Backwater Rifle

The Backwater rifle is a unique lever-action rifle in the Fallout 3 add-on Point Lookout.

Characteristics
The Backwater rifle boasts the highest damage-per-shot of all 10mm weapons in Fallout 3, while also possessing the second-highest damage-per-shot of all rifle-type weapons. However, despite this weapon's attacks and critical bonuses each being 5 damage lower than those of Lincoln's repeater (resulting in 10 less damage total on a critical hit), the backwater rifle's 5x critical chance multiplier is capable of offering up to a 90% chance to critical for a character with a maxed-out base critical chance (10 Luck, the Finesse perk and the critical chance version of Survival Expert), where Lincoln's repeater, with its lower 2x multiplier would only offer a 36% chance to critical with the same stats.

The Backwater rifle may be useful for high-Luck characters, as it offers a base damage of 45 (assuming no bonuses) with a 90% chance to achieve a 90 damage critical hit. This also makes the backwater rifle an effective alternative against tougher enemies, against whom Sneak Attack Criticals may not guarantee a kill.

Durability
The Backwater rifle can fire a total of about 519 rounds, the equivalent of 52 reloads, from full condition before breaking.

Variants

 * Lever-action rifle - The standard variant of this weapon.
 * Lincoln's repeater - While strictly a lever-action rifle that uses .44 Magnum rounds, Lincoln's repeater is only repairable with hunting rifles. It is a very powerful and accurate firearm. Appearance wise, it looks identical to the lever-action rifle apart from its textures.

Location

 * On a shelf next to the door in the room downstairs in the Chinese Intelligence bunker. It can be considered a reward for the quest The Velvet Curtain.

Related quests

 * The Velvet Curtain

Behind the scenes
Backwater is a type of river that has no current, and is also typically used to describe areas that are considered primitive or unsophisticated (eg: a backwater town).