50 Year Old Eyes

[lndshrk]

Having a real problem focusing on the front iron sight with my standard graduated lens glasses. Also, at my local club, bullet splash is a concern because standard polycarbonate eye glasses don't provide large surface coverage. Has anyone had success in ordering custom made prescription safety glasses with good sweet spot magnification that can still be worn walking around the range?

[Merlin Orr]

Shooting glasses is a good place to start. I went to Wally World and got a pair of glasses with the right lens fitted with a 1.25 reader lens and the left with plain glass - both lens in safety glass. You can see what they look like by checking out my avatar to the left. Right lens is the safety.. They did make me get a script written from the in house eye doc... I can now again see my front sight. Works well for me. I also bought a pair of shooting glasses from Dillion with magnifiers. The sweetspot is too low to use to shoot but work great for scoring targets of reading - mine are dark lens but I think they have several kinds. Good Luck.

[Ron Ankeny]

Prescription shooting glasses are easy to come by. Oakly and Wiley X come to mind (Shooting Glasses). The problem is figuring out which prescription to put in the glasses.

I just wear single vision glasses set for distance. The sights are not sharp but I still do OK with a soft or fuzzy sight picture. I am near sighted so I take my glasses off to read scoresheets, etc. if need be.

Presbyopia sucks. Good luck.

[bountyhunter]

I got some made with polycarb lenses that are huge and give complete protection (look for large frames). I like being able to use a Merit sighter and you can't do that with the bulky safety glasses over your vision glasses.

"Having a real problem focusing on the front iron sight with my standard graduated lens glasses."

A pro told me this (and I found it to be true): the glasses need a lense in the "sight eye" where you can JUST BARELY get a sharp focus on the front sight. Take a business card to the optometrist office, hold it out at sighting length, and have him reduce the power on that lense until you can read the fine print. That will give you maximum distance clarity and still be able to focus on the front sight blade.

[Paul B]

I am plagued with the eyesight problem and have tried just about everything short of giving up and going back to shooting open. Here are the things I've tried and what has finally worked for me.

1. Tried the 2 different lenses with the right one for the sights and left for the target. This must take a lot more to get used to than I will ever be able to do. It works if you concentrate and shoot slowly, but I could not speed up with it and it does not help your balance when trying to move fast.

2. Tried the single distance lenses in both with the target sharp and the sights fuzzy and vice versa. This simply did not work well as I was unable to shoot where I wanted in either case.

3. I finally settled on no line bifocals which have given me the most success. The "sweet spot" on the glasses can actually be tuned to allow you to see the target clearly and the sights only a little fuzzy. For me this meant moving the bifocal transition area slightly upwards in the lense since I tend to tilt my head forward when shooting and look through the upper part of the lense. The optometrist did this without too much trouble and it's only a millimeter or two.

The no lines work well but what really pulled it together was going to a fiberoptic red front sight that lets me still align the sights even though they are fuzzy.

This is what worked for me and I'm "slightly" over 50. Hope it helps.

[Les Snyder]

not a hardware problem, but I was having vision problems shooting 3gun, and a friend suggested a diet supplement called "lutein" that was recommended to his parents for macular degeneration.... after about 3 days my vision improved trememdously.... lutein is a vitamin A source, and I dont eat a lot of carotein or green leafies.... I've recommended it to others, with mixed results.... It really worked wonders for me.... regards

[BadShot]

I ordered a pair of sunglasses from NYX Golf. I got a pair of prescription lenses that fit on the inside of them. They work perfect. For normal reading I need a +2.0, but for shooting a +1.0 allows me to see the sights perfectly. The target is a bit fuzzier, but good enough for 25 yard IDPA shots. There is a good article on them at SportShooter.com. Try this link

http://www.nyxgolf.com/index.html

[Merlin Orr]

Sportshooter Article

[lndshrk]

All great comments, thanks!

[Greg G]

I use rudy projects and have never looked back (excuse the pun =) ) www.rudyproject.it I have Rydons with the insert for my prescription, one of the best/most useful bits of shooting gear I own.

[9x45]

For pistol and shotgun I use prescription correction glasses with plastic safety lenses. My dominant eye is corrected to the front sight distance and the weak eye to infinity. They take some getting used to. For rifle over 100 yards, I use driving glasses (infinity correction) but I shoot a dot, not iron sights.