Dont rush through the questline or youll end up getting your ass handed to you. Stay out of DC till you have a healthy supply of ammo.

Depends on your chosen style.

Small guns id pick a good ole hunting rifle and stick with it but any small guns skill type weapon will be decent throughout the game.

Slightly east from megaton is the store for moiras questline i found some decent stuff in there.

The ammo kinda gets scarce id use it in situations that need heavy damage. Least on my playthroughs i barely had shotgun ammo.

quote Polaris

quote realmofthewolf

The ammo kinda gets scarce id use it in situations that need heavy damage. Least on my playthroughs i barely had shotgun ammo.

Shotgun shells are abundant in the game, if you just take the time to buy them from vendors loot dead enemies and search in containers.

I amassed 500 shells in 3 days of playing only around 2 hours a day.

I mostly found hunting rifle and Assault rifle ammo and amassed 150 shells without use by searching everywhere for first 3-4 hours and vendors mostly had assault and rifle ammo.