I can't see anymore

[JohnH]

Once upon a time much younger and certainly more innocent, I could hit a fly in the eye at 100 yards, blindfolded and with both hands behind my back. Now I can't even tell the difference between a black 2" dot and the top of my front sight, to make matters worse, the edges of the rear sight just go comletely fuzzy and make it nearly impossible to see the front sight at all. What are you guys doing about your aging eyes??? Is 2" at 50 yards bad? I can hunker down and put three together in a real group, but after that all bets are off. I'd hate to know I had to feed myself with head shot squirrel from an iron sighted 22... used to do that regularly, I'd starve now.

[felix]

Join the club. ... felix

[DanWalker]

I'm in the same boat. My eyes and knees are aging much faster than the rest of me. I've been putting off the trip to the optometrist. I imagine he'll send me shopping for a white cane when I do finally get to see him.

[DOUBLEJK]

A pair of no line bifocals werks some....reciever peep sights or those stick on yer glasses loupes werk even better n a scope cures all.....my solutions fer the dang eye's...:lovebooli

[wills]

See?

Is that something like rain?

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
I have the same problem w/ the knees & eyes. A while back I had cataracts removed from both eyes. I was so bad I couldn't see the target at 66yds. and the box dissappered at about 70yds. I could still hit the box because I knew where I put it. This didn't work for hunting , so I went & got the operations.
Go to the Dr. you will not regret it. I can see to hunt & shoot again.
I got the R. knee done, I can get around alot better. It is worth doing.

[oso]

Cataracts, glaucoma, iritis, floaters, field cut etc. and I still like iron sights out to almost 100 yds. Contrasting color targets - like a red center (what ever size you can see at your preferred distance) on green 8x11 or whatever colors contrast well with front site. Fresh blackening of the front sight helps, and I agree with receiver peep sights, too.
For game, the red legs on chuckar partridge are about as colorful as game gets in Nevada, even with a good dog I can't see them until they move - then use a shotgun! Ought to work on squirrels. Spitting out shot (don't chew on the steel stuff) is better than going hungry.
Come to think of it, I've got one rifle that patterns like a shotgun but I can't get the shot string there at one time.

[Oldfeller]

I'm not that far behind you guys, my diabetes is taking out my fine vision fairly fast now. I am wearing progressive line bifocals in Zeiss "super thin lens" plastic, not because I love to pay for Zeiss lenses but they are the only ones that can be fitted in my prescription strengths (lenses are only able to correct so much and they get thicker and thicker on the edges as they get stronger). My current coke bottle bottoms are about maxing out Zeiss lens making technology, so I too am having to look at corrective surgery as a next step.

(that isn't a total answer -- my wife has already gone down that path with mixed to poor results on one of her eyes -- other one turned out OK.

As your eyes get worse shopping for a scope becomes more and more interesting -- you have to find one that you can get to work with your particular vision conditions and your glasses perscription. For me, this centers around something with a large field of view that doesn't move "in & out, back & forth" out of focus easily and one that has enough cross-hairs & long distance clarity adjustment to accomodate what my perscription does to a scope now.

Fuzzy blurry cross-hairs suck no matter how much you magnify the target. Blurry cross-hairs on a blurry target -- unuseable.

Simmons makes a scope that does right good on the cross-hairs and focus clarity thing. Sell it under the Blazer and several other grades - the new eye-bell functions are there in the entire line of scopes that look like this one.

They call it "Patented New Scope Technology" and make out like it makes the scope bullet proof and parallax proof and it will never change its zero if you beat it up against a concrete wall and all that rot -- what it really means is the scope can cover a lot more focus turf for folks with funny eyes.

Check the pics, see the end bell itself zoom in and out over an astounding range of cross-hair & distance focus clarity range. It does it in a smooth one turn zooming motion so you can do a field adjustment for a particular distance/lighting condition real quick-like.

There is enough room in there to fix me up, and I appreciate it very much, let me tell you.

There is a downside -- that zooming eye-bell is larger than a normal eye-bell. I am considering ordering a longer Scout knob for my bolt handle to get a more comfortable operating clearance on the finished rifle.

