Shooting Glasses Advice

[mr alexander]

I have been near-sighted from day one. In the past, single vision glasses worked well when shooting handguns equipped with iron sights. I now

wear blended bifocals and have switched over to an UltraDot Sight. I'm thinking of getting a special pair of glasses that will be dedicated solely

for Bullseye Shooting, but am not sure as to what would work best. My right eye is the dominant one and I shoot right handed. I do place a small

strip of tape over the left lens to act as a partial occluder. What about the right lens? If it will be a single vision type, then what prescription

should it be be made for? Near or far? I am leaning toward having the left lens just made into a "blank" one. Will doing this cause some other

problems? Any advice you have would be much appreciated. Thank you.

[william]

1. Find an optometrist who isn't afraid of your pistol.
2. Tell him what you're looking for, and ask permission to bring your pistol. Don't f***ing assume!
3. Bring it in a totally non-threatening carrier to your appointment. I used to bring mine in a rug packed inside an ordinary attaché case.
4. Have him do a refraction exam to determine your proper Rx.
5. My recollection from the millennium or so ago when I used an Aimpoint is that you want a sharp, well defined dot on a sharp, well defined bull. If he projects a letter O, that should do the trick.

I've been nearsighted and worn glasses since 2nd grade - longer ago than I'd like to think about. I believe my Rx for red dot shooting was single vision set to infinity focus.

[fitzpatricklf]

Go onto Bullseyepistol.com, look under the "Technical Information" section on the page and look for the" Vision Topics for Shooters by Dr. Norman Wong." Print the article and take it to your Optometrist. Better yet, get it to him BEFORE your appointment. He will understand the technical issues better than the rest of us. Then ask if you can bring your unloaded sidearm into the office and if you can get the LAST appointment of the day so other clients don't have any issues. That's what I did and it all worked out fine.

[Rover]

Go onto Bullseyepistol.com, look under the "Technical Information" section on the page and look for the" Vision Topics for Shooters by Dr. Norman Wong." Print the article and take it to your Optometrist. Better yet, get it to him BEFORE your appointment. He will understand the technical issues better than the rest of us. Then ask if you can bring your unloaded sidearm into the office and if you can get the LAST appointment of the day so other clients don't have any issues. That's what I did and it all worked out fine.

Great advice, but simply: distance glasses with astigmatism correction (round dot). You don't need to tape your left lens. Use BOTH eyes.

[CR10X]

Some people do better with both eyes, some people do better with off eye occluded. You won't know until you try.

The main thing is to get the optical center of your lens centered for your head position when shooting. You will generally need to assume your shooting position so the provider can identify the correct location for those glasses.

CR

[UnGe]

Does anybody have any advise on adjusting PD for shooting glasses/pistol shooting position (regular ones, not specialty like Knobloch)? I do not think any conventional optometrist has proper device to measure it.

[mr alexander]

Go onto Bullseyepistol.com, look under the "Technical Information" section on the page and look for the" Vision Topics for Shooters by Dr. Norman Wong." Print the article and take it to your Optometrist. Better yet, get it to him BEFORE your appointment. He will understand the technical issues better than the rest of us. Then ask if you can bring your unloaded sidearm into the office and if you can get the LAST appointment of the day so other clients don't have any issues. That's what I did and it all worked out fine.

Great advice, but simply: distance glasses with astigmatism correction (round dot). You don't need to tape your left lens. Use BOTH eyes.

Thanks for all of your suggestions. What about my idea of keeping the left lens a "blank" one?

Rover,

If I use BOTH eyes, then TWO targets and TWO sights are seen. I find this to be very distracting. Using the small strip of tape over the left lens

completely eliminates the double images.

[Rover]

This is impossible unless you see double EVERYTHING when looking out at the world. Look ONLY at the target, not the dot: let the red dot be out there.

[tovaert]

Re: shooting with two eyes open, and corrected vision: does this also hold for metallic sights? I occlude my non shooting eye, it just seems strange with both eyes open, and my non-shooting eye having a different Rx than my dominant eye (-1.25 to enable front sight focus). I'm curious I'll give it a try.

[Rover]

Re: shooting with two eyes open, and corrected vision: does this also hold for metallic sights? I occlude my non shooting eye, it just seems strange with both eyes open, and my non-shooting eye having a different Rx than my dominant eye (-1.25 to enable front sight focus). I'm curious I'll give it a try.

This info is just for red dot sights with both eyes open (no occlusion). Both the target and the dot are at 'infinity." If you try to look at the dot, you "may" see two bulls. Focus on the bullseye.

With iron sights, you want to shoot with BOTH eyes open, but with one occluded. You want your lens and eye to be focused on the front sight.

[Agt. Smith]

With iron sights, you want to shoot with BOTH eyes open, but with one occluded. You want your lens and eye to be focused on the front sight.

What he said.

I got an inexpensive clip on, flip down, white opaque blinder and it works great. I also love the iris I tried - but it's too weird to try and use regularly - so I'm sticking with just the blinder.

Good luck.

[PaulK51]

For "red dot sights", my normal distance prescription is perfect. I wear lined bifocals and see both target and dot clearly thru the distance area. Lenses are also corrected for my astigmatism. I use a clip on flip down on non dominant eye. For open iron sights in ISSF, I wear a one lense "Borg" type setup. My lense is ground to focus at '36 inches and is astigmatism corrected. 36 inches put the focus (the range is at least + or - 12") in-between my 22 standard pistol and my air pistol/free pistol front sights. This gives me perfect vision of the sights but the bull is so grey and diffuse that it is troublesome. Enter the adjustable iris. As it stops down, the depth of field increases and the bull goes from grey to black. At this point it looks like what I saw 50 years ago, sights crisp and black bull in soft focus. Best sight picture short of optics. I use the included rectangular diffuser for the non dominant eye which due to head turn, ends up close to my nose. That works out perfect so I can use my spotting scope with my non dominant eye without moving anything. This set up has made it possible for me to take up precision bullseye with these old eyes. the cost of the flip down and the Olympic glasses setup with blinder and iris was less than $200 on Ebay from Nikkonos in Canada. Add about $100 for a prescription lense with a little work from your optometrist at your next vision checkup. For me it was very well spent!

[mr alexander]

This is impossible unless you see double EVERYTHING when looking out at the world. Look ONLY at the target, not the dot: let the red dot be out there.

Rover,

While your advice is much appreciated, it just did not work for me. When trying to shoot with both eyes open,

two target and two sight images are seen. This happens whether the dot is on or off. With it turned off, I can

only be looking at the target, right? And no, I do not "see double EVERYTHING when looking out at the world".

For whatever reason, occluding the left lens of my glasses must be resorted to when using an UltraDot just as

it was when I used to shoot with iron sights. Go figure!