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| Member |
Damn it. Wondered what the heck was up with my rifle (or my shooting!) today, and it turns out my Aero Precision Ultralight 30mm scope mount was loose, causing my beautiful Trijicon Accupoint 1-4x to group all over, regardless of my adjustments. Specifically, it was having trouble maintaining left-to-right zero, with only a very small (maybe .5 MOA?) vertical drift. First three rounds nearly in the same hole at 50 yards (.223), then some rapid fire stuff to warm up the gun, then zoom out to 4x and sit back down at the bench to check the group...what the heck? Adjust, adjust, get close to back to normal, check the tightness of the scope mount...nothing odd....shoot more groups, adjust zero....get things back to "normal". Then, as I'm putting the scope caps back on, I swear I feel the scope shift in the mount. Sure enough....some CLP (or oil of some sort) was underneath the scope mounts and the scope had wiggled itself right out of zero. SUCKS! This is the first scope I've ever owned/mounted/zeroed, and clearly I didn't tighten the mount down correctly, though the mount-to-upper seems to be solid...just the "rings" didn't get tightened correctly, apparently. Any recommendations as to proper mounting, torque specs, etc.? This need not happen again...thanks in advance. ________________ tempus edax rerum | ||
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| Sigless in Indiana  |
Warne sells torque wrenches set to the specifications of their rings and bases. Not sure if their torque specs align with Aero, but torque is important. You should always degrease as well if there is packing oil on the screws/threads in a new mount. I have used very small amounts of the weak blue loctite to ensure things stay snug. | |||
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| Member |
Yeah, you have not lived until you see your scope sliding off the rifle during a competition. Don't you dare ask me how I know that. At any rate, after a long car ride or anytime I feel like it, I check the screws that hold the rings to the rifle. I set my torque screwdriver to 50 inch pounds for those screws, but check for the recommendation from the manufacturer. I check the screws to the rings that hold the riflescope with the same torque screwdriver set at 25 inch pounds. You definitely want to check the manufacturer's recommendation here but it will be much less than what is needed to secure the rings to the rifle. Some people use removable Loctite for those screws, blue I think, but I prefer to just check at intervals. | |||
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E Pluribus Unum |
Badger recommends no more than 12 INCH pounds for ring torque. And, as you've learned, be sure to thoroughly degrease both the scope tub as well as the inside surfaces of the rings. | |||
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| Middle children of history  |
Aero recommends 15 in-lbs for their mount. They don't specify if that's for the rings or the base, but they are all the same screw size (if I remember right), so that is what I used for mine on all of the screws and it has worked fine. https://aeroprecisionusa.com/u...0mm-scope-mount.html I use this torque wrench for all of my scope mounting and it has worked perfectly. https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...ilpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I also use isopropyl alcohol to degrease and then a blast of canned air to remove dust/lint on both the rings and scope body before tightening them down. | |||
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| Member |
Ghaaaaah, sad day when I'm more satisfied with my Glock shooting than my sweet new AR. I'll give the scope a good isopropyl wipe-down and then use a torque wrench tonight, and hit the range next week to re-zero. Should be good. Thanks all. Appreciate it. And I'll add that Wheeler torque wrench to my Amazon cart. Is there ever a point in life where you stop making mistakes? Gotta be an easier way to learn. ________________ tempus edax rerum | |||
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| E Pluribus Unum |
As long as we DO continue to learn from them  . Sometimes learning this way is fun. At least we're doing for ourselves.  | |||
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| Member |
So you're saying there IS hope.  ________________ tempus edax rerum | |||
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Lost |
Loctite makes a special "cylinder retention compound" that works perfectly for things like securing scope bodies inside scope rings. The product number is 620. I supply a tube of it with every Accu-strut. A drop inside each scope ring (not on the screws) is all you need. Heck, I'll even send you a free tube if you want to try it out. | |||
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| Member |
That's very sweet of you. Thanks! However, would't just tightening down the screws on the rings and then using Loctite on the screws be good enough? Or is there a benefit to putting the retention compound on the rings/tube? ________________ tempus edax rerum | |||
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| Freethinker |
I wasn’t aware of the product, so checked Brownells’ listing. They say it’s for permanent securing; I don’t believe I’d like any scope to be permanently secured to the rings. Do I misunderstand something? ► 6.4/93.6 “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato | |||
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| Lost |
It's not really permanent. If you physically break the ring halves apart, you can remove the scope from its mounting. (It's truly permanent in other types of application, where you can't separate away the outer housing.) | |||
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| Lost |
If you're still seeing slippage, then by definition you need more security. You could tighten the scope ring screws more, but then might risk damaging the scope body. A retention compound on the mating surfaces increases hold geometrically, without any extra risk to the scope. | |||
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| Freethinker |
The retention compound I’ve heard of and used a time or two myself is powdered rosin. With the recoil produced by a 223 rifle, though, a properly sized scope and properly tightened rings and mount shouldn’t require anything like that. I consider torque wrenches to be one of the modern marvels of amateur gunsmithing, and highly recommend owning one (or three, or …). Having recommended torque values for things like mounting scopes is something that crept up on us gradually, so I don’t know exactly when it began, but I do remember the dark days long ago when the guidance was, “Make sure they’re tight, but don’t strip or break anything.” Some manufacturers still don’t include torque values in their instructions, but they will often respond to a request for the information. ► 6.4/93.6 “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” — Plato | |||
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