The Terrible Shotgun

The Terrible Shotgun is a weapon that only appears in Fallout 3. It is a unique variant of the Combat Shotgun and has the highest base damage of all weapons in the Small Guns category.

Location

 * It is in the possession of Smiling Jack in the Evergreen Mills bazaar.

Weapon characteristics

 * The Terrible Shotgun has a larger spread than normal shotguns; it does more damage if all pellets hit, but it is harder for that to happen because of its extremely low accuracy (wide and random bullet spread pattern). This is offset to some degree by the fact that The Terrible Shotgun's magazine holds 12 shells while other shotguns, including The Kneecapper, only hold 2 shells. And although, like all combat shotguns it holds 12 shells, the discouraging part about the Terrible Shotgun is that should you fire as little as two clips the weapon's rapid loss of durability means its damage has degraded from 80 down into the 60's. EDIT: I tested it, and after firing two clips it goes from 80 to 76, not too bad, but it still would be nice to carry a shotgun or two for repairs.

Strategy

 * The best way to use this weapon is for point blank shots.
 * The cone of fire is so wide that even point blank shots miss. Shots from ten feet away throw pellets so randomly that you occasionally take legs off when aiming for the head. You can also use the large cone of fire for your advantage, often when you see a person to far away to get a clear shot, fire a shot from this and your bound to hit them somewhere.
 * You can't count on the V.A.T.S. 95% rating, many times none of the pellets will connect with that limb at all.
 * Might be best used as a street-sweeper fired from the hip, relying on how wide and random the shot-scatter is to reliably connect, accuracy by volume.
 * If using The Terrible Shotgun in V.A.T.S. always aim for the chest, you'll have a greater chance of some pellets hitting somewhere.
 * However, The Terrible Shotgun does have unrivaled stopping power (80 dmg vs a regular combat shotgun's 55 dmg).
 * Its ideal usage is either for fast moving animals (Deathclaw or Yao Guai), room to room fighting, or for other near point-blank fighting. In other words, this gun is best suited for use in urban environments with occasional application in wilderness. The Terrible Shotgun, in good condition, can dispatch almost all Super Mutants with relative ease in the proper environment. Even a Behemoth (mutant) can be felled using the Terrible Shotgun.

Obtaining the gun from Smiling Jack

 * You can kill him (no Karma effect) and get not only his gun but all his inventory, in which case you should sell him as much of your inventory first as he has caps, then you get back your stuff and still all the caps which he doesn't seem to have on him otherwise.
 * You can get into a fight with him and just shoot it out of his hand and pick it up before he does. Leave and come back later and he will be neutral again.
 * You can pickpocket his ammo, leave the area, save & reload and re-enter the Bazaar. The gun will then be in his inventory and can be pickpocketed (possibly a glitch).