Brush gun

The brush gun is a weapon in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics
The main rifle of the New California Republic NCR Ranger Veteran, the brush gun is a lever-action rifle firing .45-70 Gov't ammunition. It has a semi-buckhorn iron sight similar to the cowboy repeater and the battle rifle, though smaller and much less intrusive. Due to the gun having a tubular magazine, it is reloaded by hand one bullet at a time, as such it can be interrupted mid-way through reloading and fired if needed. Because of this, it gives the gun the added advantage of being quickly available to fire again if only a single/few rounds are needed. There is a buttstock cartridge holder on the stock of the gun, though no bullets will be placed inside it.

A high damage output, minimal spread and a moderate firing rate make this gun a very powerful and accurate weapon. However, it uses .45-70 Gov't rounds, which are one of the rarest ammunition types in the game. In spite of this, the brush gun uses this ammunition quite efficiently: it has the highest damage per shot of all the weapons that use this ammunition. When loaded with .45-70 SWC (hand load) rounds, this can be a very effective weapon to use against high level opponents, such as deathclaws and super mutants.

Its damage is on par with that of the anti-materiel rifle loaded with armor piercing rounds and boasts almost three times the damage-per-second when used with the Cowboy perk. It is also much easier to use as it does not feature a large scope and has a much faster re-chamber time. The brush gun can fire a total of 745 standard rounds from full condition before breaking.

Modifications

 * Brush gun forged receiver, increases weapon condition by 50%.

Variants

 * Medicine Stick, a unique variant that's even more powerful and comes with an alternate sight.

Locations

 * 188 trading post - Alexander occasionally sells one.
 * Gun Runners - Vendortron sells one.
 * Hidden Valley bunker armory - can sometimes be purchased there.
 * NCR Veteran Rangers - commonly found carrying a brush gun.
 * Also can be found on Great Khans, specifically at Red Rock Canyon or sometimes in the Great Khan armory if you have positive Reputation. Buying it in the armory is cheaper than anywhere else in the Mojave Wasteland.
 * With the Honest Hearts add-on, brush guns are commonly found on White Legs warriors at higher levels (20-25+).
 * One of the Legionary assassins may carry a brush gun (level 21 onwards).
 * With the Old World Blues add-on, brush guns commonly found on lobotomites at high levels (40-50).

Behind the scenes
"The standard Brush Gun is more Marlin 1895ish, but with the upgraded receiver (which is essentially the whole "gun" part to make any sense out of the mod), it looks more Winchester 1886ish.

e: but of all the guns, the lever-actions (and Light Machine Gun) are the most mish-mashy."

- J.E. Sawyer


 * The brush gun is not based on one gun specifically, but is based on both the Winchester 1886 and Marlin Guide Gun respectively.
 * According to the texture, the brush gun was originally just a mod for the Trail carbine before being made into its own weapon.

Bugs

 * Sometimes a serious bug will affect the weapon's shooting capabilities, making every bullet hit about 20 feet to the right of where you are aiming. Also this bug affects the iron sights, as you can not see them when you zoom in.
 * When changing ammunition types this weapon could be caught in a reload loop, this is also common on the cowboy repeater and trail carbine, and also happens when you give this weapon to a companion. This can be fixed for the player character by changing the ammunition type again.
 * As with all lever action weapons, a bug exists where if one changes ammunition types twice consecutively, the weapon returns to having a full clip in the ammunition type that was selected.
 * Sometimes when reloading the weapon in third person view, you may not see the usual lever action.
 * In V.A.T.S. mode when firing multiple shots, the brush gun will randomly miss enemies with each shot even with multiple two-handed weapon perks, 100 to Guns skill, and aiming at the same body part. This is especially common when dealing with upclose enemies such as night stalkers, and cyberdogs.
 * Sometimes the lever may remain downward if holstered immediately after firing. Simply drawing and holstering the weapon again will fix this.
 * Sometimes firing multiple shots in V.A.T.S. will cause the brush gun to rapidly fire all shots while still zoomed on the player, resulting in zero damage to the enemies.
 * A brush gun with the forged receiver mod attached will actually degrade in condition when a weapon repair kit is used on it.
 * Reloading in third-person mode while moving even at a snail's pace will show the reload animation without cycling the lever once reloading is finished. This happens even if the reload was interrupted mid-way. Also, the lever will remain in a lowered position until you zoom in, put it away, etc.