My eyes are getting old, should I wear glasses while shooting a pistol?

justeric · Jul 28, 2015

The old eyes are going bad. I find that when I hold a pistol the sights are becoming more of a blur. I think I am using around 2 power reading glasses and my distance sight is down to 20 - 30. All things considered, not to bad but it's getting worse as I get older.

Would I benefit from using reading glasses when I shoot my pistol? Reading glasses really kills my long distance vision but I would be able to see my sights better.

Maybe the reading glasses would hurt when I shoot out of my scoped (1x4) AR 15?

I currently only use glasses when I read.

I'm doing 2-gun, 3-gun and Steel Challenges.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Eric

Mark75H · Jul 28, 2015

The front sight is the most critical to see. I doubt reading glasses will improve your focus on the front sight.

Blacksmith101 · Jul 28, 2015

You might want to try a Merit optical device, it works by changing the "F stop" of your eye which gives you a better depth of field.

http://www.meritcorporation.com/

BigDaddy · Jul 28, 2015

Several thing happen to your eyes as you age. Three of them can lead to blindness so hopefully you aren't self diagnosing yourself. Glaucoma and macular degeneration and retinal detachment are the bad ones. These are treatable conditions but need to be treated early.

Commonly we all lose the ability to accommodate for distance, meaning we can't see close without reading glasses. You can buy cheap reading glasses in a variety of powers, known as diopters. A well stocked pharmacy or even grocery store will have these in 1/4 diopter increments so you can experiment and get one for reading, one for the distance of your computer screen and one for the distance of your front sight. In this day and age, I would take only the slide of my gun, talk to the manager and sit in his/her office trying on different glasses, rather than have people think you are aiming a gun at the 2 liters Hickok45 style.

Cataracts are clouding of parts of the actual lens itself. This degrades the quality of your vision over time. Reading glasses don't help with cataracts. Eventually you can't read the printed things they put at the bottom of the TV screen like warnings of thunderstorms or school closings. The treatment is to surgically remove your clouded lens and replace it with a new man made lens. As operations go, it is one of the more successful ones.

Recently there was a thread about an optical shop in Damascus that works with shooters. The average eye glass shop in the mall really doesn't know much about target shooting.

I look through the top part of my bifocals to use a scope.

BeoBill · Jul 28, 2015

As the OPs have said, go see an Optometrist. The older you get, the harder your eyes age. Glaucoma and macular degeneration are easily diagnosed easily and painlessly, and the latter comes pretty much standard with aging, I'm told. Your eyesight is nothing to take chances with.

lsw · Jul 29, 2015

I've been using reading glasses for some time now. As I've aged the distance I can focus on without them has increased to the point where now pistol sights or the front sight of a rifle are somewhat blurred. I find I shoot much better with a pair of readers that let me focus clearly on the front sight. 1.5 power readers work for me for shooting and for looking at a computer monitor too for that matter. For reading fine print or focusing at close distance I use 2.0. YMMV.

jimbobborg · Jul 29, 2015

You can adjust your scope to be able to focus with reading glasses. If I wear contacts and use reading glasses I can actually focus on the front sight. My non-corrected eyesight is so bad the front sight is a blur.

Brychan · Jul 29, 2015

For pistols before I had to go get bifocals, I used reading glasses it worked ok for awhile.

J-Dog · Jul 29, 2015

Assuming that you got your Rx from a doctor, Ask your optometrist for a "Computer Rx".
Reading glasses are generally calibrated to be focused at 12-24 inches or so.
With the "Computer Rx", they cut the added magnification power in half, extending the focal point farther out away from you, conveniently enough, to right about arms length.

The lower magnification should also make seeing distance not quite as horrible as with straight up reading glasses.

To try it out and see how it works, go to the drugstore and grab some +1.00 readers, then hold your arm out and try to focus on your thumb. You may have to go up or down a quarter diopter (.25) in power to find that sweet spot.

Jimet · Jul 29, 2015

Try this, it'll only cost ya 5 minutes and a 1 inch piece of electrical tape. Punch a little hole in the tape,(as small as possible) with a pin and put the tape over the lens of your old pair of reading glasses. When looking through the hole,for some reason or another, the rear sight, the front sight and your target become very clear. You can buy these but I don't remember where right off the bat. Besides, what's more cool than hitting your target while lookin like a dork?

Reptile · Jul 29, 2015

BigDaddy said:
Several thing happen to your eyes as you age. Three of them can lead to blindness so hopefully you aren't self diagnosing yourself. Glaucoma and macular degeneration and retinal detachment are the bad ones. These are treatable conditions but need to be treated early.

Commonly we all lose the ability to accommodate for distance, meaning we can't see close without reading glasses. You can buy cheap reading glasses in a variety of powers, known as diopters. A well stocked pharmacy or even grocery store will have these in 1/4 diopter increments so you can experiment and get one for reading, one for the distance of your computer screen and one for the distance of your front sight. In this day and age, I would take only the slide of my gun, talk to the manager and sit in his/her office trying on different glasses, rather than have people think you are aiming a gun at the 2 liters Hickok45 style.

Cataracts are clouding of parts of the actual lens itself. This degrades the quality of your vision over time. Reading glasses don't help with cataracts. Eventually you can't read the printed things they put at the bottom of the TV screen like warnings of thunderstorms or school closings. The treatment is to surgically remove your clouded lens and replace it with a new man made lens. As operations go, it is one of the more successful ones.

