One other thought and I apologize if this is so obvious as to sound stupid. But the rings do come apart. When you take the two screws out that fasten the upper ring to the base half the upper ring slides sideways out of that slot in the lower half on the other side.
You just need to pop the upper half over the scope. Then you join it back to the lower half by sliding it's hook back into that groove opposite the two screw holes. It won't pop back into that groove from over the top, you have to move one half forward and one half back and then slide it in from the front or back.
Only reason I thought of this is your comment about them having that much memory. If you try to pry the ring up over the scope without separating the upper and lower half then, yes - that's going to ruin the rings.
Again, don't mean to make such a "duh" comment but just trying to cover all possible situations.
