special spectacles for airpistol shooters

A place to discuss specific issues with the new SASP disciplines

Moderators: pilkguns, m1963, David Levene, Spencer, Richard H

Post Reply
Sergei1950
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:08 am

special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Sergei1950 »

Who can tell my something about special glasses for airpistol/rifle shooters? I mean monocles with tiny oppening. Is it useful? Where it is possible to buy?
Xman
Posts: 326
Joined: Tue May 18, 2010 1:53 pm
Location: Tyler, TX

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Xman »

Sergei1950
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:08 am

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Sergei1950 »

Thanks!
PaulK51
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:22 am

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by PaulK51 »

I just bought the Varga set up for Pistol with the iris from the Bay source above, Olympic Marksman Equipment. I had the 37mm lense made up for a 36" focus. That was 1/2 way between my standard pistol front sight distance and my 12" barrel free pistol. Just last week I tried it at the range and was amazed at the results. Focus on the front sight was perfect with the rear sight very close behind. The bull was a very diffuse gray blur to my 70 year old eyes. I then closed down the iris about 1/2 way and the bull became black and in good soft focus. It's like I had my 20 year old eyes back. Now if I could only hold...
One problem was with the fit of the lense against the iris holder. The thickness of the lense did not allow the iris to slide down over the center without levering the lense out. I have been building up my free pistol grip with JB weld steel stick. I used a little to extend the base which I redrilled for the post further from the iris. Everything lines up great now. So far I'm very happy with the glasses.
Sergei1950
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:08 am

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Sergei1950 »

Thanks a lot for your reply! Just what I need for my 71 y/o eyes. Real "Evangelium" (good news in biblical Greek)
william
Posts: 1470
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 12:31 pm
Location: New Hampshire, USA

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by william »

Sergei1950 wrote: Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:53 pm Real "Evangelium" (good news in biblical Greek)
I think you mean "Evangelion." Or does biblical Greek use Latin endings?
Sergei1950
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:08 am

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Sergei1950 »

You are possibly right )) I start forgetting Koine, long time ago it was in my minister's training
kayakr
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2019 7:56 pm

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by kayakr »

I use knobloch. I'm 55 and need glasses, astigmatism and can't focus near and far without change in glasses (I take the off them for close focus). I use a corrective lense that sets my focus just ahead of the front sight. (see shootingsight.com for test and real lenses and advice) and an iris that is closed down a bit which does 2 things. 1) it reduces astigmatism distortion on the target since less of my eye lens is being illuminated 2) increases depth of field by acting like a pinhole camera so that in the extreme both my sights and the target are in focus.
Rover
Posts: 7055
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:20 pm
Location: Idaho panhandle

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Rover »

kayakr wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:46 pm I use knobloch. I'm 55 and need glasses, astigmatism and can't focus near and far without change in glasses (I take the off them for close focus). I use a corrective lense that sets my focus just ahead of the front sight. (see shootingsight.com for test and real lenses and advice) and an iris that is closed down a bit which does 2 things. 1) it reduces astigmatism distortion on the target since less of my eye lens is being illuminated 2) increases depth of field by acting like a pinhole camera so that in the extreme both my sights and the target are in focus.
1. Why not get a lens that corrects the astigmatism AND pulls focus to the front sight. Don't do it half-ass.

2. The purpose of the iris is to give you a UNIFORM "pupil", not to increase depth-of-field, especially NOT to the degree that sights and bull are in
focus. The bull is supposed to be somewhat fuzzy.

Do an ADVANCED search (upper right) on this subject. There is plenty of comment on the subject.
ddk576
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:56 am

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by ddk576 »

Sergei1950 wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 11:55 pm Who can tell my something about special glasses for airpistol/rifle shooters? I mean monocles with tiny oppening. Is it useful? Where it is possible to buy?

https://www.drbarrynolt.com/shooting-gl ... d-archery/
mister G
Posts: 147
Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:09 am

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by mister G »

Nobody seems to be familiar with a phenomenon described as focusing insufficiency where one eye is slow to adjust to where the other eye is looking. I have the problem, recently discovered, where ,without correction , means I see 2 of everything . My left eye is SLOW to physically move to where my right eye is already focused.
It was causing undiagnosed dizziness as you could imagine. The ophthalmic correction was corrected by having a PRISM added to my left lens prescription.
If you have a similar problem, speak to an ophthalmist. NOT an optometrist or optician.
GaryN
Posts: 637
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 4:57 pm
Location: California

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by GaryN »

I don't shoot AP outside, in BRIGHT sunlight, so I don't have a need for an iris on my glasses.
What is your reason for wanting an iris?

With my normal progressive glasses, I had to tilt my head back, to be able to FOCUS on the front sight. Not good, that gave me a sore neck.
So I decided that I needed a dedicated shooting glasses, so that I could keep my head straight upright.

