thank you for your many informative comments...
ultimately, what we all must realize is something akin to my signature line--the more we learn and progress, the more we learn that we know "nothing", because in the learning process, we are "made aware that there is so much more out there to discover". therefore, learning is "discovering our own ignorance". this is a continual, lifelong process. it is what makes life interesting and challenging--to always be in the process of learning, and finding new discoveries and challenges.
and it keeps us all humble...
as i mentioned before, paul mcmennamin (accurateshooter.com), uses the signature rings in his scope testing, as when testing is complete, he can sell the scopes "as new", for there are no ring marks. but it doesn't end there, they are a great solution for many shooters, and offer numerous advantages for many different situations. yeah, their appearance bugs the "traditional in me", but so does the cross slot system. yet they are both great systems, and for some applications there may be none better.
some guys do overtighten screws--and sometimes, even worse. recently, i saw a young fellow in a sporting goods store, and he was proudly mounting a customer's scope. but, the young chap had it mounted with the windage turret on the top...
last week bill beyl at the powderhorn told me about a guy who mounted his own glass--a 4x leupold. he brought it in because he couldn't see out of his scope very clearly. (he had it mounted so that he was looking into the objective). in the backroom, beyl reversed his scope, and when the customer picked it up, he was astonished at the clarity. he asked bill what he had done, and in typical fashion, beyl told him, "I used that lens cleaner there on the shelf". the guy bought the lens cleaner and left very happy...
but back to rings and bases. for many years, burris made some of the very best bases--in my judgement, for a period of a few years, they were the best. but unfortunately, in my opinion qc on metal work is not what it was a few years ago, so i now use leupold bases and rings exclusively, unless i'm utilizing a 20 moa rail system. badger and near are excellent products...and i really like tps tsr rings (though i prefer to tighten them differently than they recommend).
the scope-tru is a very good system, and can assist one in mounting rings very accurately, and it definitely cuts down labor time. it can also be used to check the alignment of other systems that it isn't designed to install. a very great advantage is that you can see right up front what is wrong, rather than later on down the line when things are already mounted, and the sweany site-a-line is up the spout. this makes it very "shop time friendly" for gunsmiths, and retail/wholesale sporting goods stores where a high volume of scopes are mounted monthly.
i wish i could tell you that it solves all mounting problems--but the reality is that it can't. unlike "snake oil", it won't help poorly made rings, it won't cure arthritis, it won't brew coffee...
