Hi All,
I figured this would be a good place to ask this question as obviously we have a bunch of hunters/shooters here and a few must wear glasses.
Here is what I have going on.I am 48 and far sighted.I have minor corrections for distance but definitely need correction for reading.
I am left eye dominant but shoot right handed. I should have changed to shooting left handed years ago.

Scopes are not a problem without glasses. The problem arises when shooting pistols mainly but also open sighted rifles. I have bifocals so I can either tip my head back and see the sights and not the target or use the distant part and see the target but the sights are out of focus.

I shoot a few IPSC matches a year and keep forgetting to ask the folks there what they are doing when it comes to glasses.

I just wondered how you guys deal with this issue.

Thank you very much in advance.
Bill Martin

Anxious to see the responses to this. I wear bifocals and am far sighted and haven't come up with a truly good solution yet�hopefully someone else fills us in.

Have your Doc give you a prescription to focus on your front sight distance and call DeCot and have em put that in a bifocal in the top of your lense.

I think they show that on their website.

That is what many older IPSC shooters do.

I've been using the Merit adjustable disk on my progressive lenses for about two years. Not the most convenient things but they will stick to your glasses for at least 2-3 hours, I've never had them on longer than that, and you can rotate it out of the way when you're not immediately using it.

I mount it so I'm looking out of the top (far) half of my lens so the target is in clear focus, then the aperture lets me see the handgun sights in sharp focus as well. My handgun groups were shot to hell but now that I can see the sights again I can lay them in there like I used to. It also works well for peep sights on rifles with shorter barrels, like a 20" .30-30. It brings that front sight into sharp focus.

Again, it's more for range wear, for the field you can use a red dot or reflex sight with your normal lenses or even unaided if your far vision is still good.

I'm not sure how well they'd work for fast shooting like an IPSC match, they seem to be better suited for stationary target work but it might be worth trying.

I have the same issue but 11 years older.. Got some trifocals, but they do not seem to help. I can either have the sights clear or the target, I prefer the sights to be clear with the target just fuzzy. Rifles I can still do OK, it is the pistols that cause the problems. In the younger years the sights were clear and the target clear enough to see the 10 ring clearly. Shotguns well....... Must be that left eye dominate thing.

My glasses have graduated lenses. All I have to do is tilt my head slightly and everything comes into focus. Have been using this type of glasses for years.

Jim

Went thru this the past year when I decided to use an open peep for Deer hunting some days.

At first I thought it wasn't going to work, but eventually I learned to look thru the peep. The front will center itself in the peep if you just let it happen. The front bead isn't all that sharp, but don't let it bother you. Just paste it on the target and squeeze the trigger. Didn't get a chance to use it on a Deer, but I have little doubt it would have worked for big game.

If you are only referencing pistols or competition target shooting probably not all that well.

A 100 yard target once I got the hang of it. At closer woods ranges misses would have been on me, though early and late would have been a problem. And I would absolutely love to be 48 again.

Rifle fit is really important to have everything line up subconsciously. This was from an old pre 64 Model 70 whose stock was originally designed for open sights. Certainly wouldn't win any competition prize, but better than good enough for big game.

Right on. A big peep and a bead don't need no sharp, clear edges to work.

That's how I handle it when that merit aperture is too much trouble. Just lean my head back and use the near focus portion of the progressive lens to get the sights sharp. You can still hit center mass of larger targets like ringers or such, although smaller targets like soda cans or shotshells at 25 yards can be a little tough to see.

Between sight alignment and sight picture, sight alignment is the most critical. If you can't see both the target and sights in focus, focus on the sights.

Find an optometrist that is a hunter/shooter. He can fix you up with a prescription that will enable you to focus on sights and close targets. They may be a bit blurry but workable. Mine even works with rifles and although a 100 yard target gets blurred, I can still shoot fairly well.

For handguns alone, you might try some cheap Walmart 150's. This will put your reading vision out about 2 -3 ft. If they work, you can get some glue on with just water to fit on your shooting glasses. You put them on the center where they end up looking like a misplaced bifocal. They are usually some where around the pharmacy at about $7.

Agreed - a custom lens that lets you see the front sight is the only way to go with handguns.

Bud Decot's outfit does a great job and has for lo these many years.

My own choice has been http://tacticalrx.com/ Fully-Custom Shooting, Tactical, and Outdoor Sport glasses.

Options including glasses with an alternative lens to snap in and out. In your circumstances with mixed dominance I'd probably shoot a handgun right handed left eyed. Regardless I'd be using glasses that I had full confidence in for eye protection.

Nearsighted all my life and wearing glasses since i was 13. Now 66.

So the cataracts were developing and the Eye Doc said: Good news is you will not need any more glasses. Bad news is you need lens implants.

Just completed the surgery: First eye 4 weeks ago, second eye 3 weeks ago. Installed distance lenses.

Ha! Can see an elk 1000 yards away. Front sight of a rifle is in perfect focus. Rear sight is just a little fuzzy. Reading the computer monitor now without any glasses at all. Aperture sight is perfect. Use cheapie reading glasses for up close fine work such as reading a micrometer.

And the colors are much better now, things looked a dingy yellowish brown in the past.

Only about $2000 per eye. My insurance paid most of it, only had a $200 co-pay per eye.

I wear progressives and I am have all kinds of trouble clearly seeing the crosshairs in my high x scopes. 24x is the top end. Raising my head to use the progressive lense is out. My reading glasses are no help either.The side focus sightron scope will not compensate enough to fix the problem. I hate the fact that I cannot see well enough to shoot up to my potential. Really frustrated with it.

Others have said it and I'll echo it; get a prescription that focuses at arms length. If you need bifocals, get the near vision bottoms too.

I had a pair of glasses made for computer work that focus at about 2-2 1/2' and one day I got a wild hair and took some of my handguns out and tried it. They worked like a champ when shooting at about 25 yards or so because they forced me to focus on the sights. Doesn't work as well at longer ranges though.

If I don't happen to have those glasses with me, I tilt my head back and use the near vision lenses of my bifocals. It's a bit awkward but it works better than the distance part of the lenses.

I went to graduated lineless bi-focal lenses a number of years ago. They work real good for pistol and Iron sight rifles.
I ran into the problem of getting out of the distance part and into the reading part when shooting scoped rifles from the bench. Made focusing a real bummer at times.
My cure to that was to have a pair of glasses made with the distance correction only when they had one of those buy one get one free things. (Free they weren't) So now when I go to a match or hunting, I wear the ones with no reading, when shooting pistol or iron rifle I use my normal glasses and everything works well.

Those who wait, don't know what they are missing.

Thank you all for the ideas. I think I will have to go with a prescription that focuses at arms length. I will check out Decotts and Tactical RX.

Bill

I'm in the same boat you are regarding dominance and farsightedness. I'm not to the bifocal stage yet, The eye doc says I'm 20/15, but I need reading glasses, and I have astigmatism. I actually found a Navy eye doc that made me a pair of glasses that takes care of focus issues and the astigmatism at front sight length. With those glasses one, the front sight is very sharp and I can still see the target well. My shooting has improved with them.

Jim, my 72 year-old eyes have the same problems that I've reduced by using the Merit adjustable disk on my progressive lenses. Great improvement for military rifle and pistol shooting! The only issue I've encountered is keeping he suction disc attached to my glasses; have you had this issue?

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