In the words of the ancient philosopher Borat:
“It is great success.”
40 rounds, witness marks on the scope tube stayed true.
For those not into 12 pages of posts novels, here’s my assessment:
Leupold’s - probably fine, just the wrong part. I still can’t get the website to show which is 6 vs 9 lug, but I clicked “buy” and paid the money. I own it.
The Talley’s finally held. Most recent round of failure I’m positive was because they weren’t tight enough. I ditched the torque wrench and used the included torx elbow wrench. Last night, I set the torque wrench low and incrementally increased it until it would back the screws out. My rough guess is that hand tightening put them in the mid teens. I busted the torque wrench out, put 25-ish on them, dry, held fine today. The difference is the very first time they had a good amount of loctite on them, and were at the 20in-lb mark.
Lessons learned:
- Form has a great detailed writeup on installation on another forum with good photos. But, he also lives in a world where he shoots/observes more rounds fired every month than I have shot in my adult life. If you do as well, press on, brother. My feel for it is substandard. I’m pretty good at flying, but it’ll be a torque wrench for me from now on.
- Loctite. I’ve read dozens of convincing arguments for and against. I’ve traditionally used it. BUT: I noticed through the process that it never set. During disassembly, most of it was still wet, even if after a week. I suspect that living in a grossly humid environment is not a good thing for it. So pardon my French, but I’ll be going in dry from now on. (I will , however, dab the screw tops with hardened nail polish to keep junk and moisture out and act as a screw position witness.)