Viridian Serac 6-24x50mm-30mm-Side Focus-SFP-Long Range Reticle for $150

Walkalong said:

Run it through its paces yet?

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Went to do some 100 yard testing yesterday after installing EGW 20 MOA rail on the 10/22 and took Vortex Crossfire II 6-24x50 and Viridian 6-24x50 to compare.

Just as I got the Vortex scope zero'ed, another shooter (recently moved to the area) drove up and asked if he could set up next to me for 100 yard powder work up. I said "sure". He set up Savage 110 Elite Precision 300 PRC with Arken EP5 5-25X56 FFP MOA scope and bipod/monopod. I went, "Nice!" but I was hoping to do some scope comparison.

He asked if I verified distance to target and I told him I already "measured" to be around 100 yards. He pulled out a range finder and told me "105 yards" with a smile.

While he shot .3 gr powder charge increments, I was actually getting smaller 4/5 shot core group sizes around 1"-1.5" with Aguila 40 gr CPRN (He eventually got smaller groups on par with mine as his powder charges got higher). He looked at my Lead Sled Solo setup and told me he would pull out his Lead Sled on his next range test. We chatted while changing out targets and I switched out scope to Viridian and got to check out his set up and look through the Arken scope. Yes, turret definitely had a nice and positive "click" with bright and clear field of view and he said turret tracking was dead on.

With 20 MOA rail, for both Viridian and Vortex scopes, vertical reticle adjustment returned towards center (I was 6" off center with Vortex scope mounted out of the box with Monstrum V2 rings). Since bright sunlight comparison just shows bright clear field of view for my eyes with these 50mm scopes, I waited til later in the afternoon around 4:30 PM with target area darkened by shade. Comparing to Vortex and Arken, Viridian still produced sharp field of view without distortion to edge at 24x power but was not as bright as Vortex and Vortex produced slightly sharper image but inch grid target lines were clear and 22LR bullet holes were readily visible for Viridian - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?resources/inch-square-grid.22/

While turret tracking improved, before I could repeat the box test, my group size began to increase likely due to barrel needing its third cleaning with round count approaching 6000 (10/22 barrel has been bore brushed twice). In comparison, Vortex turret felt mushy and vague.

So what do I think about the Viridian Serac?

Especially having looked through Burris FF E1 6.5-20x50mm and Vortex Crossfire II/Arken 6-24x50mm at low light shaded 100 yard inch grid targets, these are my thoughts:

• At $150 and free shipping, not sure if you could find a better scope in the 6-24x50/30mm tube with tactical locking turrets (and likely good lifetime warranty service through Viridian) that is sold under major brand name.
• Low cost Viridian 30mm high profile rings worked well (Only tested with 22LR)
• Came with flip up covers
• Side focus parallax verified accurate at 100 yards
• Turret with positive "click", locking rings and good tracking pending (Will repeat box test after cleaning 10/22 barrel)
• Full sun/low light shade brightness on par with Burris FF E1 6.5-20x50/Inch tube for my eyes
• For 22LR shooting at 50/100 yards, good low cost "consideration"

BTW, had I not gotten Vortex Crossfire II for $172 and free shipping, if I was thinking about spending $300, I would spend the extra $150-$250 on the Arken scopes (Yes, I was impressed). I am also thinking about Athlon Argos BTR 10-40X56/30mm SFP MOA for 300+ yard shooting with my ARs for lower cost scope option comparison (I know, comments say clear to 32x) but for 100 yard 22LR shooting, no need for tactical turret so Vortex Crossfire II with mushy turret would be fine for me (Especially with well known customer service).

sparkyv said:

This almost seems too good to believe. I'm so close on clicking the "place your order" button...

[Edit] scope inbound...

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Congrats! Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised like me.

To be honest, when I first learned of Viridian Serac, I went ... "No way! It must be a cheap Chinese rebranded scope at $150!" and was really hesitant about ordering one.

