I haven't made it far enough to get a real sniper rifle but I'm wondering, for those who have, are we talking long ranges here? For instance, can we snipe as far as we can see with a proper sniper rifle? I remember trying to 'snipe' some guards off the little watchtowers in the NCR Prison with a .357 Cowboy Repeater with little success even though I was practically right under the tower. I know the VATS range is extremely limited but I didn't have much success firing over long ranges in free-aim either.

I was able to get a couple from the hillside with a fairly repaired up varmint rifle and guns in the low 40s. Just make sure you "crouch" (sneak) to steady your aim.

I whacked those guys easy and from pretty far away with the night scoped varmint rifle. Its my favorite weapon so far. Sneak and aim for the head.

With the scoped Varment rifle I can heatshot stationary targets with near 100% accuracy at the max render distance. Guns are at 45 or so. I don't think they have anything to do with the accuracy outside of vats.

Nice, I guess the scope makes all the difference. I wasn't sure if the game had placed a limitation on how far bullets would travel before vanishing or if there was any bullet damage drop-off.

Also, does anyone know if the Fast Shot / Trigger Discipline traits have any effect outside of VATS?

Ya know what? I'm not sure ATM. I'll have to read the description again when I play tonight. I took Trigger Discipline and never use VATS. Hope I didn't waste a perk.

If I can see it, I can hit it. To put it another way, if it's close enough for the game to render it, I can hit it. It doesn't appear there are any physics for the bullets, damage is the same and it travels in a perfectly straight line with no travel time. This is with a gun score of 40 or less and without Trigger Discipline. Does not appear to me that any aspect of your character affects accuracy outside of VATS.

As for your experience with the Cowboy Repeater, the iron sights on that aren't very conducive to sniping. I can snipe easier with a 9mm than with that thing. The ideal sniper gun for the beginning of the game is the Varmint Rifle with Varmint Night Scope. Gives you a nice zoom and a cross hair. Crouch on a rock and you can one hit kill everything in sight even on Very Hard, just aim for the head.