Steel is one of those resources in Fallout 76 that you’ll use to craft nearly everything, including camp items, weapons, armor, and the all-important ammunition. Preparing large batches of ammo will eat up your steel supply super-fast, but I’m going to show you the top ten places to go to acquire steel scrap.
The fastest way to get steel scrap is to mine iron ore from Striker Row and the nearby Hornwright Testing Site#3 wearing Excavator Power Armor. Taking the ore to a chemistry bench and smelting will yield well over one thousand steel with the Super Duper perk card equipped.
If mining is not your thing, I’ve got many different locations you can acquire steel and many other methods of doing it. These methods include:
- Relieving enemies of their weapons.
- Picking up items that contain steel.
- Using steel extractors in workshops
- Mining iron ore to smelt
Below you’ll find my top 10 locations to farm steel in Fallout 76.
Grafton Steel
Grafton Steel is in the northern part of the map. It’s in the Toxic Valley near the border towards the Savage Divide. To the east, you’ll find Site Bravo and the Pioneer Scout Camp to the northwest.
One might expect that any place with the word steel in its name would be a wonderful place to get a lot of steel. Grafton Steel doesn’t disappoint. The Super Mutants that inhabit this place would be more than enough all by themselves to feed your crafting habit with steel. Add to them the fact that there are two steel extractors. Even better is that the two steel extractors produce twice as much steel as extractors available at other workshops.
Dispose of all the Super Mutants in the area surrounding the workshop. Then head to the other buildings and finish off the mutants hanging out in those areas too. All the collected weapons and armor will net you over four hundred steel scraps after you break them down at a workbench with the Scrapper perk.
The steel extractors collect sixty-seven steel scrap each per hour. Note that this is actual steel scrap, no smelting necessary. With both extractors running, that’s one-hundred thirty-four steel every hour.
West Tek Research Center
West Tek Research Center is found in the Savage Divide and is easily one of the more iconic locations. You’ll find National Isolated Radio Array to the north and the Emmett Mountain Disposal Site to the west.
Most people know West Tek as an excellent location for farming experience. Super Mutants give a lot of experience in comparison to other creatures. They also carry and use weapons.
There are several Super Mutants on the exterior outside the main entrance. Heading inside, you’ll find many, many more. Most of them will carry Assault Rifles that scrap down to twenty steel each if you’re also running the scrapper perk.
A full run of this location should net you about five hundred steel scrap. You’ll also gain a large amount of experience.
Emmett Mountain Disposal Site
Emmet Mountain Disposal Site is east of Whitesprings Resort and northwest of West Tek Research Center.
With the Wastelanders update, an organized group of scavengers has taken up residence. They are well-armed and very friendly. Maybe too nice. So nice that they will not even defend themselves when attacked. A couple of headshots and they’re down.
There aren’t any negative ramifications that I can discern from killing them. I do feel bad doing it since they are “good” guys. Each scavenger will drop two weapons each and usually up to two pieces of armor as well.
I usually net over four hundred steel scraps from each run at this location. If you need more steel, you can server hop to get a fresh set of scavengers. All this with no worry of taking even a single point of damage. Watch out for the rads, though.
Hornwright Testing Site#3
Hornwright Testing Site#3 is in the far southern part of the map’s Ash Heap section. The Garrahan Estate is to the east, and the Red Rocket Filling Station is to the north and a little east.
This site is an excellent location for steel as well as lead. There are Mole Miners that commonly spawn in this location. You can harvest the iron nodes without disturbing them, but their weapons are an excellent steel source with the Scrapper perk.
We’re here for the mining opportunity, though. From the spawn point, you’ll notice three iron nodes on the wall to the left. Two are bugged, and I’ve never been able to loot them. We’ll count that as one. Continue forward through the chainlink gate. There is another node straight ahead. Head back toward the spawn point and find the ledge above it. There you will find nine more iron nodes. Wearing Excavator Power armor should net you around one hundred twenty iron ore from those eleven iron nodes.
Striker Row
Take the spawn point head towards the power antenna on your left. You’ll see a dirt road just beyond that. Take the path to the south, and almost immediately, you’ll see an iron node. There is another on top of the same rock formation. Further up that rock formation near the junk fence are two more nodes. Return to the path and continue to the south, and you’ll see a fifth node just to the left of a small ramp. At the top of the small ramp is a cluster of four iron nodes.
Then from within the small camp area, head eighty-five meters northeast (mostly east). In the rock wall, there are another ten iron nodes packed close together.
It is straightforward to gather these nodes when the area is clear. It rarely is. The camp itself typically hosts many angry robots and near the spawn point is a small fissure site. So you will likely have to contend with a Scorchbeast.
If you’re up for the fight, that’s nineteen iron nodes all in close together. If you hit the Hornwright Testing Site#3 and this one, you’re looking at over one thousand steel scrap once you’ve smelted it down at a Chemistry Station.
Pleasant Valley Station
This train station is directly east of the Top of the World and to the north of Beckwith Farm. We are using the spawn point for the station, but the resort and the nearby cabins are the destinations where we will be heading to acquire a lot of steel.
