Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Glasses,old eyes and open sights

I am right eye dominant and left handed, am near-sighted with some astigmatism after some ten years of good vision following radial keratotomy. But now I'm resigned to glasses.

Rifled scopes are no problem and strangely enough neither are shotguns. My problem comes to light mainly with handguns. For informal plinking and come-what-may I'm going to try the Merit Optical Attachment. It's a mechanical iris that attaches easily to your eyeglass lens easily and "helps keep three planes in focus". Merit corporation.com. These have been used by the guys who shoot matches for years.

But for my RRH in 45 Colt that I use for whitetails in Iowa, I contacted Hamilton Bowen, the well known revolver gunsmith who was sympathetic to the problem and was willing to try something new. He has the same problem himself and is going to try fabricate a an adjustable blade rear ghost sight or aperture and an appropriately short/tall front sight for the loads I use.

We are both well aware this concept is not supposed to work on handguns because the eye is too far from the real sight. However, there are those who've tried it and found it suitable. We'll see. I'll give it a go and if this fails, I'll probably mount a Trijicon yellow dot on the gun which puts me off a bit aesthetically and would require some holster alterations.

But there it is--you have to work with what you have and keep seeing (pun intended) "the glass half full"!

Tough issue to deal with, I've struggled too, though my vision is just the opposite of yours.

My bifocal lenses exactly back-out my vision correction, I can take my glasses off and see just at well out to a few feet.

A switch I've made recently (2 yrs) is to Varilux brand lenses. You pay a slight premium, but the transition of the lens is so smooth that when I first put them on I started complaining that the glass company had forgot to provide me with progressive lenses.

It works great most days, though I have to admit that there are some days where I just seem to lose the recipe - I suspect that is just me and has nothing to do with my (purchased) equipment.

For shotgunning, I bought just a straight distance correction lens. I'm a fairly decent shotgun shot, if I ever have any strong awareness of barrel or bead I'm going to have a bad day.

I had my optometrist make a pair of yellow-tinted shatterproof glasses in my usual prescription, and shoot with them. It works pretty well. I can see the front sight without significant difficulty, for an old man.

In the near future, I plan to put a fiberoptic front sight and a One Ragged Hole peep sight on my Ruger 22/45 and see how that works. I like receiver sights on rifles, so . . .

The only thing I do is moisten the suction cup by licking it. Not the most sanitary thing in the world but haven't contracted any virulent diseases yet. I lay it upside down on a hard surface (shooting bench) with the cup facing upwards and then use my thumb to push the lens down hard on top of it. That squeezes it for a good suction fit without risk of damaging the glasses.

It's stayed on for about 2-3 hours at a time in below freezing temps, that's as long as I usually stay at the range. It will also leave a little ring on the lens when removed but you can take that off with a standard cleaning cloth or maybe a little spritz of lens cleaner. It hasn't damaged the lens coatings at all after two years of use.

I am waiting for DW Battlesight (https://www.dwbattlesight.com/home.html) to get their front peep sight for the Ruger revolvers in production. My Ruger Super Blackhawk has a One Ragged Hole rear peep sight and it works great. The only problem is the solid front sight blocks so much of the target. The front peep of the DW Battlesight solves that allowing hold over if needed. Check their site out.

Turk, their website is fairly "rustic". I couldn't find a description of their front sight but am interested. Could you describe? Or elucidate?

Thanks.

Yep, only I use a Williams Fire sight on the front with a FP on the rear. It's easier to see and easier to line up on the target.

Yes it is. If you watch the "window" on the right of the home page,
it will show the front sight. It is a front peep sized allow light in & see
what you are shooting when you hold over. Also read the notes for more
info.

For a dedicated personal carry handgun I vote red dot all the way. My own choice is RMR but the market is changing quickly.

The various big dot fiber optic and other options for handguns do just fine for short range plinking and indoor well lighted gallery pistol. Seems to me the pistol peeps and other such run out of range outdoors at about 25 yards and although they will stretch to 50 yards known range well lighted sharply defined target indoors not so much obscure target against a timber background.

For general outdoors as well as indoors I do like the red dot. For long guns or rule limited handguns then I like the special prescription eyeglasses. I'll be interested in any reports of personal experience with high visibility but iron sights by the rules used in the field.

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. I'm far sighted and maintained 20/20 vision into my early 40's - never needed glasses until then when I found I couldn't focus up close. My first lenses were bifoculs with a minor distance correction which were no help shooting handguns (I could see the sights but the target was a complete blur). I had pretty much quit shooting handguns at that point, though got by fine with scopes (with or without glasses). I was and still am able to do okay with open sight rifles as long as I have a ghost ring type rear aperture sight. The front sight is still a little blury on rifles but I can hold 1-1/2 MOA if everything (including me) is working right.

Now in my 50's, I recently went to trifocals so decided to give the handguns another try. I'm finding that the mid-distance correction is making it so I can shoot my handguns again. It's not ideal - I find it awkward tipping my head back to find the sweet spot which has me thinking a specific pair of glasses with my mid-distance correction mounted in the top half of the frames (so I could tip my head down to see the sights) might work well. Just flipping my glasses over looks promising if I lost the close focus portion. Others have mentioned the diopter mounted to the upper lense - this intrigues me and is probably the best solution.

I wear contacts, and the last time I sat in the optometrist's chair I complained about this very problem. He fitted me with a contact to wear in my dominant eye when pistol shooting which is a compromise all the way around but allows me to shoot fairly well. (Well, at least as well as I did when I was younger which wasn't all that well!) Admittedly, a PIA. Now I just put on a cheap pair of low power reading glasses, 1.00x, which sharpen my sights and still allow decent target definition (while wearing my 'normal' contact lenses). Works for pistol and rifle shooting, and only cost $10 at the Rite-Aid store.

What gnoahh said. Get the lowest power readers that allow you to see the front sight. BTW, a flat top post front sight allows more vertical precision on both handgun and rifle. The target will not be in sharp focus, but that is OK. Focus on the front sight.

I'm 76 and certainly no longer see 20/10, more like 20/25 or 30 corrected. I use trifocals. The regular glasses give me fits shooting. The $10-12 readers keep me in the game. Because of a special commission, I have to qualify annually with the state troopers. The above method lets me outshoot most of them. 300 is a clean target. I usually shoot in the mid to high 290 range with full power loads from a .357 Sig. (silhouette training version target.)

That sounds like the best solution for my needs - I'm going to give that a try. Thanks for suggesting it...

Reflex sights are your friend!!

http://www.leupold.com/hunting-shooting/scopes/deltapoint-reflex-sights/
http://www.burrisoptics.com/fastfire.html