This is certainly true, and my experience is also that different regions have different hazards as well, ie the likely types of fall (or whatever) can often be different, ie around me the “hardest core” hunting I can get into is tracking deer in the mountains in snow—tends to be easy-ish footing most of the time, but its also real easy to go ass over teakettle on 4” of slippery snow on top of wet leaves and slimy fallen branches on a steep slope. But hunting in other places I might not get into snow ever, or its always deeper snow, or its rocks and shale, etc. Anyway, it’s still all normal terrain for the mountains, and just because a fall isnt “normal” doesnt mean its “unlikely”. And again, we are talking about falls, but we’re also talking about scopes losing zero just from normal field usage—carrying on a pack, slung over a shoulder through brush, being bumped around inside a vehicle on rough roads, etc even without any fall is rougher handling than what caused my personal scopes to lose zero. For an easterner who reads a website focused on western hunting, the durability issues I think about are also stuff like how baggage handlers treat my gun on an airline trip. Having watched baggage handlers throw my pelican case 5-10’ onto the loading ramp and then topple onto the runway, Id say the 36” drops in the eval are bare minimum!Yeah, some folks are pretty hardcore. There’s also all the folks that tripped over it on the bipod, regularly drop it while leaning it against a tree, wreck the atv while carrying etc. As someone who has hunted primarily solo for decades, in all sorts of terrain and weather, I’ve found that the same attention to not getting hurt and ruining a hunt/burdoning SAR folks/dying while traversing tough terrain also has worked really well in avoiding beating the shit out of my gear. Doesn’t mean avoiding slips and falls altogether, but paying attention when appropriate and controlling falls when they happen goes a long ways.
Having reliable gear is great, but the pride in dropping one’s rifle and beating it up by generally bumbling through the mountains in this forum is fricken odd.
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