Take the spawn point and head northwest towards the main entrance of the resort. It is closer to the Top of the World. You will likely encounter several Scorched along the way. Be sure to take them out and grab their weapons as we’ll be scrapping them for steel.
At the entrance, there are three can chimes that net nine steel each. Head inside and clear out the resort of Scorched. Head back outside to the east, and you’ll see a large lookout structure. Take out the Scorched there as well, and be sure to grab the three can chimes hanging from the bridge between the towers.
Head north from the towers towards the cabins. The first damaged cabin area will have three more can chimes on the lower floor. Be sure to take out any Scorched here in the cabin area as well and grab their loot.
Once you’ve removed the Scorched from the cabin area, head back to the towers, several workbenches are nearby to scrap all your loot. With all the weapons and can chimes and other swag, you should easily have over four hundred steel scrap.
Eastern Regional Penitentiary
Head down the western wall of the prison until you find the break in the wall. There are two can chimes hanging in the opening. Proceed through the entrance and turn right towards several small trailers. One of the trailers has a set of can chimes hanging inside.
While gathering the can chimes, be sure to take out the Super Mutants around the yard and the walls. Loot their weapons as we’ll be breaking them down for scrap. Clear out all the Super Mutants and find the Cell Block A entrance just east of the main building entrance. Once inside, you’ll see three sets of can chimes hanging in two adjacent doorways. Continue through the door and forward until you hit a wall and take a right. You should see a set of can chimes hanging at the end of the long hall. As you get closer, you will also see some stairs on the left with two more sets of chimes hanging underneath them.
Return to the cells you just passed with the workbenches to scrap your loot. With all the different steel sources from the prison, you should have well over two-hundred-fifty steel scrap.
Whitesprings Resort
The Whitesprings is the most prominent location in all of Appalachia. It is west of Blackwater Mine and north of the Mountainside Bed and Breakfast.
This run is a super quick and super safe trip. There isn’t a massive haul of steel, but it will take just a couple of minutes to sweep up about seventy-five steel in the comfort and safety of the Whitesprings.
Take the spawn point and head directly into the resort. Once inside, head down the stairs straight ahead and turn right at the bottom towards the shops.
Check each shop along this long hallway. You’re looking for Clothes Hangers and Shopping Baskets. The shopping baskets are usually on the floor near the shops’ entrance, while the clothes hangers are often in the clothing shops. Be sure to check the dressing rooms as well.
I found fifty clothes hangers and eight shopping baskets for a total of seventy-four steel scrap.
Morgantown Airport
Morgantown Airport is in the forest region of the map just south of the border, heading to the Toxic Valley region. Morgantown Station is to the west, and Grafton Dam is to the northeast.
The main feature of the airport here is the number of Scorched that inhabit the area. Almost all of those Scorched will have weapons, and you can scrap all of those weapons for steel.
There are three main areas that the Scorched congregate. Outside the terminal, I was able to find eighteen Scorched. They are wandering around the main terminal building and are pretty easy to spot.
Heading inside the terminal, you should be able to find another twenty-plus Scorched enemies. You’ll have to search around several different levels, but not hard to do.
The last grouping comes from the Collision Course event that you can trigger near the helipad. Just head east from the control tower past several smaller buildings to the flare launcher to begin the event.
The event will cause five waves of five Scorched to descend upon the helipad area. One of the smaller buildings near the helipad area containers a workbench to scrap all the gear you’ve acquired from the Scorched. Every time I complete this run, I net well over four hundred steel scrap. You can also loot items from all the small buildings and inside the terminal, which will likely yield another couple of hundred steel scrap, but honestly, it’s spread out more than I like. So I usually ignore it and focus on the Scorched.
Blackwater Mine
Blackwater Mine is in the Savage Dive. Look directly east of the Whitespring Station and southwest of the Middle Mountain Cabins. It’s nestled in there just south of the road.
These mines are great for many reasons, and I’ve included them in several of my resource and farming guides. This time we’re here for the steel.
Outside the mine, you’ll find seven mole miners guarding the compound. Inside, you’ll find several maintenance buildings with a ton of items sitting around that you can scrap down for steel on one of the many workbenches. Just from those items, I was able to gather enough to equal seventy steel scrap. Not to mention the gear on the miners that we’ll tally up later. Note that you can leave the many miner hats and hard hats. They scrap down to nothing.
Head into the mine. You’ll start in some utility rooms. Take a moment to clear everything out of all the lockers and shelves. There should be no enemies in these areas, but we’re going to head deeper into the mine now.
Take the first left passage before the junk bridge to find up to fourteen mole miners. Clear out this entire area and ensure that you loot the miners and all the rooms’ items. Continue across the bridge, and you’ll find a couple of mole miners and a set of double doors. Past the double doors, you’ll find a workbench to scrap everything.
Stopping to scrap just the items yielded another one hundred thirty steel scrap. Combined with the stuff from outside, that’s two hundred steel only from the simple things. Now let’s scrap the weapons and armor with the Scrapper perk equipped. The twenty-three mole miners I took out yielded another four hundred steel scrap from their gear.
That’s a total of over six hundred steel scrap. You should also note that if the Uranium Fever event is going on, you can easily double or even triple that amount due to the ridiculous number of mole miners you’ll face and have the opportunity to loot.
