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Gear fails we could all learn from

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Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Lonnie » 04 19, 2018 •  [Post 1]

What would you say is your biggest gear fail and tell us what you would do next time to make it better.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Lonnie » 04 19, 2018 •  [Post 2]

My gear fail is spending too much money on crap. Lol. Not having good gloves. I think it is hard to find a good gloves that will stay dry and keep your hands warm. I did start packing two pairs of gloves. I switch them out when they are wet and not keeping my hands warm.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Beendare » 04 19, 2018 •  [Post 3]

We had one on my buddies truck a few years ago. He had just bought new tires and put them on his kids stock rims. The valve stems were something like $60 ea...so he passed on replacing them. Well you know what happens next.....

We were plagued by flats the entire trip.....on 3 of the wheels.
_______

The only other catastrophic failure I can think of mine that wasn't Onieda bow related....was my Cabelas Alaskan tent with the fiberglass poles. We had 90 mph winds on a high country early season deer hunt on Kodiak one year- the worst winds I've ever been in. It caved the tent in one night snapping 3 poles...pounding rain too......a pretty miserable night trying to keep that tent from a total fail.
____________

My one buddy had 2 total fails on a water buff bow hunt in Australia. 3 of us were shooting 80# compounds and 800gr plus arrows and had quick kills with total pass throughs [on a 2,000# animal! ] Well my one buddy was shooting a 65#-70# recurve with 560gr arrows. He wounded a bull with the arrow not even making it into the chest cavity past those heavy ribs. When searching for the wounded bus it charged our assistant guide in the brush and damn near killed him. Lucky for the guide [yeah, right- lucky] the bull was slamming him into resilient brush.. busted him up pretty good broken bones and such...at least he survived which he wouldn't have on open ground.

That bow/arrow he was shooting might as well have been a slingshot.
“It takes no more time to see the good side of life.... than to see the bad.”
― Jimmy Buffett

"Everybody has a plan....until they get punched in the mouth" Mike Tyson




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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby saddlesore » 04 19, 2018 •  [Post 4]

Couple years ago,I bought a used 3 horse slant trailer.Tires looked good as far as tread went,but I forgot to look at the mfgr date..Turns out they were 15+ years old and had sat in the AZ sun most of that time.

Fully loaded,running about 16,00 pounds with truck,camper, trailer two mule, gear, and an elk in back. I blew a tire on the trailer after coming down off an11,00 foot pass.Sooner and I would have gone over the edge. As it was, I barely got every stopped before real bad things happened.

I dug out the spare and got it changed,but looked at another tire and the steel belts were showing . It too had thrown it's tread ,but was still pumped up. I limped into the next town about ten miles away. It was a Saturday and all tire shops were closed. I found a guy that had a diesel repair shop and he pulled a new tire he had just put on his trailer and put it on my rim.

I'm pretty careful about my hunting gear and tack,but I sure screwed up that time.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Indian Summer » 04 20, 2018 •  [Post 5]

Ever try sucking water through a frozen Camelback tube? Ever feel your butt getting wet which means the bottom of your pack is a swimming pool and your outer layers are saturated and you are completely out of water before the sun comes up? No more bladders for me!!! Nalgene bottles never fail.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Lefty » 04 20, 2018 •  [Post 6]

My range finder failed it gave a false reading Using my furthest pin the arrow barely sailed over the young bulls back.
I was a bit fired up, called the company. Reset the rangefinder...
I didnt want to pack that small bull that far out anyway 8-)

Do not purchase your range finder batteries from the high elevation small town sporting goods gas station
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Brendan » 04 20, 2018 •  [Post 7]

A 1 year old Hoyt completely exploded on me, fortunately on the range, no injuries, and fortunately they took care of it 100%. Very rare failure - but it happens. Make sure you have a backup weapon, release, etc in the truck - or your hunt could be over.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby saddlesore » 04 20, 2018 •  [Post 8]

Those MSR Whisperlight Stoves that soot up and you have to tear them all apart to work again if you don't shut them down just so.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby CurlyTail » 04 30, 2018 •  [Post 9]

Indian Summer wrote:Ever try sucking water through a frozen Camelback tube? Ever feel your butt getting wet which means the bottom of your pack is a swimming pool and your outer layers are saturated and you are completely out of water before the sun comes up? No more bladders for me!!! Nalgene bottles never fail.


