Not sure what's going on, any thoughts are appreciated...almost any.

Mounting a Shield Sights SMSc, came with the Hellcat, to a Leupold base for poops and giggles. When I tighten the left hand screw down the emitter cuts out. Optic is in general good working order, base is clean, fresh battery...just too much torque?

Tried to capture picture with screws up vs down and dimness of emitter.

Did you get this resolved?

My guess is that the battery is losing contact when you're tightening down the sight. Does the sight turn off when BOTH screws are tightened? Or just when the sight is uneven, with only one screw tightened?

A few things that I would look at:

1) Flip the sight over and make sure that the battery contacts are making good contact with the battery, with the sight in your hand. You might need to slightly bend a contact if not.
2) Make sure both screws are tightened evenly.
3) Don't tighten them too much. As I recall, Trijicon recommends that the RMR screws be tightened to 11 in-lb, which isn't much. (Yeah, I know it's a different sight.) I use blue Loctite on all of my red dot screws.

this happened to me about 7 yrs ago. was up north at Marysville shooting and it would flicker too. it had to do with the connection to the battery. told the manufacturer about it, sent it in, and they send me a new one.

Was yours an SMSc?

I had that issue with my RMR. Trijicon told me to bend the battery contact, which I did, but that didn't fix it. My ultimate fix was to use a dab of silicone (caulk) between the battery and the slide, then mount the sight on top. The silicone adheres the battery to the slide, which prevents it from sliding around during shooting, and I no longer lose power.