So I have a Zeiss hd5 2-10x42 ready to go atop the 338 win mag I am having built right now for a Northern BC Horseback moose hunt I have in September this year. Knowing how tough horses can be, how remote we will be, and how much this hunt is costing, I was tossing around the idea of taking up a back up scope. I have a couple options I have tossed around, but it just seems to me less is more and I would love to not take up unnecessary items.

So here is thinking of Plan B. Sell the Zeiss, bite the bullet, and purchase a Nightforce 2.5-10X42 w/ illumination and IHR. I realize that all scopes can fail, but it seems the odds are FAR less on a top end nightforce product. The scope wouldn't really be bought with the idea of dialing and long range hunting, more of pure reliability and repeat ability with top notch glass that hedges my bets of not failing on this hunt. Thoughts? If the NF was like 1k-1200, I would have already pulled the trigger, but the model I want retails for $1950, so its a huge purchase and thus being not sure.

A backup scope is prudent for such a hunt. My own thinking would be to pair the Zeiss with a proven fixed 4x scope (Zeiss or Leupold), with both main and backup in quick release rings.
1) absolute confidence in reliability of backup
2) 4x is perfectly adequate magnification for the critters being pursued
3) light enough to stow easily in pack
4) not financially burdensome

FC

I think that's a great idea but I'd probably pair it with a 6X instead of 4X, but it's all about the same.

That's how I'd roll too.

I have not hunted on horseback so I'd be interested in hearing from folks with a scope like the NXS (knobs on both sides) in a scabbard (assuming scabbard).

Hiaring8, if you end up needing/wanting the NXS, drop me a line, I have the exact 42mm scope you're interested in and have considered selling it.

Not apples to apples,but you could do a SHV scope, have the confidence and within budget. I much prefer those scopes to my hd5s, but never had issues with either. My buddy is doing this same hunt in fall. He hunted with same outfitter a few years ago for a stone sheep,since "long range" guns and hunters have been showing up more frequently,the scabbards are much more accommodating. The good guides will put you on the most sure footed horse in the pack,but sh^t can still get damaged. He was more concerned with airline handling of rifle than anything the pack in on horseback dished out.

Go with NXS and forget about scope issues. I would skip the IHR and go mil dot or milR with mil turrets, even if you don't plan on dialing. They are significantly more useful reticles and give you options later on.

That's how I'd roll too.

I have not hunted on horseback so I'd be interested in hearing from folks with a scope like the NXS (knobs on both sides) in a scabbard (assuming scabbard).

Hiaring8, if you end up needing/wanting the NXS, drop me a line, I have the exact 42mm scope you're interested in and have considered selling it. [/quote]


Pm sent about the NF.

With the way horses like to wipe stuff off the pack, a backup is never a bad idea and space/weight penalty is nil. Run a pic rail, sight them both in and if you need it....you're going to be one shot from dialed.

I hunt a lot with horses. Capped turrets would be the best. Having said that,I primarily use a swfa 3x15 and it has big exposed turrets. The 3x9 would be a better bet. The turrets are smaller and stiffer to turnso you should avoid any accidental turning taking it in and out of the scabbard. Plus, that scope is solid dependable for holding and maintaining zero. Great glass too.

I may be interested in the hd5 if you decided to sell

The NF 3-10x42 SHV is a solid scope. Capped turrets, same glass as the NXS version, etc.

But if you are gonna be horse-hunting rugged stuff in the future too and you just want to be done with ever worrying your scope again, get the NXS and just put that worry to bed. The NXS series are the very definition of "proven". They are put through stuff every day all around the world that would make a wilderness horse hunt seem like a Sunday walk in the park.

My buddy had a horse fall on him and his rifle. He got off in time ,but his Swarovski Z3 was destroyed by the horse rocking back and forth trying to get it's footing. No scope would have been usable. If he had a back up he would have been fine.
I would vote a back up straight 4x and worry not.....

Ehhh.... I've used a MILSPEC NXS as a hammer to smash a scope before, and not only did it still work 100% correctly, it was still zeroed.



Here's another


Mounted and bore sighted.

5 shots-




Then this-




The same target with the 3 shots from the video-

Why would you use a scope as a hammer? What is the story behind that?

drover

Is that stick?

