The new ACSS Griffin MIL reticle had a great launch in our 1-6x Gen III scope body, but this reticle is a great match for a higher magnification scope as well. So here it is, Griffin MIL in our 1-8x24 Second Focal Plane Scope, just $389 with our lifetime warranty. You can immediately choose between black and wolf grey anodizing.

Here is the product announcement for the 1-6x Griffin MIL which gives a great overview, giving me a chance to go a bit more into depth on the reticle and it’s applications here.

Who should consider buying a 1-8x Griffin MIL? If you’re running a 16” 5.56 NATO rifle, stick with the standard ACSS reticle that is already available in these 1-6x and 1-8x scope bodies. You won’t have to do any math, we figured all that out a long time ago and it works great. But if you’re the guy running a suppressed 12.5” 6.8 SPC II, or you really want to stretch out the potential engagement range on your big bore .450 Bushmaster, Griffin is your answer.  Now you have the option of up to 8x magnification for better target identification and more precise shot placement.

Griffin MIL’s core is a 5 x 5 MIL / MRAD grid. That gives it universality when you combine it with a chronograph and a good ballistic calculator, like StrelokPro or Ballistic AE. It doesn’t matter what your caliber is, but the first step is to find out what your configuration does. You need to find out how fast those rounds are leaving your muzzle, then input that data along with other information like your height above sea level and the bullet’s ballistic coefficient, and the calculator will give you a ballistic chart of your bullet’s drop as it flies down range. Correlate that bullet drop to MILs and there you have it—a custom BDC for your exact rifle.





Sometimes the results of this number crunching can seem a bit odd at first. If you zero at 100 yards, maybe your round intersects with the MIL grid at odd distances—143 yards, then 237 yards, then 364 yards. You can play with your ballistic calculator and compensate by either sighting in a bit low or high, or sighting in at a different yardage entirely, until you come up with a solution that works for your application. ACSS shooters are used to seeing this in our user manual ballistic charts, where we account for different loadings and altitudes that way. The other thing to keep in mind is that with reasonably sized targets the BDC doesn’t have to be perfect, especially at closer ranges. If the ballistic calculator says your round intersects with the second grid mark at 313 yards, you are going to be just fine hitting a 12” steel gong at 300 yards. If you need more accuracy than that, we have awesome grid reticles coming out in the upcoming 3-18x50 precision scope for the shooters who enjoy picking off tennis balls from 500 yards away. A 1-8x low power variable isn’t the right optic for that application regardless of reticle.

In a precision scope, you always want your click adjustment measurements to match up with the reticle’s mathematic system. MIL reticles need MIL clicks, and MOA needs MOA. In this case, although Griffin MIL is Milliradian grid reticle, the scope’s adjustments are 0.5 MOA per click. Why? Griffin MIL works using a holdover system. If you are counting clicks with the turret to adjust for range and wind, you are doing it wrong! You aren’t actually using the reticle, you’re using it same way that you would use an old duplex reticle scope. In this application, the elevation and windage adjustments are to get you zeroed at the point of aim and range that you figured out with your ballistic calculator. Once that’s done, you put the caps on and you don’t count clicks when shooting, you hold over using the reticle as your guide. Since the shooter isn’t using the adjustment knobs to compensate for bullet flight behavior, it doesn’t really matter whether the knobs are calibrated for MIL or MOA. Building the scope with MOA clicks in the same way as our other 1-6x and 1-8x scopes saves us money, which saves you money. Developing, testing and executing new adjustment knobs is a cost we would have to pass on to the customer.

There is one more thing I want to mention about it compared to the 1-6x—the reticle is physically larger when you look through the scope. Personally, I like this because I’m used to “busy” reticles and I want a BIG center aiming point for snap shooting at 1x. In the 1-8x scope body the center chevron of Griffin MIL is really big and bold and your eye is drawn to it immediately, but it isn’t surrounded by a horseshoe or a lot of other stuff, just the moving target leads on each side and the grid marks below. You still have an infinitely small ultimate aiming point, because it’s a chevron, but this is one of the fastest reticles I’ve ever played with at 1x. In that way, you might consider it a KISS reticle with added functionality for extended range shooting.

In our testing, Griffin MIL has proven to be a very powerful tool in this 1-8x24 SFP scope body. If you want a 5 x 5 MIL grid but don’t want to throw a large, high magnification precision optic on your carbine to get it, you can do a lot with this system at 8x and have the tremendous flexibility of the 1-8x low power variable setup.

1-8x24 SFP ACSS Griffin MIL in black --$389 with lifetime warranty

1-8x24 SFP ACSS Griffin MIL in wolf grey -- $389 with lifetime warranty

Leave the caps off? The turrets below are finger adjustable.

An anodized FDE variant has been in the works for quite awhile but I haven't seen a prototype of one yet, so I wouldn't hold my breath on it.

The biggest grip about FDE anodizing is that it never matches, so if you're picky about that, you might just want to talk to your local Duracoat guy anyway.

The FFP "Raptor" scopes have better glass in my opinion.