Special Eye Glasses

[klw]

As one get older the ability to see both the sights on your rifle AND the target slips away. I was talking to my eye doctor about that today (he is a shooter) and he thought that it was possible to make special bifocals for shooters where you could rapidly flip between seeing at a long distance and seeing close up. Unfortunately the exact nature of how to prescribe that he didn't know. He did, however, think that there were companies who specialized in this. Anyone know of such a eye glass manufacturer?

[waksupi]

I've seen these made by a couple different optomitrists, one in Whitefish, and the other in Kalispell, Montana. They are shooters, and understand the problem. What the end result is, is a small correction in the corner of the lens over your dominant eye. I believe what the correction does is to sharpen the front sight, although I imagine it could be done to sharpen any distance on the focal plane. The front sight seems the most obvious, the target focus being too varied, unless one limits himself to bench shooting at set distances.
For open sights, I have begun using 1X reading glasses, and these have made a big difference.

[carpetman]

Ive not heard of such glasses,but keep us posted if you find them. I found progressive lens--once you get used to them as the best. Also aperture sight with a tiny aperture works good. How long you been past 40?

[NVcurmudgeon]

After experimenting with a pair of tri-focals, and finding that I had to hold my head funny to shoot, I had a pair of single prescription glasses made, focused at pistol front sight distance. They worked great for pistol shooting, and an unexpected bonus was they were also excellent for rifles with aperture sights, and even fairly good for rifle open sights. Of course, they are not the best thing for distance, but I have forgotten and worn the pistol glasses while driving home from the range. It sometimes took twenty miles to figure out that I was wearing the wrong glasses. Actually, the slight fuzziness at distance is a great comfort on urban freeways, you can see too much sometimes and scare yourself! For rifle hunting I wear my regular bi-focals and use scopes only, I believe the game deserves the best that my eyes can be.

[shooter2]

A couple weeks ago a shooter came to the range trying new glasses. Charley shoots competition IPSC. He had his glasses tinted to pick up a green firesight front and the right lens was ground for focusing on the front sight and the left lens on the target. He is right eye dominant and a right handed shooter.

I use no-line bifocals and, while they work OK, you still have to move your head around to try to get things sharp. Better, but not like good eyes.

[klw]

http://www.sportglasses.com/content/products.asp

[wills]

http://www.pilkguns.com/varga.htm

http://www.champion-brillen.ch/

[Gussy]

I was also at the eye doctor this week. I asked for a focus starting at 30". It has worked so far.

I also have a question. He said I was on the verge of being a good candidate for contacts and suggested I go to them. Not this time, as the glasses also serve as safty glasses. But, next time I think I will go that way. My question.... anyone using bifocal contacts? How are they for shooting? I mostly shoot rifle with long range peep sights.
Gus

[David R]

In Pistol matches we use a small apature attached to your glasses. It works great, you can see the sights And the target clear as a bell.

Take an old pair of eyeglasses or safty glasses. Put some electrical tape on your shooting eye. Put a small maybe 1/16 to 1/8" hole in the tape. Look at your sights and target. Clear as a bell.

I have an adjustable apature (sp?) that holds on my glasses with a suction cup. On brighter days you can turn it smaller.............


It workes like taking a picture on f 16. It increases the depth of field.

You can try it for free, then if you like it, look in the shooteers magazines.

David Root

[wills]

In Pistol matches we use a small apature attached to your glasses. It works great, you can see the sights And the target clear as a bell.
Put some electrical tape on your shooting eye. .



You can try it for free, then if you like it, look in the shooteers magazines.

David Root

Sounds uncomfortable.

[slughammer]

Sounds uncomfortable.

I think its best to put the hole in first and then put the tape on your eye.

or http://www.meritcorporation.com/

[David R]

:) Thanks wills, I re read for spelling errors, but missed that one. :)

Try, tape on your shooting glasses instead. It will be much more comfortable.

