What position should the levers be to be considered closed? Finger tight gets them at about 12 o'clock. I had two distinct groups out of my 9.3x62 so I tapped them to nine o'clock with a wood dowel. I figured "hoped" they would be built with a near positive stop in the closed position. It only took light taps.

Finger tight is fine. They will return to w/in 1" MOA and that isn't a problem either. I have them on most of my rifles, including large bore safari rifles and never had an issue.

I have always installed mine finger tight. With some shooting they seem to tighten from the recoil and I often times I have to tap them off.

Several years ago I tapped mine to move them farther to the horizontal position. The lever broke off without much impact. It gave me the impression the levers are brittle, as if a casting. The same happened to the lever on our Zim ph's identical mount.

My approach now is a liberal coat of oil or Break Free and finger tighten the levers. This gets them to 10:30 and snug. They then are loosened using pliars padded with a double thickness cloth as recoil tightens the levers beyond finger loosening .