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I will end up buying my own boresight tools I can see it now. I have been to 4 shops and they all look at me like I have a 3rd on in my forehead when I ask about mounting and boresighting a scope. Anyone else have more luck? Ill just give in and buy one myself but there is a real art to mounting a scope, you need about 200 ft lbs on the scope rings to do it right and I need new tools anyway...my wife is going to kill me.
 
I have been mounting my own scopes for years, no big trick to it. get it mounted up, set a target at 25 yds and let fly. I had a scope mounted and bore sighted one time, took the rifle out to shoot and couldnt hit a half sheet of plywood at a hundred yards. kinda soured me on the whole boresight thing.
 
200 ft pounds? Uh no. Even attempting 200 inch pounds will most likely destroy your scope and rings.
Get yourself a nice kit with an inch lb torque wrench and a scope level. It's quite easy to mount scopes. And you can bore sight close enough by looking down the bore and setting the scope to match what you see through the bore.
 
Went in to an old geezer who use to do the mounting and bore siting routine and he told me that the rings when mounted to the rifle should use 185 to 200 ft lbs of torque to make sure the scope is dead stable, not the scope itself just the rings where mounted to the actual rifle.
 
Are you talking about the ring bases? (Foot pounds for your car lug nuts are around 110 ft/lbs.) Base screws are generally set with blue loctite also.

General ring and base screw specs from Leupold: base screws 14 in/lbs, ring screws, 15-17 in/lbs, and 45 in/lbs on the windage screw.
 
there is only one thing on a gun that would even come close to taking 185-200 ft. lbs. of torque, that is where the barrel screws into the action. jbett98 numbers look good.
 
This reminds me of an old manual I had for attaching two pieces of equipment together. It said 1000. ft/lbs. When it was supposed to say 10.00 ft/lbs. Funny all of the phone calls I got about people spinning screws through the equipment.
 
My Torque wrench used to do auto work only goes to 150ft lbs. it is almost 2ft long and it takes everything I have with that much leverage to get a head bolt to 150ftlbs. Those are 1/2" diameter Grade 8 studs.

The tiny 6-40 6-48 sized screws used to hold a scope base to a receiever would snap in two at around 10ftlbs. About the same torque would crush the tube on any scope I have seen over the last 40 years.

Your OLD Geezer is full of Bull exit.
 
I don't think you have a real good feel for what 200 foot-lbs actually is.

That's a force of 200 lbs with a lever arm of 1 ft.

So, put your rifle high up on a sturdy shelf, put a wrench with about a 1 ft handle on the bolt, with the handle parallel to the floor, then hang from the handle. That will be about 200 ft lbs.
 
If you want to learn a ton of stuff on scope mounting, go to the Sniper's Hide forum. Personally, I mount all my own scopes. I only use Warne rings and have a Warne torque driver. Depending on the ring manufacturers instructions (most good rings come with them or they have info on their web-site) the base screws are usually torqued to anywhere from 25 to 40 inch/pds. and the ring screws usually around 20. I am running a few Vortex scopes and they have a very good tutorial (web-site) on how to mount your optic. My preferred technique is to mount the bases and then lay the scope in the rings and tighten just enough to hold the scope but still allow it to move, then take outside where i have a plumb string line hanging from a tree about 30 yds. away. Set weapon on a table and either having the rifle on a bipod or a gun vise, level the rifle port to starboard by setting a small level on the action then place the level on the top scope turret and do the same. then sight through the scope and get the x-axis of the reticle aligned with the plumb line. Check everything again and torque your ring screws, alternating from fore and aft and side to side. you can also use a set of feeler guages to check the spacing of the ring tops and bottoms unlesss they are top split rings like I prefer. the most important thing is to get the x-axis of the reticle plumb with the action! Hope this helps.
 
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I don't think you have a real good feel for what 200 foot-lbs actually is.

That's a force of 200 lbs with a lever arm of 1 ft.

So, put your rifle high up on a sturdy shelf, put a wrench with about a 1 ft handle on the bolt, with the handle parallel to the floor, then hang from the handle. That will be about 200 ft lbs.

Considering I'm six foot five 290 pounds it might be more with me hanging on it....
 
I mount and bore sight with and without a bore sighter. I have also, because I didn't have time or want to took a couple of rifle to my LGS. 10 bucks and both only needed slight adjustments to work for me.
Bore sighting is a skill everyone should have. I am continually amazed at how many people, of all all ages do not know anything about sighting a scope.
 

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