Failed Gear of 2012

The failed, yet accurate, Leupold rifle scope.

Long-time readers know that I'm hard on my equipment. I hunt and fish constantly and I put a lot of my gear in the hands of total beginners who do terrible things to it as they learn how to use it properly. You'll see all sorts of lists of the best hunting and fishing equipment every year, but I guarantee that this is the only run-down you'll find of the stuff that broke down on the job.

1. Butler Creek scope caps. These flip-up caps are intended to protect the lenses of your rifle scope in order to prevent them from becoming scratched or dusty. They cost around $30 for a set. I had a pair of them protecting the Leupold scope mounted on my Remington Model 700 .30-'06 rifle. First the plastic hinge on one tore halfway off. Then the metal pin in the hinge of the other one twisted and came out. I'm not alone in this experience -- my colleague, gunsmith and traditional blacksmith Paul Fritz had the same thing happen within weeks of buying his own set. In both cases, the damage happened in cold weather. I wonder if perhaps the plastic become more brittle at low temperatures.

2. The Leupold Vari-X II scope that those scope caps were mounted on. Leupold still makes great glass and is at the top of their craft -- lets clear that up right away. But the scope will no longer adjust to varying levels of magnification. It seems to have gotten stuck on about 5X, which I can live with. When I turn the dial, nothing happens. Light transmission around dusk is still great and the scope is dead accurate. The only reason I haven't pulled it off and tried to figure out how to get warantee work done (not that I even have the paperwork around) is that it still shoots so accurately that I don't want to mess with it. Still, it would be nice to be able to change the magnification again.

3. My Marlin model 925 bolt action .22 rifle finally bit the dust. This after firing about 11,000 rounds in the last 6 or 7 years. It was the trigger assembly that finally failed. I cleaned it and worked it over several times and got her going briefly, but then it stopped working again. I tried to order a new trigger assembly from Marlin today but there seems to be some horrible mess with their inventory control system and they weren't able to provide me with the part. Since I have students to teach and articles to write, I need a working bolt action .22 right away. So I went out and bought a new rifle today.

Sorry, Marlin. My next few hundred students will be shaking hands with a different brand when they shoot a rifle for the first time. You probably should have sold me that trigger...

4. Every damn bag of snap swivels I've bought for fishing all year. All of a sudden I'm having swivels fail on me. Different brands, though mostly its been Eagle Claw snap swivels that have broken. I never had this happen to me until this past season. Did I have a string of shockingly bad luck, or is there something fishy going on with metallurgy lately?

5. Remington's 'Golden Bullet' .22 LR ammunition. The stuff works well enough for practice and plinking. Reasonably accurate. However, I had about 15 duds in a box of 525 cartridges. More troubling, I pulled a number of bullets out of squirrels during butchering and found that the bullet hadn't opened up or done much of anything. In fact, you could almost have reloaded it and fired it again. Not what you expect in a hollow point bullet on small game.