Oldfeller

[David R]

For Iron sites I use a Merrit Optical thing, its just an iris that sticks to my glasses. As far as eyes going, I find after 15 shots with a scope, the cross hairs become fuzzy too. This tough in a 20 shot string. I also find when they say "10 rounds in 10 minutes" If I breathe well and use the 10 minutes, every thing is fine.

David

[Bret4207]

Kelly- So that thing on the end focuses like a binocular?

[Blackwater]

Gee whiz, John. Did you HAVE to bring this subject up??? :groner:

Looks like this is ONE area we can all agree on, at least. There's a LOT of things they tell you about aging, and this is just ONE, but it darn sure affects a man's shooting. Another may be related to the onset of senility - now that I can't see worth spit, NOW I want to shoot iron sights!!! Ain't THAT a gas!?

[Oldfeller]

Yeah, pretty much like a binocular -- except you are splitting the difference beween clearest view of the distant features and the crispest cross-hair image. They aren't identical -- but they are fairly close to each other

(I go after perfect cross-hairs a little more than perfect long-distance image).

I find that the attitude of my head in a given situation puts me looking through a different part of the progressive line bifocal grind on my glasses. Plus, differing longer distances tend to do odd things to me as well. This gives me a chance to re-focus and get the cross-hairs nice and clear again.

I pick up some of my older guns with older fixed 6x scopes and the image throught the scope is just about useless sometimes (it's because of my eyes -- the scopes haven't changed any).

These new Simmons scopes offer hope for older shooters who are "scope bound" and are having difficulties even with using scopes.

I think they are a pretty durn neat feature on a $69 low-end scope.

Oldfeller

[twotoescharlie]

If you wear specs, get a pair of the cheap clip on,flip up sunglasses. (about three bucks at the dollar store). put them on and sight one of your iron sighted rifles as you normally do. have someone mark the lens where your eye and sights line up. drill a small hole at the dot (it can be made larger later if you want), remove opposite lens. spray with flat black paint. you can trim the lens down to a much smaller size if you want. you can shoot,flip up, use your spotting scope or binocs,flip back down and shoot again.
I have been using one of these for several years and have had good luck with it, it really sharpens up those iron sights and they are so cheap you can have several withour hurting your pocketbook.

TTC

btw I am 68 years old and am blind in my right eye but can still hold my own target shooting. ( informally and don't hunt any longer)

[drinks]

Igave up and put the $20 Simmons shotgun scopes on everything except my .243.
They are 2.5x, have 5 to 10" eye relief and can be mounted quite a ways forward, clear of the hammers on my Handirifles and Savage 24P.
I can shoot with both eyes open, the way I did with open sights.
My Savage '99 has a Redfield receiver sight and I can still do fairly well with it.
The pinhole aid is really nice for open sight competition but may be hard to find in a hunting situation.

[mike in co]

i mentioned to my eye doc, that i cannot see the sights on a handgun.
HE SAID, BRING A GUN IN AND WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT THAT!
folks this is a wally world private contrator, young, and quite willing to work thru eye issues as that is his job!...who would of thought in this day and age.'
i went to a pair of shooting glasses with short focus in the left eye and normal in the right---i'm left eye dominant. works fine for ipsc style shooting.

for rifle....think there are three solutions. scopes, long bbl'd rifles(long sight radius,and eaisier to see, and lastly special glasses or aids. merit will not fit on my glasses.
for the long bbl'd rifles, take your time, breath(lack of O2 hits eyes first),make sure the frt sight is crisp and black...no shinny spots, worn edges.
good rifles in this catagory are 03a3(rear peep),m39 finn mosin nagant, 91 and 91/30 mosin nagants, 96 full length swedes. heck even the swiss k31 has a 25" bbl and a nice big frt sight.

