That little bit of slop in the rail notch

I have been thinking, maybe too much......

Im sure many of you have noticed that when you mount your rings on your rail, their is a tiny bit of forward and backward movement, (slop). It feels about like .010 a .015. I have never actually measured how much.
My question is :
Does it matter which way you push your rings before you tighten them down ? My concern is the recoil, will push them one way or the other ??
Will they settle at a resting spot after a few shots ??

As I am typing this , I just thought of something... Would one benefit to push one ring forward and one back ?

I'm probably thinking too much, but lets here your thoughts, especially you guys shooting tack driving ppc's and br's.
Thank you

The slop is there so that you can put the rings in.

You push the rings as far forward in their slot as you can. The rifle recoils backward upon firing, independant of the scope. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest, so your rings and scope want to stay where they are as the rifle goes backwards. You want them to never move relative to the rifle. So you want the rings forward so that they cannot shift forward during this action.

It likely also minimizes violent whip and jarring.

Actually the slop in the rings to the base is because the "specs" for the slots in a Picatinny "1913" rail are that much wider (.206") than the specs for the pin that fits into the slots (.180") in the Weaver style rings that you are using. Match a Weaver style ring to a Weaver style base and you will have your tight fit. And visa versa for the Picatinny rail and ring combo. And yes, as Twinsen points out, set the rings in the base at the proper spacing for your scope. Slide them forward in the slots, and torque to specs. Mount scope into rings.



Snipe

When you set the proper torque for the rings, do it as you would when rotating car tires, but you need to have the same torque on all four or eight screws.

I did it by feel one day at the range and I was off by a bit less than two feet. It was that "Oh Poop" feeling. I started all over again with my torque wrench and tire rotation method and all was good to within 2 clicks of dead center on the first shot.