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 class weapon, only outclassed by the riot shotgun.

It is pump-action, which means there is 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 the 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 weapon also takes advantage from the And Stay Back perk.

Durability
The hunting shotgun can fire a total of about 995 standard shells, the equivalent of 199 reloads, or 125 reloads when modified with a long tube magazine, from full condition before breaking.

Modifications

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

Variants
Dinner Bell, a unique variant of the hunting shotgun given as a reward by Red Lucy for completing the quest Bleed Me Dry.

Locations

 * Bloodborne cave - by a skeleton around the campfire, along with some ammunition.
 * Bootjack Cavern - found on a dead prospector inside the cave. From the entrance, head in the direction toward the right and deeper within the cave. If you head left instead, you will eventually come across another dead prospector, but with no hunting shotgun on that corpse. The shotgun is always found on the corpse that is located toward the right in the cave, and in below average condition.
 * Charleston Cave - inside the cave, behind a Hard locked door.
 * Executive suites, Sierra Madre Casino & Resort - one can be found in the security room.
 * Followers safehouse - located on the rightmost bed.
 * Gun Runners - can be bought from the Vendortron after level 11.
 * 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.
 * Vault 34 - inside the vault.
 * NCR heavy troopers will sometimes carry them.
 * Old nuclear test site - inside the shack, propped up against the table.
 * Red Rock Canyon - Great Khans occasionally carry one.
 * Vipers rarely carry one.
 * The Thorn - Red Lucy carries one.
 * While not a normal spawn, the Legion soldiers in the double-cross at the end of Birds of a Feather quest may also spawn with hunting shotguns.
 * Some Legion centurions that lead squads of Legion soldiers against the player character will have the weapon equipped.
 * Carried by White Legs storm-drummers depending on one's level.
 * Zion fishing lodge - found propped up behind the bar, along with a box of twelve 12 gauge shotgun shells.
 * Carried by lobotomites in the Big MT at high levels.
 * Can be used by NCR Veteran Rangers in the Second Battle of Hoover Dam
 * Sold by Mick at Mick & Ralph's after accessing his "special inventory" after bypassing a Speech check of 30, over the level of 13, and will also sell 12 gauge shotgun shells

Bugs

 * 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 texture file has the wrong shell when reloading. It loads an 20 gauge (yellow) shell but will eject a normal 12 gauge (red) plastic shell.
 * The character's finger often obstructs iron sights aiming.
 * Changing ammunition types twice will cause the gun to instantly reload, like with the cowboy repeater.
 * Sometimes in V.A.T.S. the weapon will have a long delay before shooting, if it shoots at all, leaving you wide open for attacks.
 * Sometimes after reloading the weapon will refuse to shoot at all, switching weapons will fix this.
 * Sometimes when reloading the sound of the 'pump' will be made with every shell loaded, reloading the game sometimes fixes this, but not always.
 * Sometimes, when reloading (often related to the glitch above, and the double ammo switch to make the gun reload instantly) the bolt will become stuck open when viewed in 3rd person view, the only sure fix is to shoot the gun, but it will most likely happen with the next reload.
 * When the shotgun is taken out, then re-holstered, the trigger disappears. The only way to fix this is to swap to another weapon, and then swap back.