Recently there was a thread about an optical shop in Damascus that works with shooters. The average eye glass shop in the mall really doesn't know much about target shooting.

I look through the top part of my bifocals to use a scope.

Interesting. The information about selecting reading glasses for various relatively close distances is very useful to me.

I'm quite nearsighted, but can not obtain a crisp image when I wear my glasses and use a scope. Without my glasses I get a very sharp image. Is the scope acting as a corrective lens and, if it works for me, why would anyone wear corrective lenses when using a scope?

jimbobborg · Jul 29, 2015

Reptile said:
I'm quite nearsighted, but can not obtain a crisp image when I wear my glasses and use a scope. Without my glasses I get a very sharp image. Is the scope acting as a corrective lens and, if it works for me, why would anyone wear corrective lenses when using a scope?

I don't have this problem with my corrective lenses. And yes, scopes can be adjusted so you don't need to use glasses to use them. However, I use my prescription glasses as my eye protection, so they're not coming off when I shoot. Adjust the objective lens on your scope if you're having problems with glasses.

Reptile · Jul 29, 2015

jimbobborg said:
I don't have this problem with my corrective lenses. And yes, scopes can be adjusted so you don't need to use glasses to use them. However, I use my prescription glasses as my eye protection, so they're not coming off when I shoot. Adjust the objective lens on your scope if you're having problems with glasses.

Thanks. My practice has been to put my corrective lenses in their case and put on plain shooting glasses when using a scope. Without a scope my corrective lenses are my protective lenses.

photoracer · Jul 29, 2015

Mark75H said:
The front sight is the most critical to see. I doubt reading glasses will improve your focus on the front sight.

Actually it will. Learned this from avid shooter and Ph.D Peter Hoyle. If you are using glasses due to near-sightedness as you get older your close distance focus will start to move farther away. you can actually use reading glasses inside your regular glasses. But an even better way is to get a special set made with your normal correction (or not if farsighted) and an 18" focus on your dominant eye. In the case of farsightedness you can just get a pair of reading glasses and pop the lens out of your non-dominant eye side. Your dominant eye will see the gun sights fine and your other eye will give you the clarity to see the target if needed. My special set allowed me to shoot more IDPA and USPSA Limited. Before that I shot almost 100% with red dots or scopes. Now I am in the middle of getting replacement lenses in my eyes due to cataracts in my dominant eye. Even with only my dominant eye corrected and my other eye without glasses I find I can shoot iron sights that way too, plus my red dot shooting has gotten better also. That is inspite of uncorrected astigmatism in both eyes. Once I get the other eye fixed I am going to get a special set made that only corrects astigmatism for those times like at night when it helps more. But for shooting I just use eye protection and no correction right now.

photoracer · Jul 29, 2015

Blacksmith101 said:
You might want to try a Merit optical device, it works by changing the "F stop" of your eye which gives you a better depth of field.

http://www.meritcorporation.com/

Problem with a Merit device is it is not compatible with speed shooting. Works well for bullseye though.

Johnthetoolguy · Jul 30, 2015

My eyesight used to great. Not anymore!
I have been using reading glasses for years but finally went and got real glasses. Bifocals. My eye doctor also did a pair of shooting (safety) glasses for me as well. This really helped me because I was having trouble focusing on the front sight.
This eye doctor had done shooting glass perscription for others as well.

Rick3bears · Jul 30, 2015

I switched to Progressives a couple of years back. It took some time to get used to them, but they work really well for shooting. For a few bucks more, I got shatter resistant and transitions. Works really fine for pistol, rifle, optics, whatever.

redeemed.man · Jul 30, 2015

justeric said:
The old eyes are going bad. I find that when I hold a pistol the sights are becoming more of a blur. I think I am using around 2 power reading glasses and my distance sight is down to 20 - 30. All things considered, not to bad but it's getting worse as I get older.

Would I benefit from using reading glasses when I shoot my pistol? Reading glasses really kills my long distance vision but I would be able to see my sights better.

Maybe the reading glasses would hurt when I shoot out of my scoped (1x4) AR 15?

I currently only use glasses when I read.

I'm doing 2-gun, 3-gun and Steel Challenges.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Eric

Struggling with the same issue myself. Diagnosed with Glaucoma 2 years ago, eye drops every day. One of the side effects of the eye drops is blurred vision. I see fine close up but blurred at any distance over 5 feet. With glasses I see distances fine but close up doesn't look right. I haven't had a chance to follow up with my eye doctor recently about shooting but did get some eye glass specific advice from MDS member: Woodstock who was an instructor at a recent firearms course I took. He may be a good resource for you as well.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Sundazes · Jul 30, 2015

Rick3bears said:
I switched to Progressives a couple of years back. It took some time to get used to them, but they work really well for shooting. For a few bucks more, I got shatter resistant and transitions. Works really fine for pistol, rifle, optics, whatever.

What kind of progressives did you get and where? Mine absolutely suck for shooting. I had to get shooting glasses that focus on the front sight.

DanGuy48 · Jul 30, 2015

Mine too and coincidentally...

...a friend just sent me this link. It actually does make some sense and I am going to try some of the exercises. They seem to be common sense types of things though so I don't think I'm going to shell out the money for the DVD program.

http://www.dryfiretrainingcards.com/vision-gym-and-balance-gym-for-shooters/

My eyes are getting old, should I wear glasses while shooting a pistol?

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