Home skeletonizing a mount for a red dot

[Dr.Zubrato]

I have a vortex sparc red dot, and the mount is pretty huge. I've been looking at other rds mounts for the t1 but they're all in the 70-150 dollar range. This got me to thinking, why can't I just remove some material on my own, and make a reasonably lighter mount. I don't have a drill press, which sucks but at the very least I could drill some good looking and evenly spaced speed holes in non critical areas and remove some of the bulk, without affecting the strength.

Any ideas or pointers for proceeding, or should I just pony up the cash for a minimalist mount?
I'm thinking I might as well use the mount I have, since I'd rather spend that cash on a real t1, and I've got an established zero and absolute cowitness.

 

[rcmodel]

I looked at one online.
And it appears the sight can be removed from the mount?

If it can, take it off and make sure there is nothing else going on under there you don't know about.

If there isn't?

Have your way with it!

But I caution you beforehand.
It will take a lot of holes to make any noticeable difference in weight in a block of aluminum that size.

rc

 

[Dr.Zubrato]

Sweet! Yes, I had to assemble it beforehand, so I plan to take it apart and mark out depth of threads and all, taking the picatinny mount itself into consideration. Still planning it out now, and going to make some technical drawings of what I'd like to achieve.
I do take your warning seriously, and that's something I realized that if I butcher this dang thing up it had better be worth it. If it's presentable I'll post my results, with before and after weight in about a month.
Thanks for the encouraging words!