TargetTalk

im still very new at this type of shooting i am shooting rimfire 50 m rifle and 10m air pistol as well as service rifle and bullseye 22 pistol. What will i bennefit from shooting glasses can i buy one frame like Knobloch and then have different iris for each discipline, do i need to see a eye doctor I realy dont know how to go about picking them?

Any help would be great

birdwatcher wrote:...What will i bennefit from shooting glasses...

able to adjust the lens such that you sight through the centre of the lens and have the lens perpendicular to the sight line

birdwatcher wrote:...can i buy one frame like Knobloch and then have different iris for each discipline...

iris? do you mean lens?
chances are they will all be similar focal length - I use the same script for rifle and pistol, though the rifle lens/holder is 23mm to enable better head position, and the 37mm for pistol gives more protection.

birdwatcher wrote:...do i need to see a eye doctor...Any help would be great

yes
ask around your area to find one that understands that you need relaxed focus at the distance of the front sight.

THe benefit is that you get your relaxed focus in the right spot so you can see both the front sight and the target.

You do NOT want your relaxed focus on the front sight, you want your relaxed focus at the hyperfocal distance of the rear sight. For almost all shooters, this requires a lens that is +0.75 diopters stronger than your distance vision lens. If you do not wear glasses for distance vision, it is simply a +0.75 diopter lens.

If you truly have no distance vision problems, you don't need to see an eye doctor, just go with a +0.75 lens. If you want a sharper front sight, or have short arms, move to a +1.0 lens, though this will blur the target slightly. If you want a sharper target, go to a +0.50 lens, though this will blur the front sight slightly. According to the optical math, the +0.75 represents the best balance between front sight focus and target focus.

Basic lenses from Champion's Choice are only $16 each, an eye doc visit is $60, so it is cheaper to experiment with a few lenses than see a doc as a starting point, unless you suspect there are eye issues. If you are over 40 years old, and have not been to an eye doc, it's usually not a bad idea to get checked out.

If you do see an eye doc, you don't need to discuss shooting, just take your distance prescription he gives you, and add the +0.75 to it, and you'll be good to go for shooting. Feel free to contact me directly at shootingsight@nuvox.net if you want to discuss further.

If it does turn out that you have distance vision needs, or need an astigmatism correction (about 30% of the population), I do sell custom lenses for $40.

Art

The previous post mentions getting a lens +0.75 diopters stronger than your distance vision lens. That might be for pistol shooting. Based on my experience, for rifle shooting, just go with your normal prescription, if you're near sighted (which I am). I'm not sure what you do if you are far sighted or have astigmatism But, if you don't need glasses, don't use them, other than for safety reasons. There are added issues with using glasses (fogging, reflections, dirt, etc.) that you need to deal with. However, if you do end up getting glasses, the Knobloch ones you mentioned (or similar adjustable styles from other companies) are the ones to get. Also, be sure to get anti-reflective coatings on the lens. Well worth the extra cost to minimize reflections.

Speaking of which, what is a "centerer" for?

The "centerer" has a conical tube projecting from the center and clips to the rim of the lens. With it in place, the shooter can very easily see whether the lens is perpendicular to the eye and adjust it accordingly. A lens that is off-axis will give a distorted view of the sights. I found it nearly impossible to get the orientation spot on by just trying to judge the distortion but the centerer makes it easy.

Roger

Ok thanks everyone some good advise, i have found a local eye doctor who can help me as well, thanks again

Start here....http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/nwongarts.html
From Dr Norman Wong. he has a great article on this very topic. along with some documentation you can take to your eye appt.

I did this recently since I am getting to the point where I can not focus on objects close. The recommended readers at +.75 and about the same for pistol shooting. After talking to them they would have been ok if I had brought in my air pistol.

Results of shooting with +0.75 in my shooting glasses were not acceptable after trying this for several months. I noticed I can not wear any magnification when using a red dot. The dot is not round and get worse as the power increases.

Since I can see the front site perfect without help I am going back to 0.0. Before the eye appt I was using +0.5. Using any magnification I noticed for me it helped to not focus on the target but then I became lazy in my focus on the front site since it was in focus.

Bottom line is you have to find out what works for you.

To clarify my above post - getting a lens that focuses you at the hyperfocal distance of the rear sight is valid only for metallic sights.

As Chris has pointed out, if you are using a red dot, I think most of them have the red dot appear at infinity, same as the target, so in this case, you want your relaxed focus to be at infinity, so you can see both the target and the dot.