Existence of $n_1 \sigma(n_1) = n_2 \sigma(n_2) = \cdots = n_r \sigma(n_r)$ for any $r$ Would you please help me prove or disprove the conjecture highlighted below.  I conceived it after solving a textbook problem to find distinct $n_1, n_2$ such that $n_1 \sigma(n_1) = n_2 \sigma(n_2)$ where $\sigma$ is the sum-of-divisors function.  Out of curiosity, I used a table of the first one hundred thousand values of $\sigma$ and found 3408 such pairs: 12, 14; 48, 62; . . .; 94860, 95472.  Out of more curiosity, I found 96 triples such that $n_1 \sigma(n_1) = n_2 \sigma(n_2) = n_3 \sigma(n_3)$: 336, 372, 434; . . .; 85680, 94860, 95472.  Continuing, I found two quadruples such that $n_1 \sigma(n_1) = n_2 \sigma(n_2) = n_3 \sigma(n_3) = n_4 \sigma(n_4)$: 41664, 42672, 47244, 55118 and 42000, 46500, 51200, 54250.
A natural conjecture, then, is

For any positive integer $r$, there exist distinct positive integers $n_1, n_2, \dots, n_r$ such that $n_1 \sigma(n_1) = n_2 \sigma(n_2) = \cdots = n_r \sigma(n_r)$.

If the conjecture is true, then my search failed for $r \ge$ 5 only because my list of $\sigma$ values was not large enough.
 A: The conjecture is true for all values up to at least $r = 51$.  If, as is widely conjectured, there are infinitely many Mersenne primes, then the conjecture is true for all values of $r$.
First, a simple observation.  If $n_1 \sigma(n_1) = n_2 \sigma(n_2)$ and $k$ is any integer coprime to both $n_1$ and $n_2$, then $n_1 k \sigma(n_1 k) = n_2 k \sigma(n_2 k)$.  Think of $n = n_1 k$ as having a "replaceable part": if $n_1$ is replaced by $n_2$ yielding $n' = n_2 k$, this leaves $n' \sigma(n')$ the same as $n \sigma(n)$.
Mersenne primes provide a way to produce many examples of such replaceable parts.  If $M(p) = 2^p - 1$ and $M(q) = 2^q - 1$ are two Mersenne primes, then let $n_1 = 2^{q-1} M(p)$ and $n_2 = 2^{p-1} M(q)$.  Computing:
$$
\begin{align}
n_1 \sigma(n_1) &= 2^{q-1} M(p) \sigma(2^{q-1} M(p))\\
 &= 2^{q-1} M(p)\, (2^q - 1) 2^p\\
 &= 2^{p+q-1} M(p) M(q),
\end{align}
$$
and $n_2 \sigma(n_2)$ produces the same result.
Finally, one can construct a number with many replaceable parts as follows:  Let $M(p_1),\ldots,M(p_r)$ be any set of $r$ distinct Mersenne primes, and let $n_1 = 2^{p_1 - 1} M(p_2)\cdots M(p_r)$ (note that $M(p_1)$ is omitted).  For $i = 2,\ldots,r$, produce $n_i$ by replacing $2^{p_1 - 1} M(p_i)$ with $2^{p_i - 1} M(p_1)$.   (That's hard on the eyes.  A subscript of $1$ and a subscript of $i$ are interchanged.) This yields $r$ different values $n_i$ for which $n_i \sigma(n_i)$ has the same value.
(As it happens, the smallest examples of pairs, triples and quadruples listed in the question are produced in this fashion using the first two, three or four Mersenne primes.)
As of December $2018$, there are $51$ known Mersenne primes, so that proves the claim.
