The Staple Arc failed yesterday. Got a couple hundred shots through it before it slipped out of place, but slip it did. I'm going to continue to try and not spend any money trying to get this mess to stabilize, even though I can probably save myself the headache and just get a better scope and mount, I'm not beaten yet.
When I took the scope and mount off the rail I noticed a little something something. On the underside of the mount, where it meets the rail, were some scratches caused by the mount moving over the ridges in the rail. Ok, that's not news. What is news is how small an area was actually scratched up. Two tiny little sections about a mm wide and a cm in length right near where the hex screws that hold the mount to the rail. If only those two small areas are scratched up due to scope shift, then only those two small areas were actually gripping the base. The other 98% of the surface area of the mount is unmarked, and couldn't have been snug to the base or it would also be all scratched up.
So, plan B is now in effect: Increase the surface area of contact, the friction, between the mount and rail. Attempt B-1 is just a simple piece of friction tape applied to the whole length of the underside of the mount. I cut a small hole in the tape to allow the stop pin to come through and find it's home in the stop hole on the rail. It felt very snug during re-assembly, but I have not done any test shooting with this method yet, but, in theory, it *should* work for a little while anyway.
- Mark
p.s. Almost picked up a CenterPoint at Wally World the other day. Would probably be posting targets in the target gate by now if I had. Grrrrr.