Rubberized scope breakdown

[LiftAndShoot]

Hey guys -

So, a long time ago I bought a decent little rifle; Remington 300 .308 bolt gun - a nice little shooter. Well, it came with a BSA Cat'seye scope on it. Not the fanciest of optics, nor did it really hold a candle to my Monarch, but it got the job done and I left it. I was doing a safe cleanout/organize this weekend and taking the glass off all my 'minimal use' guns and something weird happened. I put my hand on the scope to stabilize it while I unscrewed it from the mounts and my hand was...sticky. It felt like I put my hand in pine tar. It came off really tacky and black in some places. I figured I got something on the scope, so I took some light dish soap to it - did not work. I set it out/away from my other scopes and hit the Goog for some answers.

I ran into a couple of other posts around the interwebs where guys had the same issue after storing their BSA scopes, which kind of sucks. One guy said alcohol and paper towels solved the problem, but I don't want this to happen again should I decide to keep the optic. My thought was, 'ha, duracoat this badboy!' But, I read that you should never duracoat something rubberized?

So, two questions - one, has anyone ever had this issue with a scope? (Maybe it got to hot or something?) and two - anyone know of a good way to circumvent this issue in the future?

-LaS.

[kcnatural]

I won't be much help for you on prevention in the future. I had a pair of Leupold binoculars do the same thing while in the case. I didn't think I was going to get them out but I finally did. It was like black tar and would get all over everything. I used acetone and a rag and removed the coating.

[cajuntec]

As kcnatural pointed out - Acetone and a rag is the way to go. The coating gets removed completely. It ain't easy, but it does work.

There is nothing you can do to save the coating once it's in that condition. I've gone through this with a rangefinder and a car accessory (hands free adapter called a "Parrot"). Both had that "nice" rubber coating on it (initially). Both turned into sticky goo over the years. I'll never own anything with that rubberized coating again.

All the best,
Glenn