needs tweaked.

(And the whole crafting UI is clunky. You can't select a recipe on the left and make it "sticky" so that you can examine it and mouse over to click on the accept/cancel area - you have to use the mapped keys instead.)

I did not know that.



I have the basic generic ammo showing up on the list. The only thing I lack are the primers. If I get the primers, I can make the generic ammo. However, the armor piercing and hollow points are not showing up on the list. They are no where to be found. Even if I had the primers, I still cannot make any AP or HP ammo.

No, it's the same bore diameter.

The reason is that different places measure the actual bore diameter differently, depending on who makes the firearm, who makes the ammo, etc etc. It's all very confusing...

I'm a firearms regulation policy officer, and trying to explain this to law writers and politicians (who have no idea about firearms generally) is a nightmare...

Basically: a calibre can be measured from land to land (the rifling ridges in a barrel), or from groove to groove (the gaps between the rifling), or from groove to land.

As well, it can be represented in 'imperial' measurement: either as .357 (of an inch), or a gauge (generally only for shotguns). A gauge is the number of lead balls of a particular size that make up a pound in weight - so 12 guage is larger than 20 gauge.

It can also be represented in metric, such as 5.56 mm (which is .223 cal in imperial).

On top of all this, the size of the projectile, the size of the cartridge case, etc also determine the type of ammunition, which is why you get numbers like 7.62 mm NATO and 7.62 x 39 (soviet).


These are just conventions that have occurred over 700 years of firearms use in the western world. Not the best, makes no sense, but it will never change.

I think the .223 Remington and .38 Special are 'surplus' ammo and worthless to breakdown/reload. In fact, I don't think you can even sell them back to a merchant.

Probably something put into the game to give a character who's low on funds a fighting chance.

Hover over the ammo and look at the components then hover over the breakdowns and see what you get for it.

Is a Primer Box different than a straight Primer? Is that for bulk ammo? Halp!

A Primer box is a box of... Primers!
A Jar of riffle powder is a Jar of.... rifle powder!
Really! Not that hard to figure it out!

Drop that box/jar to the ground and pick it up and you get bunch of primers/powder.

And... you can buy alot of primers, cases, powder etc from robot merchant at gun runners. Also weapons merchant south of vegas also sells some of these.

My char only uses hunting rifle with scope, magnum .44 revolver and 10mm pistol and 10mm smg so I only need .308 .044 and 10mm ammo. all the rest I can brakedown to components for relaoding.

Ohh, you have to drop it... I didn't pick up on that. Steam download didn't come with a manual. Thanks!