TargetTalk

I'm quite new to shooting match pistols and doubt if I'll ever be particularly competitive, although I am having a lot of fun with it. I wear progressive eyeglasses, which probably is somewhat of a handicap.

Someone told me about an adjustable iris that attaches to regular eyeglasses with a suction cup (like the "Merrit Optical Attachment" https://www.meritcorporation.com/products.html). Do any of you have experience with such a device? Is it worthwhile? Does it really help?

Thanks

Spend the money instead on a prescription cheap pair of glasses set up for shooting. In other words, your distance scrip plus +0.50 to pull your focus to the front sight. That will take care of your astigmatism, too.

Yes, those devices do help, but they are very fiddley. Fiddling with the aperture diameter, fiddling with the location of the device on your glasses, fiddling with the wretched suction cup technology, fiddling with the exact position of your head - fiddle, fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. I'd be inclined to follow Rover's advice.

If you send me an email address I'll send a photo of the shooting glasses I used to use. They incorporated a Merit iris. They are not very fiddly if you know what you are doing. You really need an assistant to place the iris and suction disc on your glasses while you are aiming. You only need to do this if you accidentally knock the iris off. There is something to be said for getting the correct prescription lens and couple it with good shooting glasses. If you intend to do a lot of shooting, then the prescription lens and proper glasses (the cheaper ones need an assistant to set up also) is the best choice. Proper shooting glasses however, are pricey, and the Merit is quite economical.

I would definitely go with glasses with the right prescription, and the optical centre in the optimum position if possible, well ahead of an iris.
How progressive lenses would work for shooting I just don't know, I don't think they would be suitable at all.

I used an iris for long range bench rest pistol shooting and found it only marginally useful.

Thank you all for your comments. I'll investigate getting a pair of shooting glasses.

If I understand correctly, you purchase a shooting glasses FRAME somewhere, and then go to your optician to get lenses made? And what would I tell the optician as far as the distance the lenses should be adjusted for? The distance from my eye to the front pistol sight? The target?

And would such glasses be of any use for match rifle shooting or would they be dedicated to 10-meter pistol?

(I don't know if I'm unusual in this, but I am right-handed, yet my dominant eye is my left eye. When shooting the pistol I hold it in my right hand but sight with my left eye. With a rifle, I sight with my right eye.)

I see on the Targets Canada website that they have separate shooting glasses frames for pistol use and for rifle use. But it's not clear to me how they might differ. Can they be used for pistol AND rifle shooting?

Mtl_Biker wrote:I see on the Targets Canada website that they have separate shooting glasses frames for pistol use and for rifle use. But it's not clear to me how they might differ. Can they be used for pistol AND rifle shooting?

Lenses for pistol are larger. Mine is a 42mm diameter. For rifle, I think 37mm is standard.

You can use the frame for both, but I think the lens will change (for pistol you want the prescription for the eye to front sight distance, and for rifle you want your normal distance prescription.) etup will likely change as far as eye to lens position as well (though that depends on your positions for rifle and pistol.)

I don't know about you, but for offhand pistol (right-handed), I tend to have my eye turned to the right a bit, and slightly upward. For rifle (though I am not a competition rifle shooter), I tend to look leftwards and more downwards (relative to head position) than I do for pistol.

jky

Mtl_Biker, it sounds as if you're not going to be too fussy about your pistol shooting, so here's what I think you should do:

Start shooting right eyed. Put a piece of matte Scotch tape across your left lens so you don't get confused.
Buy glasses as I suggested above (I can get a pair for $29 here) and use them only for pistol. You want to be able to focus only on the front sight. You won't want to use them for rifle.

Many guys I shoot with use a kluge glasses set-up and are always having problems.

Since I'm heavily into competition, I have spent the several hundred dollars to get a perfect iron sight set-up for myself, but I use a cheap single power pair of presription glasses when shooting with a Red Dot.

divingin wrote:

Mtl_Biker wrote:I see on the Targets Canada website that they have separate shooting glasses frames for pistol use and for rifle use. But it's not clear to me how they might differ. Can they be used for pistol AND rifle shooting?

Lenses for pistol are larger. Mine is a 42mm diameter. For rifle, I think 37mm is standard.

You can use the frame for both, but I think the lens will change (for pistol you want the prescription for the eye to front sight distance, and for rifle you want your normal distance prescription.) etup will likely change as far as eye to lens position as well (though that depends on your positions for rifle and pistol.)

I don't know about you, but for offhand pistol (right-handed), I tend to have my eye turned to the right a bit, and slightly upward. For rifle (though I am not a competition rifle shooter), I tend to look leftwards and more downwards (relative to head position) than I do for pistol.

jky

Very helpful, thanks.

But please clarify something for me... for RIFLE shooting (diopter sights on 10-meter match rifle) is there any use of an adjustable iris on your eyeglasses?

If there is, I guess what I'd need is TWO lenses if I got shooting glasses... the left one (my dominant eye which I use for pistol shooting) adjusted to the front pistol sight, and the right one with normal distance prescription for rifle shooting. (I'm right-handed but use my non-dominant right eye for rifle shooting and my dominant left ye for pistol.) And then I'd have to swap the sides of the iris and shade back and forth.

You guys with great/good eyesight are really lucky!

According to my local optician, who has set himself up to be the local expert for shooting glasses, the glasses for pistol shooting should not be set for the front sight but for the hyperfocal point between the sights and the target. If its set for the sights you won't see the target usefully.

This seems to work better for me than standard reading glasses.

A word of advice from another cross-dominant (right handed / left eyed) pistol competitor: if you go with shooting glasses consider using the smaller rifle lens rather than the large pistol lens. You'll be looking across the bridge of your nose (especially if you shoot with a closed stance, like I do) and you'll have more flexibility to adjust the lens placement with the smaller lens.

