Gauss pistol (Fallout 76)

The Gauss pistol is a ranged weapon

Characteristics
Similar to the Gauss rifle, the Gauss pistol can be charged to fire a more powerful round. When crafted, Gauss pistols use legendary modules, becoming legendary weapons with randomly determined effects.

As with other weapons only available after the main questline of Wastelanders, Gauss pistols cannot be traded, dropped, or sold to vendors.

Crafting
Gauss pistols are always crafted at the maximum level available to the player character. The weapon will be a one-star, two-star, or three-star legendary weapon with randomly determined effects.

Weapon modifications
Weapon mods can only be crafted if the corresponding plan is known. Mod plans for the Gauss pistol are bought from Regs for gold bullion and cannot be learned from scrapping Gauss pistols.

Locations

 * The Gauss pistol can be crafted at a weapons workbench if the corresponding plan is known. The plan can either be bought from Regs for 250 gold bullion after the completion of the main questline for the settlers or raiders or can be bought from Minerva for the same price prior to finishing the Wastelanders main questline.
 * Once the plan is known, Gauss pistols may be found as legendary weapons, earned either as quest rewards or obtained via crafting.

Behind the scenes

 * Joon Choi created the concepts for the weapon and its modifications, taking direct inspiration from the PPK-12 Gauss pistol seen in Fallout 2. The modification variants included an accelerator barrel, super charger barrel, and a shielded barrel, with the Gauss pistol from Fallout 2 depicted alongside the designs in the concept art. The notes describe the drum magazine design, spinning while ejecting 2mm electromagnetic cartridge rounds, with a red dot indicating when it was full and when it needed reloading.
 * According to Choi, the Gauss pistol was visually designed to share similar aesthetics with the Gauss minigun and Gauss shotgun to imply their shared manufacturing by a single manufacturer.