Shooting with corrective lenses

[Enfield47]

I'm nearsighted and I've noticed that my shooting skills have been deteriorating lately because the sights are a total blur when wearing my glasses. If I'm using a scope or an optic sight I do fine, just not with iron sights.

I had my annual eye exam and with corrective lenses I can see fine at a distance but the corrective lenses make everything within about 36" blurry. I have to take my glasses off to work on the computer or read. The doctor said that bifocals might help if the prescription is on top and no correction on the bottom but he didn't have any experience with target shooting to know for sure. Does anyone have experience with anything similar and if so, what worked for you?

[russ69]

The front sight has to be in focus, everything else can be a blur. I just bought a Mini-14 and the front sight totally disappears with my glasses on. I did a little testing and found that my scores are the same even if the target is very fuzzy, it's the other shooting fundamentals that are important.

[howbobert]

I know that it is possible to have glasses made for your issue. My eye doctor has a brother that has a pair of glasses made for him to focus on the front sight on his hand guns. Talk to your doctor to see if he can give you a prescription so that you can focus on the front sight.

My eye doctor let me know the magnification of reading glasses for when I am on my computer, or at about 30" from my face. So it might be that all you need are a pair of reading glasses. Measure the distance from your eye to the front sight, go to a store and place an object at that distance and see if a pair of reading glasses will work.

[Garv]

I recently had cataract surgery in my dominant shooting eye.
I can see the target fine but the iron sights are just a blur.
I’m still experimenting but yesterday I tried low-power reading glasses and that helped because I could see the sights even though the target was blurry I shot noticeably better.

Question for the group: Have bifocal contacts worked for anyone?

I will be seeing my optometrist in January to see what he thinks might help.

[OpenSightsOnly]

I'm nearsighted and I've noticed that my shooting skills have been deteriorating lately because the sights are a total blur when wearing my glasses. If I'm using a scope or an optic sight I do fine, just not with iron sights.

I had my annual eye exam and with corrective lenses I can see fine at a distance but the corrective lenses make everything within about 36" blurry. I have to take my glasses off to work on the computer or read. The doctor said that bifocals might help if the prescription is on top and no correction on the bottom but he didn't have any experience with target shooting to know for sure. Does anyone have experience with anything similar and if so, what worked for you?

Your corrective script is designed for daily use and your optometrist figured out best depth of field or distance view that works for you.

Since you are experiencing presbyopia, your optometrist suggested bifocals since you need near vision. Instead of bifocals go for progressive or multi-focal lens that way its natural for you to see things, better design if you sit and use the computer.

Your shooting script is different from your daily eyewear script since the shooting script is designed for hyperfocal distance or the length of the rifle's sight radius. You should not be using your daily-use eye glasses as your shooting script.

What kind of rifles do you normally use? Old school opensights or does it have an aperture like M1 Garand's rear sight?

[Latigo]

Not a C&R, but..... As concerns vision, ......This is what happened to Latigo with his Wilson Custom AR10 and an insanely clear and expensive scope...... a Premier Heritage 1,000 yarder.




She has a custom, internally re-machined Armalite AR10 receiver/magazine well cut to accept a slightly longer AR10 custom magazine, this because of the required OAL.

All internal receiver areas are coated with a Tungsten Disulfide Matrix derivative. The chamber and throat are cut to accept one projectile profile only. The Sierra 175 MK,

and no other. Because of these cuts the TTL, seat depth and OAL are specific and critical, thus the need and reason for a custom machined Mag-well.

Walther 17-4 S/S barrel, internally tapered .006 electro-polished bore and a 1-10 ROT. Moly Specific.

SWS foregrip and a prototype trigger from his inventory that later evolved into the Chip McCormick trigger.

The following is the sequence and history of some 1,850 chrono'd and logged in rounds sent downrange, some of which were moa in 5 round groups, but Lat wandered in and out of moa to 2moa week after week. He was getting frustrated. I'll make this as short as I can.

We used the original Load Data, case prep and the cases themselves were not easy to get. They were to be Lake City headstamped "LR". Those are the USMC Long Range cases that are once fired and collected by a specific case and projectile supplier.



Prep, shoot... no moa, change the load by 1/10gr increments up and down...... moa once in a while.




This is what we tried:

Powder charge change in 1/10gr increments to 2gr under and 2gr over intial data.

TTL OAL

Bushing change

Seat depth changes

Seat depth and charge changes to 2gr under and 2gr over intial data.... Chrono spread literally tight with the original data, IE: 2505fps. SD +-7

The above amounted to some 1,800 rounds with one critical change midway through. We found that our Moly process, similar to Sierra's was not deep or hard enough. You should be able to go 7 to 800 rounds without seeing any coppering of the lands/grooves at all. I changed my process to match Stewart's and the coppering after 160 rounds disappeared, but still no consistent moa shooting. Lat was discouraged to say the least. He was about ready to stack it in the armoury and work with his M1 Garand for a while, until..............

Lat's down prone in the shootshed and I told him I'd been watching his shooting technique all along and judged it solid and correct, but today I had an idea. I had him remove his prescription shooting glasses, put on his contacts and fire 5 rounds. MOA!! We went back to the armoury and reloaded 20 of the original load data we had on day one! 4 moa groups right out of the gate! Back to the armoury for another 20 rounds.........But this time, I had him remove his contacts. Sub-moa! Back for another 10, same results sub-moa!

So, 1,870 SMK projectiles, pounds of powder, frustration and disappointment was all traced back to something so simple we hadn't considered it. Contacts and prescription shooting glasses. Those contacts did a slight floating action on his lenses and the shooting glasses changed with his prone head position. He could move his head slightly and got a better, sharper picture. That should have told me something, but I never imagined it.

