How Do You Talk To The Eye Doctor About What You Need Your RX To Do

[Overkill]

I'm going in to see the Eye Dr. tomorrow, and I want to have him write me 2 prescriptions. One for regular every day glasses and other for lenses that are optimized for shooting.

But I dont know how to tell him what the ideal shooting glasses would do.

Do you want both eyes optimized for focus on the front sight?

Dominant eye focused on the FS, and the other eye optimized for infiniti?

Both eyes optimize for somewhere inbetween?

I realize the uncorrected condition of my eyes might place some limits on what he can do, but I'd like to at least know what to ask for.

Can anybody help me figure out what to ask for.

I checked through the Glasses FAQs but didnt see anything that dealt with this aspect of the situation.

[Guy Neill]

In the past, I simply explained what I needed - focus on the front sight. Since I had a gun in the car, he allowed me to retrieve it and we went from there.

Actually, he was able to select a lens that worked based on the prescription for the bifocals. Having the gun only confirmed that the focus was on the front sight.

If you can't take the gun, you might measure the distance from your eye to the front sight and provide him with it, telling him you need the focus at that distance.

I think they ended up with the dominant eye focused on the front sight, and the other normal (distance) focus.

Talk it over with him.

Guy

Edited June 28, 2007 by Guy Neill

[lucas]

When i make an appointment i explain my intensions to want a second perscription for shooting and will be bringing part of a firearm not a complete gun, so make sure the doc doesnt have a problem with that.

[Genghis]

I don't think you want each eye focused on a different distance. I think you want both focused on the front sight. You don't need a gun to show the doctor the distance from your eye to the front sight. The doctor should be able to help advise you - I'm in Texas, and it was clear this wasn't the first time my doc had heard the same question. Come to think of it, he would probably have had a gun to loan me if I needed one.

[ffl]

There is a great book on competitive shooting that was published by the NRA years ago that addressed those issues. I don't know if it is till in print or not. It was a translation from a book written by a Russian shooter or shooting coach.

A. A. Yre'yav I think I will get the book when I go home for lunch and get back to you.

David

[ffl]

Competitive Shooting by A.A. Yur'Yev

Translated by The NRA & Gary L. Anderson

ISBN 0-935998-53-5

[KentG]

I don't think you want each eye focused on a different distance. I think you want both focused on the front sight. You don't need a gun to show the doctor the distance from your eye to the front sight. The doctor should be able to help advise you - I'm in Texas, and it was clear this wasn't the first time my doc had heard the same question. Come to think of it, he would probably have had a gun to loan me if I needed one.

For pistol I would agree with you but for 3 gun where you will need to be able to see targets out at distance I like monovision.

Im getting ready to go back to the eye doc in the near future and I wear contacts. Im thinking of this. For the right eye Im getting a lens for perfect focus on the front/rear sight of pistol and a lens for as good of distance as I can get.

For the left eye lenses set up the same and one more for close in reading.

Contacts are not that expensive and I can then decide which I like best.

Depending on what Im doing I can pick.

[eerw]

I ended using what they called monofocal..

I have one lens set for distance and one lens set for near..its a technique they use instead of prescribing bifocals. Your eyes will match it up..

standard practice is for the dominant eye to have the far lens and the other to have the near lens. But I asked to switch them for shooting purposes and he said that would be fine..so I wear that prescription now all the time..

it turns out my eye doctor is a casual shooter and is getting started in the USPSA game..but he gave me several prescriptions (contact lenses) of different powers to try out..so I took them all and headed to the range over a couple of days and shot..

I now have really sharp focus on my front sight..which is great

with no detriment to general use, driving, reading, etc.

Edited June 28, 2007 by eerw

[Rob Boudrie]

I found at optometrist who was quite experienced in such items just down the street from the local gun club.

He recommended a focal point 27" ahead of the front sight as this would allow me to comfortably focus on the front sight, but leave my distance vision mostly intact. This was a +1 diopter adjustment, instead of the +1.5 I use for reading glasses. He suggested +.75 for the left eye since it would give me a bit better distance vision and still allow for a comfortable two eyes open shooting position.

My normal Rx is -5.5 in one eye and -6.0 in the other, which is too much for wrap around joe cool glasses like those from Rudy Project. I settled on a pair of industrial safety glasses (wolverine) with detachable side shields as the shooting glasses. It doesn't look cool, but I see great and it protects the eyes from the front and sides nicely.

[Overkill]

Well, it didnt go too well. Not because he was not cooperative, but just because of where my eyes all ready are.

Basically my eyes are naturally moving towards a monovision situation, only the opposite orientation of what is desirable for shooting. My Dominant eye has good range of focus from just beyond front sight distance out to distance vision. My non-dominant eye only does close range, inside of FS distance even. To take my dominant eye to close range and stretch my non dominant out to distance would be very disorienting the Dr thought, since it would basically reverse the roles the eyes are currently doing. He thinks with some correction to the non dominant to give it some distance, and letting my dominant eye just do its thing is probably as good as it gets for me right now which is not all that bad he thinks. He said its pretty funny cause he makes a lot of money correcting peoples vision to basically what I've got for free.

