Survivalist's Rifle

The Survivalist's rifle is a weapon in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Honest Hearts. It is the unique variant of the service rifle.

Background
Chambered for the 12.7mm round, the weapon was issued from the Long Branch Arsenal in Ontario, USA territory. It once belonged to a veteran who sought refuge in Zion National Park after the Great War. The gun reads, "PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVT CHKPNT CARBINE 12.7MM CAL." and "LONG BRANCH ARSENAL ONTARIO, USA TERRITORY". The stock has "STOP!" carved on one side and "ARRÊT!" on the other.

Characteristics
The rifle has a high rate of fire, relatively low spread, respectable AP cost and high damage that can be raised considerably with the Grunt perk. When looking through the iron sights to aim, the forward sight is bent out of line with the rear channel on top of the carrying handle, thus not creating the sight picture seen when using an undamaged service rifle. However, using the upper right side of the bent front sight as the aiming point corrects this, providing a slightly counterintuitive solution to this problem.

The damage is slightly higher than This Machine when loaded with regular .308 rounds if the Grunt perk is taken, but the Survivalist's rifle fires nearly twice as fast and far more accurately. Even if This Machine is loaded with .308 JSPs, the difference in damage is not substantial and can be mitigated by using 12.7 JHPs from the add-on Gun Runners' Arsenal.

However, the rifle uses rare 12.7mm rounds which generally must be bought from vendors, and the high rate of fire makes it relatively easy to overuse if one is not mindful of ammunition conservation. The damage threshold multiplier from 12.7mm JHP rounds and lower damage from normal 12.7mm rounds may also cause the Survivalist rifle to be less than optimal against armored targets.

Durability
The Survivalist's rifle can fire a total of about 2,495 standard rounds, the equivalent of 250 reloads, from full condition before breaking.

Variants

 * Service rifle

Location

 * The Red Gate: The rifle is found in a duffle bag marked "The Survivalist's duffle bag." Yao guai, giant cazadores, green geckos and/or bighorners may be found here as well. At the summit of the Red Gate, the Courier will see three trees and the bag containing the weapon is wedged between some boulders underneath the trees, propped up on the rocks. Alternately, it can be reached by climbing up the backside.
 * Note that non-player characters will automatically scan the contents of the bag and collect the weapon to use it. This is particularly noticeable during The Advance Scouts quest, when White Legs may find the rifle and use it. The player will have to kill them in order to retrieve it.
 * If Honest Hearts is completed before retrieving the rifle, and a non-player character has picked up the rifle, it can not be acquired, as all non-player characters apart from enemies disappear from Zion upon completion of the add-on.

Behind the scenes

 * Joshua Sawyer commented that the Survivalist's rifle was "loosely based on the .50 Beowulf AR-15 platform conversion," in an attempt to explore less often mentioned details regarding Canada.
 * When asked if the iron sights being misaligned was a bug, Sawyer stated that it was not, the bent front sight was due to wear and tear, having been used and repaired in an improvised fashion for decades.