[Palladin]

I had perscription shooting glasses made by my eye doctor. I wear progressives and she basically extended my distance focus out. I also had them tinted yellow to gather more light and had a safety coating added. (They were already "safety glass").

They work great and I can see out 100 yards and up close. I had to discuss it a bit with my doctor because she wasn't familiar with what's required to shoot
and acquire the target.

 

[cruciantime]

This is a great thread. Thanks to everyone who posted.

 

[ShootingSight]

Palladin,

You do NOT want progressive lenses for shooting. They will cause you to string your shotgroups vertically. You want single strength lenses. Sorry to let you know this after you dumped the money.

The issue with poor vision is not that you can't see the front sight, it is that you cannot see the front sight consistently. If your eye is straining to see the front sight, your eye muscle will try until it tires and gets exhausted, so this means you can see the front sight better in the morning, and less well in the afternoon.

Drifting focus means the width of the blur line that you see around the front sight changes. When the blur line gets wide, the front sight looks fat, and your brain has to estimate where the edge of the sight really is. Interestingly, this does not typically hurt you in windage estimation, since there are two vertical edges to the front sight, so your brain can estimate the symmetry of if the target is balanced between them, regardless if they are sharp or fuzzy, thin or fat (as long as they are both equally fat). In elevation however, you only have one horizontal edge on the top of the front post. As that edge gets skinny/fat, your front sight looks taller or shorter, so you start holding high or low to compensate for where you think the top of the front sight is, and string your shot groups vertically.

With progressive lenses, your focal point changes gradually from the top/distance part of the lens to the close-up part. When you aim, if the glasses are not exactly in the same spot, if you tilt your head slightly differently from one shot to another, or if the glasses slide down your nose slightly, you will get differing focal points from shot to shot, which will change the effective height of the front post from shot to shot ....

If you want up-close, much better is to get true bifocals with a line in them.

Art

 

[ShootingSight]

Easier way is to send me an email, and I will send you a couple of self adhesive aluminum stickers that I have cut a hole in ... I think 046 in diameter.

However, at the cost of repeating myself, you want the focal point adjusted by adding lens power, AND you want a small aperture. Both help when used individually, but using both together is optimum.

 

[Bamban]

Easier way is to send me an email, and I will send you a couple of self adhesive aluminum stickers that I have cut a hole in ... I think 046 in diameter.

However, at the cost of repeating myself, you want the focal point adjusted by adding lens power, AND you want a small aperture. Both help when used individually, but using both together is optimum.

Art,

I can use that sticker you mentioned on the Knoblock for pistol bullseye. Please send me a couple. Thanks.

nez

 

[gas_gunner]

Art,
What about if I can see my front sight fine, but not the number boards, especially at 1000 yards. I have gotten my lenses pretty close, but still not where I'd like them to be.

I have gone so far as to using my street prescription in my Champion Frames, but when that prescription is in my Champion Frames, I notice that the correction is not as perfect as with my street frames. Do you have any idea what's going on in that case?

I am aware that my ideal prescription should be just a step less power in my left (shooting) eye and probably the same in my right, but I've also tried, as noted before, the street prescription in both, and the street prescription in my right to see the number boards better, with a fraction less in my shooting eye. With my street prescription in my shooting eye, it is a bit strong, but workable. I seem to be between my street prescription in the shooting eye, and the next lower normally available diopter that I can get. With my street glasses, I can see the number boards really perfectly. I wish that I could get that with my Champion Frames. I am wondering if it is the slight distance increase from my eye to the lens in the Champion lenses over my street prescription.

Thanks for any help,

Danny

I sell lenses for rifle shooters, so I have studied the optics of a rifle. This does not mean all applies to a pistol, but here are a few facts:

You do not want to focus on the front sight. Your eye, especially if you are using a reducing aperture, will have a depth of field, where you want to put your ideal focal point somewhat beyond the front sight, so your depth of field still allows you to see the front sight clearly, but you have not given up too much target. In rifle, the ideal is about 2x the distance from your eye to the front sight, in a pistol, it is likely closer.

Lens strengths can be related to focal distance because if your eye is relaxed and you are focusing at infinity (assuming you don't need help seeing the target), take 1/diopter to get your focal length in meters. A 0.5 diopter will focus at 2m, a 0.75 diopter will focus at 1.33 meters, etc.

Art

 

[ShootingSight]

Danny,

My original post was in 2010 on this subject, I've since learned more both through experience, and in reading up in my old optics textbooks. Nothing like having a real-life problem to solve to focus your attention

Optimum for shooting a longer rifle (not an AR), is +0.50 added to your distance vision. However, this drops to +0.25 if you are using a front lens in your sight.

Several things to consider: your distance vision can change over time, so you want to work the above math with a recent prescription. Also distance from your eye can play a role in lens strength. Usually in lower powers, the effect is small enough to ignore, but in high power corrections it matters.

Lens power increases (more in the positive direction) will bring your focus closer and usually improve the front sight at the expense of the target. Decreasing lens power will move your focus out towards the target and will improve target at the expense of sight.

