How do I make sniper rifles actually useful for Salvador in UVHM? 99 times out of 100 it seems to be better to just go in with guns blazing. Rockets don’t seem too useful either.
I’m at level 61, which is max level for my DLC. I have the Tiny Tina, Pirates, and Crater DLCs.
Probably the most used sniper rifle on Salvador is a Pimpernel, but it’s not done for sniping!
So other than that, your best bet is probably to toss some kind of longbow or homing slag grenade at your target, hit its critical spot immediately it gets slagged, then get in as many follow-up shots as you can before either taking cover or switching gear and going in with both guns blazing.
Snipers in UVHM really require slag, critical hit, and as many boosts to critical hit damage as you can get from COM, relic, etc.
One of the most OP combos for the whole game Sal involves a RL and a sniper. Which both are mentioned in your original post. What a coincidence.
It is also mentioned in the loading screen, which has been longer than the combo’s existence. What a coincidence. 
Like @VaultHunter101 said, the combo involves a Pimpernel, but you’re not gonna snipe, as you have to gunzerk to use the exploit combo. 
I’ve obviously completely missed the Pimpernel mission. My normal main weapons are a Grog Nozzle and DP Unkempt Harold. The problem with the gunzerking side is that I have a motor control problem with keeping pressing the trackball buttons; I prefer the weapons where you just keep the buttons pressed.
I didn’t use sniper rifles with Salvador all that often, but when I did I would usually run a slag Vladof sniper rifle on my left hand and a corrosive (typically) Vladof sniper rifle in my other hand. If you have the Keep Firing skill (Your fire rate increases up to 88% and your reload speed up to 25% during Gunzerking), you could fire them even faster, but it isn’t necessary. Not to mention, for Vladof sniper rifles you can hold down the fire button to keep them firing. Also worth mentioning is the Lyudmila. This weapon is relatively easy to farm and can come in any element.
The Lyudmila is one of my favorite gun with Sal.
Snipers do work on Sal.
Obviously he uses them differently than most other character, but some have the brunt to work on Sal.
Lyudmila, Pimpernel, Longbow, Pitchfork, Vladof Droogs, Maliwan Sniders … They all work great with Sal.
I’ve only ever used the Lyuda on Sal. I made a build with him that used a shock and an incendiary/corrosive Lyuda while Gunzerking to get the crit boosts from both of the guns. It was a little difficult at first, but eventually I got pretty good at critting enemies with the dual sniper rifles (with the double crit boosts) and I’d say the build was pretty viable. The Lyuda is definitely usable on him.
Did you spec into Money Shot?
No, the mag size on the Lyuda is a little too high to get the bonus IMO.
Lyudmila are better in a hoarder build.
Grog Nozzle or Rubi in off hand, Legendary Hoarder COM, 10/5 in 5so6… Hose them down 
Grog Nozzle actually provides more crit bonus than a second Lyudmila. It also slags and heals.
Oh, I never thought about that, interesting. You seem to know what you’re talking about, so how does this skill set look for a Lyudmila build (coupled with the Legendary Hoarder COM): http://bl2skills.com/gunzerker.html#550051051515505015511132050000000
I used a completely different setup with a Beast COM that was centered around health-stacking. I buffed all of his health related skills and equipped him with an Evolution and a health relic. My build was all about the crits, the survivability of that build gave me enough time to aim for them. Because I could hit those crits very consistently (it did take a lot of practise before though), I found that Sal’s regular ammo regen was enough. I really can’t say much about the Hoarder COM since I didn’t use it with my Lyuda build.
Of course, I was playing on OP0 so my build might suck on OP8. 
I think you can do fairly well on sniping even without a dedicated build, anything with some damage and a hoarder com should work also, the philosophy for sniping in uvhm is: Slag + matched-element Sniders = I win! (Pimpernel is too mainstream for me)
That’s the gist of it. Move the points from Juggernaut (Sal’s worst skill) to Get some (Sal’s best skill) and you have a Hoarder build right here.
Juggernaut is just about useless.
Even at 10/5 I can’t even notice it’s effect.
Kiph is a nice bonus, but ultimately Gunzerking is a better one.
Think of it this way: if you cooldown during your Gunzerk and it ends, the only thing you have lost is time out of Gunzerk. And if you do manage to completely reset your cooldown, you’ll lose kiph for a bit… But I can think of much worse as a situation than Gunzerking while having another full Gunzerk at the ready.
In short: Get Some is Sal’s best skill, Kiph is a nice addition… Nothing more.
i’m assuming you want to play using a sniper rifle in the classical way - zoom in, shoot people in the head, kill them. sal can sadly do this better than many other classes.
skills: No Kill Like Overkill, Lay Waste and Quickdraw.
use a bee shield with the hawkeye. the hawkeye will actually multiply the bee shield’s damage. kill a small enemy, nklo will take over. it’s fairly common for your 12.5 M damage base to easily become 500 M damage per hit on op8.
for rocketlaunchers, the shamfleet is a method that works for everyone. dual topneas is great for mobbing, no aiming necessary. dual topneas has the advantage of producing more ammo than it spends.
Kiph triggers with Get Some during gunzerk. They don’t seem mutually exclusive unless I am missing something, and I may be. Get Some as you said is by far the more important
They are not mutually exclusive. In the context, I was saying that there is no reason to only put a single point in Get Some so as to be sure NOT to completely reset your cooldown. Taking advantage if KipH is nice, but Get Some should come first. If you do gunzerk long enough to reset your cooldown completely, you will lose the Kiph bonus, but having a full cooldown is still a better deal than having Kiph active.
I know that this is a super old post but I just needed to put this in sniper rifles as the most OP thing in UVHM in sal just watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyvt69HPpxk watch other videos by bew if u need any further convincing