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If I am using a weapon that takes a full round to fire (such as slow-firing weapons), does it count as an attack action so I can use something like Vital Strike with it?
Slow-Firing: A slow-firing weapon requires a full-round action to use, and thus cannot be used to make iterative attacks.
Vital Strike: When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage.
From the rules themselves, there is absolutely no way to tell. They are ambiguous.
James Jacobs, who is Paizo’s creative direction (i.e. not necessarily directly responsible for the rules) has commented on this question, however:
How does Vital Strike and the like work with slow-firing weapons, if at all? Does the full round action requirement mean you are technically not using the attack action so Vital Strike cannot apply?
It doesn't Vital Strike requires its own action, and with a slow-firing weapon, the attack uses up your available actions so you can't Vital Strike with it.
So there’s the most official answer available, though it is fairly lacking. It’s written as if this is what the rules themselves already say, when in reality they’re ambiguous. Ideally, Paizo would publish an errata clarifying the situation, but that’s unlikely to happen.
Rules as written, the Attack Action states it is a standard action. Because this is a full-round action, it cannot be the Attack Action, and cannot be used with Vital Strike.
That said, as a GM I would allow it as a house-rule. It's more powerful than something like Improved Natural Attack for a natural weapon, but a Slow-Firing weapon is already pretty limiting at higher levels. It still couldn't be used with a Cleave or anything else that doesn't use the Attack Action (I realize Cleave probably doesn't work with a slow-firing weapon either, it's just an example).
