well I figured on taking a break from bear hunting today and letting my kids do some shooting and maybe let them use my electronic call to try and get a coyote but everything went south in a hurry. I decided I wanted to tweak my 6" 475 a little, I posted the pics of the group it shot but I wanted to try and get it centered on the target better. I fired about 3 rounds and all was well and then the next two were flyers. I reloaded and on the second shot I got smacked by the scope, all 3 screws sheared and the Leupold hit me in the forehead and then hit the ground and chipped the ocular bell but the glass seems ok. I then went to my 410 GNR and again I started getting flyers and sure enough I had one busted screw the other two were loose. The only thing I had changed when I mounted the scopes was I used blue instead of red loctite and I used my Snap-On torque screw driver and torqued the screws to spec for a 6-48 screw, I had also gotten rid of the factory Weigand aluminum screws and replaced them Forster steel screws. After letting my kids shoot for a while we headed out and I decide to take a side road and we found a long steep 4x4 trail and of course the kids wanted to take it and me being a big kid with a big truck I couldn't resist, I made it to the top of the hill fine but realised the kids hadn't closed the tailgate so my target stands, ammo boxes and shooting box were on the side of mountain, I went to turn around on what had turned into and overgrown motorcycle trail and smacked a stump tearing off the front license plate and holder. We finally got everything together and got down the hill and headed out when my son said he thought he saw something down the side of the mountain but I wasn't in the mood and figured it was an overactive imagination. I got back down the main road and passed below where my son had thought he'd seen something about 500yds above and just then out busts a fair sized bear, I slammed on the brakes and jumped out with my last working gun, my Contender and the bear had vanished, I actually had good visibility except for this being a rain forest there were 4 and 5 foot tall ferns covering the forest floor. I installed new screws on the 410 with red loctite and tightened them by feel and I overdrilled the 475 to take a 8-40 screw on the front two holes and installed new hardware with lots of red loctite and got the scopes mounted again. Tomorrow I'll go to the parts house and get fasteners to put my license plate back on before I get a ticket and then go see if my scopes will hold this time. I just had to share my day with you guys, it is one I will not soon forget.

I wouldn't mind hanging out with you some day Rod, but I'll be honest with you. I'm glad today wasn't the day

You know what they say... A bad day hunting is better than a good day at work!

Thanks Vance buddy, and your right dertiedawg, the more time that goes by the more I can laugh about it but I wasn't laughing at the earlier today, especially when my almost brand new Leupold drilled me between the eyes.

I wonder how long your kids will remember this day. Memories!!!!! As far as I am concerned, that is what it is all about.

Ps, can you send me some steal screws for my Weigand mount? LOL

Just a thought, sometimes when you put anything on the threads it will allow the screw to be over torqued. The loctite may have acted as a lubricant and fooled the torque wrench. Seems like I had heard that somewhere, but I could be wrong.

i feel for you rod but i have been there to and i know the feeling sorry you had a awful day.
larry

That sounds like a rough day! Its going to make it that much sweeter when you do get your bear. You were lucky those failures happened at the range rather than when you're taking a shot at that 400lb bear.

Rod,
I think the government gives out a medal for the kind of day you wrote about. If they don`t...they should because you surely deserve it......

you are right, before I got hurt I was an automotive tech for 22yrs and on critical fasteners the manuals would state whether to put them in dry or oiled but I didn't even think about it on this application. I may switch to the loctite stick and back off a couple inch pounds next time. Thanks for the thought, I should have remembered my basics but I didn't and it may be why I got bit.

Had someone at the camp one day pulled up with new gun. Started sighting in and nothing but problems. Finally took the scope off and seen he wiped the barrel down with oil befor mounting the scope rings. We guss the oil got into the holes and the loctite didnt bond well that way. Any way evrything was fixed and got it 0 in. Well when he left headed back to the camp we thought his tail gate was down. We tried to stop him but kept on gone.Well he didn't stop at the camp and headed home. He came back 4 hrs. latter asking if we seen his gun case.We all just coundn't say anything. Poor man lost his new gun. Someone found somthing very nice. BAR 30-06 NICKON SCOPE W/4 BOXES OF SHELL AND NICE CASE. So don't feel bad you got your stuff back he never did. This happened in 1989.

dont feel alone Rod, these kinds of things happen to me a few times a season when Im really getting "fever" for whatever Im going after. Ive been predator calling alot the last couple weeks and screwed up on 3 coyotes I could of had in less than 2 days time, I havent seen 1 since and that was about 3 weeks ago. Frustrating for me, but at the same time Im glad Im seeing all these small problems arise and taking care of them now instead of a few weeks from now when deer and bear season opens.

Rod, I'm not laughing at you I'm laughing with you. We all have days where we should have just stop what we were doing and gone home and back to bed. But we don't and the day just snowballs into something like the day you had. "Just one of those days"
sorry buddy!