Have ypu ever fallen or dropped your rifle and knocked the scope off and ruined a hunt

Nope! Well, yes, I've knocked a scope silly but like FireFlyFishing, I always have a back up rifle and ammo handy. It's saved more than one hunt over the years.
Cheers,
crkckr

Twice, luckily both varmint hunting. My boot got caught while coming off a lava rock pile. I landed on my side and back but no damage to my rifle. I rezeroed and drove on. The second time a sling stud gave way and sent my rifle muzzle into deep snow. I was tracking two bobcats when that happened and it was my only firearm. Furiously worked on clearing that barrel with some twigs and a Otis cleaning cable. After that I always carry two firearms. Rezeroed and went home lol.

dgr416 said:

I had my rifle drop 30 feet while pullimg it up the tree and it bouned on the recoil pad .The gun and svope was not hurt but later that day i found out when i shot a deer it was two feet off.I knew it knocked my svope off bit it was 50 miles home and this was a draw hunt only very 6 years .I shot a deer that afternoon and it hit two foot high .Its a miricle i popped that deer in the spine .
My nephew just leamed his rifle on a tree and it fell over and his varix 3 leopold was off 2 feet .His girlfriend used it and missed a buck of a lifetime close .

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Yep. Any time a rifle takes a big hit I want to verify zero. I had my rifle fall out of the truck while getting geared up and it landed on my nightforce nxs. It was direct hit but I was like, well, NF smashes them on a table for advertising, good to go....... I missed a wolf that morning. Re-zeroed that after noon and significantly off zero.

While coyote hunting, my bipod/sling got hung up on my coveralls when hung over my shoulder. I yanked on it a couple times and when it broke loose, the gun slipped off my shoulder, flew through the air and came down on the objective lens. The bell was bent and touched the barrel. I was done. This is where Leupold comes in. I sent the scope in on a Monday, and got it back ten days later. By the way, I always carry an extra gun since that incident.

Was on a Nevada hunt in late 1980's. Was standing by back of truck reaching in the topper over tailgate. Rifle slung over shoulder. Forend swivel stud popped out. Rifle went backwards and around and scope hit bumper. I thought at yhe time it may have knocked zero off. Repaired stud. Next day I took 3 shots at a buck. I knew all had to of went high. I should of checked zero before that. When leaving I set out a large pizza box I had in truck bed at 100 yds. Made a black circle in middle. It hit the top left corner of box twice. Probably foot high and foot left. Was an old Redfield. After that I always took two rifles on out of state hunts and even on some instate hunts if they were far from home.

I don't carry a back-up rifle, but as mentioned previously, do have a scope in QR base/rings on "standby"!

If the rifle is damaged, I can use my wife's rifle. Other than being a bit short in the stock……both rifles are Model 70 Winchesters, both rifles zero'd the same, both have Leupold CDS scopes, and both have very similar trajectories. At the ranges at which we will shoot at game…..the slight difference's are inconsequential! Summary: it shouldn't be a difficult transition! memtb

Again deer hunting in Nevada 2016 I had snuck up the back side of a mountain from a buck I spotted bedded on other side. Got to top and figured he'd be about 50 yds below me by the only little aspen tree there. The top was all broken shale. I thought about taking boots off and sneaking up. Looked too painful. Walked real slow to edge, crunch crunch crunch. Looked over at tree. No buck. Looked straight out down the mountain and he's broadside looking at me at about 200 yds. I sat down , put rifle on rock. Got him in the scope and then he took off running across the bottom away from me. He didn't stop for a quarter mile until he went into a stand of small aspens. I headed downhill and got to bottom. I stepped over a bush and came down on a softball size rock that rolled. I did a complete flip and rolled over. I had enough time to think of protecting rifle that I held it tight against me. If I'd of had slung over shoulder it probably would have taken a hit. The rifle never touched the ground but I got a huge hematoma on my left forearm. I played a trick on buddy waiting back at the truck. On radio I told him the whole story and told about fall and said I think I broke my arm. He was freaking out. Got back to truck and he saw my arm and said we have to go to the hospital. I said nah, to far. Then moved my arm all around and told him it was just a hematoma. I've gotten them before. He was a lot older than me and couldn't catch me

Thank God for me.... my answer is NO I Have`nt..... but have been pulling on deer/elk bear and bumped it around pretty good..... back in the 70`s just before a trip to MT. an old tasco went to hell..... got a redfield.....used that for 20 yrs... then moved up to leupold.....