It was done to illustrate a point to a group of military guys when one of the rifles slid off a truck and would no longer hold a zero. The comment was made that "any scope would fail" from the same treatment. Not so, nor close.

I'm not saying that you should use any scope as a hammer, I am saying that's scopes are aiming devices and if they fail the rifles pretty useless at that point.

This is good advice. I've had much more trouble out of mounts than I have out of scopes themselves. Picatinny rails are as close to bombproof as you get and the return to zero is good. You can swap one scope for the other in 30 seconds.

My friends scabbard was not the most protective, when the horse got back on his feet, the Swarovski was missing the glass parts .....

Consider taking a boresighter such as Bushnell's to get the crosshairs of the replacement scope exactly where they were on the original scope.

A horse can do some spectacular things to one's rifle.
Shared camp in Colorado once in the Flattop wilderness with a hunter from Minnesota. His horse went apechit coming down a switchback and threw him off and decided to use his rifle as a back scratcher.
His Remington 742 woundamatic broke in two at the wrist and mangled the scope.
He started leading the horse down the mountain and the horse decided to take off down the switchback like a charging Cape Buffalo. Some poor hunter walking up the mountain had to bail off the switchback to keep from being run over.
The hunters rifle was damaged from diving out of the horses way. He wanted the horses owner to pay for the damages to his rifle. When the guy from Minnesota showed him his new two piece 742 the guy felt sorry for him and told him to forget it.

If you're worried about a train wreck, bring a second complete stick.

My 2-10 HD5 held up to a lot of testing on my 340 and then guided a single 250gr Gameking into a nice Yukon moose last fall.

Sounds like "horse" is the problem, not "scope".

Always carry a spare on a money hunt. A particularly tough scope can still get rolled on by a tougher horse or destroyed in a tumble. Have killed one on a hunt...and the brand would not have mattered at all.

I bring a LW 6x36 Leupold or a 3x20 in rings for a backup.

While you have the glass dialed in just shoot the horse then go hunting! No need for a backup

Buying the Nightforce would just mean a bigger ticket item for the aforementioned horse to target, if he was really inclined to destroy your optics, and then there would still be no backup.

Just use any scope as backup. A fixed 6 power would at least let your hunt continue. Save the money for your taxidermist.

How many that are commenting have actually used the small NF NXS? They are not even close to the same as a Swaro/Leupold/Zeiss/etc.

With that NXS in my experience, if the rifle is usable, the scope is usable. Using solid piccatinny rings/bases, there's a high possibility that it'll still be zeroed.

The scope in question has 3 knobs?


All capped?


How far out do they protrude?

My family has ranched here in Idaho since 1904. We've extensively horseback hunted that entire time. In ALL that time, the only horseback related failures have been broken stocks. I'd say 7 or 8 in 112 years. Curiously, two of those were mine...a POS Sako TRG-S that broke at the grip when the horse fell into a tree, and a M70 Supergrade that slipped out of the saddle and split like a $2 whore when it hit the trail.

As to the extra scope stuff.. I carried a Leupold 6x36 in a lined PVC tube as a backup throughout my career, which spanned 32 years on 5 continents, harvesting some 48 species. That scope, when I pulled it to put on a rifle for my kid after retiring and returning home was FUBAR...kind of funny when you thnk about it.

I've also had a trigger fail, and a firing pin seize up.

SO, in 32 years literally hunting the world on pack critters, boats and bakkies, one bad trigger, 2 broken stocks, and ONE bad scope, that was discovered at home after packing it for a quarter million air miles...:

I'd recommend a Nightforce scope, a McMillan stock, a Shilen trigger, a Murphy scabbard, HUNG PROPERLY, and quit fricken worrying about comets falling from the sky!!!

If you're still gonna worry, specifically related to horses and backcountry, I'd carry an extra f'ing stock and trigger rather than a scope...

But...WTF do I know, I'm not from Ohio Michigan, Texas, etc...

I'm also compelled to add, that my fondness for classic Sako actions was a source of amusement to my friend Alan Dat, who got me to admit, after siting his factual, eye witness accounts, that I've seen multiple accounts of scope/mounts sliding right off the Sako dovetails after trips on bakkes/boats/planes/copters...