You didn't mention what kind of base or rings.

I personally epoxy skim-bed all of my mounts and lap all of my rings - a guy can use metal shims to bed the bases, and I do so when I'm wanting to create an offset for range shooting, but I don't usually do so for simple fixes on machining tolerance. As Big Uncle mentioned, higher end rings like Talley's, NF's, or Farrell's won't need lapping, but when you run the lap the first few strokes and check contact on the mandrel, it'll confirm contact, and you're done. On other rings, you might spend an hour or more lapping to get 75%+ contact (Leupold is not immune).

The Wheeler Lapping kit is easy to use, worth the money - but it's consumable. The hardened spindles do wear over time, so keep that in mind.

The Wheeler FAT wrench is always in my hand when I install bases and rings.

I use a couple cheap magnetic levels, occasionally a Wheeler action bubble level for my scope installations.

More often than not - and I learned this from Ridge Runner a few years ago - if you optically center the scope (count clicks for elevation and windage, then click it to the center of each - OR, better, look through the scope at a mirror, roll it over, adjust until there is only one reticle), then dial your drop at desired range plus the height of the scope over bore, you'll end up very close. I rarely waste time with boresighting at all anymore.

That's the high notes. I could walk more detail through the process, but I'm turning a new leaf...



EDIT: I forgot to mention - I wouldn't trust anyone at a big box hunting store (gander, scheels, cabelas, bps, etc) to mount my scopes. Their "techs" or "smiths" can ruin someone else's firearms, scopes, or bows, they don't get to touch mine. Most of those stores to mount and boresight in house, whereas they'd send out to a retained smith for broken base screws or trigger jobs - meaning there isn't even a decent smith in house... Crooked reticles are easily fixable, bent, dented, or malformed scope bodies because some jack-wagon didn't align rings, or over tightened really isn't.