In this guide, I want to show you why I say Handmade Rifle is one of the best Automatic weapons in Fallout 76. Handmade is a rifle similar to AK-47. It’s said to be made from discarded materials, but don’t let the name fool you, it’s a very effective weapon.

You’ll find them starting at level 15, where they fire a 5.56mm round that deals 45 base damage to level 45 weapons. Ammo is also pretty plentiful, especially if you’re fighting a lot of super mutants.

How To Maximize Damage?

One of the best features of Handmade is that it is very flexible. It fits almost any style. However, I recommend using Automatic Receiver. You can use it as a semi-auto rifle. But if you have more budget for Fallout 76 Bottle Caps, you can also opt for more specialized weapons like Gauss Rifle.

Prime Automatic Receiver will hurt you the most, but I recommend not using Prime Receiver in this case. Because Powerful Automatic Receiver does the same damage and uses standard ammo.

In my case, I chose to use a Tweaked Automatic Receiver. It does less base damage but gives you more critical damage, which is useful. Because my character is built to maximize critical hits, and when you fire, it’s more accurate.

Additionally, you should always equip the range with a Long Barrel, and aligned ones can make your VATS costs slightly lower. Forceful stock not only reduces your VATS costs but also provides you with better durability and improved accuracy.

There are actually two options for magazines: you can choose Armor Piercing Receiver or reduce VATS cost. I prefer Armor Piercing because Tank Killer perk itself doesn’t give you enough armor reduction, and higher-level enemies tend to have a lot of armor.

You can get VATS cost pretty low, but the magazines aren’t big enough and the gun doesn’t do enough damage per round to really warrant getting VATS cost down to that level.

Therefore, choosing Reflex Sights can further reduce VATS costs. But longer scopes provide greater accuracy, and if you use an Unyielding set, you should be aware enough that you don’t need the extra accuracy.

There seems to be a problem with Short Night Vision Scope. Its AP cost is higher than Long Night Vision Scope. Therefore, you should avoid it for the time being.

One of the great things about the Handmade Rifle is that you can use Silencer to stay invisible during combat. There’s no penalty for doing this, and you get extra damage from stealth bonuses.

Legendary Weapon Effects

As always, which legendaries are best depends on how you want to use the weapon, but I’ll give some ideas. I was lucky enough to get two really nice random drops that I’ll show you so you can compare.

My first one was Bloodied Faster Fire. For characters with lower health, it can deal maximum damage with a single shot. Any other damage buffing legendary is basically the same.

The other is Two Shot Explosive. Normally, two shots are bad because of the inaccuracy of the weapon and the fact that all enemy armor doesn’t necessarily hold up to two bullets. But the explosion it causes is also doubled, so Two Shot Explosive is really good in some situations.

The perks I’m currently using are basically Commando, Tank Killer, and Grenadier, with the addition of standard damage avoiding perks and Critical Savvy to maximize critical hits. Additionally, I use Demolition Expert to maximize explosion damage.

Here, the only difference between the two guns I’m going to show you is these two explosive cards. The first thing you’ll notice is that Two Shot Explosive’s accuracy is very poor. Since I have fairly high perception, I can still hit, but the gun may not be accurate enough in VATS without Unyielding bonus.

Two Shot effect means that the damage numbers will cover each other, so you should double them. So basically a normal shot will do about 300 damage per shot and a critical hit will do about 500 damage per shot. It takes about three shots to kill a Hound and four shots to kill a Super Mutant.

The loss of accuracy in Two Shot effect is severe. Therefore, you should avoid shooting from the hip if possible. Using Ground Pounder perk does improve accuracy significantly, but you give up Grenadier effect.

Aiming is basically the same with and without the card, so if you want to shoot outside of VATS, make sure you aim first.

For Bloodied Handmade, I used Gunsmith perk instead of Demolition Expert for extra durability, but keeping Demolition is fine too.

Even when you’re moving, hip firing is noticeably more accurate than Two Shot. But using Ground Pounder perk makes a big difference when shooting from the hip. You should also reload faster with Ground Pounder perk, but this is only a minor difference.

The most important factor is to make sure you have Speed ​​Demon mutation. This makes your recoil slightly weaker than two shots, and it looks like you’re more concealed, so the blast is sure to alert enemies. Its normal shot damage is about 310, and its critical damage is about 520, so it’s a bit higher than Two Shot Explosive.

In fact, both weapons kill enemies with the same number of shots, but the recoil of Bloodied Handmade is slightly better. If you want to play outside of VATS, Bloodied is definitely more accurate, the accuracy is very good, and the recoil is easy to control.

So overall, if you have low health, Bloody, Explosive, VATS Enhanced Rifle would be ideal. But if you’re running a VATS-less full health character, then Aristocrats or Junkies Explosive would be a suitable alternative. If you have full health and use VATS, Two Shot Explosive will serve you well.

Outro

All in all, Handmade Rifle is a splendid weapon that fires fast enough and does enough damage to suit a variety of styles. While there are better weapons for specific situations, you really can’t go wrong with a quality Handmade weapon.