prescription glasses?

[jimbullet]

I'm looking for some thoughts from those that may be wearing prescriptions. Having a blurry vision mostly at distance and astigmatism, making me near sighted, do you guys recommend to wear corrective glasses making the target sharp but doing so, I just find that the sights get blurry but I can still see hazy iron sights or should I just have the glasses focus more on the sights but then it makes the targets blurry.

 

Those that wear prescription, what do you guys do? 

 

 

[CClassForLife]

If you're under 40 and a good candidate, then I suggest LASIK.

 

If that's not an option, then shoot with prescription glasses and use what's more comfy for your eyes. Probably worth considering switching to a red dot and using prescription glasses to focus on the target.

[Farmer]

I’m opposite, sharp distance fuzzy sights. On my irons I replaced the red fiber in the front blade with a green one and that has really helped. I don’t really look at the sights just the target and put the green fur ball where it counts. Have to agree a red dot does make it easier if you have sight in both eyes. 

[jimbullet]

4 minutes ago, Farmer said:

I’m opposite, sharp distance fuzzy sights. On my irons I replaced the red fiber in the front blade with a green one and that has really helped. I don’t really look at the sights just the target and put the green fur ball where it counts. Have to agree a red dot does make it easier if you have sight in both eyes. 

I'm still trying to hang on to standard division. Lasik is not an option unfortunately. With a fuzzy sights, that doesn't hinder you from engaging steel targets?

[shred]

I have 2 sets of prescription glasses-- one for iron sights and one for red dots.  My eyesight is still good enough that I don't wear glasses day to day and didn't use prescriptions for matches for many years, but they make a significant difference for shooting with my now-Senior eyes.

 

The tricky glasses to get right were the ones for iron  sights.  I had them done 'monovision' with my dominant eye lens for front sight focus, and non-dominant eye for distance (the same scrip as my  dot on that side).  Takes a bit of getting used to and some people never do, so go slow when first using them.  The first pair I had done, the eye doc had me bring in a pistol and we measured the distance eye to front sight.  Those were awesome for seeing the front sight-- I could see dust on it, but 15 yards downrange was a lot of blur, so we redid them with the focus a couple clicks further out and they're great now-- good enough front sight for any shot, much better distance vision and less brain-conflict between the eyes.

 

Red dot glasses-- bring a dot with you to check when you've got something you like on the 'is-this-better-than-that' machine.  I was trying to decide between two when I pulled the dot up and one was a nice round dot while the other was a blurry %-looking dot.  

 

[GrumpyOne]

2 hours ago, jimbullet said:

I'm looking for some thoughts from those that may be wearing prescriptions. Having a blurry vision mostly at distance and astigmatism, making me near sighted, do you guys recommend to wear corrective glasses making the target sharp but doing so, I just find that the sights get blurry but I can still see hazy iron sights or should I just have the glasses focus more on the sights but then it makes the targets blurry.

 

Those that wear prescription, what do you guys do? 

 

 

We have a resident eye doctor on the forum. He's retired now, but he still doles out advice for those in need. He's helped quite a few of our members.

 

https://forums.brianenos.com/profile/22108-youngeyes/

 

He's on vacation right now, so it might take him a bit to get back to you.

 

 

[RangerTrace]

Yes he helped me greatly about 5 years ago!!

[NoSteel]

My optometrist has been great.  I started wearing glasses at 50 as I needed readers badly.  A year later I switched to progressive lenses for convenience.  Neither non script or my current script worked well while shooting.  My optometrist worked with me to build a set of shooting classes that work well at getting both a dot an open sights in good focus with the target just slightly out of focus.  She also adjusted the lens grinding to allow me to keep my head down and not having to turtle neck for a good sight picture.  These glasses were worth every penny ad since my script hasn’t changed I’m 6 years into this set…

[jimbullet]

3 hours ago, shred said:

I have 2 sets of prescription glasses-- one for iron sights and one for red dots.  My eyesight is still good enough that I don't wear glasses day to day and didn't use prescriptions for matches for many years, but they make a significant difference for shooting with my now-Senior eyes.

 

The tricky glasses to get right were the ones for iron  sights.  I had them done 'monovision' with my dominant eye lens for front sight focus, and non-dominant eye for distance (the same scrip as my  dot on that side).  Takes a bit of getting used to and some people never do, so go slow when first using them.  The first pair I had done, the eye doc had me bring in a pistol and we measured the distance eye to front sight.  Those were awesome for seeing the front sight-- I could see dust on it, but 15 yards downrange was a lot of blur, so we redid them with the focus a couple clicks further out and they're great now-- good enough front sight for any shot, much better distance vision and less brain-conflict between the eyes.

 

Red dot glasses-- bring a dot with you to check when you've got something you like on the 'is-this-better-than-that' machine.  I was trying to decide between two when I pulled the dot up and one was a nice round dot while the other was a blurry %-looking dot.  

