The hunting shotgun is a long range precision shotgun used for hunting big game. This shotgun was built for accuracy and power, and is one of the best shotguns available, using rare but powerful 12 gauge shells. It's pump-action, which means there's a longer than average delay between shots. It also loads through the bottom.
Characteristics[]
Hunting shotgun expanded
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 Reloadperk. 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 Surgeonperk 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.
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.
When reloading the weapon in third person the character will hang the shotgun in his hand and pump it with one hand.
Instead of holding the gun by the wooden forearm on the front of the gun, the Courier holds the gun behind it, and after firing, moves their hand up onto the forearm, reloads the gun, then grips the gun back behind it again. This is due to the hunting shotgun using the same holding, aiming and shooting animations as weapons with similar grips, such as the hunting rifle.
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[]
PCPlayStation 3 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.
PlayStation 3Xbox 360 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.
PlayStation 3 The character's finger often obstructs iron sights aiming.
Xbox 360 Changing ammunition types twice will cause the gun to instantly reload.
Hunting shotgun with the long tube modification.
Hunting shotgun with the choke modification.
Hunting shotgun with both modifications.
