Red Ryder BB Gun (Fallout)

Red Ryder BB Gun is a Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel weapon.

Fallout and Fallout 2
The Red Ryder BB gun has good magazine capacity, but it is almost useless in-game because of a very low damage potential. The LE variant performs much better.

The red ryder BB gun is an allusion to the classic 1983 A christmas story

Fallout 3
In Fallout 3, you receive this on your 10th birthday. It is possible to grab the gun from your desk during your escape at age 19, but since it does even less damage than the handgun Amata just handed you and has a high AP cost, it is merely a sentimental object. Though if you tell Amata to keep the handgun, so she will not be captured by her father, you can use it to kill some roaches and the guards since most are wielding police batons. However, if you do grab it, when Butch DeLoria asks you to help his mother, you can offer to give him the weapon to fight off the radroaches. He will give you his Tunnel Snake Outfit in return.

This gun is the least-damaging weapon in the game, tied with the Chinese Pistol. Almost every weapon in the game, except the pool cue and rolling pin, are more damaging. If you find one, it is best to sell it.

You can also buy this BB Gun later on in the game. It may serve a limited purpose at whittling down enemies as they close in the early game, making melee modestly easier.

It can also be used to shoot mines, albeit it takes a few shots to blow up one. A shot mine might flip, making it easier to disarm.

Note that if Butch's mother dies while he tries to kill the radroaches, he will not initiate conversation with you and therefore will not give back the BB gun.

Escaping Vault 101
The BB gun can be used quite effectively when escaping Vault 101. Due to the weapon's low damage, it has very little practical use out in the Wasteland, where BB ammo is very scarce. While escaping from Vault 101, however, you are equipped with 50 BB's, and a well-aimed stealth strike on a radroach's head will usually kill it in one shot. (You can also take down Vault Security agents with the BB gun, sometimes leading to some rather comical slow-motion sequences.) You can drop the BB gun right before exiting Vault 101, unless you would prefer to sell it.

Using this strategy, you can conserve all of your significantly more effective 10mm rounds for use once out in the Wasteland.

Locations

 * On top of VAPL-58 Power Station: a gun and 3 BBs.
 * NW from Scrapyard there is a power station. The first power pylon south of it has a gun and 2 BBs, near a skeleton in a chair.
 * Dukov's Place: 2nd floor south corridor a gun, no ammo

Trivia

 * This is named for a BB gun in A Christmas Story, where the main Character, Ralphie, wants a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas, but is ridiculed by Adults, saying "You'll shoot your eye out." At the end of the Movie, Ralphie finally gets the gun on Christmas day, and predictably "shoots his eye out" when a ricochet hits his glasses.
 * Red Ryder was the name of a famous cowboy western series in the 1940's.
 * Due to the Popularity of Red Ryder, Daisy BB Guns started selling actual Red Ryder BB Guns in 1938, and are still sold in stores today.

Carabine BB Red Ryder