We finally heard back from Thompson Center regarding my S&W 50 cal., it turns out that the barrel locking bolt was out of tolerance by about 1/64 of an inch. The locking bolt area is a machined recessed area located at the bottom side of the barrel, that has a large hardened pin press fit into the pocket area, which when engaged with the locking mechanism with the barrel closed, allows the barrel to positively lock into place and close up precisely for shooting. With the position of the locking bolt being 1/64 of an inch out of tolerance, it caused the bore of the barrel to be off many times more down range at the target, which explains is why they had to shim the scope mount to to bring it down on the target.
In any event the factory figured it out and has replaced the entire barrel assembly with a known dimentionally acurate one, and they did say they would anti up some funds to cover one of the trashed scopes.
Now our next step is to go to a steel scope base mounting pad, too further reduce the amount of flex in the base itself, versus an aluminum base. This should solve that issue along with having a scope base that is rock solid and flat mounted with no shims under the base.
We will go with the same type and brand of scope as before and add some friction material in between the scope and rings, to eliminate the scope form sliding back and forth in the ring mounts. We will probably stay with the tactical ring mounts though.
I am confident that we will get this thing resolved and set up correctly this time around, the recoil is no worse than my 12 gage slug gun in camparison, and there is no elaborate scope set up on that gun.
We will probably have it ready for range testing ocne again in week or two, so I will update this thread after the range test has been done!!!