Amen. Hate water bladders - hard to share, hard to clean, prone to freezing, hard to refill. I am looking for way to attach a Nalgene bottle to my Exo pack that is easier to get to and more secure than the outside stretch pocket.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby CurlyTail » 04 30, 2018 •  [Post 10]

I had a battery compartment on my Nikon range finder open up and the battery fell out. Got a new lid from Nikon after the hunt but was out of luck for that week.

Have also had my LED Headlamp accidentally turn on in the pack and discharge the batteries.. Always carry two now.

Had the fuel pump fail in our Jet Boat last summer out in the wilderness of Northern Saskatchewan. Engine would not start and we were 5 sets of rapids and 15 miles from our cabin and over 100 miles from the nearest Indian village. Thats a bad feeling. Thank god for global cell phones. New fuel pump was 300 bucks, and you can bet we now carry two at all times.

My biggest enemy is myself - I have left a set of hiking poles, a couple of Bugle tubes, and multiple other calls lying on the ground after a setup or rest break. I now try to avoid little things in camo, or put some red electrical tape on things I think I might try to forget.
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Beendare » 05 01, 2018 •  [Post 11]

Thinking more on this topic;

I had a potentially deadly one many years ago....lucky I'm still here to tell it. Probably 30 yrs ago I was driving my F250 up over Sonora pass in Ca on my way to a solo backpack deer hunt on the eastern side of the Sierras. I had just had my brakes done....turned the rotors [do they even do that anymore?] and new fluid. Well I was going pretty hard down the back side with all of the sharp switchback turns and using a lot more brake than I normally would-

Hey, it was after midnight and I wanted to get some sleep and an early start. Well I lost my brakes 1/2 way down. Not much worse than losing your brakes on a steep curvy downhill. I swear I was on 2 wheels on some of those turns. Once I could nurse the emergency brake enough to force a downshift into low.....I could breath a sigh of relief. I pulled over and not only could smell my brakes I could hear the fluid boiling- crazy.

Oh man was I ticked off when I found out the brake shop used the wrong fluid that couldn't take the heat of those Ford trucks.Those old Fords need ultra high temp brake fluid vs the regular stuff. Those guys almost killed me.
“It takes no more time to see the good side of life.... than to see the bad.”
― Jimmy Buffett

"Everybody has a plan....until they get punched in the mouth" Mike Tyson




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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Beendare » 05 01, 2018 •  [Post 12]

My advice; Stay away from the Cabelas Alaskan tents with the fiberglass poles.

Its not the poles themselves that fail...but the cheap metal couplings.

My buddy Chuck and I got dropped off in the Kodiak high country many years ago in mid August. I had a new 6 man Alaskan tent. Well we got 90 mph wind gusts the one night and though we pitched it in partially sheltered location...the wind pulled a couple stakes on the one side and snapped a couple poles when it concaved in. Of course it was 2 am ....and pouring down buckets of rain.

We duct taped what we could....heck you literally couldn't stand outside it was blowing so hard. We ended up angling our cots wedging them into the blown out side...and got a little bit of sleep that night at a 45 deg angle. We fashioned some alder boughs that were actually stronger than the poles and finished the hunt with no more problems shooting 7 really good deer on that trip. [you used to be able to get as many as 5 tags as I recall...but we didn't want to be game hogs- [yeah, right] /grin
“It takes no more time to see the good side of life.... than to see the bad.”
― Jimmy Buffett

"Everybody has a plan....until they get punched in the mouth" Mike Tyson




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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Tigger » 05 02, 2018 •  [Post 13]

90 mph winds? There isn't a tent made that can withstand that wind! Sounds like it did pretty good to do as good as it did. That doesn't scare me off Cabelas tents at all!
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Re: Gear fails we could all learn from

Postby Fridaythe13th » 05 03, 2018 •  [Post 14]

HERE'S 1 THAT WELL SAVE LIVES of elk. Last year Colorado muzzleloader day 2 10 am called in a 280-300 " bull 30 yards broadside not a twig in the way, I pulled the trigger and my gun made the awful sound and smoke everywhere the bull jumped and walk 5 yards and stood there long enough to put another primer in and shoot again this time the primer just went pop. Bull gone forever. I texted our group and told them to change powder. A little later I got a text back with a pile of mud next to a power belt. The kicker is it did not rain in those 2 days.
Change powder every day or it saves elk lives
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