[JohnH]

i mentioned to my eye doc, that i cannot see the sights on a handgun.
HE SAID, BRING A GUN IN AND WE'LL SEE WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT THAT!
folks this is a wally world private contrator, young, and quite willing to work thru eye issues as that is his job!...who would of thought in this day and age.'
i went to a pair of shooting glasses with short focus in the left eye and normal in the right---i'm left eye dominant. works fine for ipsc style shooting.

for rifle....think there are three solutions. scopes, long bbl'd rifles(long sight radius,and eaisier to see, and lastly special glasses or aids. merit will not fit on my glasses.
for the long bbl'd rifles, take your time, breath(lack of O2 hits eyes first),make sure the frt sight is crisp and black...no shinny spots, worn edges.
good rifles in this catagory are 03a3(rear peep),m39 finn mosin nagant, 91 and 91/30 mosin nagants, 96 full length swedes. heck even the swiss k31 has a 25" bbl and a nice big frt sight.

mike in co, unfortunatly, the rifle is a 30-30 Winchester with a 20" barrel. On a good day the sight radius is nearly 18". The longer sight radius does make sense though. I'm gonna try a change of target, those small 4 or 6 inch paper plates for dessert pastries. Nice and white, easily distingusable from the back ground and should show up well in light or shade. My shooting lane is in the woods and heavily shaded, the sun generally behind me, alternately bright and shaded on my back stop. I'm convinced that lighting and lighting consistancy is part of the problem. I'm hoping a bright single color target will help.

[felix]

Try yellow-orange, or yellow, plates for high contrast with blue light. Blue light (high frequency, low wave length) is the light color in the shadows. You need to reflect the opposite color within the "artist's color wheel" to blue, which is the orange colored yellows. ... felix

[Shepherd2]

I bought the Lyman Hawkeye Shooter Optic Aid which I think is a knockoff of the Merit device. I got it to see is if it could help and I paid less than $20 for it. It helps a bunch. I shoot a lot of milsurp rifles and to me mounting a scope is not an option. I was having particular trouble with the lousy sights on Mausers but Lyman deal really helps me pick them up. Now I'm wondering if I should pay the $60 or so and get the Merit.

[mike in co]

mike in co, unfortunatly, the rifle is a 30-30 Winchester with a 20" barrel. On a good day the sight radius is nearly 18". The longer sight radius does make sense though. I'm gonna try a change of target, those small 4 or 6 inch paper plates for dessert pastries. Nice and white, easily distingusable from the back ground and should show up well in light or shade. My shooting lane is in the woods and heavily shaded, the sun generally behind me, alternately bright and shaded on my back stop. I'm convinced that lighting and lighting consistancy is part of the problem. I'm hoping a bright single color target will help.
john,
ask
both the current doc at wally world, and my previous one a kaiser, both offered to work with rifles....like i said both realize thier job is my eyes, not what sport i participate in.

[BABore]

Laser eye surgury. From 20/220 to 20/15 in 15 minutes and $1,500 bucks. They can now do both near and far sightedness as well as insert magnifier (bifocal) lens in the eye. Best money I ever spent.

[44man]

I can see I am in good company! We are all old farts! Amazing how fast time goes by and how fast we fall apart. Big belly, no hair and bad eyes. The rest of me is OK though.

[8mmshooter]

That's why they make shotguns for us old farts. Just kiddin; I'm right there with the rest of you. LOL 8mmshooter

[drinks]

44;
I'll have you know I still have plenty of hair in my ears and on my chin!

[JohnH]

44;
I'll have you know I still have plenty of hair in my ears and on my chin!

It's not that on my chin concerns me :)

[The Nyack Kid]

Im only 25 but someday i feel like im 125 , i can bull$hit with the best of them bout being a old fart .back in '02 or was it '03 cant remember my memmory is goin to hell .... what was i talkin about ?!?!???? Owell . ... i have gone deaf in one ear , think it is do to earwax/earhair build up, any hows where was i ..... oh yes it what the spring of '97 i broke my back .... dern you young wippersnapper punk kids. you dun derailed my train O thought ... what are we talking about anyway?

