Brush Gun

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

Characteristics
The main rifle of the New California Republic (NCR) Veteran Ranger, the brush gun is a lever action rifle firing .45-70 Gov't ammunition. It has a peep sight similar to the cowboy repeater and This Machine, though smaller and much less intrusive. Due to the gun having an internal 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.

High damage output, minimal spread and a moderate firing rate make this gun a very powerful and accurate weapon. It uses .45-70 Gov't rounds, which are one of the rarest ammo types in the game. The Brush gun uses this ammo quite efficiently: it has the highest Damage per shot of all the weapons that use this ammo. 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.

The brush gun can be repaired with copies of itself or any bolt/lever action rifle with the Jury Rigging perk.

Modifications

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

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 carry 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 karma. 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.
 * One of the Legionary assassins may carry a Brush gun (level 22 onwards).
 * Can be commonly found on Lobotomites at high levels (40-50) especially.

Behind the scenes

 * The brush gun is not based on one gun specifically, but is based on both the Winchester 1886 and Marlin Guide Gun respectively.

Bugs

 * Sometimes when reloading the weapon in third person view, you may not see the usual lever action.
 * 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 ammo 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 ammo types twice consecutively, the weapon returns to having a full clip in the ammo type that was selected.
 * When modding this weapon with the brush gun forged receiver, and repairing it with a Weapon Repair Kit to full condition, it will not degrade.
 * A brush gun with the forged receiver mod attached will actually degrade in condition when a weapon repair kit is used on it.
 * Sometimes the lever may remain downward if holstered immediately after firing. Simply drawing and holstering the weapon again will fix this.
 * 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.