Aging Eyes, Open Sights and Target shooting with a pistol..

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short barrel said:
It ain't complicated. Forget contacts if you are a shooter who wants to use open sights. Get glasses. Get progressive lenses, whereby the bottom portion is for close up and the upper part for long distance. They don't have a line dividing two "power" sections. They are progressive. Prescription progressive lenses lets you see sharply at any distance. For shooting, tilt your head until the sights and target are in "balance." You still won't see front sight, rear sight, and target in distinct relief, but you definitely can find that place where your groups on paper will be as tight as they were many years ago. I'm 67. On the range or in the woods, I'm good to go with open sights or peep sights.

I don't mean this sarcastically and I don't say it with hostility. No offense intended. Contact lenses are for the vane, where looks are more important than function. There is no happy medium with contacts. You can't have tight groups and good looks at the same time if your eyes are in need of correction. I'm as vain as the next person. My glasses are rimless so that they seem invisible, but still I can shoot effectively. Rimless glasses are definitely more fragile; the trick is to wear them all the time, except when sleeping. Constantly taking them on and off will wear the frames quickly.
Good luck.
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Totally disagree. There are many reasons why contacts are better than glasses and has NOTHING to do with being vain! One reason may be the prescription is so strong, a thick glass or plastic lense is out of the question. Another reason may involve working in the hot sun and sweating and trying to keep your glasses on even with a "band" to hold them on is impossible.

I take it you haven't tried a multi-focal contact, otherwise you would not have made such silly and foolish remarks about contacts and why people wear them. You can see both close and far away with contacts....
 
short barrel said:
It ain't complicated. Forget contacts if you are a shooter who wants to use open sights. Get glasses. Get progressive lenses, ... Contact lenses are for the vane, where looks are more important than function.
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For people that hunt in messy, freezing conditions or fish offshore, sometimes in crappy weather, contacts are a godsend. Keeping glasses clean and fog free in these circumstances is an exercise in futility. It's hard to see the birds working over bait a half mile away with salt spray on glasses. It looks like flecks of pepper on the horizon. I feel badly for my friends that can't wear contacts in those cases, they miss a lot.

I sometimes wear progressives at the range, but they are only suitable for two handed shooting, not strong hand Bullseye stuff. There's too much distortion unless looking practically straight through the lenses, requiring awkward head turning. 10s become 9s and so on. Most times, I use contacts with bifocal safety glasses and a stick on aperture. It's not perfect, but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far.

Funny comment about vanity though since glasses have been the style for at least a decade. People buy glasses with no correction just for style or vanity. ;)
 
When shooting, the front sight is the only thing that should be clear. Even with great vision, this is true. If you can focus on the front sight, you are good. Ideally the rear sight is blurry, the front sight sharply in focus and the target very blurry. It should look like this:

SightAlignment2_zps30484983.jpg This is the only way it works. Take it from someone who shot conventional and international pistol for years. Hope this helps.
 
About half of my handguns either have red dot sights or scopes. Open sighted, short range shooting, I use 1.25x drug store glasses.
 
It is frustrating! My solution is to wear my contacts that are corrected for distance. I keep both eyes open and focus on my target through blurry sights. It actually works pretty well. Granted, I'm not shooting competitively, but for personal protection 50' and under, this will work. Since I started doing this several years ago, I have since read Grant Cunningham promoting this method as well.
 
I use some 1X reading glasses. (I use 1.25X for everyday computer use etc) It blurs the target a little, but helps with the sights.

And I have red dot sights on a few pistols. I never would have done that before the eyes starting going South.
 
rcmodel said:
Glasses.
Specifically, seamless bifocals probably.

There is a sweet spot in there somewhere where you can clearly focus on the front sight.

Doesn't matter if the target & rear sight are slightly out of focus.

