Someone - and no one has owned up to it - had dropped the rifle bad enough to actually bend the scope tube just in front of the front ring - as I found out when I got the rifle home! It wasn't a gear malfunction as such, just bad treatment! As you say, Hannah pulled off 2 great shots, following through like a pro. Both her shots went in exactly the same place - low and left, and when I tested the rifle on a rock at the same distance straight afterwards, that's exactly where it hit. The rifle had just been on the trip with Luke where he shot the 12 pointer and carried it out in the latest issue of the mag, then straight in to our trip, where Scotty carried it on his pack for 6 days before the shots. The rifle also fell sideways on the bipod when I was setting it up just before Hannah fired her 1st shot, but that certainly wasn't enough to bend the tube.
So really bad luck for Hannah, and we seriously owe her a good wild country stag in the follow up episode we'll film this year!
Bookmarks