Need a shooter's Optician

[wahoowillie]

I'm a new member living in VA Beach very interested in Bullseye shooting. In recent months I've acquired a Pardini SP and Hammerli 208 and am having fun getting used to shooting both at a local indoor range. I've got a Ultra Dot mounted on the SP which works great with my 73-year-old astigmatism-plagued eyes, but am struggling with the open sights on the 208. I wear bifocals and have the typical difficulty of holding sharp focus on the front sight. I think I could shoot well with open sights if only I could see them better.

I would like to find an optician who caters to shooters who can set me up with an appropriate prescription for target shooting. Can anyone make a recommendation please? I would prefer someone located in Virginia, but get on a plane if that what it takes. Any advice or guidance would be appreciated.

[GOVTMODEL]

Get a copy of Dr Norman Wong's guide for optometrists at http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/nwo ... guide.html

Your regular optometrist should be able to sort it out. Basically, it's your distant vision prescription with an additional 0.5 to 0.75 plus diopter correction.

Bifocals and iron sights are a non-starter, IMHO.

[dronning]

I was lucky I found an optician about a mile from my house that is also a shooter, others have had great luck contacting:
Art Neergaard
ShootingSight LLC
www.shootingsight.com
shootingsight@fioptics.com
513-702-4879

www.facebook.com/ShootingSight

Art worked with several of my rifle and pistol shooting friends with difficult prescriptions.
- Dave

[aacjr]

Try Dr. Alan Toler in Richmond. He is a Master rated Bullseye shooter and works with shooters. Everyone I know who has gone to him has been very satisfied (me included).

http://www.customsightpicture.com/
http://www.drtoler.com/

Alan Campbell

[BenEnglishTX]

Get a copy of Dr Norman Wong's guide for optometrists at http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/nwo ... guide.html

Your regular optometrist should be able to sort it out.

I feel the need to make a comment about that and how it doesn't necessarily work out unless you still go to the trouble of finding a doc who will work with you.

I made a point of printing it out and personally delivering it to my optometrist's office a week before my appointment. I also emailed a copy to both her and her primary assistant.

When I arrived for my appointment, it was in the file and she hadn't read it. No one had read it. They asked me what was in it. Then they paid no attention and wrote me for a standard prescription.

She's great at her regular work but something out of the ordinary simply didn't fit into their work processes. Beware of that problem in large offices.

Happy ending, though - I asked for multiple written copies of my prescription, did some research, and sent one off to a company (now defunct, unfortunately) that made variable focus glasses. My eyes are, frankly, terrible but when I've got those glasses dialed in right, I can count the specks of dust on the front sight.

[wahoowillie]

Really appreciate the quick advice and information, especially the tip from aacjr abour Dr Toler. I just found out I have to be in Richmond tomorrow to get an MRI on my dog and will give Dr Toler's office a call to see if they can squeeze me in for an exam. Thanks guys.

11/15/16 Got an appointment for noon today.

[Mike M.]

You won't regret going to Dr. Toler. He does outstanding work.

[OhioTargeteer]

I gave a copy of Dr. Wong's guide to my optician who I went to for my last pair of glasses. He had the folder, and my phone number, on his desk for several months. He never bothered with the folder but kept moving it from stack to stack (I have a gal on the inside who told me). He never called with a YES or NO. I am moving on to someone else.

[10M_Stan]

FWIW, if you have your eyeglasses prescription, adding a +0.5 or +0.75 to the spherical value for the shooting eye lens will make the appropriate change to one's eyeglasses prescription for shooting with iron sights. Of course, some guy on the internet making such claims is not really valid. As such, for those so inclined (DIY types), get a set of eyeglasses from Zenni optical for ~ $11 + $5 shipping with the prescription altered as described. Try out my incredible claim on a $16 experiment. If you're farsighted, someplace like Walgreens sells +0.75 diopter reading glasses.

Of course, I know some won't want to spend that much on such a venture. Spending $3.5k on a pistol, well sure, but anything else is a tough decision. That $57 Gehmann adjustable iris for an increased depth of field (or increased range of focus) is another hard sell for some.

How do I know this alteration will work? I've done it, and as a physicist that works with optics did this long before it was discussed on a message board. It's rudimentary lens optics, not to be confused with the operation and behavior of the human eye - which is complex. YMMV, etc.

p.s. an eyeglasses prescription description can be found using Google; hint: it's all abbreviations for Latin words. OS is an abbreviation for oculus sinister (that's Latin for left eye).

[ShootingSight]

For pistol, the answer for irons is usually to add +0.75 diopters to your distance vision correction. If you post or email the distance from your eye to the rear sight, I can run the math and verify that this works for you. That value will shift your focus from infinity (which is where your distance prescription will set it) back to the hyperfocal distance of the pistol sight.

Difference between me and an eye doctor is that I am an engineer, and start with the optical formulas to derive the theoretical answer for lens power, while eye docs will go at it empirically and try the different lenses to get you what you need. Both should get the same answer, however for my approach you only need a standard distance prescription that any doc will get you, versus actually trying to take your gun to a doctor's office.

As mentioned above, Zenni is a fine place to order glasses, once you have the prescription and the offset correction done.

So step 1 is to get a recent prescription for distance.

The only caveat here is that this all works assuming focus is the only thing we are tweeking, and there are no underlying health issues.

Art Neergaard
ShootingSight
art@shootingsight.com

[BenEnglishTX]

...this all works assuming...there are no underlying health issues.

Thank you so very much for including that proviso. Many of us diabetics know that our prescription can drift +/- a full diopter pretty easily over the course of a day. We tend to need to put a bit more thought into our eyewear than most folks.

[jaxontarget]

You might also try an EyePal which can be used very effectively on the lens of your regular prescription. A bonus for your astigmatism: if you use a red dot sight and have issues with the dot taking on another shape (mines a fire breathing dragon sometimes, or a checkmark at others) - wearing an eyepal turns the Rorshack Test dot into a little red circular dot! At least it does for my eyes. It's a cheap experiment regardless: http://www.eyepalusa.com/