M118LR
member
Out of curiosity, how many times have you taken off a scope to use iron sights on a hunting rifle on a scope made in the last 10-15 years? I haven’t had one die, but I’m also not dropping my rifle down mountains. Maybe from a blind to the ground or from my shoulder to the ground if I’d trip/fall though that luckily isn’t common.
When originally testing scopes on the range for the Mini-30 I had two well known & trusted brands fail catastrophically. (Nikon & Leupold) Both times I had to remove the scope and move back to the 50 yard line to continue the range session with the standard iron sights. The goal of extended range time is to prevent catastrophic failures afield. This happened within the last 6 years. I own S&B's, Premier's, Steiner's, Leupold's, Weaver's, Nikon, and I've been issued others by Uncle Sam. Any day rifle scope made by man can, have, and will fail. It's "Murphy's Law" that if something is going to fail- it will fail when it's least convenient.
How often have you broke a BIC lighter afield? But if it's cold enough, even a fully functional BIC won't light. Now a Bic & a Zippo take up allot less space & weight than all the parts or a secondary rifle. But Varminterror is correct, I could probably get a machine shop to mill the slots & a smith to install irons, on just about any rifle I purchase. It's just a shame that Commercial Manufacturers have discarded the wishes of customers wanting such features.
I'm not sold on the semi-auto mag feed function on a bolt action carbine, so the Ruger Hawkeye is probably closer to my taste. But I probably won't ever get elected into the Ruger Fan Club even though I've used the Mini-30 for several seasons hunting. Guess if I wanted to throw money at the problem until it was solved I could purchase a Winchester Ultralight, have the barrel reduced to 16 inches and threaded for an AAC Brakeout, then have it milled and send it to a smith for a set of sights.
How about a Remington Model Seven Laminate (85963)? https://www.remington.com/rifles/bolt-action/model-seven/model-seven-laminate
The Model 7 Laminate is a serious contender. Not sure threading for an AAC Brakeout is going to happen with the stock front sight, and Stocky's has quite a selection of aramid fiber stocks for the Model 7. But the Mini-30 Tactical has proven that it's easier for me to shoot from many field positions with it's 16 inch barrel than even the 18 inch barrel on the Lever Action 30-30 it supplanted.
About the only thing that I'm positive of: I'll be bolting the Weaver Scope to whichever rifle with the lowest DNZ Game Reaper Mount possible.