[DJPoLo]

I found at optometrist who was quite experienced in such items just down the street from the local gun club.

I have printed out your desrciption, Rob. I hope my optician can help me.

Each year, I shoot Open from January through June. Then from July through Winter, it's Limited, mostly in preparation for the TX State Limited.

Last year (my 41st), I missed my Limited season due to our first baby on the way.

This year, (my 42nd), I shot my first Limited match (club Steel Challenge) in two years and was amazed to discover how terrible my eyes have become in the interim. WTF??? I couldn't see my front sight in dry fire and assumed that it was just a lighting problem. Well, it's not. The match experience was no better.

Bright sunlight brings the same results.

<sigh> I hope that I can find a solution. My boss & gunsmith have had similar experiences. I hope between the three of you I can find a solution...

-Chet

Edited June 29, 2007 by DJPoLo

[ffl]

My normal Rx is -5.5 in one eye and -6.0 in the other, which is too much for wrap around joe cool glasses like those from Rudy Project. I settled on a pair of industrial safety glasses (wolverine) with detachable side shields as the shooting glasses. It doesn't look cool, but I see great and it protects the eyes from the front and sides nicely.

I have a pair of SunBuster Glasses and They come with a card to send off and get a perscription insert for there glasses. they have two styles of lenses. These are the same glasses that Bruce Piatt wears. I love mine and wear them all the time. There are 6 different shades and colors that come with the set.

Great product.

I normally wear no line bifocals and the lenses on these are set for distance so I use them for shooting and driving. Can't read Sh## up close with them though.

David

[cking]

I can tell you my story... maybe it will help. I'm near sighted, can't see the Big E! But insist on shooting iron sights pistol, and rifle, but I also have scopes on some rifles.

http://www.sportglasses.com/content/articles_hunting_01.asp

Went to eye doctor and had him right me a script with bifocal reading distance of about 18 inches. That is little further out then they usually do it.

Then I went to eyeglass shop and said let me bring my gun in and figure out what power I need to see front sight. So they put those funny looking changeable eye power thing on my head, and dialed up the perfect power for front sight. I could see dust on it!!!

Then I had them put a large bifocal at the top of the lenses. Well that worked fine some of the time, but in IPSC we shoot from so many different positions that I was wasting time hunting [head bobbing] for sweet spot.

Then I had both lenses change to front sight distance. Well that sorta worked but I could never see the targets clearly.

Then I went to dominant eye front sight, non-dominat eye focused at infinity. Works good for iron sights of all type. Takes few times to get the brain used to it.

Now for rifle with peep sights, and scopes. Those glasses don't work. So I have both eyes with infinity focus and adjustable merit disc on my iron sighted rifle.

The Decot glasses are nice because I carry a variety of colors and powers and can change each out as needed.

Now the glasses with scripe holder behind them, always had a glare problem and distortion problem Will sell you a pair very cheap.

Needless to say alot of money change hands during all of this. Decot was/is best solution for me. After number of years my eyes changed a little, only had to buy one new decot lenses to fix the problem.

Also found the lightest blue blocker lenses are great for summer glare eye strain. They are kinda orange colored. Really help see the targets that are in the shade when your standing in the sun.

PS the Decot come with case that holds four extra lenses.

[rehn]

I had a conversation with "Evil Roy" (cowboy action shooter) about this several years ago. He has a lot of good info about prescription glasses selection for shooting on his website. His advice (which I've used) is to take a really sharp #2 pencil with you to the eye doctor. Instead of using the eye chart as your guideline for adding correction, have the doc dial in the sharpest focus you can get as you look at the tip of the pencil with both eyes open.

This eliminates the need to bring the gun in to the eye doc and actually gives you a sharper/finer object than a front sight to use for dialing in your prescription.

I've had to change my prescription every year for the past several years to guarantee that I was dialed in as good as I can get.

FWIW the doc said that in my case Lasik was not a good idea because of the rate of change that's going on - I'd end up needing glasses again a few years after lasik to get the quality of vision I have w/ corrective lenses now.

I got a set of Rudy Project sunglasses that had a very strong curve to them. We actually had to change my prescription specific to that frame to have less astigmatism correction than my normal glasses, all because the geometry of the prescription lens insert was different. So if you have highly curved lenses a prescription that's set for more standard flatter lenses may still cause visual distortion. I picked the Rudy Project because of their "racing red" colored lens. After spending waaaay too much time comparing and learning about all the various lens colors and companies on the market I determined that if I was going to use any tint I wanted glare reduction without color distortion. The Racing Red lenses have the least color distortion that I found in my search a few years ago. For me changing colored lenses and making any change in what I see vs. what I see driving to the range and pre-match is distracting. 99% of the time these days I shoot in my normal glasses and I get the best results that way.

Personally I don't recommend asymmetric correction (one eye near focus, one eye far focus) because I don't think that's how our eyes were intended to work. To have good stereo vision and depth perception you need symmetric correction. You don't want the world to look radically different with your shooting glasses relative to your normal glasses particularly if you are running and moving.

