Shooting glass with magnification

[Huskerguy]

I have seen the ads for shooting glasses that have adjustments in them at the top for shooting and had planned to get a pair. I recently had a couple eye appointments and the Doc is a friend. On the first apt I asked him what power I should get and he told me about some mathematical formula they use and he measured from my eyes to where the end of the firearm would be as I pretended to hold up a pistol. He said 1.5 but go with a 1.25. I had a follow up apt with him a few days later and this time I brought my tape measure and my CZ 10C. I stood up in shooting position and he measured with the firearm and he came up with 1.75.

Now the fun part. I am kind of messed up as I am right handed, left eye dominant and shoot right eyed. I just have to close my left eye mostly so my eyes don't fight among themselves. To make it even worse, the sights are more clear with my right eye than the left especially when I look over my glasses. The doc put all the various power of lenses over my right eye to get the sights in focus and it was amazing how clear the three dots became, but there is a trade off. He explained that there is never going to be a perfect lens because you are trying to focus on three separate distances - rear sight, front sight and the target. The more power he added, 1.75 for example, allowed for a great view of the front site but the target was really blurry. As he came down I could see the differences and how the trade offs in lenses would work.

In the final analysis, I have decided to NOT get glasses with any correction but try some glasses with tint, likely yellow, just to see how that works for me. I tried some friends non corrective yellow tinted glasses and they worked well outside.

So, two questions from all of this:
1. Do any of you have top portion prescriptions and how does that work for you? What power are they?
2. What do you use for tinted regular shooting glasses?

Thanks in advance. I am only 67 and I can see this becoming more interesting with time as things do as we age gracefully!

[wv109323]

I assume that you have bifocals for reading. As we get older our eyes can not focus at close distances, thus we need bifocals. Young eyes can focus on rear sight, front sight and the target.
You need to have the front sight in sharp focus,thus the rear sight will be slightly out of focus and the distant target will be out of focus more so. Getting old is tough. There is no prescription that will bring your focus back like you seen when young.
The power of correction will vary between different people. Most optomitrist will set your reading glasses for 18" , trifocal for 36" (computer screen and arms length) and then correct the main lense for infinite distance.
Your shooting configuration is exactly like mine. Left eye dominant, shoot right handed and with right eye. You need to correct the right eye for the front sight and occulate your left eye. By that you need to block your left eye with a translucent occulator. If you close your left eye you can not focus as sharply with your right eye. Both eyes must see the same amount of light to optimise focus, thus the occulator must be translucent and not blacked out.
The power you need will be based on the power you need for for reading and then agjusted for the extra distance to the front sight.A diopter of +1.00 will change your point of focus one meter or 39 inches. A +2.00 will change it to 1/2 meter or 18 closer than +1.00.
Say you need +2.00 for focus at 18" then to focus at 36"(assuming 36"is the distance from your eye to front sight) then you need +1.50 for 36"inches.
This all depends on the amount of ambient light. The brighter it is outside the more your pupil contracts and the eye has greater range of focus.(depthof focus). Sunglasses or color of glass affects the amount your pupil dialates. With dark glasses your pupil must open up to allow light in the eye. Yellow lenses makes the pupil contract and be in sharper focus. There is a point of comfort for the eyes. In bright sunlight you may not be able to wear yellow glasses. One way to keep this constant is glasses that darken in light.
I hope this helps.

[wv109323]

To answer your questions:
I have dedicated shooting glasses and not top bifocals.
Power needed will depend on your eyes.
Tint will vary but the yellow closed your pupils for more depth of field focus thus more focus.
Also a apature(peep sight) will change your depth of focus.

[high standard 40]

What kind of shooting are you doing? My main area of interest is handgun silhouette. I'm past 70 years of age and I have settled on a clear +1.50 lens used with an adjustable iris to aid with depth of field and an occluder on my non-shooting eye. This combination is by Knobloch and has kept me in the game.

[wv109323]

Another thing I forgot to mention and probably the cheapest solution is a clip-on diopter. They make a clip -on flip-up diopter that clips onto your regular glasses. Think of the flip-up sunglasses of yesteryear. These cover the entire lense of your regular glasses so you do not need a special lense.
They sell these on flea bay for about $10. They are also available through stores that specialize in optics. You just need to get the power from your eye doctor and order that power.

[turtlezx]

i need bifocals wondering for pistol if i could look thru the lower 1/2 to see sights well
and slightly over the top of the bi for seeing the target clear also?????????????
think it would work?????

[MrWolf]

I wonder how those glasses you see advertised that are adjustable powers. They just might work for issues that the OP has. I have never looked into them, just an observation.

