John,
I am familiar with the gunmaker to whom you refer in your article. He had several hunting scopes. They were kept in his tool chest. He would mount and zero them on whatever rifle he planned to hunt with and removed and placed back in storage until the next trip. He didn't put any more shots than needed on those scopes.
The toughest scopes I have used were the older Leupold Compact 3-9's. They were the only scopes to survive my 7.5# 375 Improved.