 

I'm fairly similar to you. So in essence the dominant eye would be focused a bit further out from the front sight when you have your arms extended. Would you know if it were about 1-2 feet further away from your arms extended? (where your lenses are focused)

 

I was initially told by an optometrist that I can't have a distant focus on one eye and near on the other. Maybe your set up is the way to go.

Edited January 6, 2023 by jimbullet

[jimbullet]

1 hour ago, GrumpyOne said:

We have a resident eye doctor on the forum. He's retired now, but he still doles out advice for those in need. He's helped quite a few of our members.

 

https://forums.brianenos.com/profile/22108-youngeyes/

 

He's on vacation right now, so it might take him a bit to get back to you.

 

 

I'll patiently wait for him to return.... I've been struggling as the optometrist I went to told be I can't have a a distance focus on the non dominant eye and near on the dominant eye. My astigmatism is doubling up the horizontal lines so in essence its messing up the sight alignment. 

 

I tried distance focus with astigmatism correction but the difficulty is the sights are extremely fuzzy. I tried reading glasses with astigmatism correction and that made the sights very crisp but really fuzzy on the targets and crappy at trying to get steel plates at distance.

[RobW]

I went to Mountain West Optical on the recommendation of ESS when I wanted to update my glasses. He made me two inserts, one for irons with a split prescription (distance left eye, +2.00 right) and one for optics with regular prescription. I had no problem adjusting to the split and it works great. I actually wear it for optics as well, YMMV. 

[UpYoursPal]

I went with the Hunters HD Gold prescription lenses.  The clarity is AWESOME and the light transmission is really something you have to see to believe

[Farmer]

5 hours ago, jimbullet said:

I'm still trying to hang on to standard division. Lasik is not an option unfortunately. With a fuzzy sights, that doesn't hinder you from engaging steel targets?

I guess I’m kinda lucky as I can kinda get my progressives to clear up my front sight while giving good target focus. It probably slows me down some but I just shoot for fun anyway. Can only see out of one eye so I have to make it work, fortunately it’s on the same side as I shoot. 

[shred]

2 hours ago, jimbullet said:

I'm fairly similar to you. So in essence the dominant eye would be focused a bit further out from the front sight when you have your arms extended. Would you know if it were about 1-2 feet further away from your arms extended? (where your lenses are focused)

Not sure what distance it ended up at.  My eye doc is cool with guns in the office so I brought one and he set up the lens-swapper machine at the front sight distance and then I looked at the sights through that as he clicked the focus further outward until the front sight fuzzed too much, then we backed it in to just before that.  There's not enough distance inside the office to look past a few yards, but it was all I had to go on and it worked out well.

 

Dr Young is the guy to chat with if your guy doesn't want to do two different lens setups.

 

 

[rowdyb]

Just be prepared to spend lots of money and or compromise. 

At 45 my vision deteriorated enough to need tri focal progressives.

I spent 1500 bucks going through all the possible permutations of lenses and never liked any of the 'just for shooting" set ups. Also my prescription changes every year...

So I wear my everyday glass for every activity and just deal with it.

[jimbullet]

6 hours ago, rowdyb said:

Just be prepared to spend lots of money and or compromise. 

At 45 my vision deteriorated enough to need tri focal progressives.

I spent 1500 bucks going through all the possible permutations of lenses and never liked any of the 'just for shooting" set ups. Also my prescription changes every year...

So I wear my everyday glass for every activity and just deal with it.

What was the best that you got? How did you like the trifocals? Progressives are expensive so keen on what you think as  if they dont work, I'd rather stay away.

[GOF]

23 hours ago, jimbullet said:

I'm looking for some thoughts from those that may be wearing prescriptions. Having a blurry vision mostly at distance and astigmatism, making me near sighted, do you guys recommend to wear corrective glasses making the target sharp but doing so, I just find that the sights get blurry but I can still see hazy iron sights or should I just have the glasses focus more on the sights but then it makes the targets blurry.

 

Those that wear prescription, what do you guys do? 

 

 

I'm in the same situation. My solution was to wear my normal distance prescription glasses when shooting red dot sights. With iron sights I had a set of glasses made up with the same prescription, but with the focus point set to 25-inches. The normal focus distance for eye glass prescriptions is 20-feet. But any optical shop can set glasses to any focal distance you want. With the 25-inch focus eye-glasses (the same prescription/solution is often referred to as 'computer glasse ) the sights are sharp, the targets just a slight blur... but I can see lead splashes on a 35-yard Steel Challenge plate, and actually read an auto license plate number at 13-yards. 