[wv109323]

Turtlezx, the accuracy of shooting a pistol is determined by the alignment of the front to rear sight. Imagine that you are shooting into a 4" sewer pipe from the gun to target. If you keep the sights perfectly alinged you will never hit the pipe on the inside. Disregard bullet drop due to gravity. So as long as the muzzle is end of the pipe your group can not exceed 4"if your sights are aligned.
Your concentration needs to be on the sights and not the target.

[turtlezx]

just wondering if i can see all 3 clearly with bi s

[high standard 40]

just wondering if i can see all 3 clearly with bi s

Using an aperture will get you close to achieving that

[farmbif]

the older im getting and the higher power granny glasses I need just to read, red dot sights and scopes are the best way for me to get on target. but I practice at least once a week shooting a 3" steel pole at 75 yards without using any glasses using iron sights on a 22 or 22 hornet. sometimes I try using 2.5x reading glasses with a 357 but the super red hawk now has a Burris 2-7 permanently mounted on top. but for the life of me can no longer shoot the old lend lease 38 spl by lining up the sights its a point and shoot gun for me now. I tried yellow shooting glasses they really didn't do anything for me but polarized sunglasses are a help.
as high-power says peeps work for some reason at least for me with an antique 25-20 with the old Lyman tang sight. the tang peep is way out of focus but the front sight is in focus, it just seems to work

[fredj338]

It helps to have an optom that understands shooting. You want focus on the front sight at full extension of your arms. It sounds like you are looking at progressive lenses, which is what I shoot. Though they are not for everyone, I love mine.

[fredj338]

just wondering if i can see all 3 clearly with bi s

Even with perfect vision, it is not possible to focus on 3 diff planes at once, so not happening.

[AZ Pete]

I am left handed and left eye dominant, so I had my optician fit lenses with the left eye focused on the front sight and the right lens on distance. As stated above you cannot focus on three planes at the same time.

[turtlezx]

so someone with perfect vison cannot see front rear and target clearly?????????? doesnt sound right

[gunfan2]

so someone with perfect vison cannot see front rear and target clearly?????????? doesnt sound right

No matter how perfect one's eyes may be, you can only focus on one thing at a time. Consider looking through a camera lense, whatever it is you focus on will allow things closer or further to be unclear. Our vision works the same way. That is why we are told to clear your front sight and blur the target, archery, handgun or rifle, all work the same.

[AndyC]

2-3 years ago I had a theory and got my eye-doc to measure me (right-handed, right-eye dominant) for glasses where the left lens focuses at distance and my master eye is focused short-distance on the front sight.

Feels a little weird for about 15 seconds but when I shoot with both eyes open, as I always do, the front-sight and the target are both in crisp focus. I feel like I now have a superpower or something :guntootsmiley:

I recently updated my prescription and got a new set via ZenniOptical for.... $25.85 shipped.

[Huskerguy]

Thanks for the replies, especially wv109323.

First, I thought my use of the CZ 10 C gave it away, I am talking about handguns. I really prefer to shoot my revolvers as there is much less "brass chasing" that needs to be done.

My optometrist is gun friendly but not necessarily a handgunner. He is more of a shotgun person. We went through all of the options and he showed me what different diopters would do for me when sighting my 10 C. And, yes, it is unfortunately true that we cannot focus on three different distances at one time. I have very little distance change in my glasses, more for reading and yes they are variables. Even at 67 I can pass my driving test without my glasses but I couldn't read the test if I had to.

As hard as I have tried with rifle and handgun I cannot keep my left (dominant) eye open when I shoot. I have to close it down just enough to allow me to focus with the right eye. It is the classic, left eye does one thing and right eye does something else and they don't always work together in every situation deal. Many years ago I tried two different contacts, one for close up and the other for further away and I couldn't adjust to my brain trying to figure it out so I gave up.

I am still confused about color and how that affects sighting. I would guess that my revolver shooting is about half and half indoor and outdoor. I do have an old pair of glasses, photo gray that change. They are kind of my hunting glasses for birds as we start in the dark and end up in full light so they can adjust without carrying extra glasses.

The flip up diopter is an interesting option I am starting to look at. At a quick glance I can't find the power I need but I will keep looking. At the office I tried everything from 2.0 - 1.25 or 1.00 and there were advantages and disadvantages to each. By the time we tried them all, my doc suggested I stay with what I had as it was giving me the best combination of seeing front and rear sights and the target without making one or the other go away.

More and more guys I talk to at the range tell me they are just going to red dots. Those are great for semi autos but I can't ruin the beauty of my 28's, 27's, 19's and security six's with those.

