Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The worst you ever tore up a rifle?

When I was 16 I slipped and fell 20 feet from a tree with my loaded Marlin 336 .32 Special. I survived but the stock on my rifle was pretty b*tched up. What's the worst you've done while hunting?

I don't baby any of mine. But I"ve not "tore" one up ever.

Yet.

Some have dings, scratches, rust, thats life and use. Not tearing up. Least not in my books

Glad you survived that fall. thats a LONG way down. Probably one reason I don't hunt very high ever. Just don't like it. 12 feet would be extremely high for my tastes.

Lost a shotgun in the river once, duck hunting. Does that count?

My buddy built a 22-250 Ackley when he was in high school.

Used a Mauser action, did a really nice job with help from our gunsmith.

His dad took it hunting when my buddy left for boot camp.

When he got home for the first time he found his rifle in a padded case in the back of a pickup. It had been there for several months. Gawd, what a wreck.

He brought all his guns out to my place and I stored them after that. His family would come out and ask to borrow them, but I said they had to get my buddy on the telephone first.

Slipped on wet grass chasing a mulie and heard something snap. I figured it was my ankle, but as things turned out, it was the stock of my Ruger 77 broken at the wrist. New stocks are cheaper than snapped ankles.

It sure does!

Shooting a really nice Pre-Garcia Sako off a rest, the pistol grip hit the rest and sheared off. I was 18 and working on a diary farm. It took a long time to get the $catch for that gun, I darn near cried.

Shrapnel will be along soon, to one, two, or three up the rest of us.

Spotted some Elk while horseback one time, and instead of dismounting first and then grabbing my rifle (A beautiful Ruger No 1B 30-06) I pulled it out of the offside scabbard and went to swing down. Big mistake! The rented horse bolted right when the rifle cleared leather, and not being able to get control of him with one hand, and not able to get the rifle back into the scabbard, I gritted my teeth and as gently as I could bent down and dropped my rifle onto the rocky river bottom. Gouged, scraped, and scratched the hell out of the rifle and scope:(

Had a friend back home who lent his 22 rifle to another friend. He slammed the barrel in his car door by accident, didnt bend it, but scratched the bluing.

I knew horses were going to be a player in this thread.

Not much damage to this one when it slipped from a scabbard on a snowmachine in the dark one evening, but a skeg did cut a nice notch in the forearm when someone ran over if as we ran back down the trail looking for it.

Didn't hurt a M788 too much but really bent the scope (so bad that it wouldn't do much better than 2 feet off at under 50 feet) when the 6mm slipped from a scabbard on a snow-go traveling 30-40 mph on the sea ice.

Lost another rifle from a scabbard as we tried to negotiate horribly jumbled ice on a river years ago. I really wish I hadn't lost that 1895 Marlin, one of the early modern versions with a straight grip.

A fellow tends to develop preferences for certain scabbards and methods of mounting then after awhile. A smart fellow might simply quit using them.

I consider myself very fortunate that after 44 deer seasons the worst I've done to a gun is 'minor' dings and scratches.

I'm reminded or a gun writer who told a true story about a client who fell off a steep bank out of sight and the client said before he could be seen, "I didn't hurt my rifle" . I wish I could remember who wrote the story.


Jerry

I got in the bad habit of leaning my Beretta 391 20ga up against the rear tire on my truck. Messing around with the dogs and stuff, I forgot it a couple of times and backed over the barrel.

Didn't do much to it though. Still shoots straight.

Sitting in a 2 man ladder stand once , had a Ruger 77 compact 16.5" bbl 260 leaning on the shooting rail. Barely reached but I figured it wasn't going anywhere . Slight breeze came through enough to move the tree and shift the stand .The rifle fell out bounced off 2-3 ladder rungs and stuck muzzle first in the ground . Couple good gouges in the wood stock , but a hell of a dent in the front of the scope ( Leupold 2-7 x33 ). I pulled the bolt and checked for obstructions in the barrel , it was good to go . Figured the scope would at least be off , so I aimed at a dead pine knot about 70 yds away and hit dead center. Climbed back up and sat the rest of the evening.

While chukar hunting, I had worked my way across a shale slide to a ledge where I planned to stop and rest. Instead, the ledge broke off the side of the canyon. I dropped about 20 ft vertical, started a rock slide and rolled about another 100 ft down the slope. It took me months to recover; my SKB over/under was half buried in the rocks and never recovered.

Slipped on the ice Pheasant hunting and broke the stock off of my 16ga 870. Local Smith pinned an epoxied it. 35 years later it still works

I was climbing a very steep gulley in N. Nv. when the sling on my Sako Finwolf 243 broke. The rifle fell free about 60 ' then bounced at least another 100' down the rocks and scree. Wrecked the scope and stocks and deranged the internals. No gunsmith would touch it and I regret never finding another. It may have been my all time favorite.


mike r

Definatley have some dents, dings and rust but don't recall anything that left a firearm unusable. Well I did put away my Benelli Nova once after a particularly wet duck hunt and while I dried the exterior carefully I didn't realize I needed to pull apart the trigger group and dry and oil all the springs. Next time out it didn't want to go bang until I freed up the rusted springs.

Sitka Deer traded into a rusted up 700 in .223 that looks like it lived muzzle down in the bilge of a boat. The last 4" of barrel were badly rusted and I volunteered to see if I could clean it up. I lost interest after a couple hours of JB and elbow grease. On the upside I cut off the offending bit of barrel, cut in a new crown and it shot 1/2" groups.

Only one, in the early 80's I picked up a pristine 1958 Brno model 5 whilst I was shooting rabbits for a living, the rifle had never had a shot through it and looked like a dream...and shot like a miserable piece of sh__.
It irritated me that much I threw the damn thing out of the window of the hilux I was driving and managed to tear my right shoulder in the process, when I had calmed down I wandered over and picked the damn thing up and found it had a slightly bent barrel and a split stock...the scope was fine so I sighted it in and shot it for the rest of the night with nary a hitch as apparently the splitting of the stock had relieved some pressure.

It infuriated me that much I parted it out and hunted up another, after that experience I started bedding my rifles.

I have seen a couple of rifles other roo shooters had wrapped around their bullbar...which is much funnier when someone else does it.