Smitty to answer your first question, my friend send his Leupold vari X III back to leupold twice becasue it wouldnt hold a pattern. He even bought the adjustable Leupold rings to go with it. Everytime they sent the scope back they said there was nothing wrong with it so I decided to look at it myself. What happened was the Scope was undersized by only .003 and was moving in the rings. Common practice now-a-days is to use some thin 3m double sticky back tape (its about .003 thick) and lay it on the bottom of the ring mount then install your scope and upper ring halfs. After doing this it elliminated my friends problem. I do it on all my scopes and most experienced dealers use this method too.