Finally, what the heck is an occulator?

[oley55]

I have for years been using the self clinging eyepal peeps on my glasses. It takes a wee bit of fussing to get them positioned just right, but once they are they are great. There is nothing better than an aperture peep site. I use them with some fairly cheapo ($13) bifocal safety glasses. I have a pair for rifle and another pair for pistol so I don't have to putz around repositioning them.

https://eyepalusa.com/

[Forrest r]

My eyes started to go when I was in my 40's so I bought shooting glasses for both rifle & pistol
https://i.imgur.com/UTArNrw.jpg

There are different things you can do to "trick" your eyes seeing clearer. Colored lens, expanding/contracting iris along with the angle of the lens.

As my eyes got worse and bifocals came into play it became a trade-off. Clearly seeing the front sight, clearly seeing the target or somewhere in between were both aren't clear.

Whatever my glasses prescription was (the lower/reading) I always used 1/4 diopter less for the shooting glasses lens.

Unfortunately my eyes got bad enough that shooting glasses simply don't work anymore.

I started to transition to red dot sights back in 2004/2005 and started using the rmr red dots in 2008/2009.

With red dots you keep both eyes open and point the firearm. Glasses/type of glasses/diopters/etc doesn't matter. If you can see with the glasses you have on. You will see the target & when the red or green dot is on what your aiming at, hit the loud button.

I use a 7x target dot scope to test loads in a S&W 686 and a red dot for shooting/range play.
https://i.imgur.com/im4jQKD.jpg

The nm 1911's with burris fastfire III's on them
https://i.imgur.com/8NOmyg6.jpg

Just something to think about

[high standard 40]

Finally, what the heck is an occulator?

An occluder is basically a blinder that covers the non-aiming eye. The one I use with my Knobloch shooting glasses flips up out of the way when you aren't shooting. It allows you to keep both eyes open while still not allowing the non-aiming eye to see the target. In your case, if you simply can't keep both eyes open, it won't help you. But it may be worth a try to experiment using one to see if it helps focusing the aiming eye. Many things can be temporarily attached to your glasses to test the theory. And it is true that the human eye can't focus at three different distances, but an adjustable iris will help you get close to achieving that.

[wv109323]

An occulator is a blind that allows you to keep both eyes open but the vision is blocked by the occulator. Many are black but you want a translucent one to allow both eyes to receive the same amount of light. A piece of frosted scotch tape will work.
Your pupil opens and closes depending on how much light it sees. There is more depth of field ( photographic term ) the smaller the pupil is. Depth of field is the range or distance that things are in clear focus. Without correction, on a bright day your range of things in focus may 42" to infinity. On a cloudy day or indoors your uncorrected depth of field may be 60" to infinity.
The color or darkness of lenses regulate how much your pupils are open. With all other things equal, your depth of field will be less with sunglasses on because your pupils will be open wider. There is a point where the brightness is uncomfortable and sunglasses are needed.
Also lens color can be used to heighten contrast. Shotgunners use certain colors to highlight the color of the orange clay targets.

[uscra112]

For many years I have worn Zeiss "Transition" lenses for driving. These are what lesser optical companies call "no-line bifocals". At the top they are correct for long ranges, and they smoothly transition to a reading-glsss magnification at the bottom. For in-between ranges, just tilt your head a little to get the line of sight through the portion of the lens that works best. Downside is that they're expensive - I just got new ones (because my eyes have changed over the last 15 years). Optometrists charges + lab charges amounted to almost $600, (and I retained my old titanium frames). Wearing them is like having my young man's eyes back. Only thing I'm aware of is that the field at 2 feet distance is narrow. (Can't have everything.) I still use ordinary readers for the computer and reading books.

Factoid: The human eye is most sensitive in the yellow wavelengths. This is why yellow lenses give you better contrast discrimination for skiing or driving or shooting on cloudy days.

[silhouette_shooter]

I'm expecting a pair of lenses from Decot up in Phoenix early next week I sent them my prescription and explained about the front sight going blurry, they're making me a pair of lenses for my existing Decot frame. They pretty much cater exclusively to shooters so I'm looking forward to trying them out.

[mdi]

I have tri-focals which aid, some. The mid-range portion gives good focus on front sight, but as mentioned above very difficult to focus in all 3 planes, so I looked for remedies. First was the stick on diopers (?) which worked pretty good. I installed a peep sight on my Ruger SBH which helped at 50+ yds. But in the last few years I have used red dot sights. Both tubular and reflex, with no magnification, the target is clear and I just put the dot where I want to hit. (I have been using inexpensive sights which seem to work quite well for my uses)...