Scope bite!

I have a scar from my Rem700 308. I'd been shooting at a table quite a bit, moved to prone and never really got comfortable. I didn't feel it, thought I had sweat dripping down my face. Nope, blood. I did move the scope more forward after that.

I also put a hole through my range bag once when I used it as a gun rest when prone. It's a shorter barrel, and I didn't notice one of the pockets was open and pushed up in front of the barrel. I should probably patch that, some day.

My first "kiss" came at the hands of my brand new,first centerfield rifle, a Marlin 444S. I had the guy at the sporting goods shop I bought it from mount the scope,a Redfield 1.75x5. He centered it up between the rings and sent me on my merry way. The first shot gave me a pretty good smack on the shoulder,and over my eye. "Not too bad!", I lied to my buddy,and chambered another round. I held my face back with the second shot,and nicked the cinder block I was aiming at. Determined to nail the block,I took careful aim and squeezed off another round. Didn't realize I was crawling the stock. The cinder block exploded,and so did my forehead. Blood ran down my face as my buddy bent over holding his gut laughing. I took the beast to a gunsmith who took one look at the scope,and my face,and started to chuckle. It turned out to be a great shooter once I got it straightened out.

Eye relief.......... Those that have been "kissed" ...... Lesson learned.

230RN said:

... This clip showing Gene Hackman firing a scoped rifle amused me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gqnKwJ5ohD4

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<chuckle> Yeah, well everybody knows that Martini Henrys have only the tiniest bit of recoil, so ~¼"-½" eye-relief should be plenty.

A (country) girl that worked for me came back from vacation with a partially-healed crescent-shaped scar above her eyebrow.

In response to my raised eyebrow she said, "Beer".

All I needed to know ...

She and few cousins had decided that after getting lit up would be a good time to do some target shooting on the farm. One of them handed her his new hunting rifle to try.

Hasn't (yet) happened to me, probably because I have always much preferred shooting over irons.

It's happened twice to me, once was my fault, the other was faulty equipment (maybe). Let me start off by saying I'm not a small guy at 6'2 and 210 pounds. I also wrestled and boxed in my younger years and have developed scar tissue above my eyes, so if I get cut there, it's a gusher.

The first time I did it was with my brothers T/C 12ga Slug Gun. I had shot the gun a few times before but never from the bench. I sat down, looked through the scope and started to "pre-load" the trigger. The darn thing had absolutely no play whatsoever and immediately broke. The scope gave me a nice little kiss. I keep butterfly stitches in my range bag so my brother and I patched myself up and continued shooting for little longer. Later that day I went to the hospital because it wouldn't really stop bleeding. I think it was 6 stitches but I can't remember.

The second time I did it was also with a 12 ga slug gun. This time wasn't my fault at all. I found a mossy 500 with a rifled barrel in the back of one of my safes. I got excited because I forgot I had it and I realized I had never shot it. My wife, my brother and I brought it out on the deck, loaded a slug in there, pulled the trigger and wham!! It gave me a kiss in the same spot I got it before. Then I felt the scope bounce off my foot. The previous owner put really crappy scope mounts on it. My wife and brother said they actually saw it sheer off. Honestly I don't believe them and I think that my head is what caused it to sheer off but I have chosen to just say screw it and go with their story!

I have two friends that have gotten bit this past week during deer season. One of them even posted their bloody faced picture with their deer on facebook. I guess he was proud of his battle wound.

Scope bite.....................7MM. J s/n.

I was actually thinking to go to the next introductory rifle class here, just to see what shooting a rifle would be like. After reading this thread I'm scared to try.

I got the wake-up eyebrow touch when I was young. I had only shot scoped bb guns and 22s, basically cheap gimmick scopes, and then I got to shoot a real scoped rifle. Initially I got way up on the scope then realized I needed a few inches of space there in order to see a sight picture. Fired the gun and it just touched my eyebrow hard enough to hurt a little. Easiest lesson I ever learned. That could have been catastrophic under different circumstances.

