scope horror stories

A friend and I went for day trip moose hunting a few years back. He stopped the truck at large cut he wanted to glass with his scope, the scope was a Tasco 3x9x40 (don't recall which model) and when he was adjusting the magnification the cross hairs on the scope turned when he turned the magnification adjuster.

He wanted to call it a day, so I said before we pack it in adjust the magnification and see if you can get the cross hairs back to where they should be, they moved back to center after quite a bit of adjusting and we found an old five gallon oil pail and set it on a stump and he hit the bottom of the pail more or less in the center at approx 100 yards, so we continued our moose hunt. He did replace the scope later that same week.
 
I had a Chinese no name SKS blow apart; the gun went bang and the tube was full of broken guts...
Then I had a Bushnell Elite 3200 fog up on its first hunt, they were no problem and swapped it for another but the hunt was screwed.
Dropped a few hunting and knocked them off zero but considering what happened to them and no damage other than re-sighting them in (different guns, mounts and rings, all quality stuff) I’m not counting those.
Had a Cabela’s scope, POI moved around when adjusting the parallax...never saw that before (made it and all Cabela’s scopes go away).
I’ve really had very few problems considering how many I’ve had over the years.
Quite happy with the quality and reliability of my existing hardware.
 
Had a Steiner Predator Extreme 2.5-10 with a spec on the inside of the objective lens (at least that's what it looked like). I sent it in to Stoeger and rather than fix it they sent me a new "blemished" GS3 2-10 to replace it. It had a few small rub marks on it, no big deal I guess. I mounted it up and headed to the range to sight in and after some frustration I figured out that the elevation turret was "backwards". If I dialed up, my POI went down and vice-versa. What a pain I the ass. I emailed Stoeger and of course they told me to send it in for a look see. I was so frustrated that I just sold it cheap with full disclosure about the reverse elevation turret operation and bought a Leupold VX-5HD 2-10 to replace it.
 
I well remember one fella that went thru 3 Leupold 1-4's on a new 416 Rem when that gun first came out, all in less than a year, he was not a happy camper. I had to send a Bushnell 3-9 22 scope back years ago, in the 80's, took about 3 mos turnaround for it.
 
My last range trip about a month ago, my .308 was grouping very crappy. I was actually getting pretty down on myself that I couldn't shoot worth a darn that day. I put the rifle down and played with my handguns and 22's for the rest of my time.
Packing all my stuff up off the shooting benches to go home, I saw a little screw... it was a scope mount screw. Explains allot. And now, I need to spend some more range time sighting again. Haven't decided if I want to blue loctite the scope screws yet, or upgrade from vortex crossfire to a better scope. Will see what my bank account says I guess.
 
I have only had three scopes shat the bed. All Falcon. Lens breaks and on one parallax knob fell off.
I had a vortex 1/4 pst get a dusty reticle but function was perfect and was replaced very quick.

I have a nightforce that’s been in use for at least 15 years and at least 13k of 308 20k of 223 and countless rounds of 22 never skips a beat. Only issue is mismatched reticle/turrets. Tracks perfect to this day. It is my go too test glass for working up loads and accuracy testing of a new platform

I have a Burris XTR II ffp mil/mil that has been bomb prof in the past 4 years. ( I dial way more the hold)
 
5 years ago I bought one of those bass pro brand scopes for my 10/22 .glass looks great for $39 ! Shot about 200 rnds . next shot the crosshairs look like eye lashes . I tossed the box etc month's before . went back to bass pro showed them the lens. gave me store credit .
 
Blew apart the crosshairs on 2 vortexes. On an AR-15.

It’s common knowledge Vortex has great warranty. Thats because so many people need to use it...
 
Have an ancient old Lyman 3X scope that is still doing service on a 336/35 Rem.
That thing is older than my kids and they both have kids of their own.
 
A few years ago I put a stalk on a nice 5x5 whitetail buck, at 300 yards I ran out of cover, I got into the prone position with the rifle supported by the bipod. While looking through the scope at the buck I reached up to crank the power up to 9 but the adjustment ring wouldn’t turn at all. After a quick look I could see that the scope had slid forward in the rings and the power adjuster was binding on the rear ring. I didn’t dare take a shot and had to let that nice trophy buck walk.

I had taken a couple coyotes with that rifle the day before and the scope must’ve slid at that time. Improperly torqued ring screws on a 300 RUM is a recipe for disaster.
 
A Leupold Rifleman is usually as low as I go in scope quality even on a 22.
Not investing an expensive hunt in a $29.99 Barska, Simmons or Tasco with plastic lenses.
JUNK !
 
I've had plenty of optics fail, from big Euro brands to budget brands and everything in between.

Won't hold zero, broken reticles, knocked out of zero due to a horse, turrets falling off..... Here is one of my latest and most dramatic failures :)

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John Y Cannuck said:
They are supposed to have a lifetime warranty. The question is, is it worth the postage?
Click to expand...

My experience with one of these on a CF (Rem Model 7 in 308 Win) wasn’t memorable in a positive way.
The crosshairs went all screwy before a box of shells was fired.
Junk in the garbage pail.
Might do for a 22LR RF.
Maybe.
 
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