[chetrogers]

Do you always where eye protection when shooting..the last few time i have went i have..but there are times in the past when i dont....Does anyone not where it..Or do you all where it all the time..

[S_O_Laban]

Back when I was young and had all the anwsers, I didn't, but now that I don't know as much, I always do.

[blue86buick]

normally no, when shooting my 597. lately, yes, because it's sunny and i have my oakleys on. one day last week, no, until some still-burning powder hit me right by my eye. this evening, yes, except for after one reload, when i forgot to put them back on, and some still burning powder hit my eye. then i put them back on. After those two incidents, i'm going to be VERY inclined to wear safety glasses of some sort.

[Telperion]

Recently having a piece of 223 brass hit me squarely on my sunglasses has me hooked for life...

[Andrew Wyatt]

ALWAYS. eyeballs are irreplaceable.

[arinvolvo]

Absolutely, being left handed puts the stream of brass across my face, especially with crappy autoloading carbines like the keltec rifle....that thing spits hot powder in my face ever time I pull the trigger...I hate that gun.

Also, my 22 rifle will do the same thing with junk russian ammo.

[Dionysusigma]

When I was younger, I used to shoot BB guns at almost anything (including snow banks, trees, dirt mounds, rocks, brick walls, etc.) One day, I was plugging away at a boulder when one round came back and hit me smack in the forehead, about 1/2" up above my left eyebrow. :what:Fortunately, the momentum was a lot less than initial muzzle velocity, and no harm was done--but now I'm plagued by two little words: What if...? :uhoh:

Wearing eye protection and being uncomfortable/ restricted/ whatever for an afternoon is much more preferable to being that way for life.;)

[Combat-wombat]

autoloaders...yes
revolvers, manually operated arms...no
The main reason to wear eye protection is to protect your eyes against ejecting shells or hot powder that is still burning from a shell. With manually operated weapons, especially revolvers, you can control when and at what velocity shells eject. Of course, if your are shooting at something the bullet could ricochet off of, of coures you should wear eye protection.

[arinvolvo]

I also think that a lot of years playing paintball, and a lifetime of wearing corrective lenses make me feel very naked with unprotected eyes.

kinda like the way it feels when you dont put your seatbelt on:o ...just feels WRONG, ya know?:confused:

[stevelyn]

Always. I normally wear glasses. If I have my contacts in I'll wear my Wiley-X Sabers. I too shoot left handed and find brass flying in front of my face when shooting and I feel burning gunpowder grains when shooting my .22 with any ammo.

[Cliff]

All the time, I've been hit in the face by flying brass from the person in the stall next to me,and brass from your own gun can hit the wall and bounce back to you also. Just common sense to wear eye's all the time.

[Stoker]

Good morning everyone! This is my first post on this board.

I'm trying to work out my policy on this business of eye protection - wearing true safety glasses is complicated by the need to wear corrective glasses and/or sun glasses, it seems to me.

The danger of splashback and the way the caps blow apart means I always wear safety glasses for shooting my black powder revolver and I will when shooting my underlever on the pistol range (which is as close to modern pistol shooting as we can get here in the UK).

But should I wear them for shooting my 7.62 and 0.303 Enfields from the prone position at 100 metres and upwards? I'm not sure about that.

What do you think?

[cool45auto]

I keep the eye and ear protection in my shooting box on top of whatever ammo I'm going to shoot that day. I wear them all the time.

Stoker: Welcome to THR!:D

[BryanP]

is one piece of ejecting brass smacking me in the middle of the forehead. I'm a believer.

I'm paranoid. I also wear them when shooting revolvers or rifles. Not so much because of brass but because you never know when something is going to go boom the bad way.

[Waitone]

Its stupid to not wear eye protection.

I've been hit square on the lens with oil / grease, lead, soot, and brass. The lead came from the revolver in the next lane, brass was mine, oil / grease was mine.

It just ain't worth the risk.

[foghornl]

Safety glasses go over my regular specs before gun goes in hand.

[keyhole]

As I tell the new members during orientation at the range, " You can find your way out of here if you're deaf, but not if you're blind"

Always have your "eyes" on.:cool:

[Billy Sparks]

I always wear my eye protection. Been hit way too many times by splash back. You will be surprised how far back that stuff will come and how fast it will be moving when it gets there. Matter of fact I am sorta fanatical about eye protection. I wear them when using the weedeater, chainsaw, leafblower and I really ought to wear them when I clean guns but I am sorta lax on that one.