[Frank46]

JohnH, I have cataracts and just the other day tried looking through the eyepiece on and 03A3 rear sight. Nope, no way jose. Think I will open up the aperture a bit. I put a williams fool proof on my 94 win and a lyman globe with a large aperture. Thankfully can still see and shoot fairly well. I supose that sooner or later I'll have to go for eye surgery. Scopes I can use fairly well, but do like to keep using the irons. Even so had to open up the aperture on the fool proof. Frank

[Shuz]

Guys--I've been fightin the vision problem for about 20 years now. I really have found that the Merit device is worth the money. It's advantage over other apertures is it's adjustable and therefore you can control the amount of light that enters the eye. We all know that lighting conditions often change drastically during a shooting session. When this happens, I just open or close the apperature a bit. Works for me! Just recently I found another optic aid...the Hi-Viz sighting system as found on my 329PD Smith revolver. I have found that if I concentrate on the red dot, it will "clear up" quite a bit and I'm able to do well enuf to hunt with it without the aid of the Merit. I'm gonna try it this deer and elk season. The Merit is the best way to go for target shooting, but it does not work well, nor was it designed, for hunting applications.

[MTWeatherman]

Damn...I've been blaming the deteriorating quality of wheelweights for those groups opening up over the years. Now you've told me that it's because I'm getting old!

I can shoot as well as I ever could...with a scope. Problem is, to me, some firearms just don't deserve to have scopes put on them...that would include lever actions and handguns...and they are my exclusive cast bullet guns. I still use the loads I worked up for them years ago...one was a '94 AE and I mounted a scope on it simply to work up a load then took it off and put a receiver sight back on. It just looks and carries better that way.

I'm 61. Rifle loads with receiver sights that would go into 1.5" 100 yard groups 10-15 years ago, now (at age 61) do about 4". I can narrow that group down to 2-3" by using low powered (1.25) reading glasses. With buckhorn sights I string the shots into 6 to 8" vertical groups. I do about as well with a handgun now at 25 yards as I formerly did at 50.

First paragraph aside, I know the loads I shoot are as accurate as they ever were...so for that reason don't change them. The good news is that I probably could work up a lot more new loads that now will shoot as well as I can. So age has given me a lot more versatility in what I can shoot.

Bottom line is I enjoy shooting as much as I ever did...just have accepted that I'm not as good as I used to be with iron sights. When I'm shooting at the range, I'm essentially competing with myself and it's as enjoyable as it ever was. If I want to use those iron sights and cast bullets for hunting deer sized game, I'm restricted to 150yards or so with a rifle (actually, I'd hold it to 100 yards) or 40 yards with a handgun and thats good enough for me. If I need or want more range (frequently the case in Central Montana) I'll use a flat shooting rifle with a scope and jacketed bullets (they do have their place).

For decent accuracy, receiver sights are a near necessity in order to use iron sights as one pushes over 50 or 60 (some are luckier than others). Low powered reading glasses help at the range...and be sure to keep that front sight black. If you want to seriously compete against the young guys you need a scope.

[Blackwater]

One thing I've noted that kinda' surprised me, is that tritium sights sure seem to be MUCH better for me if the light starts to fade. They start to glow at just the right time and just the right amount as the sun goes down, ending up letting me use those sights even in total darkness. Kinda' hard to find the TARGET in total darkness, of course, but up to that point, they really, really help.

I have astigmatism, and round beads look everything but round, too, and I've found the smallest bead THAT I CAN SEE (dang those "qualifier" words!) helps me about as much as I can be helped. Smaller blur variations DO yield smaller aiming errors. White also are MUCH easier for me to see, and a white outline helps on the rear sight as well, particularly afield, where the white just seems to be much quicker and easier to differentiate from the background. It'll "flare" a bit more in bright sun, of course, but that's something I have to take into consideration in the overall tradeoffs of these type decisions.

Thinner, square sights like the Baugman ramps also seem to let me shoot a little better with plain irons, and I like them with a white insert instead of orange or red or even yellow. Again, the white just seems much easier and quicker to pick up for most of my shooting. It's not best on std. black on buff colored NRA style targets, but I just pick my practice/test targets from colors that DO allow the white to show up well.

