hi rick, i am sure that vaseline will work fine. there is no sense in my commenting further without knowing the particulars of the mount and its bushings and their sizes, projected bearing areas, theescope weight and distribution, and on and on etc. a thing that i did think about, but did not include before, because i do not know if it is a good idea is good old long molecule "STP". there are two types, regular, like honey, and 4 cylinder type, like heavy oil.

cant resist telling a story. had lunch today in cotati, and was headed down through petaluma when i caught wind of a distinct powder puff odor. my thought was "where have all the red necks gone, long time passing" , petaluma was second only to cotati for redneck count. turns out the odor of the powderpuff was a wad of chewing gum stuck between my shoe and the gas peddal. now chewing gum is a viscoelastic plastic, just like funny putty/teflon/nylon/acetal delrin/etc. that is each can be represented mathmatically as a combination of a viscous element, a spring element, and a plastic element. they all have different mixes of these, but only the mix changes. teflon will creep under a load applied for a long time. creep is the interplay between the viscous element and the elastic element. if the deformation is allowed to proceed to permanent deformation, then the plastic component has come into play and it will not return to the original shape when the load is removed, even after a time. you probably have had some experience where the teflon was plastically deformed. remember silly putty, you could chew it like chewing gum, but if you threw it against a brick wall, it would shatter(brittle fracture) just a different mix of viscous/elastic/plastic components. actually petaluma and cotati are some of the best places in the world to live. tom leech