TargetTalk

Due to imperfect vision (astigmatism) I wear glasses. I wear the same glasses for 10 meter shooting. I'm aware this is not the best situation and I should consider buying shooting glasses. However I recently read that contacts should be the first choice when vision needs to be corrected.
How many of you wear contacts when shooting and prefer this over specific shooting glasses (i.e. Knobloch etc. ?
Thanks for your feedback.
Gerard

Hi Gerard,

I've been wearing contact lenses since 1975 and prefer them over glasses. When I first got my lenses, there were few or no soft lenses, however, even when they became popular, my optometrist told me to use the hard lenses. I have since switched to gas permeable lenses because of old drier eyes. I'd like to know what your optometrist says about soft lenses.

You'll appreciate contacts when the humidity and temperature are high when others have sweaty and fogged lenses, however, when the dust is blowing, you'll curse them.

HTH
Ben

I have very bad vision and astigmatism in my right eye too. I used to use glasses when I first started but because my vision was so poor, my glasses made everything so tiny I couldn't aim properly. I switched to contacts and liked it alot better. The only problem has been getting contacts that have a good enough prescription and allow my eyes to focus as good as glasses. When the optometrist tests my eyes I see better than 20/20 with my contacts but when shooting I often have my eyes blur on me and the target go grey not allowing me to center my shot and having to guess.

I recently got a pair of Varga shooting frames and got a yellow filter which really helps my eye to focus better because of the contrast. I do not have a prescription lens in my glasses yet so i'm just using contacts and a yellow filter.

I will someday, when I can afford it, get a prescription lens for my shooting glasses, but I am not sure if I should get the prescription bases on wearing contacts (very small prescription) or get it based on not wearing any contacts (huge prescription). I think with contacts would be better to keep everything from looking so small.

Unless you get shooting specific contact and they fit you 100% perfect all the time, I think it'd be best to go with contacts and shooting glasses ( or just shooting glasses depending on how bad your eyesight is )

You really need to talk with your optometrist, or better, one who really knows about shooting. Contacts will often correct a small degree of astigmatism, if it results from corneal distortion - the lens 'sucks' the cornea into a more symmetrical shape. There are contact lenses which correct astigmatism, having cylindrical correction built in, but I think they cannot manage huge correction. They, of course, have to have their orientation on the eye maintained. They are either weighted, or have a 'shelf' which bears on the lower lid (I think - going a bit out of specialty here!) Whether this maintenance of position is possible in the funny positions we have to adopt for target shooting is a question for an optometrist and for experimentation.

The best answer is suck it and see. Trial contacts should be free from a friendly optometrist.

If you find filters, etc. help, the best place for them is in the rear sight, not waving around on shooting frames.

Greying out sounds more like retinal fatigue or hypoxia. What you describe is a common problem for those with perfect vision. Are you holding too long? Are you not looking away from time to time? If fatigue or hypoxia are the cause, whether you use contacts or glasses shouldn't make appreciable difference.

One thing about contacts. My eye doc told me that contacts will NOT be as good as glasses. The reason is the contact "floats" on the eye. This causes the optical center of the contact to move about. This moving of the contact and the resultant change in the vision is why he claimed glasses is better for image quality. Since I don't use contact any more (old eyes w too much stuff to correct) I cannot comment on how valid his statement is in the real world.

Eye safety is very important to me so I always use shooting glasses. Fortunately my required correction is quite small so that no massive correction is needed. I have had brass eject directly back up my shooting arm and strike my glass dead center . On occasion this has caused a chip to the glass directly in my line of vision rendering the glass useless. My real concern is what damage would have been done to the eye directly behind the glass where the brass impacted. Do what you feel is most important. Best vision or best safety. Maybe we can have both. Good Shooting Bill Horton

I have never shot with shooting glasses, but I have had very few problems with contacts, and they are a huge step up over regular glasses. I've never noticed the contacts floating on my eye causing any significant issues. I find them great for the opposite reason, they automatically center themselves for what you have to look at.

I too see better than 20/20 with them in. I can call shots at 10m without a spotting scope. The only issues I've had are rain from 12 o'c, and wind on cold days from 1 to 2 o'c. I've taken a few rain drops to the eye that moved my contact. And the cold wind seems to dry out my eyes extremely quickly.