[5ptdeerhunter]

I regret to say I only wear eye protection when I shoot with my normal glasses. But I mostly shoot with contacts. I just haven't found a good pair of glasses that fit my mishapen head and still allow me to shoot comfortably.

I also had a bad experience. I was sitting on my picnic table in my backyard while my friend was shooting my BB gun. We were shooting at army men standing in front of and on the target. He shot at one on top of the target and the BB he the back of my garage and came back straight at me. I watched as it got bigger and bigger. It appeared to be in slow motion. Luckily I closed my eyes just before it hit me smack dab in the middel of my eye.

[DontShootMe]

95% of the time I use my standard prescription glasses - and yes, I've had things bounce off of them more than once. I guess the only drawback was the time I caught some brass between the inside of the lens and my cheek.

I'm sure the funny dance I did was something to see.

On the rare day I'm wearing contacts, I use:
http://www.andersons-online.com/images/sw152pcyi.GIF

[Smoke]

Long guns: sometimes
Handguns: always

Its is rare that I shoot without at least a pair of sunglasses (maybe impact resistant, maybe not...) Dang sun down here is intense!

[bogie]

No matter what you're shooting, wear safety glasses. Or at a minimum, wear SOMETHING.

I've had primer pop, which vents a lot of gas outta the action, back into your face. Case seps are worse (and these are with rifles, dudes...). I've got a friend who blew up a para ordnance, and his safety glasses caught a frag that was headed for his pupil...

[Kharn]

Always, I put my shooting glasses on before I even get out of the truck at the range.
I have a .22 conversion for my Ar15s that vents a small amount of gas out the charging handle hole on one of my uppers (the charging handle is worn and doesnt seal very well) and its angled right at my aiming eye. I still havent gotten around to using some RTV rubber to seal it up. I also wear safety glasses whenever I'm in my workshop, even when hand-sanding a rifle stock (and earmuffs when using any power tool).

Kharn

[robear]

I know for a FACT that my everyday prescription glasses have saved my eyesight at least once.. I was using a small rotary cutter on a flex-shaft and the cutting disc shattered... LARGE scratch dead center of glasses, small cut on nose.. :what: :banghead:

It makes you think..

Still, safety glasses are the way to go.. I had a pair made up for me several years ago, but we have parted company somewhere, and they would need new lenses ground to my latest prescription anyway...

I have also used my racquetball 'glasses', but they are nearly as ugly as the old military BC's.. :D

You've got ONE set of eyes, protection is cheap.. Wear it..

R

[toro]

This is the first time I ever heard of people not wearing ear and eye protection. Our gun club requires it as most do. People who shoot matches always have to have ear and eye protection. Why wouldn't you want to protect your eyes? I have been hit many times by brass and other things. Get a pair of safey glases as soon as possible and never, ever go out and shoot without them.

Mrs. Toro


-------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew 15;7,8
Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

[BenW]

I won't shoot a gun, use a power tool, or pull the handle of my reloading machines without safety glasses. There was a time when I didn't, but after a couple of close calls I finally got the message. Besides, there's so many cool styles of safety glasses out now, why wouldn't you want to wear them? As a matter of fact, I wear safety glasses as my regular sunglasses. :)

[JCM298]

I wear them whenever I am handling a gun or re-loading. They are a MUST!
John

[Zer000]

I'll agree with the popular sentiment. My eye protection doesn't bother me in the least. Even if it did, not having an eye would bother me a whole lot more. Why take chances?

[jade]

i think it is very important to wear eye protection, which is why i have gotten so mad at my self the last few times i have gone shooting. all of a sudden, i am having trouble remembering to put on my eye protection before shooting.

the first time i forgot to put them on, i got up to the firing line loaded my gun, aquired a site picture, and just ... waited. something wasn't right. it took me a few seconds to realize i what i had forgotten. i am very glad that i took the time to unload my gun and put on my eye protection, cause the handloads i was firing were very smokey and kicked a lot of stuff back in my face.

the second time, i fired several rounds before i realized that i had forgotton my eye protection. i felt so stupid.

both times where just recently, and consecutive which sort of makes it worse. :banghead:

[willyjixx]

i wear corrective lenses an im horribly far sighted (so without my glasses i couldnt hit the broad side of a barn) but i always wonder if there up for the task of shooting.

do they make prescription lenses with more "ballistic" capabilities?
something a bit more durable or at least put my mind at ease?

[Spackler]

I wear safety glasses and ear plugs when I shoot, mow the lawn, or run the string trimmer. Seems like every time I crawl under the car to change the oil or a fog light bulb, I get hit in the glasses with dirt and grit, so I'm glad I wear them for those jobs as well.

do they make prescription lenses with more "ballistic" capabilities?

