[MinScout]

Do you guys who take lengthy, distant hunting trips, bring a back-up scope in case your regular scope breaks?

[dakotasin]

no.
i bring a back up gun, complete w/ its own scope attached.

[Grumulkin]

I also go with a back up gun.

['Card]

I keep a back-up rifle locked in my truck, and it has a scope on it. But that seems kind of obvious. I assume you mean when I'm hiking in to hunt and camp? No, I don't bring a back-up rifle or a scope on those trips.

I do bring one of those little cartridges with the laser in it, though - so if my rifle gets dropped or the scope gets damaged I can quickly confirm that my zero is at least still in the ballpark.

If the damage was so bad that the scope wouldn't work at all, I'd just take it off and use the iron sights. Those work too, ya know? :)

[R.W.Dale]

The backup to a broken scope are called Iron Sights.

[Art Eatman]

I've often taken a second rifle along, but more for doing a different style of hunting than as a "case of in-case".

So far, the last forty years, nothing bad has ever happened. I think the operative word is "careful". :)

:), Art

[rbernie]

I always have a back-up rifle in the car/camp. If I'm beating around in the brush (short range shots, lots of chances to fall/drop the rifle) I have the rifle set up with the scope mounted on QR mounts and with sighted-in irons available. Worst case scenario, the scope gets crushed and I pop it off and use the irons until I can swap out the whole rig.

[formerflyer]

Another vote for backup iron sights. From a strictly percentage basis, it would make more sense to have a backup scope than a backup rifle, but there are problems with the whole concept of a backup scope. Most hunters barely sight in their primary scope, much less attaching a backup and sighting it in. If it is sighted in, then it has to be in mounts that are fully repeatable (many, if not most, are not). Then you still have to trust that nothing has happened since you last tried the combination.

I suspect that's why most of us will just take a backup rifle, and count on the irons to walk back out to the backup if we need it.

[MinScout]

Interesting. I assumed bringing an extra scope on a distant hunting trip would be a common thing since many rifles do not have iron sights at all. Thanks for the input.

[dakotasin]

i bring a whole rifle so i am covered if anything goes wrong, not just the scope. i was hunting antelope w/ a winchester 70 and the attachment screws that hold the rifle into the stock backed out to the point i had my rifle in my left hand, and my stock in my right hand... swapped the thing out for my backup rifle, and went on to have a successful hunt.

i had no tools w/ me or available, and the rifle used allen head screws, so no improvised tool could be made to get me back in the game.

another time i went to take a shot at a nice antelope buck, and the gun didn't go off... come to find out the firing pin had picked that exact moment to break. back up rifle, and off i went to finish my hunt. so, i have had 2 rifle failures, and no scope failures.

i have never had a scope fail on me, but i use good scopes... if a scope were to fail, sometimes you won't know until too late, aside from obvious dropping/falling on the scope. my brother had a scope fail on him (that had never been subject to abuse), and had no signs of failure until after he missed shot after shot at a really nice deer... my brother has had 1 scope failure, and no rifle failures.

you just don't know what might happen. best to have an entire system available to you on the quick so you don't have to call the hunt before you're ready.

[griz]

Like several others already, my back up scope is bolted to a back up rifle. If I was flying into some remote place where every pound mattered, I might take just a scope. Then again, I could loose 20 pounds and take two more rifles.:)

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

My rifle and scope hit a rock hard. (it was a tough day) I went all the way back to camp. Retrieved spare scoped rifle. No need to sight it in. No reason to make noise. No reason to drive 300 miles back home. I usually take one scoped rifle for distance shoots. One lever gun for the valley bottoms and brush. And a magnum pistol in shoulder holster. There's usually an 'under the pillow/truck' pistol, and quite often I'll take a shotgun or .22LR for Grouse. I don't hunt in my back yard. And more often that not, I'm gone huntin for a week at a time.

But I don't take a spare scope. I found someone else's spare scope one day though. :eek: Leupold VxII 3-9x40. Never been mounted. Not a mark on it. Sittin in the middle of the trail/road. It's mounted on my 30-06 now. :D

-Steve