BTW, if you like white sights as I do, you can get cheap, dark colored 8" paper plates for real cheap. They staple onto backboards just as well as anything if you put the staples on the flat portion. I even use them for scoped rifle, putting the little stick on white circles of various appropriate sizes in the center.

Seems I'm making all sorts of decisions based on my vision these days, but I guess that's why God lets us get old enough to adapt???

[JohnH]

Damn...I've been blaming the deteriorating quality of wheelweights for those groups opening up over the years. Now you've told me that it's because I'm getting old!

First paragraph aside, I know the loads I shoot are as accurate as they ever were...so for that reason don't change them. The good news is that I probably could work up a lot more new loads that now will shoot as well as I can. So age has given me a lot more versatility in what I can shoot.


Hehehe. Leave it to a caster to see the Silver Stream in all things :)

[ejjuls]

Hey guys,

After seeing this post I thought I should throw in a bit of experience (painful)and info.

February of 2004 I had a Carcano come apart on me.....in haste I didn't grab the shooting glasses on the bumper of the truck and fired 12 rounds without a problem (reload - 160grn Hornady .268" with IMR4831 powder - min load from the Lee manual) and the 13th...well all hell broke loose. Why the gun let go is another story - eyes are this one.....Anyway, a pee sized piece of brass found it's way into my right eye and stopped 1mm from penetrating through my lens pocket into the back of my eye. My lens was completey shredded and I was instantly blind. Dr. said one more mm and I would have lost the eye totally. After surgery to replace the lens I am faced with a hole in my iris the size of the metal piece and a partially paralyzed iris. My eyes, left and right have severe powder burns and scaring and massive amount of metal in each....left eye is ok but peppered. Right eye is now "bionic".

My new synthetic lens cannot focus at anything closer than 4 feet. This creates a problem when shooting. I am left handed but shoot rifles right handed - shooting left handed is not an option for me. I may be backward but not completely! Iron sights are completely out of the question - can't see the rear or front sight! Peep's are the ticket for my situation for iron sighted options. Scopes require me to scew the eye piece bell out to the last thread to see the crosshairs clearly. I can deal with that.....but I don't like scopes.
My preference is the peep - problem comes in when your looking for fast target aquisition on game. For me the rear peep is a hazy fuzzy ring with no clarity and the front sight looks like a fuzzy blob when your dealing with a larger aperature hunting style sight. Target style sights work pretty darn good with the exception of the rear peep. I have to use the "ringed" rear peep fixture - suposedly for low light conditions. This helps the rear come into focus. Also - by forcing the eye to accept light through a small opening everything gets tighter and more focused to the point where the front sight on a normal length barrel is "realatively" clear. Ok.....now how do I deal with a hunting situation - answer......peep on a peep. I wear the sunglass with a hole in it for the right eye - flip type - as mentioned earlier. This with a hunting aperature with the low light ring is enough to allow me to continue to hunt. The other thing I have found that works perfectly without any extra holes is a simple red-dot scope. This is now where I am leaning - no magnification - shoot with both eyes open and through normal shooting glasses (ballistic eyewear actually). Accuracy is 4" at 100 yds +/- or more accurately 4MOA (dot size) - This is perfect for my hunting situations - I just sight in with the bullet hitting at the top of the dot at 100 yds and I am good to about 300 yds give or take. For longer distance hunting or varmint shooting I switch to a scoped weapon. Just something to think about for us visually challenged shooters - whether it be age or accidents.

My weapon of choice for the red-dot hunting is simple: Customized Mosin-Nagant rifle with a Tasco Pro-Point scope and 170grn Lee RNFP-GC pushed by a reduced charge of IMR 3031 and a CCI Lg. Rifle Primer with COW filler. Velocity is 2000 FPS and wickedly accurate. I rifle has a two groove bbl cut to 22 inches - I think it is an old '03 bbl from a springfield rifle? not sure - but the gunsmithwho did the work wasn't very good and the gun needed some help which I provided. Now instead of shotgun it is a rifle!

Hope this helps
Eric