What a day.........
 

I'll shorten the real story to protect the innocent.......

Thought I had a scope problem, which turned into a ring/mount problem. The standard Leupold mount up front wore to the point that it was stringing my shots. I removed the scope thinking that was the issue and would have sent it back to Leupold but, I found the front ring would spin like a top in the mount.
Picked up a set of Leupold Mark 4 rings, which by the way are not cheap. With the Wheeler torque wrench in hand, I attempted to mount the rings. Leupold wants the rings torqued to the mounts with 65 inch pounds. The front ring torqued, I proceeded to torque the rear ring. SNAP!

Returned the ring to where I purchased it and there was no trouble returning it. Oh yeah, I took my Wheeler just in case. Just my luck, 325 miles of driving and I'm no further ahead this evening than I was this morning. A new set of Mark 4 mounts are being mailed....

Someone please take the curse off me.

Very crude
 

BA,
OK, this is crude, but before I did all that driving, I would have put some kind of shim stock (coke can, whatever) in the hole in the base, so that it would tension the front ring upwards. This would take out the slop, if what a I am envisioning is what I remember from many years ago. This is a 90 degree twist, right?

OldBob

Yes, the 90 twist for the standard dove tail mount. It was tight when first installed. Shims are out of the question for me. I shoot a custom with very heavy charges, much heavier than can be shot in production rifles.

Interesting. Glad you got it figured out!

I've honestly never heard of one of those doing that, but then again... you are pounding the snot out of it. Is there a reason you went with that style mount? Would a Warne setup be better?

Can't find a Warne mount or ring within 3 hours of where we live. I would have had to order them. When talking to the manager at the sporting store, he told me that the Mark 4 rings were the strongest Leupold made, so I decided to give them a try. If I have another issue, I'll call Badger Ordinance.

Figuring out my camera's macro settings..... Here's the damage to the front mount.

I've used those Leupold, Burris and similar mounts and they are nice looking and streamlined but IMHO you can't beat a good quality Weaver design mount and ring for strength. And a lot of one piece mounts allow an additional slot for a third ring.
Then if you install a picatinny rail instead of a base you have even more mounting options.

Leupold Mark 4 rings installed.