Thanks for the feedback. I've been wearing glasses for more than 2 decades and my first preference would be shooting glasses. I have an appointment with my ophthalmologist within four weeks and I can discuss this with him. Is there anything particular an ophthalmologist needs to know when one asks for a prescription for shooting glasses ?
Regards,
Gerard

Anonymous wrote:<snip>
Is there anything particular an ophthalmologist needs to know when one asks for a prescription for shooting glasses ?
Regards,
Gerard

Just that they need to make a prescription that gives perfect focus on the foresight, so something like 2 feet from your eyes. So not a million miles away from what they'd make for you if wanted reading glasses.

Rob.

For rifle, the optical center of the lens should be where you are looking thru when aiming. And that tends to be in the upper left quadrant, for a right hand shooter. This is why the adjustable shooting glasses can put the lens in that spot. If you shoot rifle with a raised sight and canted over, the tilt of your head changes and so is the spot that you look through.

SO...ask your eye doc if you can bring your rifle into his office so he can get the optical center in the correct spot. This is how I chose my current eye doc. She made shooting glasses for others before, and she had no problem with me bringing my air pistol into the office.

Read the hitchhikers guide in the Pilkguns site. There is a good article on shooting glasses.
http://www.pilkguns.com/c16.shtml

You need to measure the distance the front sight is from your eye.
Also tell him the distance to the target.

One very important thing in the article. The lens prescription must be such that you can focus on the front sight and still be able to see the target. For me a prescription perfect for the front sight is very hard to make out the target. I can't aim at a big fuzzy splotch of gray. So the prescription has to be a compromise, to let you focus on the front sight AND still see the target well enough to aim at it.

GaryN wrote:...For me a prescription perfect for the front sight is very hard to make out the target. I can't aim at a big fuzzy splotch of gray. So the prescription has to be a compromise, to let you focus on the front sight AND still see the target well enough to aim at it.

this thread is in the rifle section and the article appears to be related to pistol, though the tenet is the same (focus on the front sight).
If the front sight is in focus the target will be out of focus but for rifle you don't aim AT the target bull, you would centre the front sight element AROUND the target bull

Even though the article is for AP, the effect is the same...for me. If the prescription is too exact, to focus on the front sight, and depending on how bad your eyes are (and mine are BAD), the target might end up looking like a light gray cloud, which would be VERY hard to center in the front aperture. Because then I would be straining to simply see the target and loosing concentration on the front sight.

The basic point was that the prescription has to take the target into account. A prescription can only be correct for ONE plane of focus, so the prescription selected is a compromise to let you focus on the front sight, and still be able to see the target clear enough to aim at it.

When my eye doc and I did this, she had to experiment to get this compromise. Because when she did a test glasses for the front sight, I could barely see the target, and that was the larger AP target. I would not even be able to see the smaller AR target. Then she adjusted one step at a time, until I could see the target well enough to aim at it, and still keep the front sight in focus. I use this glasses for both AP and AR.

Whilst everyone is different, you still need the foresight as the key (in focus) element. There's no point having a slightly fuzzy foresight just to get the target slightly clearer, the foresight does all the aiming so it needs to be pin sharp. Also you'll find it varies a lot between indoors and outdoors as to your depth of field.

All I can suggest therefore is you go for focus on the foresight as your goal and if that doesn't allow you to visualise the (slightly blurry) target then you will need to experiment more. You may find for example, using a slightly bigger foresight element helps you centre the target better, but only you can determine that.

Rob.

Rob
In our experimenting (my eye doc and I), there was a range of optical prescriptions that kept the front sight in focus. Think of it like a bell curve, with being able to focus on the front sight +/- X diopter. Within the X range, you can still focus on the front sight.

But depending on your eye, the target may not be visible. In that case you move slightly off the center of the curve (within the +/- X) until the target is visible, BUT still keep the front sight in focus. This is the compromise that I am talking about. Because for someone with BAD eyes like me, seeing the front sight is useless if I cannot also see the target. By seeing the target, I mean, only well enough to be able to aim at it.

Gerard,
I have rather poor eyesight (@20/450) when uncorrected.. I have shot smallbore rifle, highpower rifle, Conventional pistol and now starting AP. I shoot with contacts for smallbore, pistol and AP however, I do it in conjunction with shooting glasses. As we age, the need for the additional corrective lenses for the front sight generally can't be escaped. I found that I cannot shoot highpower rifle with contacts and knoblochs becasue the muzzle blast makes the contact lens "float" or move enough to throw my vision's focus off a bit. That just doesn't work in sustained fire, therefore I shoot just using shooting glasses, no contacts.

Scott