Hunting shotgun

The hunting shotgun is a weapon in Fallout: New Vegas.

Characteristics
The hunting shotgun was built for greater range and power over similar shotguns. Using the less common but more powerful 12 gauge shells, the hunting shotgun is designed to be the mid-to-end game shotgun, only outclassed by the riot shotgun.

It's pump-action, which means there's a slightly longer delay between shots. It also loads through the bottom, so expect longer reload times, even with the Rapid Reload perk. Due to the gun having a tubular magazine, it is reloaded by hand one shell 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 advantage of being quickly available to fire again if only a single or few rounds are needed.

However, it shares the common weakness of most shotguns and automatic weapons in Fallout: New Vegas, in that much of its theoretical power is negated by the damage threshold system. This weakness however, can be somewhat countered if the player has the Shotgun Surgeon perk and can become truly devastating when combined with slug rounds. It is worth noting that with choke modification installed, it is the most accurate shotgun in the game, making it effective in long range. Using slug rounds boosts its accuracy even further. The hunting shotgun can fire 995 standard 12 gauge shells, 199 full magazines, before breaking.

Modifications

 * Hunting shotgun long tube, +3 magazine size (5 to 8).
 * Hunting shotgun choke, reduces spread by 40% (from 1.5 to 0.9).

Variants

 * Dinner Bell, a slightly stronger unique variant with a smaller spread than a regular hunting shotgun.

Locations

 * Bloodborne Cave - by a skeleton around the campfire, along with some ammunition.
 * Charleston cave - inside the cave, behind a (hard) locked door.
 * Executive Suites, Sierra Madre Resort & Casino - can be found in the security room in the Dead Money add-on.
 * Followers safehouse - located on the right most bed.
 * Gun Runners - can be bought off of the Vendortron.
 * Horowitz Farmstead - in the bed of the pick-up truck next to the barn, along with an ammunition box. The shotgun is in incredibly poor condition. This location is pretty much exactly where the fast travel point for Horowitz Farmstead is located.
 * NCR heavy troopers (particularly at the 188 Trading Post) and Great Khans will equip hunting shotguns from time to time.
 * Old Nuclear Test Site - inside the shack propped up against the table.
 * The Thorn - Red Lucy carries one.
 * Vault 34 - inside the Vault.
 * While not a normal spawn, the Legion soldiers in the double-cross at the end of Birds of a Feather quest may also spawn shotguns.
 * Some Legion centurions that lead squads of Legion Soldiers against the player will have the weapon equipped.
 * Carried by White Legs depending on your level.
 * Zion Fishing Lodge - Found propped up behind the bar, along with a box of twelve 12 gauge shotgun shells in the Honest Hearts add-on.
 * Carried by lobotomites at high levels.

Behind the scenes

 * Based on the shell loaded into hunting shotgun, it was originally intended to take 20 gauge shotgun shells but was changed sometime during development. The unique Dinner Bell had it's shell texture changed to the normal red 12 gauge, but the hunting shotgun was overlooked and kept it's 20 gauge shell texture. Regardless, it still expels the normal red 12 gauge shell when fired.

Bugs

 * The texture file has the wrong shell when reloading. It loads the shell for 20 gauge shell but will eject a normal 12 gauge red plastic shell.
 * Sometimes when changing ammunition type or reloading the user may become stuck in an infinite reload animation, this can simply be fixed by pressing the fire button once or changing ammunition type again. The unique variant, Dinner Bell can also suffer from this glitch.
 * The character's finger often obstructs iron sights aiming.
 * Changing ammunition types twice will cause the gun to instantly reload.