After having sighted in and practiced regulary with the iron sights on my Ruger RSM in 375 H&H, I'm ready to install a scope. I have a Leupold 1.75-6Ex32mm that I will mount with the Warne medium QD rings designed for this rifle. The size of this scope leaves no adjustment for moving the scope fore or aft, and the rings go right up to the base of the objective lens bell and and power selector ring.

What are the do's and don'ts of mounting a scope? Do you use a particular screw tightening sequence? How tight is tight enough? Do you "lock tight" the screws on the rings? Can a gunsmith really do a better job than a John Doe?

Here are a few tricks that have worked well for me.
1) since you can not adjust the ocular distance by sliding the scope forward or backward you will just have to adjust your shooting position to the scope or make adjustments with the bases (extended bases). Not ideal or cost efective by any measure.

2) You can locktite or epoxy the bases to the gun. Glueing the ring screws and the scope to the bottom ring halves is unnecessary in almost all cases and permanently marks the scope.

3) To make sure that the verticle crosshair is not canted with respect to the bore, aim at a mirror and turn the scope in the rings untill the verticle crosshair bisects the muzzle. This will insure that your verticle adjustments will be 100% verticle and your horizontal adjustments 100% horizontal(asuming that you are not canting the whole system)

4) Tighten the ring screws evenly and leave space between ring halves all the way around. Ring halves should not touch. How much to tighten the screws is hard to describe without a torque wrench, but as a guide, finger tighten only. Dont crank on them with anything that gives you more than 1 inch of lever. It is far more comon to overtighten than to leave too loose. If they are too loose you can always retighten but if you overtighten you can damage the scope.

There are many finer details, and yes, a competent gunsmith really can do a better job and has the tools to do it. But it's more fun to do it oneself.

JohnAir,

You make some good points. Your tip regarding the vertical crosshair was most interesting. Thanks for the help.