Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Inch Pound Torque Wrench

J-man,

exactly the info I was looking for.

I do thoroughly degrease every thread, been using blue loctite liquid, but will try the stick.

I have the Seekonk 1 - 75 in/lbs torque indicator, but it is bulky, so is limited to the bench. Any good?

https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-...nd-variable-torque-wrench-prod18221.aspx

Something smaller besides a Fat Wrench to fit in the toolbox would be nice. Eyed Wiha’s on occasion, but never added one. Might give it a try. Which model do you recommend?

Nightforce is offering a compact torque wrench set with their branding, though just a swag it is relabelled made by someone else. Thoughts?

https://www.nightforceoptics.com/riflescopes/accessories/other-accessories

Thank you sir.

I don't see where you disputed my post about torque settings being mostly for scopes. I do dispute what you say about torque and scopes, since many manufacturers (including Nightforce) have specific recommendations. As I also mentioned earlier, NF recently recommended 25 inch-pounds for rings.

I have seen plenty of good "hunting" scopes affected by too much torque on the ring-screws. In fact I have seen some permanently deformed. If you think that disqualifies a scope for any use, then that's your opinion.

With rare exceptions I don't use thread-locker, or lube--or anything else--on ring-screws, and haven't had problems with scopes shifting in the rings on hunting rifles up cartridges such as the .416 Rigby and .458 Winchester--and that includes a .416 Remington Magnum that only weighed 8 pounds.

Am familiar with Marty's recommendation of not turning the lock nuts on the rings more than half a turn past finger-tight if you don't have a torque wrench, since I have some of his rings.

I have found it best to lock the screws down with inspection lacquer, torque paste or whatever you want to call it. It goes on AFTER the scope is torqued, easily defeated by wrench, immediately tells you of its slipped...


I can tell you that some of the cheaper scopes have softer aluminum tubes, 25 in/lbs will cause real problems. I've been down that rabbit hole enough.

Dennis,

Even some of the more expensive scopes have that "problem." I can tell several stories....

Bingo!

Doesn’t matter if my cheesy Fat Wrench delivers 14, 18, 23, or whatever inch pounds when I set it between 15 and 20 for ring screws. What matters is that the scope doesn’t slip, the rings stay tight, and the scope works like it’s supposed to. I spent a few decades being very particular and precise about stuff and appreciate the value of it when it’s required. This ain’t one of those times.

The only thing that would make this thread more of a train wreck is If BigStick joined in.

Pretty sure he’s in the Farmer Tight camp.

Hey, John...

Sorry, you're right. didn't mean I dispute what you said; I meant I dispute what you were told. I'd not disparage your writing in any way. Truly enjoy your stuff.

However; Right now my consultancy is working on pipe stresses on a North Sea FPSO. She's ~270M in length by ~50M breadth width a depth of ~30M and a draft of ~12M. Her deadweight's ~130,000 tonne and her displacement ~200,000 tonne.

There are ~77,000M of topsides piping, from 1/8" tubing to 36" seawater, in 8 different materials form Ti to low temp CS, in schedules from 10 to XXS. This piping runs over 12 modules to make an integrated topsides. Our contract was to calculate spans, stops, anchors, etc for every meter of that pipe in 2 states - 20* C with a sea state of a 13 M swell over 30 second duration...and + 20*C with 18M swell over 30 second duration.

And... we're done!

But, were just offered a hell of a change order to calculate stresses of a certain size berg or bergy bit at a certain velocity impacting form the side...

In other words...if I get a break I'll look at the acceleration from a rifle on a mounting system and a scope if one of my guys has a minute or two to spare...

Do you read english?

Some.

Do you know what GFY means?

Aren’t there two problems at work in getting the ring screws tightened correctly?
1- the ring screws have to be tight enough so they don’t back out.

2- the clamping force applied to the scope itself when it essentially becomes the fulcrum between the screws on one side of the ring and the other side as each is tightened.

Assume the ring instructions calls for 25” lbs and I use my Fat wrench (uncalibrated BTW) and I tighten to 25” lbs, If my ring screws never move and I don’t crush the scope so much that the internals are affected, does it really matter that my Fat wrench may have actually tightened to 28”lbs or 30? If it’s reasonably consistent (+/- 10% or even 20%) it’s close enough for my purposes and it would probably work OK if I mount another scope next week. If it works, it works….

.

I have a Borka but mainly use it on the base (rails etc) with thread locker. 24" pounds does it.

For the rings (mainly use Burris with inserts) I tighten them until there is a space between the upper and lower ring that is about the thickness of a credit card, or so. I make sure both sides are equal and the front and back rings are equal too. Kinda hard to mess up with the Burris inserts. I have not used thread locker on the ring screws. Maybe I should?

I also make every effort to have the rings as close to center of the turret/objective, turret/ocular as reasonably possible.

I am definitely open to constructive criticism of my approach.

You might consider moving the rings as far apart as possible to minimize any torque on the scope tube from bumps, etc., rather than centering the rings on the scope tube mounting surfaces.

Correct and it is supposed to prevent the tube from flexing as well.

Gotcha. More times than not the rings are spread apart more than stated. Thanks for the feedback.

You wankers seem to be fascinated by inches and wrenches.

And lubricant….

Gotta figure in the lubricant

I love threads like this! 🙃

I am sitting on the deck watching the rain.

They're almost as bad as a "best lube thread" on an AR15 forum.