Should both sides of the rings sit flush?

[noneck180]

1/2" Dewalt impact always makes them even...

 

[Dogleg]

I did a similar technique with my motocross bikes, for the handlebars to attach to the triple clamps you want the front side of the clamps tighter than the rear - so I notched washers which would allow me after removing the bars (or crashing) to very quickly space my bars back to what they were at before (sometimes inbetween races or practice/moto 1/etc)

just thinking the same idea could be applied to scopes and rings

This is a case of "when you're a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail".

 

[Dogleg]

I like the gaps to be even, but it's largely cosmetic. TPS, Warne, and Talley all have rings where one side (in the case of the TPS), or the bottoms (in the case of Warne and Talleys)are tightened down solid before the other side or top is tightened. Nobody ever mistook any of those for junk.
For those that find that the way they tighten rings is making a big difference in scope alignment, it's time to do a search on alignment bars, shimming bases, ring reamers and lapping bars. The idea is to get this #### straight to begin with, not bend the scope tubes consistently.

 

[duke1]

I did not read all the posts but just in case it was not mentioned, it would be interesting to see the other side of the rings also to see if the spacing is the same as what we see here.

If it is, then to satisfy my own curiosity, I would exchange the top parts around to see if the spaces remain the same.

So, if you have the same space on both sides of each ring, you either have a scope with a non-consistent diameter or rings that are not matched. One should always try to keep the top part of the ring with the original bottom part.

One final check would be to use a ring alignment tool to see if these rings are aligned as this significant difference in spacing is something that I haven't seen before.

Duke1