Crimson Trace Series 2: 6-24x56 Riflescope Review

[Ledd Slinger]

I have been awaiting the release of these new riflescope by Crimson Trace since I heard about them a year ago. Well they finally hit the market and I took my chance at reviewing one of them. Crimson Trace hit the market strong with plenty of offerings so they didnt really leave any magnification ranges to be desired unless you are a long range benchrest shooter. All scope reticles are in FFP. Series 2 are the most affordable and Series 5 the most expensive with Series 3 in the middle. All Crimson Trace scooes are made in Japan with Japanese ED glass and carry a lifetime unconditional warranty.

The "Series 2" scope offerings: ALL FFP Reticles
4-16x50 with 30mm tube
6-24x56 with 34mm tube

The "Series 3" scope offerings: ALL FFP Reticles
1-8x28 with 34mm tube
4-20x50 with 30mm tube
5-25x56 with 34mm tube

The "Series 5" scope offerings: ALL FFP Reticles
1-8x28 with 34mm tube
3-18x50 with 34mm tube
3-24x56 with 34mm tube

I chose the Series 2, 6-24x56 riflescope for my review. It was one of the most affordable offerings and it has a TON of features for its meager $600 street price that I paid for it at MidwayUSA. It come housed in a nice sturdy box with custom cut foam. Included 'Bultler Creek' style caps are already installed. Although the caps are similar to Bultler Creek caps, they are definitely a little bit nicer as they lock up and stay closed much better than Butler caps.


It's a beast of a scope with the big 34mm tube housing and 56mm objective. Overall length is 15-1/4" with the caps installed and it tipped the weight scale at 36.2 oz (35.2 oz without the caps).

The reticle has nice fine posts that help to keep the FOV as clear as can be on a FFP scope and the floating center dot, although a little large, is nice for aiming precisely without reticle disturbance in the immediate vicinity of center target. Being FFP, the reticle dies take up some FOV at 24x with the numbers beside the posts, but it's not that bad due to the fine reticle design. Definitely didnt bother me as bad as some if the other horribly cluttered FFP reticles I've seen in some scopes. The reticle illumination works very well with no bleeding on any power level in any lighting. Very good job there.

I found a way to take good illuminated reticle pics in the dark. See all reticle photos below.

Reticle on fence post at 47 yards and 12x.



Illuminated reticle at 6x on max illumination in the dark.



Illuminated reticle at 16x on max illumination in the dark.



Illuminated reticle at 24x on max illumination in the dark. Notice how I'm missing 10 MOA of the 40 MOA total on the posts.



To be continued in posts below due to max allowed photos in a single post....

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Optically, I would say the Crimson scope is as good as it can get in this price range. The closest scope I had on hand to test it against optically in an attempt to compare apples to apples, was an old Bushnell Elite Tactical 6-24x50 scope. Also made in Japan. At closer ranges, it was very hard to distinguish a clear winner. Both have great Japanese glass. The Bushnell seemed to have a little better edge sharpness and equal resolution out to 1000 yards. The Crimson ED glass had better color contrast tho. However, when I turned the scopes to a mountain range many miles across the valley, I could see where the ED glass shined over the Bushnells older non-ED glass. The Crimson resolved much better. This could have also been due to the fact that tha Crimson side focus goes all the way to 1000 yards before infinity so it has a much wider fine tuning range than the Bushnell's side focus with 500 yards before infinity. Either way, the Crimson was the overall winner in the contest at extreme ranges

Pic of the Crimson Trace and Bushnell Elite on the scope checker together.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

So being that the Crimson outpaced the Bushnell at long range, I decided to put it up against the Trijicon 4.5-30x56 Accupower (also Japanes ED glass) to see just how good the glass was...

I removed the Bushnell and mounted the Trijicon next to the Crimson and turned them at the mountain range across the valley where the Crimson destroyed the Bushnell. Put both scopes on 24x and went to work. I was surprised that the Crimson held it's ground quite well. I could resolve details very nearly on the same level as the Trijicon in the center FOV. However, the Trijicon image was quite noticeably brighter and the field of view much wider. Even when I turned the Triji up to 30x, the image was still brighter than the Crimson. Now dont get me wrong, the Crimson image was plenty bright, it's just that the Trijicon seems to have supernatural powers in lower light levels. It's a freak of nature. The brighter image in the Trijicon made resolving detail easier, but the Crimson could still find and resolve most of the same small objects with some extra effort. Another difference was that the Trijicon stayed razor sharp right to the very edge of the FOV where the Crimson loses a decent amount of resolution on the last 1/8 FOV edges. The Trijicon definitely had the superior glass, but not by what I would call a massive margin. For 3 times the price of the Crimson, I would have cried if the Trijicon lost that battle. Lol.

Picture of Crimson on the checker with the Trijicon. Turrets are pretty similar. I removed the cap on the Triji windage to further illustrate the similarities.
Crimson on the left, Triji on the right.


