I have a Near Manufacturing (www.nearmfg.com) scope base on my rifle. It is a single-piece affair with 25 moa elevation. I can't get my scope to adjust to use the crosshair at any range closer than about 1,000 yards. At 600 yards and with my elevation turret screwed down almost to the bottom, I have to use the first mil-dot up from the cross to hit the gong. I was told I have to shim the base. How do I do that with such a stiff piece of steel? And will not shimming create stress in the screws (which I Loc-tited down) or in the base itself. Will shimming not cause stress and flex in the barrel of the scope? I want answers! I can handle the truth!

Since it's a single piece mount you should be able to shim it without causing stress to the tube; I would suggest you to post on "Gunsmithing" to get better info

Northwest Italy? Where, exactly? I spent my growing-up years in Tirrenia, south of Pisa. My dad was attached to Camp Darby. What great days those were in the early 1970s in Tuscany. We left for good on August 1, 1976. Hard to believe it's been 32 years...

Bordighera, on the ligurian riviera, 12 km east of Montecarlo.

The obvious answer is to change bases, for less than $20 you can put a Weaver base(s) on your rifle and be done with it.

Use the shims under the base, between it and the receiver, and you should be ok.
If you shim the rings, you can end up with the front and rear ring being out of alignment, and you'll bend the scope tube.

Don

You can use Burris Signature Rings with the plastic inserts and simply put a +10 in the bottom of the front and a -10 in the bottom of the rear and this will correct 20 moa out of your bases. I think I got that right! Then if you decide to shoot long range you can just switch the inserts and you are back where you started. Louis

The 20-25MOA bases were designed for 1000yd shooting because 1" scopes only have about 40 min of elevation built into them, 20 up and 20 down from the optic center, also the same for windage. Now if you use a lot of windage on your scope when you sight it in, you do-not have as much elevation. To put the scope on it's optic center take it off the rifle, place it in V block's ( use a piece of paper to protect the scope) and while looking through it rotate it and adjust the retical so it stays on what you are looking at. Now when you put it back on the rifle get it to hit as close to where you are aiming windage wise, now adjust for elevation. As to shiming, the shims go between the rifle and scope base and will not put a stress on your scope. Lets say your base screws are 6" apart and you are shootin 100yds, 3600"/6" = 600. This means that for every .001" that you put under the front of the base it will bring the point of impact down .600" If you put it under the rear it will move the point of impact up .600"