You can get prescription safety glasses. They are the norm in factories for folks who wear glasses. You can probably get them at most optical places. You can also get those over-sized safety glasses and wear them over your other glasses. That would be my second choice, though.

[BenW]

do they make prescription lenses with more "ballistic" capabilities?
Most Optometrists should be able to get you a pair that are OSHA Z-87 spec'd (pardon the pun).

[themic]

i have eyeglasses with shatterproof lenses. they don't cover quite as much as real safety glasses do, but they're at least as strong if not stronger and i hate wearing two sets of glasses. so, effectively, i'm always wearing some eye protection.

[shermacman]

One day I was shooting some of my .22 lr rifles and hand guns. I usually don't shoot my Winchester bolt action rifle with my glasses but since I was also firing a semi-automatic pistol they were on...Bolted a round in, pulled the trigger and got a face full of blast. :what: The magazine blew out of the bottom, the bolt flew open, the bullet stopped about two inches short of the muzzle and the face of the cartridge had torn off backwards, the brass cylider stuck in the breech. A .22 popping in your face makes a lot of smoke and noise. Got it all cleaned up and threw away the damaged magazine.
I will always wear glasses.

[Mike Irwin]

Yes.

I wear my regular glasses, which have high impact resistant polycarbonate lenses.

If I take them off, I literally can't see anything more than a few inches in front of my face.

[JeanC]

Always, and I HAVE to wear my perscription glasses or I can't see the end of the muzzle.

Before the last perscription change I had glass lenses, so HAD to have shooting glasses over those. I now have polycarb lenses (if anything to reduce the weight of my glasses, my scrpt for my right eye was going to double in thickness). I still wear shooting glasses over the new ones. I use clear ones tho, my glasses darken in the sun.

[chetrogers]

can anyone suggest a pair that i could buy online? At my work we carry regular eye protection like for when your using the weed eater ect...thanks for any suggestions

[BenW]

I've been buying from Texas America Safety lately for work and home. Good prices on both eyes and ears.
http://www.tasco-safety.com/

[Stoker]

I'd like to thank everybody whose posted advice here - some of the stories make me wince.

I've been shooting pistols and rifles during military service for 35 years without mishap and only recently have I started wearing safety glasses. I think it's true that eye protection while shooting is still unusual in military forces around the world - it certainly is in ours. What's the position in the US forces?

I started wearing safety glasses because of the rules of the civilian club I joined, but I notice many members, especially those who wear prescription specs, are very casual about the rule.

But your experiences have motivated me to be very serious about eye protection.

Thank you all

[HankB]

I'm stuck always wearing eyeglasses, so eye protection is a "non issue" for me. My normal glasses have polycarbonate lenses, and they'll protect against normal things like powder granules, bouncing brass, etc. But when shooting steel at a match I switch to real prescription safety glasses. Polycarbonate, too, but 50% thicker.

I know of several incidents when eye protection came in handy - once, when I was a kid, lead or jacket metal bounced back from the bullet trap when one of my shooting buddies fired his .41 or .44 magnum in the next shooting lane . . . it came back hard enough to put a small scratch on the tip of my nose before bouncing up off my left eyeglass lens.

Another time, a couple of us went shooting and I insisted the "newbie" wear safety glasses. (I'd brought along an extra pair.) When he fired the other guy's M1927 Thompson a glob of grease, powder, and other schmutz hit him in the face and spattered his glasses. He thanked me.

And once on a trap field I saw a guy's O/U explode. This was one of the most thoroughly destroyed guns I've ever seen, but other than a few scratches on his arm and face, he was uninjured.

These are the only incidents I can recall over many tens of thousands of rounds fired . . . there were probably times when, thanks to glasses, I didn't even notice a "save." But even in the case of the incidents I've mentioned, thanks to the use of safety glasses they'e no more than memories, with no lasting consequences.

[Erik]

Eye protection? Always.

[cracked butt]

I always wear them. I used to just wear them for the sake of wearing them but was absolutely convinced last year when I had a case head failure in my 9mm beretta- I had alot of burning powder and brass shards hit me in the face. I'm convinced that if I weren't wearing glasses, I would be blind now.
When shooting rifles, I also notice droplets of oil on my glasses after a shooting session- I really wouldn't want that crap inmy eyes either.

[Standing Wolf]

Always.

I once saw a child cut by a ricocheting piece of lead or fragment of stone while shooting at a gravel pit in northern Michigan. The cut was squarely in the middle of the youngster's right eye brow.