Then seeing on Amazon eased my mind a bit as I could do free return if I didn't like it.

But as I did more research on the scope, I started connecting the dots:

• Viridian is bona fide USA company who manufactures weapons lasers/lights in the USA
• Viridian is OEM supplier to Ruger
• Viridian started supplying scopes for Ruger 10/22 as factory option
• Serac is their top of the line scope
• Serac has 1/8 MOA locking tactical turrets and 30mm tube (Yeah, really ... On a $150 scope)
• Viridian scopes come with lifetime warranty

So I am thinking, what if Viridian with USA based manufacturing and financial backing from domestic/OEM Ruger sales, when Ruger asked to add scope for 10/22 as factory option, decided to enter the high volume lower priced scope game (Previously saturated by Bushnell Banner line and now with various Chinese brands) and chose better Chinese offerings with solid/premium features to rebrand as Viridian Eon, Venta and Serac lines.

So when Serac line was introduced, I was pleasantly surprised by the features that just seemed too good to be true on a $150 scope. (I had bought and ran $180 Burris FF E1 6.5-20x50 through its paces and Serac had even better specs)

• Parallax Focus Range: 25 yards to ∞ (Burris FF E1 only goes down to 50 yards)
• Main Tube Diameter: 30mm (Burris FF E1 has 1" tube)
• Magnification Range: 6x-24x (Burris FF E1 has 6.5-20x)
• 1/8 MOA turrets (Burris FF E1 has 1/4 MOA)
• Tactical locking turrets with nice click (Burris FF E1 has non-locking turrets without the click)
• Comes with flip up covers (Nice touch)

My initial range testing was full of pleasant surprises for this $150 scope which was initially compared to Bushnell Dusk & Dawn 6-18x50 (1" tube) and Burris FF E1 6.5-20x50 (1" tube).

Since then I got to compare Viridian Serac to these at 100 yards:

• Vortex Crossfire II 6-24x50 (30mm tube)
• Vortex Strike Eagle 4-24x50 (30mm tube)
• Arken EP5 5-25X56 (34mm tube)
• Athlon Argos BTR 10-40x56 (30mm tube)

Especially at low light condition of tree shaded late afternoon, Viridian Serac produced clear field of view of 100 yard 1" grid copy paper target with very visible 22LR holes. Light gathering under low light condition was very good on par with Burris FF E1 (which has been the best of 1" scopes I have used). But the surprise came when compared to Arken EP5 side-by-side as under low light conditions, Viridian Serac produced field of view that was not that much different in being able to visualize 22LR holes (Although Arken, Vortex and Athlon scopes produced slightly brighter and clearer view at significantly higher pricing).

And the turret tracking was done with factory 10/22 scope mount with vertical scope adjustment maxed out. Since the initial tracking test, I got EGW 20 MOA scope rail that brought scope adjustment back towards middle and will repeat the turret tracking test to see if slight drift I saw would be addressed.

After all these comparisons, what's my impression of Viridian Serac?

At $150, rated for .50 cal recoil, Viridian Serac may be the most underrated 30mm tube tactical scope with locking 1/8 MOA turrets that should meet most hunting/recreational shooting applications. You can certainly spend more and still not get anywhere near the features of this scope. You may get slightly brighter field of view under low light conditions with higher priced Vortex but if you are shooting in brighter sunny light conditions, likely not going to matter that much.

sparkyv said:

How much elevation and windage adjustment does it have? I can't find this info on the Viridian or any other website.

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Me neither.

My Athlon Argos BTR 10-40x56 has 1/8 MOA turrets and advertised as 45 MOA elevation/windage adjustment. Elevation turret is marked 0-7 with 8 marking lines between numbers. Adjustment per rotation is 6 MOA - https://athlonoptics.com/wp-content...-BLR-SFP-MOA-214071-RIFLESCOPE-SPEC-SHEET.pdf

Viridian Serac 6-24x50 has 1/8 MOA turrets and elevation turret is marked 0-14 with 4 marking lines between numbers (So 0-2 with 8 lines = 1 MOA and adjustment per rotation is also 6 MOA). Elevation turret turns max of 7 turns so 6x7=42 so my guess is Viridian Serac has 40 MOA elevation adjustment. The windage turret turns just over 4 turns so 6x4=24 so my guess is 25 MOA windage adjustment.