I gave up on the shooting glasses and found a sweet spot in my old progressive lens regular eye glasses. The slightly out of date prescription comes reasonably close to an appropriate prescription for shooting iron sights. It's my understanding that out of date prescriptions are frequently just right for shooting.

There are fairly frequently times when I can't get a good focus, and I've lost quite a few points to my declining vision, but this is my best solution and quite possibly yours as well.

JamesH wrote:According to my local optician, who has set himself up to be the local expert for shooting glasses, the glasses for pistol shooting should not be set for the front sight but for the hyperfocal point between the sights and the target. If its set for the sights you won't see the target usefully.

This seems to work better for me than standard reading glasses.

Could be; I have mine set for front sight distance, and it works well. I see the target well enough and get a crisp front sight (usually.) As long as you can get the front sight crystal clear without straining, you should be good.

I know my reading prescription doesn't work for shooting; it's usually set for about 18", whereas the front sight ends up at something like 36 inches or so.

Montreal, one other option that is reasonably cheap and will enable you to see glasses will help is to get adjustable emergency glasses: https://adlens.com/product/adjustables/

You also mentioned that you shoot rifle right-eyed, but pistol left-eyed. Is that because of keeping both eyes open while shooting pistol? Does a left eye blinder allow you to shoot right-eyed?

jky

divingin wrote:Montreal, one other option that is reasonably cheap and will enable you to see glasses will help is to get adjustable emergency glasses: https://adlens.com/product/adjustables/
jky

I tried the adjustable glasses from Adlens. They work OK as regular glasses, but the clearest focus is in the center, looking straight ahead. They won't work well for the majority of shooters, where the head & sighting position is off axis.

You can get +0.5D and +0.75D computer glasses that work pretty well if you wear contacts or are blessed with good distance vision: https://www.amazon.com/Eyekepper-Reader ... B0163WQGJ2. These work a bit better off axis than the Adlens adjustables, and are pretty cheap.

I searched on-line & came up empty for a single clip-on lens for shooting. I made a couple lenses for the team I coach, and the students like them:



There's a fair amount of fussy handwork in building them, and I'm working on streamlining the process. Parts cost is < $10.

Mtl_Biker wrote: Please clarify something for me... for RIFLE shooting (diopter sights on 10-meter match rifle) is there any use of an adjustable iris on your eyeglasses?

No, I have never seen a rifle shooter with an iris on their glasses. Instead almost all rifle shooters, whether 10m air or 50m smallbore, replace the standard peephole eyepiece in the rearsight with a screw in iris. Gehmann and Centre are the common brands. Pretty much all European rearsights use a standard thread for the eyepiece, so one that fits a Feinwerkbau would fit a Walther, or an Anschutz, or Hammerli etc.

Those who don't use an iris eyepiece just use the standard peep disc.

In terms of lenses, many shooters will use a prescription lens. For rifle shooting you want a focal point slightly ahead of the foresight, so the foresight is sharp but the target isn't too blurred. Unlike pistol shooters, rifle shooters want to see the target to check the gap between it and the foresight is even all around. The tiny rearsight peep gives a very long and narrow focal length, so the foresight and target are almost in focus together, but the target is normally a little blurred. A prescription lens, typically distance + .50, gives a good sight picture without tiring the eye.

Gwhite wrote: I tried the adjustable glasses from Adlens. They work OK as regular glasses, but the clearest focus is in the center, looking straight ahead. They won't work well for the majority of shooters, where the head & sighting position is off axis.

Which is why I said it's an option to test out if a lens will help.

To be fair, the adjustability should allow you to sharpen the image wherever you happen to look through, but it is a hassle (get your stance and hold, and turn the adjustment knob while maintaining position.) Not ideal, but it will give you a sense of how a shooting lens will work for you.

GWhite; nice job with the clip-on. Never thought about doing that. Was that originally a Gehmann unit before the lens was installed?

jky

divingin wrote:

Gwhite wrote: I tried the adjustable glasses from Adlens. They work OK as regular glasses, but the clearest focus is in the center, looking straight ahead. They won't work well for the majority of shooters, where the head & sighting position is off axis.

Which is why I said it's an option to test out if a lens will help.

To be fair, the adjustability should allow you to sharpen the image wherever you happen to look through, but it is a hassle (get your stance and hold, and turn the adjustment knob while maintaining position.) Not ideal, but it will give you a sense of how a shooting lens will work for you.

GWhite; nice job with the clip-on. Never thought about doing that. Was that originally a Gehmann unit before the lens was installed?

jky

Thanks! The clip on lens is made up from a pair of these (two lenses for $5.39):

https://www.amazon.com/Eyekepper-Spring ... entries*=0,

Combined with the clip on mechanism from these (one clip for $0.99):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Driving-Night-V ... 865945437?

You drill out the tiny rivets that hold the dark glasses together, bent/twist the arms to conform to the curvature of the lens, chop a couple mm's off the top edge, and then drill holes through the lens. Everything gets held together by 0-80 screws & nuts (4 of each, ~ $0.85 total):

http://www.mcmaster.com/#91249a013/=135onpr
http://www.mcmaster.com/#96537a145/=135ota0

The problem I found shooting with the Adlens adjustable glasses was distortion off axis. I have enough trouble with my eyes without throwing in any added distortion...

What works for me;

My eyesight is perfect, at distance, but I require 1.50 power reading glasses for close up/reading. This results in a crystal clear target but blurry sights. I found safety rated glasses at HALF my 1.50 magnification , or .75 , and now I can see both the front sight and the target. Cheap too, at $24 for a three pack, shipped.