RX glasses and shooting

[Dennis]

I asked about this once before. I wear progressive lenses in my glasses. I'm struggling with aiming and sight/target picture. My eye doc is an old shooter himself. We had a pair of shooting glasses made trying to correct this problem. Well, It's just not working like I'd like. I'm thinking about trying something new. I thought I ask here to see if this idea seems feasible. My eye doc mentioned that some mechanics do a reverse progressive putting the close up area on top. I'd like to do is have a "Double progressive lens". Close up being at the top and bottom of the lens at the same time. Distance in the middle. Has anyone tried something like this? In my mind, it seems like this could give me the best results. I thought I'd ask here before going back to my eye doc.

I'm mainly a hand gun guy. I recently decided I needed to expand my horizons. I put LPVOs on three newish rifles. Two AR's and a 10/22 for training. Head placement and focusing are quite difficult with my glasses.

I'm not looking at a competition set up. I don't compete. More for general use. Meaning something with a safety lens that I can wear every day if I need to.

Has anyone tried something like this? I know I'm not the first aging guy who has delt with this. What are others doing?

Kind regards.

[smoothy8500]

So what did your eye doctor say?

Kind of odd that your "old shooter" doc didn't explain that progressives don't work for pistol iron sights. That progressives don't work for scopes due to head placement/cheekweld as you mention....

There is no magic Rx that gives you all-day vision and works perfect with iron sights and/or scopes too. You need to pick one for each separate aspect.

Pistol iron sights need a fixed Rx at a "hyperfocal distance" generally 4 feet beyond the front sight. Rx set for the front sight distance is too strong and creates a blurry target.

Rifle iron sights need +.75 (AR15 or 10/22 length) +.50 (M1 Garand or M1A length) added to your distance RX for proper front sight focus and target view.

Scopes require a fixed Rx, generally the distance or "far" Rx and you correct the reticle focus with the ocular diopter adjustment. If you have astigmatism, unfortunately most eyeglasses have the correction in the center of the lens. However, when shooting with a scope and maintaing proper cheekweld you are looking through the upper inside edge of the lens where there is no correction of your astigmatism.

[XDJYo]

I'm pretty fortunate that my uncorrected vision is pretty good at the front sight. So, I can get away with using normal shooting glasses. My wife however, has a pretty steep correction. She had some inserts made for her shooting glasses, but she still has problems acquiring the front sight. They are progressive lenses. Whenever she shoots, she has to tilt her head back in order to get a good focus, not ideal. Really wish there was a better solution for her as it makes for a not fun day at the range for her.

[thedonger]

This is why I switched to red (Green) dot sights on my pistols, so I can shoot with my regular prescription glasses

[baih777]

I asked about this once before. I wear progressive lenses in my glasses. I'm struggling with aiming and sight/target picture. My eye doc is an old shooter himself. We had a pair of shooting glasses made trying to correct this problem. Well, It's just not working like I'd like. I'm thinking about trying something new. I thought I ask here to see if this idea seems feasible. My eye doc mentioned that some mechanics do a reverse progressive putting the close up area on top. I'd like to do is have a "Double progressive lens". Close up being at the top and bottom of the lens at the same time. Distance in the middle. Has anyone tried something like this? In my mind, it seems like this could give me the best results. I thought I'd ask here before going back to my eye doc.

I'm mainly a hand gun guy. I recently decided I needed to expand my horizons. I put LPVOs on three newish rifles. Two AR's and a 10/22 for training. Head placement and focusing are quite difficult with my glasses.

I'm not looking at a competition set up. I don't compete. More for general use. Meaning something with a safety lens that I can wear every day if I need to.

Has anyone tried something like this? I know I'm not the first aging guy who has delt with this. What are others doing?

Kind regards.

I have the same problem. But i mainly shoot rifles with scopes. I can adjust for my sight to the scope by head placement.
For my pistols. I put lazer sights on them.

[Hairball]

Look up 30-06 dual readers. There are a few outfits that make them. Mine are made by Kleenguard. They have a corrective lens section on the top and bottom and they are clear in the middle.

[BigBronco]

I had a pair for Rx glasses made where the right eye was for close (sights) and the left eye was for distance. Shooting with both eyes open it helped a fair amount. Also had the optical center adjusted for pistol sight position. Optician was a shooter. This helped.

[L84CABO]

I might lean toward a reverse bifocal with the bifocal in a little window up top...this is set for the distance of your front sight post. And the rest of the lens is for distance...but what a normal distance lens is, not the rest of the lens being progressive...where your eye may have to hunt around to find the right part of the lens to look through.

Also, with handguns do you use a red dot? Because a red dot allows you to focus on the target instead of the front sight post...and that alone could solve most of your problems.

[Reno-Kid]

I was in the same situation. My new eye doctor is a vet sniper. Lucky me.
His prescription was for distance only. Worked out great. I can see distant target and my front gun sights perfect. I picked the Oakley frames which doesn't interfere with rifle stock.


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[Scooooter7]

Interesting.

I have computer glasses that have the vision opposite of normal. Since I am on the puter all day long this helps a lot and saves my neck big time.

I cannot help though since I have not tried this for shooting, but thanks OP, I will definitely use the glasses when under the car next time.

[Jimi Jah]

Old eyes will never get the target and front site post in focus.

Use a 1x4 scope. At 1x, everything is in focus.

[divingin]

Iron sights on pistols generally require a focus point about 6" beyond your fingers with arm outstretched (plus or minus depending on grip and stance.) Dots on pistols require focus at the target (what, 10-25 yds for most people?) Scoped rifles require focus at the target (generally infinity, but depends on range.) Open irons on rifle need focus at the front sight, whatever that works out to. Globe and peep sights need focus at the target, though they are also vision correcting to a degree.

Trying to get a single correction to work with all of them will be problematic at best.

That said, a few pistol shooters I know use the inverted bifocal setup for iron sights. For me, having the head tipped down is detrimental to my concentration (and that may well be just me.) I prefer the head back position. Then again, I have dedicated shooting glasses for pistol, so don't use bifocals for that.

For scoped rifle I wear my everyday glasses; nothing special there.

My optometrist allowed me to bring in an air gun to get the proper scrip for pistol (for the lens in my shooting frame.) Buying a single corrective lens for those things confuses the hell out of the labs. They don't understand anything but pairs of glasses.

It's not all that complicated, in practice (though getting someone else to understand that might be), but you need to know what you're trying to correct your eyes to, and understand the limitations of that correction.

[Mute]

Progressives didn't work for me on handguns. Ultimately, I settled for optics for my handguns. Long guns are generally not a problem regardless of what eye wear I use.

[Regular guy]

Does it depend on your perscription strength? I wear progressives and my script is 1.5 I believe. I have an astigmatism. I can use handgun sights just fine. I wear safety glasses over my scripts when i go to the range. I have a green dot on my ruger PCC, also fine?

[divingin]

Does it depend on your perscription strength? I wear progressives and my script is 1.5 I believe. I have an astigmatism. I can use handgun sights just fine. I wear safety glasses over my scripts when i go to the range. I have a green dot on my ruger PCC, also fine?

Depends on the user. Progressives require that the correct portion of the lens is used while looking at the sights, and that correct portion is relatively small. If you can do it consistently, you're fine. Most people I know can't (to be fair, they likely didn't work on doing so very much either.) They didn't work well enough for me to stay with them (though I also hated progressives for everyday stuff as well.)