Do lesser quality scopes like the kind in blister paks hanging on hooks in the box store, have less eye relief than a better scope of higher quality? Also, my hunting scopes (Leupold and Nikon) have a nice rubber ring around the eyepiece. Guess I'm lucky never been "kissed" by a scope.

xxjumbojimboxx said:

+1 to that... its also about snuggin that bad boy into you shoulder so it cant move that much as well. If you have it real snug the rifle will move your whole body with the recoil and will push you back with it. So to recap, dont still your eyeball too close to the glass. (try as far as you can while still getting the full picture then move forward when your confidence builds)... and keep it snug!

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Good point. I knew a young lady who got a scope eye ring. She was scared of the recoil and did not snug the gun as you mentioned. I wonder if folks who are scared of recoil account for a big portion of scope eye? Another factor may be careless shooting habits such as ignoring cheek weld and poor shooting posture and techniques.

Don't forget that the eye relief gets less as the magnification increases! The most eye relief is at the scopes lowest setting.

With a proper turkey neck and cheek weld, scope bite really shouldn't be an issue. If your neck is already stretched out and supported on the comb before you press the trigger, the rifle and your head will recoil as a unit. The problem is when the rifle is not set up properly for your body. If your head can move around a bunch, then even proper eye relief might not save you!

Never had it happen to me, but did see the Alaska-Kilcher episode where Junior stupidly set his wife up for complete failure and the scope bit her, badly. Why in the would you put someone , who has never fired a scoped high powered rifle before, laying down in the prone position with the barrel resting on a pack for her first shot. When watching it, I told my wife that the girl was fixing to take a scope in the eye and she did. She should have shoved the rifle up his .........

Almost 35 years ago my wife and I both got seriously injured, it was no laughing matter though, I can say that much. My wife got her eye brow split wide open, and suffered a pretty serious brain concussion with total amnesia. To this day, she still doesn't remember what happened. I didn't experience as serious a brain injury, but I still got stitches and a minor concussion. The major contributing factor, was cheap optics, with short eye relief.

We were sighting in our .270's for deer season, and she was shooting a super nice Winchester Feather Weight with a Bushnell Banner 3x9x40.

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Good grief gamestalker. That's crazy man.

My dad has a Banner 3-9x40 on a pretty hard recoiling .30-06. Luckily we haven't had that happen.
It is the one that is labeled "Long eye relief" though. Maybe they came out with it because others had what you had happen as well.

Luckily I've never gotten tagged by a scope and I've been shooting for a little over 20 years. I have had a scope slam into the brim of a cap a time or two.

And like Walkalong, I shook my head on some of these before it ever happened because it was obvious what was about to occur.

Almost every video had so much wrong going on before they even pulled the trigger. Proper technique and a little instruction to get there would have avoided most of those bites.

I groaned the most with the guy shooting up a hill at maybe 25 yards, using a patio chair as a bench rest. I don't feel sorry for him at all.

I'm no expert on these things...

You know how a jet fighter pilot can sight in a target through a display? Why doesn't someone invent a similar kind of electronic scope for hunting? Unless they have one on the market already.

Where you would not have to look through the lens on top of the rifle, but can view it on a display...say with a pair of goggles.
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Holographic sights are probably the closest thing to the HUD on a fighter jet. Linking the image to a pair of glasses is probably possible. We had a set of glasses in the AF, similar to Google Glasses, that had a near eye display for technical orders. They sucked. As the technology progresses, linking up a holo sight to a set of high tech goggles or glasses should be possible. It'll happen quicker if there is a demand for it.

The best scope would be one with a laser in it, laze the target to get your initial range and other information. The reticle would line up on the target, press the laze button again and it would give you continuous tracking of the target.

When ready all you would need to do is pull the trigger and one less bad guy walking around shooting. All this would take is a few companies working together to make it happen. The technology is there right now to make it small enough to fit into a large scope.

Price is what would keep it out of most people's hands but eventually it would come down enough for more people to get one.

First time I ever shot a center-fire rifle it was a 30-06 and no one mentioned not to creep up on the scope. I got a tap that left a small mark but taught me a lesson I've never forgot.

When I was in college, one of my room mates had a .338 win mag and I had a .270 win. We use to go plinking with these. Once he wanted to see if the .338 would shoot through a 12" or so aspen tree. Just before he pulled the trigger I thought his face was a little close to the scope and sure enough it got him He was using an old Swift scope. When I got my .338 I put a Leupold on it. Much more eye relief and no scope ring above my eye.