How many have missed animals due to a failed scope?

[Spence14]

As a teenager I had a Nikon 3x9 on a browning .270. I can't remember which model Nikon, but it cost me a few whitetail. One that would be a personal best to this day.

I didn't know much about proper scope mounting at the time, so I couldn't tell you if it was the rings, base, or the scope, but I know on the big whitetail it was hitting a foot high at 50 yds when I got back to the truck and shot paper.

It finally ran out of erector travel after sighting it back in a couple times. Pawned the gun and scope, but wish I would have kept the gun!

 

[Pilsner]

I might have the best scope failure story of the thread. This last fall I was in Kansas on a private land hunt with some buddies - one of whom is the best on-the-hoof-field-judge of bucks I have ever seen. I was shooting a 6 creed that has become the rifle with which I train new shooters to shoot on. Ol' Trusty so to speak. So i'm shooting at a 160-class buck at around 110 yards - the buck is rutting hard chasing a hot doe and doesn't even notice the bullets missing him or the noise (thank you suppressor) and my buddy finally notices a splash from my shot - I'm off by 6 FEET or so! So, my buddy yells to get my attention, tells me to drop my rifle, and throws me his rifle (with which we have already harvested an animal, so we know it's on). In the time that this takes to transpire a new buck comes into the scene and my buddy is now yelling at me SHOOT THE NEW BUCK ON YOUR LEFT! THE BUCK ON YOUR LEFT! Bang, flop.
This might be the only time in my life that I'm grateful for a scope failure and missing a 160-class buck. The "new" buck green scored 186 6/8"!
Upon later inspection my rifle had sheared off both screws on the rear mount and the scope wouldn't hold zero. I have no idea what happened to it. The week before I'd used the same setup to coach a new shooter out to 700 yards on our private range without issue and the rifle was transported in a hard sided pelican case. Leupold replaced the scope after testing but that is kind of a moot point as it failed me when I needed it most.
At least my broken scope story had a happy ending.

 

[Pilsner]

Last year I had a Leupold VX3HD go to sh!t on me after riding around on my quad. The rifle was a sub-MOA kimber in 30-06. This rifle always has 2 shots touching and the 3rd nearly touching but starting to climb with barrel heating. But 1/2" for 2 shots and sub-3/4" for 3 shots. So the rifle SHOOTS. It prefers 180 grain fodder which I had it stuffed with. Anyways, my neighbor and I were out on doe patrol and I missed two shots at sub-30 yards. Shooting suppressed so the does didn't know which way to run so they just milled around.
When we got back home, I checked, and I was more than ONE FOOT off at 25 yards! No broken parts or sheared screws. Rezero'd and scope wouldn't hold zero. Sent back to Leupold and they replaced the optic.

 

[Pilsner]

Had a Vortex optic fail on me a couple of years ago in Texas. Verified zero here at my home range in Arkansas and tossed my rifle into a pelican hard case and hit the road for a last minute doe hunt at my buddy's lease in Texas. Arrived and immediately got into a stand. Had does walk out when feeder went off a missed by a country mile or so it seemed. We shot the rifle at 100 yards and it was off by 1.5 FEET! Rezeroe'd and it wouldn't hold zero. Sent optic back to Vortex and it was replaced. Luckily my buddy had brought an extra rifle so I could still hunt and the trip wasn't a waste.
Now I never leave for a trip without 2 verified rifles.

 

[Castle Rock]

Yes, old school Leupold vx-II. Clean miss, thankfully.

Congrats on the fukup

You boomer fudds are all the same, if it didn’t happen to you it never fukin happened to anyone.

Well said, but to be honest most of them would never even realize

 

[hardincobucks]

Missed a nice buck at 400 with a vortex hst about 4 or 5 years ago. Have no idea where they hit but missed bigger than chit. Tried to dial it in back at camp but the elevation turret was so stiff I couldn't adjust it. Sent it back to vortex for repairs then sold it and bought a nightforce. About a year later I my groups were all over the place so I took the scope/rings/base off and found id sheared a base screw and the other screws were stripped out. Had a gunsmith drill and tap for bigger screws. Never a problem after that. I sold that rifle/scope and I'm shooting a tikka with a Trijicon now. I liked the nightforce but the Trijicon has been my favorite scope I've ever used. Oh, I won't ever buy a vortex scope again.

