Receivers of production rifles often have a height discrepancy of a couple of thousands of an inch.
Where at what point do we begin shimming of the base. Is it at 2/1000, 5/1000 or 10/1000 height discrepancy?
How many of us actually check with a feeler gauge What the difference is and just put the bases and rings on, Drop the scope in, tighten and go shooting.
I put the scope on, tighten it up and go shoot. If I ever have one that wont work right I guess then I will dig into it.
That is why you should lap your rings.
I beg to disagree, that's a good time to bed your base(s) first
Always check to see what kind of alignment you have. That's why they make alignment bars. Its a critical and necessary piece of the accuracy puzzle. If you have a small alignment issue (.005" and less), you can lap your rings. Anything more than .005", and I'd look at bedding the bases. Don't just throw the scope on and go shoot it, without checking to be sure your rings are in perfect alignment. I'd also check to be sure the rings are in perfect alignment with the axis of the bore and not pointing off into nowhere land.
I think it all depends on whether you have a 1-piece or 2-piece base mounting setup. With a 1-piece I agree that if there is bias in alignment, between the rings and the base, it has to be corrected in the rings. In this case he used the term "bases" so I assumed he was referring to 2-piece, and it that case the correction should first be where the bases meet the receiver, and then lap rings if necessary. These days, I bed all my rings whether they're lapped or not.
Gyrfalcon, there was a thread on this forum a couple of weeks ago,
https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...72304/should-i-epoxy-scope-bases-to-receIt has a lot of good info on this topic, that is, before Stick started running his mouth on it. RJ