It's not one shot. It's as many shots as you can make. Which at the level you get it is 2. It lets them get a full attack in without having to spend resources on feats necessarily, or using more than one piece of ammunition.
Without Dead Shot, muskets can't get full attacks. They can fire once per round and reload as a swift (iirc as a Musket Master) action. Dead shot allows the full attack for long guns.
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Take a primary sniper musket.
Take a secondary musket, double-barreled.
Get a glove of storing.
Enjoy reloading one of it's barrels per round as a free action even without the Rapid Reload (DB musket) feat, thanks to lightning reload and the glove of storing. You only get Rapid Reload for simple muskets at level 1, remember.
Now, use Dead Shot with the Double-Barreled musket. At level 12 it's a potential 6d12 + Dex + 1 + Magic 19-20x4 (so 24d12 + nifty bonus on a critical hit), and this attack only misfires if all 6 attacks are misfires. Devastating when you need a big heavy hit to land on a close creature, or to do more damage on Snap Shots AoOs.
Also, when your weapon is broken, it makes you pretty sure not to misfire with it unless you are the most unlucky guy on earth.
Technically it's only one shot from the weapon, but it has multiple attack chances to hit.
Another advantage of Dead Shot is that if you crit on any of the rolls the whole attack is multiplied if they can confirm it using thier highest BAB minus 5. (Each additional crit roll after the first can also confirm at the same BAB with the penalty reduced by one for each iterative crit chance.)
This can theoretically lead to stupid crazy amounts of damage at higher levels on a lucky hit.
It's a bit like vital strike:
Dead Shot (Ex): At 7th level, as a full-round action, the gunslinger can take careful aim and pool all of her attack potential into a single, deadly shot. When she does this, she shoots the firearm at a single target, but makes as many attack rolls as she can, based on her base attack bonus. She makes the attack rolls in order from highest bonus to lowest, as if she were making a full attack. If any of the attack rolls hit the target, the gunslinger’s single attack is considered to have hit. For each additional successful attack roll beyond the first, the gunslinger increases the damage of the shot by the base damage dice of the firearm. For instance, if a 7th-level gunslinger firing a musket hits with both attacks, she does 2d12 points of damage with the shot, instead of 1d12 points of damage, before adding any damage modifiers. Precision damage and extra damage from weapon special abilities (such as flaming) are added with damage modifiers and are not increased by this deed. If one or more rolls are critical threats, she confirms the critical once using her highest base attack bonus –5. For each critical threat beyond the first, she reduces this penalty by 1 (to a maximum of 0). The gunslinger only misfires on a dead shot if all the attack rolls are misfires. She cannot perform this deed with a blunderbuss or other scatter weapon when attacking creatures in a cone. The gunslinger must spend 1 grit point to perform this deed.
The biggest things here are:
1. Critical damage seems to help all the dice rolls.2. You have to misfire on all your rolls in order to misfire at all.
3. Critical hits *should* happen more regularly on this one attack.
4. It ranges farther than vital strike -- you could use rapid shot and haste to get more damage for example.
5. Improved chances of hitting (over vital strike) since you get damage for each successful attack roll you don't waste an action if you miss on one roll like you would with vital strike.
6. You don't spend feats like you would with vital strike.
On the downside:
1. Spending a grit point.
2. Full round action instead of a standard action.
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There is no Rapid Shot or Haste modifier to Dead Shot from what I read : only additional attacks granted from your BAB, and the possibility to shoot both barrels when using a two-barreled weapon at the cost of the normal -4 penalty to each doubled attack.
You don't even need these to make Dead Shot range from useful to awesome as showed previously.
Hm... you seem to be right on the haste and rapid shot part. But honestly I disagree with you on it being 'awesome' at all.
You get at level seven the chance for:
2d12+Dex modifier + other bonuses.
Compared to the possibility of:
4 attacks (two from bab one from haste and one from rapid shot) doing (1d12+Dex mod + other bonuses) damage.
Even if you critical you are still looking at less base damage than a regular full attack will do ((4d12)+dex modifier and other bonuses to damage).
Using a double barreled gun might raise it up to 4d12's with a possibility of 8 on a critical but even then you are only likely to tie the damage output of an actual full attack, not exceed it.
Especially now that cluster shot is available.
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It's actually awesome for when you simply can't throw a full-attack ; see the DB musket example provided before where the character simply doesn't have RR (DB musket), something you will run into with such a feat-starved class.
I built such upcoming character for a friend in our game, with his primary +1 searching distance musket w/ Far-Reaching Sight he's able to hit Touch AC with awesome range before even using his Musket Master effect to increase range ; and his DB musket, while only having an effective range of 10', is able to hit twice harder on attacks of opportunity provoked when the enemy tries to close the gap, or when an enemy needs to be dealt a lot of damage. You may potentially deal way more damage with a DB musket Dead Shot than with a full-round musket attack since you double the attacks and make a critical hit more than likely on every hit to balance the loss of additional damage of Dead Shot.
Sure, it's not a perfect strategy, but it pulls a lot of punch whenever needed. Ad if you've got a broken weapon at lower levels, it also helps.
DB musket won't double all the shots, only one attack, if that (since as you pointed out dead shot only works with attacks from BAB, which DB muskets are not). With their incredibly limited range it's simply not worth it. Especially since you'll need snap shot to actually make anything with AoO's work (and you are unlikely to have that).
Personally I simply stuck to the regular musket took deadly aim and rapid shot and have been doing fine with alchemical paper cartridges. Getting three shots at 1d12+5 each has worked well enough for me currently and when haste is cast it becomes 4 shots at 1d12+5. Quick clear has helped anytime I've had a weapon break (ironically it happened on the first shot so I was fine by the next turn to fire again).
My personal build was:
Gunslinger 3 (musket master)
Monk 2 (Sohei)
Ranger 2 (guide trapper)
Monk got me dodge and mobility, gunslinger got me rapid shot and the faster reloading, and Ranger got me precise shot as well as trapfinding and more good save throws.
Feats are:
Rapid Reload (musket)
Point blank shot
Dodge
Mobility
Deft Shootist
Deadly Aim
Rapid Shot
Precise Shot
Funnily enough I wear armor (mithral scale legs and arms with do-maru chest).
20 point buy ( 10 Str 18 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 20 Wis 5 Cha) and Vanara as the race. Armor Expert was the trait I grabbed.
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DB musket won't double all the shots, only one attack, if that (since as you pointed out dead shot only works with attacks from BAB, which DB muskets are not).
SKR stated that :
1) You can double tap a dead shot
2) You can double tap each time you make an attack roll ; including those resolved in a Dead Shot
3) Doing so would give you a -4 penalty to each double tap attack.
Thus, the DB dead shot is legal.
You have to get absurdly close and spend limited ressources to make it more than a 1 per 3 turn awesome button without taking so much risk it's not really worth it.
Btw, my pal's build is made for level 13 and he has the two first Snap Shot feats + combat reflexes + every precision-related feat + PBS/DA.