The Backwater rifle is a unique lever-action rifle which is added to Fallout 3 with the Point Lookout add-on.
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. (The highest being Lincoln's repeater)
It should be noted however, that 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 crit-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.
In this light, the Backwater rifle may be more powerful in practice 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, as opposed to Lincoln's repeater which causes a base damage of 50, but only has a 36% chance of achieving its 100 damage criticals. This also makes the backwater rifle an effective alternative against tougher enemies, against whom Sneak attack criticals may not guarantee a kill.
It can only be repaired by using other lever-action rifle or by a vendor (or with alien epoxy).
Durability
The Backwater rifle can fire a total of about 519 rounds, the equivalent of 52 reloads, from full condition before breaking.
Variants
Comparison
| Legend | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | - Weapon name (melee or unarmed) |  | - Attacks in V.A.T.S. | |
 | - Weapon name (gun, energy or explosive) |  | - Action point cost | |
 | - Damage per attack (damage per projectile) |  | - Damage per action point | |
 | - Damage per second |  | - Weapon spread | |
 | - Area of effect damage |  | - Magazine capacity (shots per reload) | |
 | - Effect damage & duration |  | - Durability (number of attacks before breaking) | |
 | - Bonus effects |  | - Weight | |
 | - Attacks per second |  | - Value in caps | |
 | - Critical chance % multiplier |  | - Value to weight ratio | |
 | - Critical damage |  | - Skill required | |
 | - Critical effect damage & duration |  | - Strength required | |
 | - With all mods attached | |||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lever-action rifle  | 40 | 30 | 0.75 | x5 | 40 | 30 | 1.3 | 0.25 | 10 | 250 | 8 | 200 | 25 |
| Backwater rifle | 45 | 33.8 | 0.75 | x5 | 45 | 30 | 1.5 | 0.25 | 10 | 519 | 7 | 250 | 35.7 |
| Lincoln's repeater | 50 | 37.5 | 0.75 | x2 | 50 | 25 | 2 | 0.0 | 15 | 333 | 5 | 500 | 100 |
Location
The Backwater rifle is found on a shelf in the Chinese Intelligence Bunker.
Related quests
Behind the scenes
- Backwater is a type of river that has no current.
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