Mounting a riflescope is straightforward to do when you follow these steps.

Keep Gun Safety In Mind
When you want to mount a rifle scope onto your rifle, you want to make sure the gun is safe. Check that there’s no round in the chamber and that the bolts are open.
Secure The Bottom Halves Of The Rings
Place the bottom ring halves on the rail. Consider proper eye-relief from the scope when placing the ring halves. Lightly secure these bottom halves so it’ll be easy to adjust them. They should still be able to slide back and forth – How to measure scope ring height.
Set the rifle scope into the bottom halves of the rings. You want to be able to slide the scope back and forth on the rings.

Place The Ring Caps On
Now it’s time to put the ring caps on. Secure them lightly so the scope can still move. This ensures that you can adjust the scope for proper eye-relief. It also allows to settle the scope exactly into the rings and have the adjustment knobs exactly how you want them.
When the scope is somewhat adjusted to your desires it’s time to tighten down the ring bases. Use a torque wrench to do this so you will not over tighten the screws! Set the torque wrench to the specifications of the ring manufacturer to ensure proper tightening of the screws.
Before tightening you want to make sure that the two rifle scope rings are slid forward as far as possible. If you have to tighten two screws on the bottom rings then make sure you rotate the torquing of the screws. Start with one screw on each ring and then finish with the second screw on each ring.
Now the rings are securely tightened to the rifle. They are positioned correctly. The scope can still be moved back and forth within the rings.

Setting The Eye-Relief
Next, you want to set the eye-relief correctly. Get behind the scope and adjust the eye-relief so it works best for you. Move the scope to the position where you get the best possible picture.
Level The Rifle Scope
Once the riflescope is positioned correctly it’s time to level the rifle scope. First, you want to make sure that your rifle is placed level on the stand. When you know your rifle is leveled correctly on the stand, it’s time to level the scope to the rifle.
Use a bubble level on top of the scope. Turn and adjust the scope until it’s completely level. As the rifle has been leveled before, you can be sure that the scope is leveled correctly to the rifle at this time.
When the bubble level shows that the scope is leveled to the rifle, it’s time to tighten the top halves of the rifle scope rings. Use the torque wrench to avoid over-tightening of the screws. Set the torque wrench to the specifications of the ring manufacturer to ensure proper tightening of the screws.

Carefully tighten the screws. Keep an eye on the level to make sure the scope doesn’t move around while you tighten the screws. If the top halves of the rings are secured with two screws on each side then tighten the first screw on one side, then the first screw on the other side and then the second screws on each side.
Do this for each ring. Make sure to check the bubble level constantly while you tighten the screws!
If you see the bubble level start to go off, you might be able to adjust the level by tightening a screw on the side of the ring that would need adjustment to get the scope leveled again.
If you are close to the end of tightening the screws then it might be too late to try to adjust through tightening a screw. In that case, you will have to loosen all screws again and start from the beginning!
The Result
After you tighten the screws, the scope is mounted correctly to the gun. Next, you want to sight the scope. We’ll discuss how to do that even without a bore sighter in this post.

Check our rifle scope reviews to find the best rifle scope for your needs. You can also learn more about the different types of riflescope mounts and what the best riflescope mounting kits are.
