rifle

At this stage in the game the only thing you gunna find is a hunting rifle but thats not the greatest
Look for like a assult rifle
Or a chinese rifle thats a good one
I personaly like the combat shotgun
Ad fight the animals like dogs and roaches with your fists you get alot more exp

The best way to get better guns, I think, is to just go out and explore, kill some raiders and get their guns, then just keep on doing that. I got a sniper rifle off of a raider once so there has got to be an assault rifle for you. Just keep on looking around and you'll find something. Oh and on another note, it might help to store some ammo if you have the house in Megaton. Just like put in 1/4 or so of every ammo you have every time you go back to your house after going out and it could help in the long run.

Go to the Craterside Supply and pick up an assault rifle or a hunting rifle. Also, take the Wilderness Survival Guide quest and head the the Super Duper Mart ASAP. You'll find a couple SMG's there, which are always good to have, and if you have a high enough lockpick, you can get a ton of ammo. If you look around, you can even find a laser pistol.

Here are more advanced weapons that are godly and you should get ASAP:

I haven't found this yet, but apparently the best rifle in the game is Lincoln's Repeater. It's found in the Museum of History on the top floor, after fighting your way through a horde of ghouls. Any not the friendly Ghouls of the Underworld around the corner, these guys a Ferrel. You should find Lincoln's Repeater on a higher floor in a case in a cubical. You can also use the Ghoul Mask from the Tenpenny Tower mission to simply walk past al the ghouls without having to fight them. (NOTE: This gun, while awesome, can only fire 44. Magnum rounds, which are rare, so you may want to use it's ammo sparingly.)

For range, I like the Hunting Rifle. If you like it, head to The Republic of Dave. If you have the Quest: "You've gotta shoot 'em in the head!" then you'll be able to convince Dave that you're a wasteland ambassador or tell him some other lie to get his special key (Or shoot him in the head and take his Key). In his safe in his office is the rifle "ol' Painless" which is a much improved Hunting Rifle where the bolt will move much faster, the gun will be more powerful, and it will reload faster. Very good gun.

For Medium range, go for the Chinese Assault Rifle (If you follow a mini quest with terminals in the Museum of Technology, you can find a safe with some goods in it, including a note telling someone to meet a guy named Prime at a location. When you complete this quest and get the note, go to the location and Prime will be dead. Search his body for some good stuff, including the Special Chinese Assault Rifle: The Xuanlong Asault Rifle, and for close range, use the Combat Shotgun (If you find the Raider Camp, there's a trader named Smiling Jack, the only non hostile in the town. Kill him, and you'll find the "Terrible Shotgun" on his corpse, which is ironically better than the normal Combat Shotgun.) or get the schematics for the Shiskabob (You can find a set at the end of the "Blood Ties" quest.)

Hope this helps.

If you have anchorage, do that if not, don't use the alien blaster, and epescially kill wandering brotherhood outcasts. Not very hard but if you have anchorage it only an hr 45 mins then you got t51b and gauss rifle hope that you have DLCs or some ability to kill outcast, just not at ft. Independance you need them

once you leave the vault go on top it and you should find some ammo and a couple of decent guns.

The hunting rifle works nicely and it's ammo is very common plus you can by it from craterside supply for less then 100 caps