My scope died today......

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LoonWulf

LoonWulf

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This is the first scope Ive had fail during use. Ive had ones that were defective out of the box, broke a few, but never had one actually break on me.

Bought this Nitro sfp 5-20 about a month ago, and its ridden on my 06AI the whole time. Been to the range maybe 5 or 6 times, been fired maybe 100rounds.

Had 20 rounds with me today, and fired them over a few hour period. The second to last shot it looked like the image got really wavy for a split second, and I just thought it was mirage from shooting over a small mound from prone....I didnt occur to me that the cross hairs wouldnt go all wobbly.

Fired the last shot and on closing the scope cap I noticed the chip in inside of the rear lense.

IMG_20200425_155333.jpg IMG_20200425_155336.jpg

I made a video of it rattling around, and im pretty sure its the next lense in from the ocular.

So there we have it, first true scope failure Ive experienced. Now to see how bushy deals with the warranty claim. Im honestly not concerned, ive had other stuff warrantied before.

Oh still shot a 1" group just right of POA....
 
The hardest part of this story to believe is that this is the first you've had one break on you. Purely as a numbers game, it's crazy it hasn't happened before with as many optics as I imagine you've used!
 
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I honestly think its pretty rare for a scope to actually fail. I believe the guys who report it happening, but considering how many of each brand (even the off ones) are out there, the failure rates have to be pretty low.

Ive had a few that were bad out of the box, and Ive seen/caused enough damage to render more than one scope nonfunctional. To have one make it past the first range trip, and not get smashed, THEN fail is a new one for me.
 
Makes sense. I don't get a chance to shoot very often so I'm not surprised it hasn't happened to me.

On the other hand, both Savage rifles I've owned have had issues with the scope bases/screws, one requiring being sent back to Savage. Maybe my bad luck just chose a different area.:D
 
I once had a Weaver 3X9 scope I purchased back in 1974, on a Remington BDL .270, had the horizontal reticle drop down, about early 1980's sent it in to Weaver, who was in Texas at the time, and they repaired it, and sent it back to me in record time. In fact I still own that scope, however, I placed it on a different rifle.
 
loose noose said:
I once had a Weaver 3X9 scope I purchased back in 1974, on a Remington BDL .270, had the horizontal reticle drop down, about early 1980's sent it in to Weaver, who was in Texas at the time, and they repaired it, and sent it back to me in record time. In fact I still own that scope, however, I placed it on a different rifle.
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Thats rare these days. The only company o known that routinely repairs stuff is Burris. A friend of mine sent one in with a sticky turret that they corrected, cleaned, and returned. Ive heard other folks say the same thing when sending a scope to them.
Every other return ive made has resulted in a new product being shipped...usually pretty promptly.
 
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Oh on scope base and screw holes. Ive seen there be issues enough that i now remove ANY factory installed base, toss out the screws, and reinstall with new hardware.
I had one 700 so far off that a single piece base had to be customized to get it to work.
That one irritated me. Paid full retail for the rifle, then another 100 bucks just to get the scope mount on.
 
In general,most quality scopes don't break / fail unless they get dropped hard or severely abused. Yes,some cheap scopes do break just from the inferior components that they are assembled with.
In the almost 5 decades that I've been shooting I've had two cheap scopes fail from hard recoiling rifles that I purposely put them on to see if they would break. The only quality scopes that have failed were my old Swarovski PH 4-16x50,and an older Sightron SII 4-16x50 AO. The Swarovski stopped keeping zero,and the elevation turret stem broke on the Sightron.
Both were sent in and repaired,no questions asked,and when I got them back they both looked totally refurbished from the factory.
 
Txhillbilly said:
In general,most quality scopes don't break / fail unless they get dropped hard or severely abused. Yes,some cheap scopes do break just from the inferior components that they are assembled with.
In the almost 5 decades that I've been shooting I've had two cheap scopes fail from hard recoiling rifles that I purposely put them on to see if they would break. The only quality scopes that have failed were my old Swarovski PH 4-16x50,and an older Sightron SII 4-16x50 AO. The Swarovski stopped keeping zero,and the elevation turret stem broke on the Sightron.
Both were sent in and repaired,no questions asked,and when I got them back they both looked totally refurbished from the factory.
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Thats generally been my experience as well. I havent had a bad "good" scope out of the box, but Ive had a couple low end ones that wouldnt track or hold zero right from the get go.