FYI, for my 10/22 with factory fullsize modular stock, I needed to use high profile scope mount and Burris FF E1 6.5-20x50 with 30 MOA elevation/windage adjustments and Viridian Serac both maxed out elevation adjustments to zero the scopes and I ended up using EGW 20 MOA picatinny scope rail which returned zero towards center of elevation adjustment. Since my T/CR22 has picatinny scope rail integral to the receiver, using 20 MOA scope rail was not an option (I also needed high profile scope mount for factory stock), so I got Vortex Strike Eagle 6-24x50 with 80 MOA elevation/windage adjustments because I didn't want to shim the scope rings/mount.

LoonWulf said:

barrel droop?

My 17m2 build suffered from barrel droop which was annoying, ended up epoxying in the barrel shank after shimming it up.

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Some threads on RFC discussed the 10/22 related "barrel droop" issue (Made worse with heavier bull barrel) and I considered it along with some of them bedding the bull barrel or supporting the bottom of the barrel. Both 10/22 and T/CR22 experienced some play between the barrel and receiver.

10/22 Collector #3 that came with factory extended picatinny scope rail made the situation worse as forward part of rail actually pushed down on the barrel and negated the use of Tactical Solutions V block. Due to fullsize modular stock that came with 10/22 Collector #3 raising the cheekweld height relative to the receiver, using medium profile scope rings/mount did not provide eye alignment with the scope and I had to use high profile scope rings and ended up ordering one piece high profile mount (But that dropped the POI further down ultimately requiring EGW 20 MOA scope rail to bring POI back up where scope elevation adjustment was not maxed out) - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...izing-22lr-on-the-cheap.898035/#post-12157922



Picture shows factory V block with forward part of factory extended rail pushing down on barrel.



Using Tactical Solutions V block helped push up on the barrel to better stabilize the free floated barrel and reduced bullet POI drop on target.



Using EGW 20 MOA picatinny scope rail (Slanted towards barrel) not only helped bring scope zero towards middle of adjustment, there was no pushing down on the barrel issue and 10/22 factory barrel produced 100 yard core/groups that ranged 1" to 1.5" with Aguila 40 gr CPRN - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...e-reticle-for-150.900740/page-2#post-12216505

LoonWulf said:

and does your T/C R22 do it also

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Yes, it's the 10/22 design for anchoring the barrel with the V block. And the factory stock also caused high cheekweld to require high profile scope rings/mount and I also ended up with one piece high profile scope mount.

But I could not use the EGW 20 MOA scope rail for T/CR22 as picatinny rail is made part of the receiver ... so after considering shimming the rear of scope ring, decided to order Vortex Strike Eagle 6-24x50 with 80 MOA elevation adjustment.

Now that I have KSA bull barrel installed on the T/CR22, I am actually thinking about bedding/supporting the bottom of the barrel and going back to factory V block but I need to do comparison range test to see which produces smaller groups after the rain season (I will also do 100 yard group update with Vortex SE scope on the "Accurizing 22LR ..." thread).

12Bravo20 said:

So if the MIL DOT reticle is calibrated for 24X, is it double that at 12X

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Viridian Serac is SFP and I am going to defer to the following video for better explanation (Jump to 1:05 minute):

Laphroaig said:

I think that most SFP scopes are calibrated for the highest power.

Biggest problem is remembering to set it on max before you shoot.

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LiveLife said:

Walkalong said:

Which power are the mils correct for?

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Got the email reply from: [email protected]

"Full power (24x) is where LLR is correct."​

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