Maybe I didn't phrase it correctly! The rail mount interferes/contacts w/the ring when tightened, so I guess that'd be a negative tolerance!

That looks like just about the right place for a stress crack to form, if it's going to happen.

Also known as "needs a little slack". In this case a gap.

I know good and well what you meant, but I treated you like we were at the table in the kitchen.

LFD, how tight did you have the nuts holding rings to base? Just curious since they both broke in the same spot.... Makes me wonder about mine since I have the same scope and rings but I went with black rings.

They told me 55-65 in/lbs so I did them @ 60 in/lbs.

I just discovered Loctite has a limited lifetime researching all of this. No way that's why this broke but just food for thought:
"What is the Henkel shelf life policy for Loctite® products?
The shelf life period for Loctite® products is one year from
date of shipment from Henkel facilities or as indicated by
package labeling. For optimal storage, m
aintain product at a
temperature between 8°C (46°F) to 21°C (70°F). Storage
below 8°C (46°F) or greater than 28°C (82°F) can adversely
affect product properties."

My loctite was ~10 years old & stored in my garage toolbox in the Texas heat/cold. I bought a new bottle & it will stay inside w/my gun tools.

Lessons earned are lessons learned. Would not go back with aluminum rings, regardless of how popular they are. Everyone is different, but I wouldn't be wasting time trying to determine why they broke. I would get steel rings and move on.

Well, Loctite isn't going to fix that one. Glad you figured out what it was. That's wild.

My thoughts exactly.

From the pics, those rings look cast. Can you tell if they are CNC’d or cast?

From the way they broke, & look like tiny flakes, I say cast. I've seen cast aluminum break before & it looked just like this. I've seen many, many billet aluminum wheels hit curbs & they bend or tear w/a smooth interior. I'm very confident these are cast. I sent an email to Talley w/pics yesterday saying they are cast & haven't heard back. They WERE quick to respond. Now crickets. I'm on day 3 of 2 day shipping & haven't received new rings yet. Starting to get a bad feeling about this! I'll be calling them tomorrow.

I'm not saying they're not cast, but I've seen machined aluminum fail just like that too. Could be either one. Doesn't make a ton of sense to me to design that as a casting, but who knows....

Fail like this from inch lbs. of torque?

No, but that's probably not what caused this to fail either. Pre-stress combined with impact shock loads isn't good for anything.

You're probably right about it being a casting. I was just saying that I've seen some weird failure modes over the years. You see a bit of everything in the aircraft world though.

I know, w/out a shadow of a doubt, this gun has never been even bumped, much less subjected to any serious impact. The worse thing that's ever happened to it is being shot. That is the most powerful use/abuse this gun has seen.
Talley is still crickets.

When I said impact/shock, I meant from firing the rifle.

It's been 7 days now since they said they were mailing me rings & since they replied to my last email. Not feeling too good about their CS now!

reply all to that email for a follow up and include links to this thread.

It's peak shipping season, if they are mailing them to you expect it to take awhile.

These appear to be cast, then finished on a mill. Since these are cast, then milled, it is not likely that these were batch controlled. This seems to rule out a material issue. The only common thing in the failure of both components is the torque setting. 55-65 seems like a lot of pressure for that thread engagement for cast aluminum. Look at the Ø of the fastener. Makes me wonder if they knew the exact model when they gave you that torque setting?

The majority of the ring makers do 65 in. lbs. torque for rings to rail hardware on heavy duty "tactical" style rings.
Badger: 65 in/lb Nightforce: 68in/lb Seekins: 55in/lb Leupold Mark IV: 65in/lb Warne Tactical: 65in/lb
Burris Xtreme: 65-100in/lb Talley Tactical: 65in/lb
They replied back saying the person who I was dealing with didn't know the rings were still in metal finishing. Now they're overnighting me a black set until the FDE are available then sending me a set of those. They still didn't answer any questions I asked.

Those mentioned are steel, right? I have the Warnes, and the Leupold. Knowing that steel has a much higher compressive strength than cast aluminum, I'm wondering why they give the same torque setting for cast aluminum as steel. Somebody there may have messed up when they put their technical data together.

I know the Seekins, Burris XTR & Talley are aluminum. I believe the others are steel.
Talley claims these are billet. From Talley:
"Heavy-duty scope rings are precision-machined from solid billet aluminum with dual recoil lugs to ensure your tactical scope won’t budge under the heaviest recoil. Full-width ring caps are cut from the same billet as the bottom half of the ring for precise fit and held in place with four stainless steel Allen head screws that won’t work loose when properly tightened."