Go see an eye doc who WILL accommodate you. I did.
I selected my eye doc because she was willing to work with me to make a pair of shooting glasses. Some eye docs were not keen on shooters, or they did not have a 10 meter long hallway.
I told my doc that I needed a glasses that would let me FOCUS on my front sight and still see the target good enough to aim at it.
She let me bring my AP into her office, at lunch time, with no other patients in the office.
Chris
Posts: 381
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:03 pm
Location: OR

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Chris »

Here is a reason for an iris.

My lens set up is a stacked 2 lens setup for distance and astigmatism so I can see the dot when I shoot with a dot. Then I use a secondary lens holder to adjust the focus to my front sight on AP, FP, SP, or revolver.

When I add the second lens I am now at +1.5. This makes the target too blury to shoot good scores. Now I close the iris and we have an acceptable sight picture. It is darker which is annoying but I have gotten used to it. I do tend to use the bottom of the iris opening since it provides the clearest picture.
User avatar
ShootingSight
Posts: 318
Joined: Fri May 18, 2012 9:37 pm
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Contact:

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by ShootingSight »

This subject has been discussed at length, and I have the math to solve the problem, though it is somewhat at odds with old shooters.

1. You want a lens to correct sphere and astigmatism. This is your 'distance' lens that will focus you at infinity (on the target).
2. You can add to the sphere value to change where your eye's relaxed focal point falls. You can focus closer than this point by exerting your eye muscle, but since (especially older shooters) really need to strain the eye muscle to focus closer, leading to inconsistent focus, you want the lens to bring your focus closer, so your eye muscle has to do as little as possible.
2(a) for a rifle, this is almost always adding +0.50 diopters to the sphere, which will focus you at the optical average between the front sight and the target. This is what your eye used to do when you were young.
2(b) for a pistol with a red dot, do not add anything - shoot with your 'distance glasses'.
2(c) for a pistol with iron sights, now it gets tricky. The simplest that works for 90% is to add +0.75 diopters. This will focus you at the average between the rear sight and the target, so those two will have similar blur, but your front sight will be pretty clear. I have sold a LOT of lenses to pistol shooters, and this is what the majority like.
3. Now you need to consider aperture. Aperture increases your depth of field. The amount of blur you see is directly proportional to the diameter of the aperture. Use a diameter half the size, blur will drop in half. However brightness drops to 1/4 - it goes with the square of the aperture diameter. So, if my starting point is to add +0.75 with no aperture (effectively, my pupil is the aperture). I could go to a +1.00, this would make my sights sharper, but the target blurrier. But then if I use a small aperture it will make my target less blurry, and my sights even sharper. All good, but I reduced my image brightness. Works in a well-lit range. If you add +1.25 diopter, your sights are perfect, but you need such a small aperture to bring the target back into focus, this is rarely possible in an indoor range. Outdoors, it's possible.
3(a) In practice, a +1.00 with a 0.062 up to 0.100 aperture can be made to work, but some people are not comfortable with it. +0.75 seems to have the broadest acceptance if you do not use an aperture.
Last edited by ShootingSight on Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Art Neergaard
ShootingSight LLC
www.shootingsight.com
info@shootingsight.com
513-702-4879
BobGee
Posts: 588
Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2010 6:43 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by BobGee »

PaulK51 wrote: Thu Dec 02, 2021 7:50 am
One problem was with the fit of the lense against the iris holder. The thickness of the lense did not allow the iris to slide down over the center without levering the lense out.
It is customary to fit the iris onto the inside of the shooting lens, i.e. between the eye and lens. Most lenses are concave on this side so there will be no interference between the iris and lens.

Bob
Dagpistol
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2023 7:45 am
Location: Surrey, England

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Dagpistol »

For those not wishing to spend a lot on glasses or new to the sport can I share my experience and end result.
I tried shooting glasses and just couldn’t get to grips with them, too fiddly for me. I tried them because shooting with varifocals gave me, like a previous contributor, a stiff neck.
In the end I found that buying a couple of sets of cheap reading glasses of different strengths gave me all I need for both 10m and 20yd air pistol shooting. A guide to the strengths I might need came from the “Spher” value on my last varifocals prescription for my dominant eye. In my case it read 1.75 so I bought one pair at that value and another at 2.00 -I already had a pair at 1.50.
After some trials I found my shooting was now more accurate ,more fun, and I no longer had a stiff neck!
Total cost ,here in the UK’s Poundland stores was approx £5.
At age 78 Iwasn’t going to be able to spend a fortune and I think I have found a cheap but effective solution.
HTH
Jim
Rover
Posts: 7055
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:20 pm
Location: Idaho panhandle

Re: special spectacles for airpistol shooters

Post by Rover »

Sounds good to me. Another trick would be to put a piece of matte transparent tape on the inside of the non-aiming eye lens so you will shoot with both eyes open. It improves your vision. Cheap, too!
Post Reply