In reading several of these posts about damaged scopes……made me think about this being one of the "MANY" reasons that I very rarely carry my rifle on my shoulder.

Most of the time with a slip or fall, you can usually protect the rifle/scope before impact. Certainly not always…..but, often enough to make "hand carry" very justifiable! memtb

memtb said:

In reading several of these posts about damaged scopes……made me think about this being one of the "MANY" reasons that I very rarely carry my rifle on my shoulder.

Most of the time with a slip or fall, you can usually protect the rifle/scope before impact. Certainly not always…..but, often enough to make "hand carry" very justifiable! memtb

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I usually carry the rifle in my hands too. But when you're maneuvering obstacles there are times you need to use a sling. Like climbing rock piles, ladders, or steep terrain.

Nope. I run NF scopes A couple years ago though I was hunting w my wife (her tag) and thought I'd be chivalrous and carry the rifle. I managed to drop it from shoulder high onto rocks, and then a little while later I slipped and landed on top of the rifle while hiking across some scree. My wife then took it away from me and went on to bang flop her cow @ 475 yds later that afternoon. No shift in POI. It might've been a different story if I'd dropped it from 30' though

Three of us were hunting deer on horse back in Az, the terrain was rugged to say the least. We were around 6 miles in from the truck on an ancient two track trail that lead to a mine, possibly. There had been a lot of rain, the ground was soaked. I was in the outside track and all of a sudden the whole left side of the road gave way and started sliding down the mountain side. The horse went down on his right side with the avalanche of loose soil and rock in the steep terrain. I was able to stay in the saddle, lucky that I did not get my leg caught under the horse with the rifle scabbord taking a beating on the rocks under the horse. The 1100 lb quarter horse and I continued to slide down the mountain side, with the horses legs being buried half way up in the loose soil and rock. The power of that large horse was impressive to say the least as he was able to balance me while sitting on his butt, bracing the slide with his front legs, However a leg would get caught in larger rocks from time to time. There was no way for me to jump off the horse, I would pull him over in the process. We had slid perhaps 200 feet down the side when we were getting toward the bottom, and as we slid under a large tree limb, I grabbed the tree limb and slid off the back of the horse. The horse disappeared out of sight of me through the dense brush. When he got to the bottom, he started whinning non stop, I called to him and he settled down. I finally got down to him and he had laid down on his right side on the rifle scabbord. I could not get him up, he had some pretty bad cuts on his legs and hocks. I had to cut a branch of a tree and spank him a little to get him to get up as he had given up on life.

The two track road we had been on curved down and around to the bottom where the horse and I was at. I got back on the horse and rode him up to the rest of the group to which they were relieved that we had survived the ordeal. My horse was going into shock, sweating profusely. I rode double with a friend with a leade rope in my hand pulling my horse while another guy with a 16 Hand Horse kept pushing on the butt of my horse. Every time we came to the slightest amount of shade my horse would lay down on the rifle scabbard.

We finally got back to the truck, and I called the vet who met us at a gas station not far from where we had parked the truck. My horse "Red" got a lot of stiches and in 6 weeks was on the trail again after being doctored on two times a day from some deep cuts, bandage changes, 20 CC of penicillin twice a day.

Now, the rifle was a Browning Stainless stalker in 7 Rem mag, and it had a Leupold Vari X II 4x12 on it. The scope as bent to heck, scratched badly. I sent the scope back to Leupold with the story and a picture of Red all bandaged up, and they sent me a brand new scope.

Watched several rifle \scope combos get killed over the years. Ive seen them fall out of tree stands. "mine. Saw a horse roll on its back with a fine rifle in a saddle scabbard. Dead right there. Not mine. Watched my rifle with a high $$$ Vortex scope fly through the air into rocks then into three feet of water because one of our hunting guests was PO,ed about not getting a buck, He had missed, when we were gutting two others in a creek,and drove the UTV across the creek with my rifle laying in the back seat. Just decided to drive across, turn around and come back. I'm fishing my rifle out of the creek and cursing the guy. It was his last invitation to hunt with us.

LkeAF said:

Nope. I run NF scopes A couple years ago though I was hunting w my wife (her tag) and thought I'd be chivalrous and carry the rifle. I managed to drop it from shoulder high onto rocks, and then a little while later I slipped and landed on top of the rifle while hiking across some scree. My wife then took it away from me and went on to bang flop her cow @ 475 yds later that afternoon. No shift in POI. It might've been a different story if I'd dropped it from30' though

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Different story for you as well.