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I'm coming in late but this thread was just brought to my attention. In my opinion, rosin and Loctite is a good idea regardless of how much you spent on your rings and mounts, especially if they are made from anodized aluminum. The reason for this is that there are competing effects at work. In order to keep the scope from slipping through the rings, a high clamping force (high torque on screws) is desired. However, applying large clamping forces to the relatively thin wall of a $3500 aluminum scope tube seems like a really bad idea, an it is. I recently had a customer call me who literally deformed a Steiner tube to the extent that the internal mechanism were rendered immobile. Thankfully, he didn't do this with my rings.
Anodized aluminum surfaces are slippery. If scope mounting is your objective, this can and often does cause problems. However, light-weight, relatively high strength, and corrosion resistance are pros that out-weight the con of low friction which is why manufactures of scopes and rings (me included) choose to use aluminum with an anodized finish. I tell my customers that ideally, they should apply just enough torque to the screws to hold the scope in place against recoil. If they can use rosin or Loctite to reduce the torque necessary to secure the scope, then by all means, they should do it.
When a scope tube is clamped in a set of rings, the tube is elastically deformed in a non-uniform way which causes the scope to bend. I am not aware of any rings or mounts that do not do this to the scope, including my own. Minimizing this effect seems prudent to me but, I've discussed this with scope manufactures and they didn't seem to bothered by it. Nevertheless, when confronted by issues such as this, I ask, "What good can come from greatly exceeding the clamping forces necessary secure the scope against recoil?" I'm still waiting for an answer.
I limit the force that can be applied to the scope by choosing a screw that will fail before damage can be done to the scope. The screw acts as a fuse and typically breaks around 70 in-pounds but that varies from screw to screw. Under normal conditions, 50 in-lbs seems to adequately secure the scope against recoil. 50 in-lbs may seem high when other manufacturers recommend 15 to 20, but that is because my rings use a single 5mm screw to clamp the scope. 50 in-lbs applied to a single 5mm screw will impart a tensile force close to that which two smaller screws will apply when torqued to 15-20 in-lbs. If you experience the scope slipping through the rings, you can safely apply more toque but introducing a sticky substance is the smarter thing to do.
I hope this helps. Thanks guys.
BREAK BREAK... Been following this thread for some time now. Nothing more is going to be constructive so if there was a good time to highjack now is it. If you for some reason feel inclined to move your SPUHR mount. PM ME first please. Looking for 34mm 20 MOA model 4616
And Randy thanks for fielding my call the other day. I have an order coming soon for you!
You are right; a liitle late response for the original poster but still a relevant question and Spuhr mounts are still being made and sold today. Lots of responses to a “yes” or “no” answer but I did not see the yes or no response. The answer was provided in Jan of 2022 by threadcutter308 when he said “no”. And that is the answer, “no” don’t lap Spuhr scope rings. Better late than never?
I suspect you are limiting your response to the thread. Search the TOPIC “Spuhr” and various threads come up. The most succinct and cut through the chase response came from threadcutter308 in January of 2022.
Not to worry, the penalties for not “doing a search first” are even worst…We call this the Hide Kobayashi Maru.I choose death by responding to old posts and watch the 2%’ers getting their panties all knotted up.
Out of curiosity… did you use rosin or loctite on the rings that cracked? I have mounted three and the fit is so good I can’t imagine loctite or rosin adding any value.I'm not sure about lapping but some of them definitely should have had this applied before installation.
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It’s the clamping bar that cracksOut of curiosity… did you use rosin or loctite on the rings that cracked? I have mounted three and the fit is so good I can’t imagine loctite or rosin adding any value.