 

[gas_gunner]

Art,
In addition to having bad distance vision (I don't really need correction to see the front sight), I have astigmatism, so I am also juggling the factors of "cylinder" and the astigmatism's axis in my prescription. My current prescription is less than a year old. Since I shoot, I go at least once a year now to my eye doctor. I don't feel that there are a lot of diopter options that could work, so it must he something else, I thought. I will later post my prescription diopter correction, and some choices I have been using. Normally, my optician does whatever needs to be done for "cylinder" as would be done on a regular set of glasses, but for my 42mm Champion lenses. He sets the optical center of the lenses to the geometric center of the lenses. He takes my lenses and puts them in whatever device he uses to set the astigmatism axis when the lenses are in my lens holders. Either he or I then takes the edge of a file and nicks the edge of the lens at the split of the lens holder so that the axis can be repeated if I take the lens out and need to re-install. I color the nicks in for clarity as well as part of a color code I have establised to be able to discern what each lens is. Normally my diopters and cylinder specs. don't change much, but the axis varies from year to year.

The other night, I started to play with the astigmatism axis just for "CENSOREDGI and giggles". I was able to really sharpen my vision with the Champions by doing this. I don't know if my optician is making a mistake when setting the axis, or if my prescription has changed. My eye doctor once showed me the results of having the axis off on a prescription, so I can readily accept that I was able to sharpen things up, but not so much that I did it by trial and error.

Danny

 

[ShootingSight]

Setting the axis by trial and error, or just by rotating the lens manually to focus it is not that outrageous. In the olden days they would give people a lens with a slit in it, which corrects part of the astigmatism, and they would literally tell the patient to rotate it till focus was best, and they'd measure the angle.

So here is what you want:

Take your doctor's recommendation for distance prescription including the astigmatism part, and add +0.50 to the spherical component for a long rifle. Leave the cylinder unchanged. That's it.

Since you see near distances, your prescription will be a negative number, so respect the signs. If your sphere is a -2.00, add +0.50 to get to a -1.50, and so on.

 

[Horst Apies]

Being still blessed with 20/20 vision at distances over about 24" I thought I could get by with just safety glasses when shooting handgun with iron sights. What has improved my groupings is buying common reading glasses that focus in the front sight. Since I still shoot offhand and the distance is comparable, these also work on '03 Springfields, '14s and Garands. It's a cheap cure and I'm hoping it will do for a while.

 

[danthman114]

you can do like the drill instructors told the recruits that wore glasses. take a foam earplug and tape it to the bridge of your glasses. you will look like a total nerd but it works...

 

[gas_gunner]

Art, you state that +0.5 diopter is about ideal for an M1 or M14 type rifle. What is about the ideal correction factor for an AR 15 Service Rifle?

Thanks,

Danny

I found the answer in one of your posts: +0.75.

Danny

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk

 

[smoothy8500]

Here is a MUCH better option: Bob Jones (www.bjonessights.com) makes some frames custom for shooting - the nose pads are welded on crooked, so the glasses sit way left on your face - this keeps the right lens centered about your line of sight when you form a cheek weld. He charges $35, and they come with non-prescription lenses. You then add $30 to get one prescription lens added to your shooting eye, so you are in for $65 total, versus $265 for this web site. It's $95 if your want prescription in both lenses, but that's still only a third of the place above.

I followed Art's suggestion and contacted Bob Jones for a pair of his glasses. I was very happy with the results. They are dorky looking as all hell, but the results are there.

 

[targetsd]

I purchased Randolph engineering sunglasses from SportRx.com. SportRx recommended to get lenses designed to compensate for each individual eye. The glasses work great with the bifocal portion of my prescription on the eye that is on the sight and my other eye has the distance correction in order for me to lock in on the target down the range.

 

[keitio]

Guys, I want to ask a question that if anyone has experience with Radians shooting glasses. I am thinking to buy this shooting glass but want to hear some feedback before getting it. I read the best shooting glasses review 2018 article and was selected Radians glasses. But, I am not sure which glasses I should buy. Because I am totally new at shooting.
update: Ok. thanks, everyone. I don't know much about shooting glasses. I need to protect my eyes only. I have ordered that Radians Interchange shooting glasses.

 

[ShootingSight]

LOL. A thread from 2009, revived in 2014, and revived again in 2017.

 

[smoothy8500]

If everyone used the search feature...this forum would get maybe three original posts per day.

Back to the "new" question. Does Radians have prescription lenses? I have the RSG glasses and like them though. I guess I could have them ground to my corrective diopter.

 

[stoky]

I had 20/20 vision for half a century.
Decot Hy-Wds work well for me now. I think I'm overdue for a new scrip though.

 

[JEFFJP_N_JJ]

???

LOL. A thread from 2009, revived in 2014, and revived again in 2017.

What are us blind old bats to do Art!

 

[KurtC]

About ten years ago my doctor told me that they could make bifocals any way I wanted them. He said to bring my rifle or pistol in to the office and get into my usual shooting position. They would look backward across my sights to see what part of the lens I was looking thru, and that is where they would put the proper focal length for me to see the front sight.

For a rifle, that would be the upper part, near the nose.