As you can see, the Crimson turrets are nice and big with 25 MOA per revolution like the Trijicon. They have nice solid positive clicks and will stay put. There is a very slight bit of play after stopping on a turret mark if you attempt to wiggle it back and forth without actually adjusting to the next click value. Nothing of real concern, just something I noted. The turrets are removed with 3 allen set screws. Not my favorite means of turret removal, but they are large set screws, not those chinsy little set screws you find on a lot of other scopes. You won't strip out the heads of these set screws if you accidentally give them some extra torque. No zero stop on the Crimson Series 2 scopes, but I cant expect to 'have my cake and eat it too' on a $600 scope

Next, I set the Crimson reticle on a very small target then found a reference mark with the Trijicon. I dialed up 44 MOA and back to zero with the Crimson. After setting the Trijicon back on its reference mark and checking the Crimson reticle, I was able to verify it had returned perfectly to zero so a great job there.

Total amount of elevation on the Crimson is 90 MOA. Pretty good considering the claimed amount is 80 MOA, but I thought that was still a little low for a 6-24 scope in a 34mm tube. There are some 30mm tube 6-24 scopes out there with 100+ MOA of elevation. But 90 MOA is more than enough for anything I'll ever be doing with the scope so no big deal breaker for me.

The side parallax focus knob is nice and smooth. I can dial in detail while eliminating all reticle parallax very well. However, I found that the yardage markings are a little off when parallax is dialed out. Of course I've never seen a scope in the $600 price range match up on the side focus numbers perfectly so this was not a surprise. The image and reticle movement is all I'm really concerned about.
As a comparison, the Trijicon side focus numbers are so accurate when parallax is elminated that I can basically use it as a rangefinder. So I wanted to test this against the Crimson.
As a quick simple check, I focused both the Crimson and Trijicon (both set at max magnification) on a fence a short "unkown" distance away and carefully tried to get the very best image possible with the complete absence of parallax in the reticle. Then I looked at where the side focus numbers were set. The Crimson was showing about 40 yards. The Trijicon was showing about 47 yards. So I broke out the Nikon Black 4K rangefinder and hit the fence. Reading was 46.7 yards. Both scopes gave nice parallax free images but the Trijicon showed once again just where that extra money is giving the user added benefits of a fairly accurate yardage reading when the parallax is focused in properly.

Overall, the Crimson Trace Series 2, 6-24x56 is an amazing scope for the money. I honestly dont know of anything else in the $600 price range that will give you great Japanese ED glass with solid Japanese manufacturing. Most definitely a HUGE value for the money. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this scope to anyone in the market for a good solid long range "mid-priced" scope with great glass.

Thanks for putting up with another one of my long winded optics reviews. I hope you all enjoyed it and leave the forum feeling a little more informed next time you're in the market for a riflescope

 

[sdeal5]

Hey, Ledd. I,for one, greatly appreciate your “long winded” optic reviews. They are always well done and informative. Thanks for taking the time
Scott

 

[FarmerDave]

Great review. Well worded with great pictures.

Thanks....

 

[Big_Daddy]

Hey, Ledd. I,for one, greatly appreciate your “long winded” optic reviews. They are always well done and informative. Thanks for taking the time
Scott

I agree 100%.
These reviews are very informative without any apparent built in bias.
Thank you Ledd...

 

[NCVarhtr]

I have read these reviews with great interest. They are very informative and appreciated. Well done!!
I'm always interested in upgrading my scopes and it seems that scopes today are light years ahead of where they were just a few years ago. Thanks very much....

 

[LivinginKaos]

Very nice review. I just received a Series 3 5-25x56mm yesterday and have to say on initial looks, the glass is superb. Very nice build quality at first inspection. I am mounting mine on a BA50, so we'll give it a good shock test. Lifetime warranty to good use. Helps that I work 30min from the factory. The only negative I have is that they don't make a sunshade for their line. So, I plan to make a few at my work - just need to get the 3D drawn in my downtime.

 

[nmkid]

Nice honest looking review!

 

[epointer]

Are you still liking this scope? Is it tracking good?

 

[LOBO2]

Thank you so much for this great review!

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Are you still liking this scope? Is it tracking good?

Yes it is an excellent scope. I am selling it tho because I am downsizing my rifles and wont be using it as I had planned. Still one of the best scopes for the price range in my opinion.

 

[mi650]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but want to say thanks for your reviews!! Both this and the AccuPower review. I have several 4.5-30 FFP AccuPowers, and agree whole-heartedly. Also have a Tenmile, and haven't yet been able to find any difference, aside from the name.

I bought some of these CTs a month or so ago when they were on clearance at Midway USA. Based on other brief reviews I'd read, I couldn't pass them up for $325. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that they're sold out when I went back to buy a couple more a few days ago.

 

[nakneker]

Ledid, have you ever played with the Crimson grace 5 series. This week’s bulletin shows midway selling them at highly discounted pricing. We’ve talked optics in the past, always appreciated your insights. Yes, I know the thread is old but Ledd is still active.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

They are nice scopes for the money. The 5 series is a decent step up from the 2 series. I sold the 2 series because I just couldn’t bring myself to like the FFP reticle. If a FFP reticle is what a person prefers then I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a 5 series at those prices on midway