Video Transcript
There are a lot of different optic mounts out on the market and it is getting a little bit more difficult to pick which optic mount is right for you. Now generally speaking, all of these mounts basically do the same thing. You put your magnified optic in it, you torque it down to spec, you put it on your gun, and now you have a secure means of mounting your optic to your gun that will hopefully not lose zero.
All the optic mounts out there, like I said, they are generally doing the same thing, but they generally have some sort of feature or perk about them that makes them a little bit unique. Now in the case of the Reptilia Mount, this is an mount that has become very popular on the market recently. This has some military contracts both for the United States and for various other countries. And that is because it has a lot of those unique features that a lot of people want. For the Reptilia mounts, these mounts are extremely lightweight, one of the lightest mounts on the market. They don't have any crazy large lug nuts or bolts hanging off the side that get in the way of the charging handles and they're also extremely durable.
Additionally, with these mounts is they come with a lot of modularity. So what I mean by modularity is you have the option of mounting a lot of different things on the side of the mount. So we have these two little holes on the front and rear for offset mounts, some for levels, a bunch of other different things. And then you can also buy different scope rings for the top of the mount for mounting things like red dots, picatinny for dive boards, all sorts of different things. So one of the cool features about this optic, like I said, is the modularity, but also the main cool thing, I guess you want to call it, in my opinion, is how small and streamlined and lightweight this mount is. So now that we got all of the coolness features and perks of this optic out of the way, let's go ahead and open the box and see what comes in the box.
All right, so in the box we're going to have our mount wrapped up in some bubble wrap. We're going to locate the piece of tape wherever that is, unroll it. And this mount is so light it actually feels like there's nothing in this bubble wrap. And there we have it. We do have our Reptilia mount. Now one thing I want to note here between these two different mounts here, we have a 30 mil and 34 mil option. Make sure you buy the appropriate size for your optic. You're going to notice a difference in colors here. And that is just because that is the way it goes when it comes down to this type of coating for these things, whether it's this optic mount or different guns. Basically this anodizing just is going to come with some variance in color. So if you get a very light one or a very dark one, just understand that is normal. That's just the way anodizing goes.
Additionally in the box, you're going to get a couple of stickers from Reptilia. You're going to get a little card here and you're going to get some bits to properly mount your optic into your mount and also to mount your mount to your gun. So what we're going to do from here is we're actually going to mount up an optic into this mount just to show you guys a quick demonstration of how to do it and kind of go from there. So what you're going to need to do this is the tools that your mount comes with. You're going to need a Torx Wrench of some sort and you're also going to need some way to make sure your scope is level to the mount. What we have here is the Badger Ordnance Dead Level. This is a fancier one, kind of a more expensive one and this is generally the one that I would recommend you use. Now it is important to note that the Arisaka Quick Level system here, this is something we sell on the website, is not going to work with this Reptilia mount. The optics are just too close to the mount itself in order for this wedge level system to fit in there. So you're going to have to use traditional levels in order to mount an optic in this mount.
All right. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to get our leveling system level. So in the case of what we got going here, we're just going to get this Badger Ordnance Dead Level nice and level. So once that's level, now what we're going to do is I'm going to take the top scope rings off of this mount, put our scope in there, get everything just kind of mounted up. Not going to torque anything down. So the scope should be able to free float, kind of free spin there, and then I'll get it mounted onto our leveling system. Now before we get our scope mounted into the optic, one thing I want to make sure that I'm doing is making sure that I have it set up so I have appropriate eye relief for when I mount it to the rifle. I'm going to make sure that is appropriate is I'm going to just put the mounts on the gun just like this, take my scope, set it on there and then from here, I can get behind the gun, move the optic back and forth and get it kind of set up where I want it in relation to my eye relief. So for here, I just want to make sure that I'm basically going to place the mounts exactly where I'm going to mount it on the upper receiver.
And then like I said, I can move this optic to where I want it. So that's about where I want it. And then from here, I'm just going to drop the scope rings back on and essentially just get these screws started. Once they get started, then I can take everything back off and we can get it leveled. Now from here, we're going to get this guy put onto our leveling system. I'm going to make sure that it is snug down to the leveling system. It doesn't need to be torqued to spec, we just want to make sure it doesn't move. And then from here, just make sure that our leveling system has remained level, which mine has moved a little bit. So we're just going to fix that. And now we can actually begin leveling the optic. I don't actually have turrets I need to take off, but if you do have turrets, whether they're capped or not, just make sure you remove those before you put your level on them they can over time torque a little bit crooked and they won't actually be the same level as what your optic is. So just take any kind of turret equipment and you can just take any kind of turret equipment or any kind of turret cap that you have off.
I'm now going to just use a T-handle or an Allen key, or obviously the tool that the mount comes with, I'm just going to get things, started to get things nice and snug. Now, as I do this, I want to make sure that I'm tightening both sides of the mounts evenly. So what I see some people do is I'm going to go tighten one side all the way down and then on the other side of the mount, there's going to be a big gap. That's okay, you're not going to cause any damage or anything like that, but you are going to increase the likelihood of your scope losing zero or shifting in the mount if you don't have things mounted evenly.
So the way I do this is you're just eyeballing it and it's okay if it's slightly off, but what we really don't want to see is again, the mounts on one side touching and on the other side a big gap. We just want to basically see a gap on both sides and you'll be fine. Now that I got all the screws initially set, so what that means is I just have them down so they met resistance, now I'm going to go through and start torquing them down to spec. You don't need a threadlocker on these, you can certainly add it if you want to, but just make sure that you follow the torque spec of 15 inch pounds per screw and you'll be fine. Now as I tighten these, I'm going to go in kind of a lug nut pattern, so basically I'm just going to go from bottom right to top left or I can go top right to bottom left. I just kind of want to go in a crisscross pattern here, similar to the way you would tighten on your lug nuts for your tire.
This is just going to help to make sure that they stay even as you tighten them down. Now as I'm doing this, I'm just making sure my leveling system does not move, I'm making sure that as I tighten this, the level on the optic doesn't go from side to side. As you tighten down one side, it can pull the optic one way. So I don't want to torques down one screw all the way before I go to the other side, so I'm going to slowly tighten these up to torque spec back and forth. All right, there we have it. Our optics should be nice and level. I mentioned, as we torque down the top of the scope rings, we just want to make sure that this gap on each side of the mount is nice and even. And what we have here is pretty close, not the best, but it'll do. So now what we're going to do is we're just going to mount it up on the gun.
And what I like to do from here is just make sure that the reticle appears level to my eyeball, and we actually have a bubble level set up on the gun. So we can, as I look through, it looks level, the gun is level, I should be good to go. And if you happen to notice that your reticle is crooked, to start the process over, not a big deal. You're just wasting a little bit of time as well. So just to hit the torque specs one more time, as we just verify that our reticle is nice and level, the screws on top are going to be 15 inch pounds, and then the screws that actually mount the mount to the gun are going to be 45 inch pounds. And if you ever forget, right on the side of the mount, it tells you what your torque specs should be.
So that was the Reptilia AUS mount. We have a 30mil Nightforce SHV mounted into the mount itself. Showed you guys how to mount an optic in it. Talked about some of the features. But if you guys have any further questions regarding this mount, need any help with mounting it up, really any questions about anything at all, go ahead and shoot us an email at team@trex-arms.com.