I do agree that the X-Pump Shotgun’s flechettes need a buff. Give us what the Hunters have, that stuff’s lethal!
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Yes, it doesn’t have to have the few hundrets range as the hunters shotgun, but more than 1 m would be very helpful.
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I think that the fact that slugs have only one flechette explosion already balances this type of ammunition. No need to reduce the range to a broken state.
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As of 26 /11/19 the Slugs work even worse, might be a bug or not…too early to tell
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I just got the experimental shotgun and it seems bugged to me. It doesn’t seem to do anything at all.
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I managed to take a Rival Tank down with a 12G Experimental. I grew very tired of both 
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X shotty i gave it a good go , took ages to drop of a rival ,i found after lenthy testing and puzzlement that its proper pants , aye normal 5 star is better
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Yeah, after reading up on how OP the Experimental weapons supposedly are, I was saving it for when things went properly south. Bad idea, I had to hide and revert to the Sjögren.
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Using birdshot ammo with the 12 G is great against hunters and harvesters.
Buckshot is only good inside bunkers and houses or at less than 3 meters from enemies.
Slug rounds are useless though.
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Having recently acquired this (to my excitement) I have become extremely disappointed. The explosions don’t seem to do anything but give me a scare. They seem to do no damage. I’ve yet to see a machine topple over and die from the secondary fireworks. Also, no matter if I use birdshort, buckshot or slug it feels like the weapon never actually hits anything unless it is right in front of me. Otherwise it’s just a puff of yellow sparklers that are noisy but go nowhere. All three ammo types, no difference that i can tell. Before getting this I was using the semi-auto and having great success with that and having developed different strategies and uses for each ammo type. This experimental shotty is supposed to be better but it seems really useless. I have to be close enough for a handshake to get any damage and even then it requires way more shots than a regular shotgun to kill even a runner.
Anyone know if the flechette damage is affected by the explosive expert perk?
Birdshot does the job, buckshot is only useful at very close range, slug is useless at any range.
I also got my hands on it and tested it.
Birdshot travels furthest and has higest spread but dmg per flechette is low.
Buckshot has tighter spread with better dmg per flechette but distance is shorter.
Slug distance is so small that i wasn’t able to hit anything with it, even when standing almost next to the machine.
However, 6* 12G shotty with buckshot is great against harv itself. Being in the range of buckshot and firing in general direction of the harv, the 2nd stage of damage, exploding flechettes, do damage several harv components at once. (I tested it out on FNIX harv.)
At current state, 6* 12G shotty is niche weapon, good against harvs and perhaps tanks as well when using buckshot.
Interesting… I’m probably not going to throw my life away trying it on tanks but I will try the Harvester thing. I didn’t figure it was worth bothering with anything since I can’t even one-shot a tick with it and the flechette bursts don’t seem to hurt runners much. Feels like I’m throwing ammo away and not getting anywhere.
Wouldn’t be worth it to me to carry around just to blast harvesters though.
I like the idea, look and handling of it but in its current state it’s a useless novelty that wastes hard-scavenged ammo. With a 4* semi-auto shotgun loaded with 5 shells I can kill 3 maybe more dogs in hurry and shooting from the hip. With the 6* Exp one I can blast 6 shells into a runner that isn’t even phased by it. Maybe I’ll try it again and not use anything but birdshot. Maybe they came up with it as a way to blow off a birdshot surplus.
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Use a choke for birdshot. 
I always do! A silencer on a shotgun just doesn’t make much sense to me anyway. 
I use it for power not stealth, and when my shotgun comes out I’m already well into being noticed.
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I used to use a silencer (and a scope sometimes peeking around corners) for taking out ticks in areas where I didn’t want to make much noise.
I have a reduced spread perk. I tested the experimental 12G with and without a gold choke. Testing the ammo against a wall and checking map co-ords, the range I can get from both the cartridge and flechettes are approximately:
- bird 50m
- buck 20m
- slug 5m
I don’t have a standard 12G to test its range.
It was the first experimental weapon I found and also the most disappointing. I think one of the dev streams mentioned it was designed for melee. Personally I can’t get any benefit from it. Stunning a robot just isn’t useful given the rate of fire and the range. I haven’t noticed any benefit to component damage vs other weapons except that it’s spread out more (which then doesn’t destroy any specific component). Perhaps the secret is co-op? You stun the robots while your buddy blasts them?
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I think I first got it when my best other shotgun was worn or even dilapidated. Maybe that explains why I found it quite useful initially.
5m for slug? What a joke!
Since we already got melee weapons proper, why not make this “melee gun” an actual gun?
The core of range bug of this shotgun lies it’s accuracy: tighter spread - less range. Base stats are same to 5* Pump 12G, so this shotgun have rather tight spread cone by default. Best range for buck could be achieved without any barrel extentions, hip-fire, on move(jump), no hip-fire improvement skills.
Hunter’s flechette range is so high due to very wide spread “buckshot” (wider than birdshots).
My theory that Exp. 12g’s flechettes in tight cone are colliding with each other preventing flying further.
But why slug is point blank? I’d suggest temp. fix is turning flechette mode on/off via “fire mode” button.
Other “solution” - projectiles behave like normal shotgun, but for every “pellet” on hit - additionally spawn an exploding nail, make all projectiles “tracer” (visible) with flechette visual.