Ive broken a ...couple Nikons i think, sun damaged an old leupold, squished a leupold, and seen another one get squished as well.
Ive had all the plastic on 40 dollar simmons protarget litterally fall apart, including the power ring and still that scope worked, even in wet weather...THAT should have been my first actuall failure, but its still kicking ...



DocRock said:
I bought mine on your recommendation, so if mine fails, I'm sending it to you for warranty repair or replacement :neener:
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Im pretty sure this was an assembly error, the whole lense is loose which suggests a retaining ring either got over tightened and stripped, or wasnt tight enough and vibrated loose. Im going with the second option as being most likely.
Usually id id gut this thing and see why it broke, but I actually NEED It so im gonna refrain and send it back to get swapped out.
 
Coincidence! I just returned from the range with my Hi-Point 995 9mm carbine with NEW Tasco 3-9x50 scope from CDNN. Cheap scope for a cheap carbine. As I tried to get the scope zeroed at close range of 50 feet, the cross hairs seemed to rotate. The turrets were still at 12 and 3 o'clock. I couldn't get it to zero. Then it finally dawned on me that the arrows on the turret for windage were marked 180 degrees wrong!
In other words to move the point of impact to the left I would have to turn the adjustment to the right facing arrow.
Now the cross hairs were 45 degrees off from the vertical and horizontal and the turrets were still at 12 and 3 o'clock!! Just like the letter X!
Cant believe I spent $47 on this scope! We will see what CDNN has to say about this train wreck.
PS- I got an e-mail from a CDNN manager today. He said is was technically too late to request a replacement, but he was going to replace it. I guess he agreed that the failure occurred on the first days use of the scope.
I will keep CDNN as one of my favorite suppliers.
 
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total recoil said:
Coincidence! I just returned from the range with my Hi-Point 995 9mm carbine with NEW Tasco 3-9x50 scope from CDNN. Cheap scope for a cheap carbine. As I tried to get the scope zeroed at close range of 50 feet, the cross hairs seemed to rotate. The turrets were still at 12 and 3 o'clock. I couldn't get it to zero. Then it finally dawned on me that the arrows on the turret for windage were marked 180 degrees wrong!
In other words to move the point of impact to the left I would have to turn the adjustment to the right facing arrow.
Now the cross hairs were 45 degrees off from the vertical and horizontal and the turrets were still at 12 and 3 o'clock!! Just like the letter X!
Cant believe I spent $47 on this scope! We will see what CDNN has to say about this train wreck.
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Thats more along the lines of what Ive seen, immediate failure. Hopefully cdnn replace or refunds your purchase quickly. Ive only ever spoken with them to order a gun, but the reps were friendly and helpfull.
 
i have one simmons scope, a 4.5-14x40mm AO made in the phillipines on a heavy barreled howa imported by S&W 1500 in .223 and have had no problems with it in several years of hard use. i think being made in the phillipines was better than made in china IMHO.
 

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LoonWulf said:
This is the first scope Ive had fail during use. Ive had ones that were defective out of the box, broke a few, but never had one actually break on me.

Bought this Nitro sfp 5-20 about a month ago, and its ridden on my 06AI the whole time. Been to the range maybe 5 or 6 times, been fired maybe 100rounds.

Had 20 rounds with me today, and fired them over a few hour period. The second to last shot it looked like the image got really wavy for a split second, and I just thought it was mirage from shooting over a small mound from prone....I didnt occur to me that the cross hairs wouldnt go all wobbly.

Fired the last shot and on closing the scope cap I noticed the chip in inside of the rear lense.

View attachment 911599 View attachment 911600

I made a video of it rattling around, and im pretty sure its the next lense in from the ocular.

So there we have it, first true scope failure Ive experienced. Now to see how bushy deals with the warranty claim. Im honestly not concerned, ive had other stuff warrantied before.

Oh still shot a 1" group just right of POA....
Click to expand...

I read the title and all I could hear was "He stopped loving her today." It was going through my head as I read your description of a scope breaking after a month. I've seen some beat up/bent scopes that never cracked! Hopefully they get you squared away with the repairs.
 
eastbank said:
i have one simmons scope, a 4.5-14x40mm AO made in the phillipines on a heavy barreled howa imported by S&W 1500 in .223 and have had no problems with it in several years of hard use. i think being made in the phillipines was better than made in china IMHO.
Click to expand...
Ive had very good luck with all the philipines made optics Ive bought. Same for the Korean. cheap! but good! ..........enough..........