What trijicons do you like/use?

 

[Tanner]

I have not personally. I have had several clients miss game and come to find out that their scopes were not zeroed like they were when we left base camp though.

Most recently that I can recall was this ram. Gentleman told me he was good to 800 with his Gunwerks/Leupold combo. We got to 550 of this ram and ran out of terrain to close the distance and the hunter said “no problem”.

First 2 shots went feet over the rams back, luckily he was using a sort of mineral lick against a cliff and I was able to spot his misses and get him corrected.

While I skinned the head out and fleshed the cape, he shot at an old Mtn House bag and found out that his rifle was like 5” high off of his zero.

I’ve had a couple other client Leupold failures, one of which ended up using my guide rifle (coincidentally with a Leupold on it) to kill a nice big caribou bull at 600ish.

Pic unnecessary but nice to put a face to the story anyhow…

 

[JGRaider]

Jfc it actually does happen..

I had a scope with a broken erector and ended up having to correct with ffp on bullet impacts to make it dead, another time I had a scope completely stop holding 0, luckily I had a spare rifle. Not to mention a couple client rifles that had scopes die costing them bulls.

You boomer fudds are all the same, if it didn’t happen to you it never fukin happened to anyone.

Of course it does, never said otherwise, but the easy way out is to blame the scope/mounts, etc. It's happened 3 times between myself and buddy all with the SwaroA (1" tube) scopes.

 

[JGRaider]

I have not personally. I have had several clients miss game and come to find out that their scopes were not zeroed like they were when we left base camp though.

Most recently that I can recall was this ram. Gentleman told me he was good to 800 with his Gunwerks/Leupold combo. We got to 550 of this ram and ran out of terrain to close the distance and the hunter said “no problem”.

First 2 shots went feet over the rams back, luckily he was using a sort of mineral lick against a cliff and I was able to spot his misses and get him corrected.

While I skinned the head out and fleshed the cape, he shot at an old Mtn House bag and found out that his rifle was like 5” high off of his zero.

I’ve had a couple other client Leupold failures, one of which ended up using my guide rifle (coincidentally with a Leupold on it) to kill a nice big caribou bull at 600ish.

Pic unnecessary but nice to put a face to the story anyhow…
View attachment 836033

Badass pic!

 

[sambo3006]

I've had two Leupolds puke on me, but not on a hunt. I've had a Burris Fullfield II fog up internally on an elk hunt. I've had two significant loss of zero on a hunt, one that resulted in missing a whitetail doe a couple of times, and one that resulted in spine shooting a mule deer buck. Both times afterwards the zero was confirmed to be significantly off, but mounts and rings were tight and the scopes seemed to track fine when returning to zero. Those two are a mystery.
As a side note, I have a Marlin .35 Remington that has a Bushnell Sportview cheapo scope in cheap Tasco rings and bases. The scope isn't all that great optically and I had also mounted it with the reticle slightly canted, but the rifle has retained zero precisely for over 30 years now. I really want to upgrade the scope and mounts but I just can't make myself do it.

 

[Maxhunter]

I forgot to turn my turret back to zero on a Barbary Sheep hunt after I sighted in at the range. Shooting at a sheep at 242yds when your turret is set at 1026yds doesn’t work well. Not the scopes fault but the dummy operator

 

[Preston]

My son missed a b&c pronghorn, then the next day missed a good sub 300 or slightly bigger bull elk twice, then I missed the same bull at even closer distance with the last available bullet. That Monday we checked zero and the rifle was shooting around 9 inches high at 60 yards. He had dropped it off the shooting sticks the first morning. I did shoot a mule deer mule with the same rifle at 315 yards or so and broke its spine. I learned to always recheck zero after any bumps/falls.

 

[Yung6ix]

I’ve got scopes on everything from 300 weatherby magnum bolt rifles to 22 lr semi autos. I’ve had one (1) scope fail to hold zero- a 30+ year old Walmart special bushnell sportview. I don’t have a scar, so nothing known to eat optics, and I’m not dragging my rifles behind a pickup, but still just the one failure…