Re: Mounting a scope
Spending a little time reading up on the process, while realizing that some advice is intended to make things more difficult than necessary or to get you to buy stuff, is a worthwhile investment. However, I recommend you give it a try. If you overtighten things you can bend the scope tube or strip out a screw, but considering that rings should be tightened to about 10-15 INCH-pounds (that's 1 pound of force on a 10-15 inch-long wrench handle) you shouldn't have any trouble staying below damaging things. If you are so inclined, it is an opportunity to convert gunsmith expenses into tools, like a good screwdriver set and a good torque wrench (the Borka seems popular and I like mine). If you just want to save the money, only use the short end of the allen wrench to torque.
Knowing how to do things yourself is very handy when you want to swap scopes or need to remove the scope to work on something else or just decide you want to change the eye relief, and is a good confidence builder.
Boresighters can be handy, but I have boresighted all my rifles using a neighbor's vent cap down the street, and it was free.
Oh, and by the way, not all "gunsmiths" are good at what they do, and taking work to them is no guarantee it will be done correctly unless you know something about them. I spent almost 4 months getting a relatively simple bit of 'smithing fixed earlier this year.