Karl

[Demetrio]

Need advice for a good option for practical shooting. The only I tried to now was the option of near focus for strong eye and far for the weak eye, but I didn't like the result. For some reason, the two "images" of the target (that is, the obfuscated image produced by the strong eye [with the near lens] and the clear image of the weak eye [with the distance focus]) don't "meet" each other in the infinite, like it usually happens with conventional vision.

I have not tried any other solution yet, so I'd like to get opinions about your solutions for the problem. Any of you have used "progressive lens" yet? What's your impressions?

Thanks in advance,

Demetrio.

Edited July 4, 2007 by Demetrio

[HeadHunter]

I had a set of glasses made with the dominant eye focused at 28 inches (distance to my front sight) and the non-dominant eye as normally done (infinity?); the monovision correction.

The results were so good that I had my contact prescription changed to the same thing. I wear them all the time and am tremendously happy with them. I am now able to read without reading glasses and don't feel like an old fart anymore. At 52, my vision deterioration was really bothering me and the monovision lenses have turned back my vision clock at least 10 years.

While researching this topic, I read that about 1/3 of the people who try it are unable to adjust to the difference between eyes, but it took me all of 5 minutes.

There is some discussion about the implications at http://airlinesafety.com/editorials/Delta554.htm. One of the contributors states: "depth perception based on stereoscopic vision is only good to about 50 feet."

[srf]

Up until last December I'd worn contacts with a -6.0 prescription for years. I shoot right handed but I could never 'line my body up' to shoot out of my dominant left eye. For the longest time I just closed my left eye but finally gave in to the fact that it was killing my transitions, as well as causing tension in my eyes and neck. After a couple of false starts I decided to use Magic Dots over the left eye this season and stick with it no matter what. Last December I had my annual visit with my optometrist and discussed with him what I want to see when I shoot. He's a great guy and very politically conservative so we always have a great discussion of the years events, as we're some of the very few conservatives in this state. He changed my Rx to -5.75 to allow sharp focus on the front sight (I shoot Limited) and it has really paid off. My performance has picked up a bunch. Keep in mind that my non-dominant eye is doing the work. In fact, its always been non-dominant because it's slightly weaker (20/30) than my left (20/20). We've never sought perfect correction because contact fit (which can be tricky with my Rx) has been perfect if I use the same Rx in both eyes. Front sight sharp and target a little blurry works well for me. It's a simple correction that some might want to try.

Edited August 14, 2007 by srf

[Jim Watson]

I have been shooting pistols with monovision for some time now. I had read an article about Allan Lehman who pushes the method as "overplus" but is really just an intermediate correction at front sight distance. My right eye focused at the front sight, the left my regular myopic distance Rx.

Some say to focus ahead of the front sight so that the sight is at the near side of your depth of field and you will not blur out as badly toward the target. That sounds good but it would take some very careful fitting.

[Jaxshooter]

There is a previous post covering this. I took my Open and Limited guns with me when I had my eyes checked. Long story short, I wear contacts that are the same in both eyes(distance) for Open and for Limited the right eye contact focus is at the front sight and the left eye is distance. I can't notice any difference when I am looking around etc. Some people cannot do this because it messes up thier equilibrium.

[tightloop]

Get a doc who is a pistol shooter and he'll know.

[Danva]

I got my regular perscription and called Decot. They helped me with adding diopters?. Cost a little more maybe but I can see well. Would highly reccomend them for shooting glasses

[Eyefly]

Wow, this could be a tough topic. I have been prescribing glasses for shooters and thrthfully, there is no one answer to everyone's needs. It's best to be able to take an unloaded gun to the exam with you for the best results. For competitive shooting, I like to adjust the sighting eye to the front sight and the other to distance. I also like to move the optical centers up a few mm because we tilt our heads down when we shoot. Some folks struggle with this because they can not dissociate their eyes. Generally, the less difference between the distance and front sight prescription, the easier it is to adjust. For skeet, I just do both eyes at distance since we point those. I have experimented with many glasses and so far, I like the pallet gas can. It covers the entire eye and gives great coverage. As another poster said, it's best to find an optometrist who is a shooter. There are a few of us around.

[Eyefly]

Sorry, that was Oakley gas can. Stupid spell check on the iPhone.

[Idoktr]

I am available for questions also. A practicing Optometrist and shooter for 28 years. I agree that all shooters are different. Age, prescription and type of gun are all factors in the final Rx. As stated above, consult an eye doctor who is also a shooter for best results....

 

Stewart

[docscoutjr]

A tad depressed as I finally got the $$ to get a prescription made with one eye focused front sight and the other for distance and then I read....

 

https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2015/10/16/the-right-rx-for-aging-eyes/

And others saying that this is just a bad idea, even this isn't what you shout do.  

For the first time in ten years I can see and remember the super razor sharp tip of the front sight! And yes it is a bit confusing, but initial tests seem to show that my eyes/brain can handle it and figure it out, however this technique doesn't seem popular or sustainable. 

Thoughts?