The Wilson performs exactly as designed, and Latigo is an extremely happy camper. A lot of component dollars lighter.... but happy.

[Latigo]

I should mention that the post was from 5 years ago and those Moly coated projectiles, ICP's, are no longer used. For this rifle and ALL Swiss rifles and handguns we had switched to hBN ICP's around that time. As with the Wilson, all of our Swiss rifles show no barrel wear whatsoever.

Our Control Rifle is a mint barreled k31, and after some 2,000+ rounds there is literally NO lands/grooves wear whatsoever as well as NO coppering whatsoever. K31 barrels are very expensive to replace........ never mid the zfk55's.

P

[Milsurp Collector]

I wear bifocals and I find it impossible to shoot with them. I have one pair of glasses for just handgun shooting and another just for rifle shooting in my range bag. At the range I change from my bifocals to whatever eyeglasses are appropriate (handgun or rifle). Work with your optometrist to get prescriptions that make everything from the front sight distance to your eye (different for rifles and handguns) to the target in focus.

I use these for rifle shooting http://www.bjonessights.com/glasses.html Normal eyeglass frames frequently cut across your line of sight when rifle shooting. The shape of the Bob Jones frame keep them out of the line of sight.

This can also be helpful for you http://www.seebettershootbetter.com/ I have one but I don't use it much because my shooting glasses are currently getting the job done.

[74c5]

SSP eyewear makes a pair of frames that come with conventional bifocal and upper corner bifocal lenses for hunkering down shooting. Keep it around 1.25 and you should still be able to make out the target.

[Enfield47]

Thanks guys, very helpful information. I'm glad I'm in good company too.

I shoot a variety of rifles, as short as an M1 carbine and Mini 14 to as long as my P14 and M91. I'll have to measure the most common distance (probably my Enfields) and see what the optometrist has to recommend. I do have a pair of readers that I can test out too.

The See Better Shoot Better is an interesting idea that I may also try out.

[Milsurp Collector]

Here's an interesting web site by an optometrist who specializes in corrective lenses for competitive shooters https://www.drbarrynolt.com/shooting...stol-shooting/

Dr. Nolt has a unique speciality in competitive shooting and provision of prescription eyeglasses, contact lenses and associated ophthalmic appliances to enhance vision of competitive shooters at an olympic level. He has written and published many articles that are available to read on his web site. He has the knowledge and background in shooting sports to advise shooting enthusiasts on ophthalmic eyewear best for trap, skeet, sporting clays, handgun and even archery. Dr. Nolt welcomes questions via email and will respond to all.

[rdfact]

[OpenSightsOnly]

I know having the front sight in focus is proper but my problem is then making small adjustments to my POI on the target. I primarily shoot milsurps with iron sights which lack fine elevation adjustments, some have 300 meters as the lowest setting. To shoot at 100 yards you have to aim below the target without a decent aiming point.

Since you have access to a 100 yard range, get your hands on some NRA SR-1 targets.

If your rifle has a 300 meter dead zero (like Swiss 96/11 or Swede M96), play around with the rear sight setting and use a sub-6 o'clock hold until you get your shots on the SR-1.

[OpenSightsOnly]

Thanks guys, very helpful information. I'm glad I'm in good company too.

I shoot a variety of rifles, as short as an M1 carbine and Mini 14 to as long as my P14 and M91. I'll have to measure the most common distance (probably my Enfields) and see what the optometrist has to recommend. I do have a pair of readers that I can test out too.

The See Better Shoot Better is an interesting idea that I may also try out.

If you plan to see your eye quack again , please read these articles or bring a few of them that talks about hyperfocal distance. Your eye quack knows what this is but they are focused or have a mindset on focus on infinity since daily eyewear script is about depth of field.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2009/04/shooting-sports-usa-examines-shooters-vision/

http://bullseyepistol.com/wong.htm

The long and short of this is that if the sight radius is as long as an rifle length AR15 (22" sight radius) or shorter than an M1 Garand, you need to add +0.75 diopters to your daily script and that becomes your shooting script.

If you are shooting an M1 Garand or a sight radius longer than 22" but less than 27", you need to add +0.50 diopters to your daily eyewear and that becomes your shooting script.

I use to use the Bob Jones glasses - http://www.bjonessights.com/glasses.html

But I ended up using Knobloch frame with the 37mm lens so I can use the 37mm adjustable iris for depth of field control http://www.champchoice.com/store/Mai...yBody&c=OPEYKN

Check this out - https://shootingsight.com/product-category/apertures/

Have used their reduced aperture rear sight for the M1, the 0.042" aperture works good.

BTW, I am near sighted with astigmatism, and I compete in CMP/NRA service rifle competition. So, I went through what you are going through.

[Blade Gunner]

I'm nearsighted and I've noticed that my shooting skills have been deteriorating lately because the sights are a total blur when wearing my glasses. If I'm using a scope or an optic sight I do fine, just not with iron sights.

I had my annual eye exam and with corrective lenses I can see fine at a distance but the corrective lenses make everything within about 36" blurry. I have to take my glasses off to work on the computer or read. The doctor said that bifocals might help if the prescription is on top and no correction on the bottom but he didn't have any experience with target shooting to know for sure. Does anyone have experience with anything similar and if so, what worked for you?

Progressive lens may help. Unlike bifocals. Progressive lenses change graduallly from far vision to near vision from the top to bottom of the lens. They are not perfect, but they help.