Down in Refugio, Texas at Bridle Iron South Training Facility the crew of TFB and TFBTV were onsite to try out some ATN and Crimson Trace products. Like many of you, I only know of Crimson Trace from their history of laser systems. Well, they are making traditional scopes and one of them piqued my interest – the Crimson Trace Hardline Pro 6-24×50 first focal plane with MILS reticle and illumination.

Crimson Trace @TFB:

• TFB Review: Crimson Trace Hardline 2-7×32 BDC-Blackout
• Low Light Shooting with the Crimson Trace Rail Master Pros
• TFB Review: Crimson Trace Brushline Pro 2-7×32 BDC-Rimfire Scope

Hardline Pro FFP

Crimson Trace makes the Hardline Pro in both MILS and MOA. As I shoot longer distances, I have come to appreciate the first focal plane and a MILS reticle. The Hardline Pro 6-24×50 uses an MR1-MIL reticle. It is a simple crosshair rather than the usual Christmas tree reticle.

The reticle only goes to 8 MILS. The scope has 20 MILS of elevation and windage.

According to Crimson Trace’s reticle manual, you can use the MILS reticle to range your target if you know how wide it is. I’ll be honest, this is a lot of math that I can’t do on the fly in my head. I rather just use technology in my laser range finder to get a more accurate distance than guesstimate the width of a target using long division.

The turrets felt good. Solid clicks and you can set the zero as well as aim adjustable zero stop. Setting the zero is pretty straightforward. Just loosen the set screws in the turret cap and set it to where you zeroed the scope. The turrets are locking so you just pull them up to disengage and you can start dialing.

On the left, you have your parallax adjustment and illumination knob.

The eyepiece has a textured ring for better grip when changing magnification. I would have liked a clap on throw lever at the bare minimum or machine a threaded hole for a stick.

The picture below is for illustrative purposes only. I had mounted and zeroed this scope on my Larue Stealth upper. Below it is on a Civil Defense Rifle with rear MBUS. The scope rings we had available to us were barely tall enough to clear the MBUS. Obviously, you wouldn’t have MBUS on a scoped rifle unless it was offset.

Shooting The Hardline Pro

I only had my Larue Stealth with me which is not exactly a long-range gun and the ammo we had available to us was rather problematic. If you caught James Reeves’ DDM4 V7 video you will remember he had issues with the same ammo.

With my Larue upper, I was experiencing case separation issues. FYI I was using a Surefire OBC in the Larue.

Occasionally I would experience a stoppage. A sort of failure to feed. and this would come out of the chamber. At first glance, I thought the round got pushed back into the casing. But upon closer inspection, the separated casing from the previous round was left in my chamber and the next round, that failed to feed, would shove into the separated case.

Why do I bring up our ammo problems? I am uncertain if this ammo is shooting consistently. I had some issues with some other ammo a while back that had really hard primers. It would only fire in my 416 upper and only 60% of the time it would fire. Downrange the hits were very inconsistent at 200 yards when I know my gun does not have that problem. My friend thinks the inconsistency is due to the inconsistent primer ignition. While that is a different problem than case separation, it is something to consider. I was able to roughly zero this gun at 100 yards but at distance, it was not making consistent hits. I only got to use this scope for a couple of days and I’m sure the ammo is the problem.

Here is a video I captured using a Tactical scope camera.

I did use my PVS-30 to try and shoot at night. The illuminated reticle was helpful

Crimson Trace Hardline Pro Final Thoughts

I would have liked to have mounted this to my Ruger Precision in 6.5 Creedmoor and see what the scope can do at distance.  I was able to find the MR1-MIL in Strelok Pro ballistic app to get a rough idea of what MIL holds are for given distances.

The 8 MILS reticle is a bit short for holdovers but when you increase magnification to the maximum, you only see just shy of 3 MILS down. 20 MILS is not a lot but adequate if you are shooting under 1000 yards. According to Strelok Pro with the 55gr projectile we were shooting, you would only need to dial up 17.5 MILS. Let’s ignore the fact that 55gr is not ideal for long-range shooting but the Crimson Trace Hardline Pro 6-24×50 FFP MIL will get the job done. The scope retails for $999.99. All Crimson Trace scopes are covered under their LIFETIME protection guaranteed warranty. Go to their website for more information.

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