Thanks for finding the link Slug, its the one I use. I can't shoot Iron sighted pistols with out it. Works on Rifles too. You don't NEED the fancy thing to try it out. I think it costs around $65 theese days. I paid $63 for mine many years ago.

David

[Poygan]

I bought one of the Merit adjustible deals about a year ago and for me, its no improvement. I wear Verilux glasses and I can move my head up enough to see the front sight of a pistol reasonably well but that doesn't work for rifles. So, I'm stuck with scopes.

[shunka]

Howdy Folks -
I am new to the board, but been casting for some "lustrum" to quote Rooster Cogburn.

David, I have had bifocals for a while now, and been doing the same thing for some time, except I use an index card and punch a clean hole in it with a large bore sewing needle. You can tape the card over your lens or fold it to hang on much like clip-on sun glasses. Works well for me.

I've also seen entire "glasses" made of solid dark plastic with hundreds of such pinholes. I haven't tried perforating my index card yet, tho.

best regards
shunka

[Wayne Smith]

I think it was Lyman that makes the suction cup pinhole attachment that I just got from Midway and haven't even opened yet. I've gotta figure out where to put it on my glasses and give it a try.

[BD]

I've been messing around with the eyeglass issue since I got tri-focals a few years ago. I've complicated the issue somewhat by insisting on polycarbonate lenses, which limits the lense location to the few types of "blanks" available unless you go the custom route, (BIG $$$). What I've found to work well for action pistol type shooting is called an "occupational grind". This is a bi-focal with the arms length prescription ground into the top and bottom of both lenses, and the distance in the middle. This grind brings the front sight into sharp focus with the natural slight forward tilt of your head as you aquire the sights. It's a common enough blank as it's also used by airline pilots and trim carpenters both of whom need to be able to focus at arms length above their head. The problem is that the upper lense does not go clear across the glass, it's truncated at the sides just like the normal lower inset grinds. This is an issue for rifle shooting as the sights invariably line up exactly on the edge of the inset lense, giving me a choice between two images of the sights.

My latest experiment is a pair of bi-focals with the arms length presciption in the right lense, (my dominate eye), and the distance presciption in the left lense and my reading prescription in the lower inset grind of both lenses. I also had them move the optical center of my right lense grind up and inward a bit to true it up with my natural head alignment. I just had these made a week ago and have only tried them at one match. My time was significantly better with the new set-up as compared to the occupational grind, but I used the occupational grind pair on the first string of the day after not shooting much all winter so that may have been a big factor as well. The dual lense pair seem a bit weird for walking around, but maybe I'll get used to it. I can see both the sights and the target clearly without moving my head, but not simultaneously. There's another match tomorrow and I'll report back. I may try wearing the new setup all morning, rather than just when I'm on the line, to see if I get adjusted to it. For the custom jobs, look for "HY-Wide" or something like that on the web.
BD

[fourarmed]

If you have normal, age-related presbyopia, what is needed is to add a positive spherical correction to your distance prescription, if you use corrective lenses for distance. If you don't need optics for distance viewing, then all you need is the positive spherical correction. This can be obtained by going to drug or department stores and looking at the reading glasses they sell. The corrections of generic reading glasses usually range from +1.00 to about +3.00 in steps of 0.25. There are two problems here: for a lot of shooters, the weakest of these (+1.00) may still be a little too strong. The other problem is that most of these glasses have lenses much too small to make good shooting glasses. However, a session at one of these displays will soon tell you if +1.00 or +1.25 is what you need. I find that +0.75 lets me see the sights adequately well while still letting me tell which direction the target is. Once you know how much spherical correction you need, you can go to an optician or one of the manufacturers of shooting glasses like Decot and tell them what you want.

[drinks]

I cut the base off a case, soldered a piece of #12 copper wire 3/4 way around the groove and adjusted the ends to clip on my glasses frames to be where I look at the sights, works good and really cheap.
Don