Good point. Ok, if that's the case, comparing damage, then my test will be invalid because it will be with a 4* version. Anyone else?

Note however, that Pepperbox line deals less damage per hit than Needle line (because it has a status, even the bars are shorter).

Just finished the boss, unsuccessfully, but I got my results.

The test was conducted using a heat lv 3 Volcanic Pepperbox. I realize this isn't the best test subject, but heating 5* stuff takes forever and you'd be waiting quite a while for your answer.

Body Shot (unpoisoned): 57 x 15 = 855
Body Shot (poisoned): 63 x 15 = 945
Mask Shot (unpoisoned): 63 x 15 = 945
Mask Shot (poisoned): 70 x 15 = 1,050

The "vacuum" effect does NOT pull either Vanaduke or his mask, and does NOT set any of the enemies in the fight on fire.

Now for the extrapolation.

The wiki's incomplete so far as the Blitz Needle goes, but calculating from the following at lv 10 (the only current entries), we come up with:

Vs Pierce Resistant: 37/shot
Vs Pierce Weak: 215/shot

Resist seems to be about /2 and weak seems to be about x3, so I'll assume a level 10 Blitz Needle will be doing a (generous for ease of calculation) 75 per charged hit to foes with regular defenses. This times 15 bullets is 1,125 total damage for the charge attack.

From this, since the test indicates that the mask takes about as much damage as the poisoned body (seems about 10% more than normal), I'll assume that against the mask, a full charged volley would deal about 1,250 (again, generous for ease of calculation).

Conclusion: In order for the Volcanic Pepperbox to be equal to the Blitz Needle in terms of damage, it would have to gain about 20 points of damage per shot over the course of the next seven heat levels that I have yet to gain on the test weapon. I'll make another post after I gain a level with it to see if this is reasonable or not.

I took a screenshot before the fight to show off the weapon and the intrepid group that got me there, with that awesome dead-on view from the elevator:
http://tinypic.com/r/veq89u/7

Shoot, they beat me to it. I already had tested this before... Wish I saw this before hand. -_-

Well... Blitz still has better DPS, for me atleast (When using Elite Trueshot, just for VD). 112*15

Well... May as well try to sell my VP once more... NPC's you guys want one?

Hey I was on Arquebus' team during his testing....that's me in the background with the silver six.

Anyways, I later came back down to Vanaduke with another team with my level 10 fiery pepperbox. I was hitting Vana's body for 63 each shot on a charge attack unpoisoned and 70 when he was poisoned. So I suspect a level 10 Volcanic Pepperbox will do more than that.

I also read up on some thread about the Blitz Needle vs the Plague Needle (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/19830), I wanted to know which one was better for me to make. From what I read, the Plague Needle does 36% less damage than the Blitz Needle but the poison effect will allow everybody to do 10% more damage to Vana and Vana will do less damage to everybody (although it was mentioned it's doubtful if the fire status effect damage he causes will be reduced or not). Additionally supposedly when Vana is poisoned, any of his fireball defense you had put out with water will not respawn. Somebody said the Plague Needle will do about 100 per shot charged on Vana. I found a YouTube video showing somebody doing 146 per charge shot on Vana (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoz9TejjL_4) with a Blitz Needle.

So I think the Blitz Needle will do the most damage, and the Volcanic Pepperbox would probably do about the same as the Plague Needle minus the additional damage & effect bonuses you would get from Vana being poisoned.