Has a rifle issue ever cost you a hunt?

Ruger 77 tang safety in 7RM cost me a moose about 45 yrs ago. Operated smooth as silk, click. Needed to push down on bullet to get the butt end of the cartridge high enough for the bolt to pick it up.. That was on a fully loaded mag, bolt closed over, empty chamber. Checked probably 50 more of them at the range or so after that, may have been 5 or 6 that didn't do that, what cartridge, didn't matter. That kinda soured me on the Ruger bolt guns.
Then you would really hate Remington 700’s.
 
Rifle never cost me a hunt, but now, not confirming my zero has, especially when using a buddy's crossbow/scope package.

You make that mistake only once...
 
Rifle fell out of truck back door upon opening it. Wasnt worried as i thought i had decent scope mounts. A doe pops out at a close distance, i start blasting... she walks off looking at me like "better lick that calf again bud."

Upon resighting it was well a foot off.

No longer use those rings. I stick to talley ultralights that bolt directly to the gun now. Also sold that gun. And the scope. Bad medicine.
 
3 occasions, once me, other with buddies, the mags fell out and were lost. Since then I am a 100% hinged floorplate.

Also, didn't ruin the hunt, but sitting in a treestand and the little pin that holds a Tikka bolt release fell out (brand new t3!) and I saw the spring and stop go flying into the abyss - and i had no bolt stop for the rest of my hunt - didn't take a shot anyhow, so all good.
 
3 occasions, once me, other with buddies, the mags fell out and were lost. Since then I am a 100% hinged floorplate.

Also, didn't ruin the hunt, but sitting in a treestand and the little pin that holds a Tikka bolt release fell out (brand new t3!) and I saw the spring and stop go flying into the abyss - and i had no bolt stop for the rest of my hunt - didn't take a shot anyhow, so all good.

OUCH! That sucks! Least the rifle was still operable, even without the bolt stop. You'd just be pulling the bolt out of the rifle every time you reloaded haha
 
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When I was about 16 I had a Remington model 742 left hand jamomatic. I didn’t have a sling and just the iron sights. I had it laying across the seat in front of me on my sled. Cruising down a curling I hit the front sight on a big poplar tree and broke the bead off. Didn’t notice it until I went to shoot a whitetail and had no front bead.
 
Deer season, an afternoon hunt with my Marlin 1894 44Mag/44Spl. I was getting my stuff together when a young CO pulls in.
My trucks door open, rifle's sitting, unloaded, on seat with the action open, instead of looking, he grabs it, then fumbles around trying to cycle the action to check if rifle was loaded.
After the CO determines rifles not loaded, he checks my paper work and heads for his truck to leave. I pick up my rifle walked to start of trail, loaded 5 in the tube, go to cycle 1 into the chamber and the rifle jams solid. I turned, just in time to see the CO pulling out on to side road.
I fumbled around for 15-20 minutes and couldn't clear the jam. I pulled the rifle sock on as far as I could and headed for home 10 minutes away. Took me a couple hours at home to disassemble clear, reassemble & function test.
In hindsight, I don't think the CO had much, if any, experience with a lever action, his fumbling around put something out of position. After he handled the rifle, I should of properly cycled the action before loading.
 
Those are some mighty demanding conditions.

Would a scabbard of some kind have pretended the CZ from gettin that gritted up? I guess only if it completely covered the action?

At least the fix was that easy...

Betting the sand in the 700s was in the trigger group?
A soft case would have avoided the CZ issue, though their was no guarantee I would have used it. Packing for Africa is always a struggle with weight since your hard gun case is one baggage item and you try to get everything else into one other bag that you want 50 pounds or under and 20 some of that is already ammo. . I scrimped on the wrong thing that time but have since figured out the right way to do it. What I do now is take the center layer of foam out of the Pelican or considerably lighter Italian Polaris case and put both rifles in, already in their soft cases. I can make the 50 pound weight with the Polaris and still have my soft cases. That was a live and learn sort of thing, and a case for field stripable bolts.
The 700 stoppages were both sand behind the stupid Remington extractor. A shell could be chambered but the extractor wouldn't jump the rim so the bolt wouldn't close. To make it worse, the cartridge can't be extracted either. If you had a cleaning rod around to tap the cartridge out you could fit the rim under the extractor first and carefully chamber it that way and have a single shot. There's at least a chance there might be a cleaning rod around, considerably better than having a spare extractor, rivet, some punches, a padded vise and a gunsmith in your pack.
 
well it cost me a decent Mule Deer one time…about 1985 or so
I bought a beautiful Winchester 70 Featherweight 30-06, 5 boxes of factory 165gr Winchester Silvertips, mounted a new 3-9 Bushnell Banner on it and was shooting 1” groups at 100 yards…I was all set with my dream rifle.

My brother and I were walking about 50 yards apart on a south facing slope in mid November
Leif was ahead of me of course and I look up not 60-70 yards in front of me behind a huge fir tree this big 4 point is looking at my brother and doesn’t see me, Just his head and shoulder is sticking out I raise the rifle push the safety off and he turns and looks right at me and he’s 26-28 wide and I pull the trigger CLICK……phhuuuuck the deer turns and runs off never to be seen again.
I sent the rifle in it was test fired several times and never mis fired again, I took two more decent bucks with that rifle but was never comfortable with it so I sold it.
 
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