Trijicon Credo 3-9x40mm Field Evaluation

[Formidilosus]

This is a field evaluation of the Trijicon 3-9x40mm Credo SFP, duplex reticle scope. This scope was sent to Ryan Avery for an evaluation. It was personally purchased. The ammunition used was Hornady Black 168gr AMAX personably purchased by Ryan. The baseline 30 round group with this ammunition was 1.4” at 100 yards.


The scope and weight:




Turrets:

Both elevation and windage turrets are capped, resettable, non locking and non indexed. What that means is that while the turrets are marked in .25 MOA increments with 18 MOA per revolution, you just pull the turret up where it rotates freely to reset to zero, then push down- there is nothing locking the turret in position.

Down “locked” position-




Up, or unlocked position to reset-




Reticle:

Second focal plane duplex. It does have illumination.







There’s nothing remarkable about the scope- it is a simple 3-9x, 1” tubed hunting scope.

 

[Formidilosus]

Today I conducted the first part of the field eval on this scope.



Drop Evaluation RTZ and “Tracking”:


For an explanation see- Scope Field Eval Explanation and Standards


The “test” consists of three 18” drops on a mat- one left/right/top with a shot to check zero after each drop. Then the exact same thing repeated from 36”. Then three drops on all three sides for nine drops on the last part- 15 drops total. This is not “abuse”. The 18” drops are a joke really. The 36” start showing something. And when a scope make/model consistently goes through the whole thing without losing zero, and makes it through the high round count portion, failures in actual use are almost unheard of.

This one was conducted on semi packed dirt.



Bore sight and zeroing:


The scope was mounted acceding to the instructions on the Vortex Pro rings- 35 in-lbs on base screws, 18in-lbs on ring caps. Boresighted, fired, guessed left 3 MOA for a correction, fired two.





Drop Eval-

Shot #1 was a confirmer. Shot 2 and 3 are 18” left and right side respectively. Shot 4 is 18” on the top.



Went to left target to confirm the shift. Shot two shots that were high as well. Guessed at down 3 MOA. Next three shots are low left in the dot.





Torques the ring cap screws to 20 in-lbs, an the base screws to 45’ish in-lbs. shot one shot that was left (tape). Adjusted up .5 MOA and right 1.25 MOA. Shot three shots low in the dot. Did not make an adjustment.





Went back to the drop eval target to repeat after retorqueing-







Shots as marked. The 18 and 36” single drops all stayed in the expected cone- remember the “zero” coming into the drop eval was .5 to .75 MOA low. The 9x 36 inch drops shifted POI high right approx 1.25 MOA.


Shifted back to the left target to confirm the shift-




It shifted back to previous zero. Four shots, no adjustment.



Drop eval was a partial pass. It held through all single drops, shifted with the 9 drops in a row from 3 feet, however the recoil reset it, and it came back to zero.


I adjusted up .5 MOA, and tomorrow will check zero from riding, then RTZ, and adjustment even though it’s not really a dialing scope.


Con’t…

 

[Formidilosus]

 

[Formidilosus]

Checked zero first thing today-






Return to zero:





Adjustment (tracking)

Between the top and bottom dots was 23.65moa. I used 23.75 MOA.




This is where we see the design not meant for dialing come up a bit short- literally. At a dialed 23.75 MOA it moved 21.75 MOA for a 9% error. Part of that error maybe because I am almost at the end of the erector travel to get to 23.75 MOA. I’m not sure. In any case, it was off by 9%, and was consistent. I will recheck.


Otherwise, I shot it for another 40 rounds and it worked fine.

 

[Formidilosus]

A couple pictures that show how much “use” this thing has gotten in less than a week. I have purposely been putting the rifle on, over, under, or next to other heavy metal objects to make it lose zero if it is going to. Look at the scope tube, turrets, and rings.









Checked yesterday and zero was still good-

 

[Formidilosus]

This scope has been used off and on continuously. It’s well over 1,000 rounds, and closing in on 2,000


It was used a for a couple of days during the S2H class-



It was dialed for every shot but a handful out to 770 yards, was dropped multiple times while unloading packs, and rode multiple days in a UTV- functioned without issue.