I'm not the greatest shooter out there, but that two eye-glass system -- one for irons, and one for red dots- got me to A Class in Steel Challenge in RFRO, RFRI, RFPO, and RFPI. I also made M Class in IDPA SSP and BUG with iron sights (and my iron sight glasses) and EX in CDP, SSR, ESP, and CCP.

The extra set of glasses with the same prescription as my regular glasses, but with a 25-inch focus distance, cost me about $90. I consider it money well spent.

[jimbullet]

20 minutes ago, GOF said:

I'm in the same situation. My solution was to wear my normal distance prescription glasses when shooting red dot sights. With iron sights I had a set of glasses made up with the same prescription, but with the focus point set to 25-inches. The normal focus distance for eye glass prescriptions is 20-feet. But any optical shop can set glasses to any focal distance you want. With the 25-inch focus eye-glasses (the same prescription/solution is often referred to as 'computer glasse ) the sights are sharp, the targets just a slight blur... but I can see lead splashes on a 35-yard Steel Challenge plate, and actually read an auto license plate number at 13-yards. 

I'm not the greatest shooter out there, but that two eye-glass system -- one for irons, and one for red dots- got me to A Class in Steel Challenge in RFRO, RFRI, RFPO, and RFPI. I also made M Class in IDPA SSP and BUG with iron sights (and my iron sight glasses) and EX in CDP, SSR, ESP, and CCP.

The extra set of glasses with the same prescription as my regular glasses, but with a 25-inch focus distance, cost me about $90. I consider it money well spent.

both dominant and non dominant eyes have the same focus point for iron sight shooting? 

[GOF]

2 hours ago, jimbullet said:

both dominant and non dominant eyes have the same focus point for iron sight shooting? 

No. The dominant eye will always lead. That's the same as with any sighting system. What the different focal point length does is allow the eyes to get a good focus on the closer iron sights at the expense of a slightly blurry more distant target. If your normal prescription for daily distance eye glasses is correct for you, then just shifting the focal distance will work with iron sights. With red dots you'll need to wear your distance glasses. 

You mentioned 'dominant eye'. Do you know which of your eyes is dominant in relation to your dominant hand?

[rowdyb]

I tried "computer length", I tried doing an inverse of my tri focals where it went near, med, far top to bottom, I tried one eye near and one eye far single vision, I tried single focal at the sights and single focal at the target. 

Amd it really sucked to wear my regular tri focal progressives all week and then try and switch to something radically different on match day. And when I'm trying to go/see as fast as possible. 

It didn't work for me. Irons or dot.

I wear my regular glasses all the time, they are sec8nd nature so I use them in the match. Optics are easy because my top lens is the far, so keeping my focal plane down range and seeing a dot is a snap.

To keep a neutral head position I see irons through the middle lens, my middle distance. Yeah, they don't look as awesome as from the bottom, near lens but what I did was just go out and shoot a crap ton of live fire ammo to know (not guess) for what I saw I'd the sights what that equaled on paper.

Edited January 6, 2023 by rowdyb

[jimbullet]

8 hours ago, GOF said:

No. The dominant eye will always lead. That's the same as with any sighting system. What the different focal point length does is allow the eyes to get a good focus on the closer iron sights at the expense of a slightly blurry more distant target. If your normal prescription for daily distance eye glasses is correct for you, then just shifting the focal distance will work with iron sights. With red dots you'll need to wear your distance glasses. 

You mentioned 'dominant eye'. Do you know which of your eyes is dominant in relation to your dominant hand?

Thanks and Yes, I am fortunate to have my right eye being dominant and I'm right handed too. 

[WestPat]

Right hand shooter, left eye dominant, with astigmatism.  I just recently started wearing bifocals.  I feel like the day is coming soon where I will need my doc to measure me more precisely.  I appreciate the tip on the Hunters HD Gold.

David

[delta6]

I was very fortunate to have an eye doc that understood what I was trying to achieve. I started with "Golfers glasses". They have the bifocal/trifocal at the very bottom of the lens (you can read stuff if you need to). The shooting eye glass is focused at the front sight and the non dominant eye lens is for distance. I can wear them all day and am able to function reading, shooting and seeing in the distance. Not as good as natural 20/20, but have found for me, a good compromise.

[CraigS]

Some of the answer depends on how bad your vision is. I have astigmatism and am left eye dominant and right handed. In my shooting glasses I have the entire left lens set for front sight distance. I have my normal trifocal lens in the right eye. This works fine for me. I can shoot w/ my daily trifocals but trying to keep the sights in that middle part of the lens is too much work for idpa matches. These won't help astigmatism but do help a lot w/ focus.

Merit Optical Attachment from Brownells: A Cure for Fuzzy Sights (gunblast.com)

You can try the concept by using a piece of electrical tape w/ a 1/16" hole in it. We down the sticky side and put it on your glasses lens. Move quickly while it is still wet to get it positioned correctly. The result is amazing.