Budget Rifle Scopes Galore! Viridian Weapon Technologies’ 3.5-10×40 SERAC Reviewed

It seems that everyone is making a budget rifle scope these days, but that is a great thing! Competition leads to innovation in the industry and lower prices for the consumer. Viridian Weapon Technologies has a line of optics and I’ve been playing with the pinnacle of their lineup: the 3.5-10×40 SERAC. This rifle scope’s technical specs boast all of the bells and whistles that you would want on a more expensive optic. My objective was to see if this optic is worth the $399.00 MSRP.

3.5-10×40 SERAC In Depth

The 3.5-10×40 SERAC is equipped with locking tactical style turrets that are rocking 1/4 MOA clicks. The windage and elevation turrets are identical, with 15 MOA of adjustment per revolution. The indicator mark on the turret that shows what adjustment that you are currently on is a drilled dimple on the locking collar. If you want to zero out the turret, you can do this by loosening the Allen screw on the top of the turret.

Experimentally, I found my elevation to have 90 minutes of travel from bottom to top and the windage to have 120 MOA of adjustment total. This is thanks to a 30mm main tube, which is larger than you typically see on an optic with a 40mm objective lens.

The parallax adjustment is located on the side of the optic and is easy to turn with two fingers. I could not see any visible problems with parallax when adjusted correctly (no reticle sway when moving the position of the eye), and the adjustments appeared to be labeled accurately on the knob. One other thing that I liked about the parallax adjustment was the short-range that it was able to adjust down to. The lowest marking is 25 yards, but I was able to adjust my optic below that, to around 18 yards. This is perfect for rimfire shooting.

The magnification of the optic is 3.5-10x which is wide enough for an array of situations. The magnification ring adjusted easily without the help of any kind of throw levers or knobs and the texture that is on it provided just enough friction to aid adjustments and not tear up ungloved fingers.

The last noteworthy mechanical feature is the adjustable eyepiece, allowing most shooters to fine-tune the optic for a clear picture and visible reticle.

Oh, speaking of the reticle… it’s in MILs. I can’t speak for why Viridian Weapon Technologies made the decision to do this while the turrets are in MOA, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice. Nonetheless, they give reference points for follow up shots.

Glass Clarity

The glass quality in the SERAC appears to be top-notch. Typically, in budget optics, you don’t see the picture quality suffering until you are at, or near the highest magnification. In the case of Viridian Weapons Technologies’ optic, it appeared as clear on 10x as it does on 3.5x. They also did well with whatever coatings that they put on the glass because I didn’t notice any kind of glare, haloing around objects, or off-color hues. The final thing that I noticed when looking down the scope was the edge to edge clarity. It is not perfect in this area, but it is very good. The image doesn’t begin to distort until the most outside edge. I did not even notice this until I began looking for it.

Testing the SERAC

I headed out to the range to do a box test with the SERAC optic and I brought my most accurate rimfire/ammunition combo. This happened to be a Christensen Arms Ranger 22 outfitted with an OSS Suppressors’ RAD 22 fed with Norma Tac22 match ammunition. I set up my target at exactly 50 yards away, fired 3 shots at the bullseye (my point of aim for the whole test), adjusted down 6 MOA, fired 3 shots, adjusted left 6 MOA, fired 3 shots, adjusted up 6 MOA, fired 3 shots, adjusted up 6 MOA, fired 3 shots, and continued this trend until I had shot in a box-like pattern; eventually meeting up at another point of impact. At that point, I adjusted back up 6 MOA, which should theoretically put my point of impact back in the same location as my point of aim. It matched up perfectly. At this point, I ended up with the target seen below:

The Red squares that I drew in are my calculated points of impact for each adjustment that I made. As you can see, it appeared to track a little off, but my point of impact at the end of the test was the same as the point of aim. One thing that made this test difficult was the lack of any kind of revolution indicator on the turret, leaving me to count clicks between each adjustment in order to make sure I did not get lost in the dials. (NOTE: The little patch of paper on the bottom left of the photo above is covering up my sighter shots… sorry about that, I thought the gun was sighted in for the ammo I had chosen.)

Specifications

• $399.00
• Matte Black
• 3.5-10x magnification
• 40mm objective lens diameter
• 30mm main tube
• 2.7- 3″ of eye relief
• 9.95-32 ft. field of view
• Locking windage and elevation turret
• 1/4 MOA turret adjustments
• side mounted parallax
• 25 yard – infinite parallax adjustment
• Anti-reflective optics coating
• Water resistant
• Shockproof
• Fogproof
• 14.44″ length
• Mildot reticle
• scope caps included
• 23.28 oz weight

Final Thoughts

Being what it is, a budget optic, I am very happy with Viridian Weapon Technologies 3.5-10×40 SERAC. It has tactical style turrets that allow the user to make adjustments on long-range shots as well as a crisp image that is so important for seeing what you are shooting at. Viridian’s claim on their website of “Compare the SERAC to any +$800 optic and watch it out perform.” may be a point of argument for me, but it certainly does do well for $399.00 MSRP ($199.00 on Amazon currently).

To learn more about Viridian Weapon Technologies’ SERAC 3.5-10×40 rifle scope click HERE

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