leveling rifle and scope

Any tips for leveling rifle and scope without the wheeler tools?

Remove the bolt. Mount the scope loosely in the rings, adjust for your eye relief and bolt function. Get a piece of flat steel, like a metal ruler. Lay one edge across the action and "twist" the other edge up against the flat base in the center of the scope.

A bipod and rear bags or large shims is needed for my way.

Removed the bolt, get the bore looking at a known level object 50 yard +/- away, raise the rear of the stock until you get the muzzle lowered to see the level object. I use a 1/2" rope with a 20 pound weight, an overgrown plumb bob. Put a 6" torpedo level on the scope base, and shim under the bipod legs until you get the base level. Place the scope in the scope rings with magnification turned all the way up. Shoulder the rifle with eyes closed, once you're comfortable open your eyes, you should have edge to edge clarity in the scope. If you do not, move the scope toward you or away from you until it is clear without you having to adjust your cheek weld. Mark the scope tube with a tiny piece of masking tabe parrallel to the rings. This will give you the limits and hold your eye relief correct. Remove the scope and recheck level on the scope base. Once that's confirmed, place the scope back in the rings and install the ring caps and screws, but do not tighten. Sight down the bore, then look through the scope checking for parrallel of the reticle to the plumb bob. Rotate the scope until you get it correct. Remove one ring screw, and apply low hold locktite to the screw, intsall the screw with only finger tightness. Do the same for the screw immediately across from the last. Repeat until all the screws have locktite applied. Tighten the screws watching for equal gap, left and right sides. Torque to half torque speck, about 10 inch pounds. Repeat for all screws. Recheck the reticle level again and make sure you didn't indavertantly torque the scope while installing the screws. If it's goog torque all screws to full torque.

Torque pattern I use is Rear ring, left rear screw, right rear screw. Front ring, left rear screw, right rear screw. Rear ring, left front screw, right front screw. Front ring left front screw, right front screw.

Is there a reason behind that torque pattern?

Probably all psychological for me. I just do all I can to make sure I dont harm the scope tube and that ring caps are parallel to ring bases. On heavy recoiling rifles, I have seen scopes slide inside their rings. Not good, so I'm in prevention mode.

Funny...I use the same torque pattern on rings. Kind of like tightening lug nuts on a car. I think tightening each in increments in turn makes for a more uniform "snugness" of the rings, and using this technique the gap is generally pretty even left to right automatically.

edited to add: I have found that, if all rings are tightened to, say, 7 pounds, tightening one ring screw to 10 will loosen the cross-corner screw a pound or so. I like to think of it as "sneaking up" on my preferred torque. It helps to be a bit OCD when mounting a scope! LOL