Odd Job said:
I've never seen a piece of glass come away from a scope lens, thanks for sharing!
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I have, but only when a bell is damaged enough to crush a lense. Im pretry sure this one shook loose, settle enough to see thru, then got slammed around on firing......could be wong tho.

Olon said:
I read the title and all I could hear was "He stopped loving her today." It was going through my head as I read your description of a scope breaking after a month. I've seen some beat up/bent scopes that never cracked! Hopefully they get you squared away with the repairs.
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LOL, weeeellll.....usps did carry it away....
 
Never had a scope physically break. I've tossed a few, which couldn't hold zero, lesson learned.
 
Don't know how I missed your thread, but that sucks. Hope they did it, would it be easier to go through caneraland?. I've had 3 scopes I can remember fail. The 2 Simmons whitetail 2, both the turrets failed. The other was a cheapo either a tasco of bushnell, don't know if was a unnamed combo scope. Only reason I was even using it hunting was, it was right after the flood and it was the only thing sighted in. The inner lense came loose much like yours, I think it could have chipped if I didn't notice.

When I seen it was broken I started walking back to my truck and off course there was a nice buck walking in the upper field. I didn't even bother trying to shoot it.
 
I’ve never had a scope go bad after mounting and bore sighting. I’ve only had one bad one out of the box, a VX-3. I’ve never owned a Simmons, Tasco, etc.

I’ve had issues with rings, bases and receivers drilled and tapped off-center.
 
troy fairweather said:
Don't know how I missed your thread, but that sucks. Hope they did it, would it be easier to go through caneraland?. I've had 3 scopes I can remember fail. The 2 Simmons whitetail 2, both the turrets failed. The other was a cheapo either a tasco of bushnell, don't know if was a unnamed combo scope. Only reason I was even using it hunting was, it was right after the flood and it was the only thing sighted in. The inner lense came loose much like yours, I think it could have chipped if I didn't notice.

When I seen it was broken I started walking back to my truck and off course there was a nice buck walking in the upper field. I didn't even bother trying to shoot it.
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Sorry Troy, thought i replied to you.
Im positive Doug guys would have helped me with this, and it probably would be easier (for sure faster), but its not really their problem. Thus i just sent it home to bushy.
 
Having ordered a Nitro around the same time from Doug and subsequently purchased 3 Primes direct from Bushnell I can say they were neck and neck on speed for shipping. I actually got my rebate back after 4 weeks.

I’ve got some things headed your way tomorrow that hopefully brighten your week up a bit, and perhaps I had a moment of ESP...anyway I’m sure Bushnell will make good on it.
 
Ive had a $100 Bushnell Banner fail on the first shot, canted reticle. Im pretty handy, so I took it apart to see if I could fix it myself- the internal parts were such cheap garbage plastic, I got disgusted and threw it away. Chicom junk.........

Lesson learned. Im currently staring out the window waiting for my new Nightforce to arrive. :D
 
Skylerbone said:
Having ordered a Nitro around the same time from Doug and subsequently purchased 3 Primes direct from Bushnell I can say they were neck and neck on speed for shipping. I actually got my rebate back after 4 weeks.

I’ve got some things headed your way tomorrow that hopefully brighten your week up a bit, and perhaps I had a moment of ESP...anyway I’m sure Bushnell will make good on it.
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WOOT! I could use some brightening lol. Its been kinda a rough week.

Ive had bushnell warranty a couple scopes straight out the box, and had no issues. So i agree probably not gonna have one this time either.
The Nitros gonna go on the RAM when it comes back.

NIGHTLORD40K said:
Ive had a $100 Bushnell Banner fail on the first shot, canted reticle. Im pretty handy, so I took it apart to see if I could fix it myself- the internal parts were such cheap garbage plastic, I got disgusted and threw it away. Chicom junk.........

Lesson learned. Im currently staring out the window waiting for my new Nightforce to arrive. :D
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Ive had some issues with bushy scopes right out of the box also. A Trophy muzzle loader scope, and 1-4x32 tactical scope.


I like the Nightforce a friend has, im sure youll enjoy yours.
 
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