I have also known some older shooters that swear by these.
http://www.meritcorporation.com/

rc
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Those (seamless continuous focus 'bifocals') are what I use. I had a pair made up in a Bolle sports glasses. They are the type that have a wraparound lens that can be changed from dark to yellow or clear. Behind them is an insert that holds the corrective lens (the seamless bifocal). In the pics they look extremely dorky because you can see the insert through the shield. In practice, with the dark lens, you can't see the insert.
Here are some examples of the design:
http://www.safetyglassesusa.com/safety-glasses-with-rx-inserts.html
B
 
Don't wear your contacts. Get a pair of impact resistant shooting glasses. Correct your dominant eye for a perfect focus at the length of your outstretched arm. Correct your non-dominant eye for distance.
 
Similar to a few others here, I had my eye doctor craft a pair of 'shooting' glasses. The dominant eye side was ground to focus at the tip of my fingers with my arm outstretched, and the non-dominant side was ground for distance. This gives an excellent focus on the sights, fuzzy on the target, which is much better than the other way around. It's a bit weird feeling though when I start looking around for my empty brass on the ground!
 
I use special shooting glasses. Mine are Knobloch. Other brands available. Gehman ie
It is a special bifocal
I now have an extra glas permitting a focus change by turning a knob on the side so i can use the same glasses for rifle and pistol
 
Correct your dominant eye for a perfect focus at the length of your outstretched arm.
Click to expand...

With a rifle sight you want your hyper focal distance at two times the distance from your eye to the front sight. I can't see (pun alert) why a handgun would be any different.
 
Not just for the OP, but my 2 cents:

Regular contacts for driving is all that's needed. You need to see distance to IFF. Get reading glasses for reading with your contacts in, and out if needed.

Unless this is for sport, then get whatever works for you. Use whatever advantage you can get for bullseye shoooting. But for defense, plain old contacts normally given out by eye doctors for driving are best IMO. Shooting is not the most important function.

Focus on the front sight. Yeah, your vision of the front sight won't be perfect. It DEOSN'T have to be perfect and it never will be! Target will be a blur. Hit the blur in the middle.:D Yeah, aiming a slightly odd front sight blur, at a blur, completely stinks.

Get better sights. You need contrasting sights. Thin front FO with a wide slot plain black rear for day time. Gaps around the sight picture will help once you get used to them. If you really have to stare at your sights with perfect focus to shoot, then something is wrong with your setup.

If your front sight fits perfectly in the rear slot, like many box stock pistols, you're leaving a ton of contrast, speed and performance on the table. Light on each side of the front blade is great contrast.

I like .110-.115" fronts and .140-.150" wide rear slots.

Night sights? Heinie Straight 8 types. So you're concentrating on just the front, the rear night sight is hardly there, and only used in desperate situations. Obviously you're stuck with a .125" wide front, so go with a wide .156" rear.

Dusk? Dawn? Wide plain black rear. .156" wide at least. Use a gold bead up front.

Finally. Tape those sights over. Practice shooting without sights. A needed skill, many skip. Will help your sighted skills as well, by eventually mitigating grip and technique problems. You can throw a ball 25 yards without sights.

Bottom line, 99% of box stock sights suck. Don't trust me or some pistol manufacturer, try as many as you can. Yes it's a pain. Yes it's expensive.

I wrecked dozens of $30 front sights on each of my pistols that I count on. Sometimes I have to buy 3 custom sights before a pistol is perfect. Often enough, the perfect sight was wasted on assembly, and I have to try again.
:banghead:
 
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I've got progressive lens / TI frame that sit high enough
Also keep a cheap pair of amber wraparounds 'Remington' badged
but they fog up at certain temps.

I looked at a Sig 1911 Officers size with Black notch rear and
a front Tritcum? Night sight It stood out so I'm considering
this for my Commander

R-
 
Sights

I know the OP was asking about sights for aged vision and I don't wish to change the topic. But will pass my experience along. I'm 64 and nothing has worked as well as the new generations of micro red dot sights. Trijicon, Buris Fastfire, Leupold Delta Point, J-Point Micro Red Dot. All will solve the problem admirably. And in my experience your accuracy will improve as well. My accuracy has improved a great deal.

I also suggest skipping the lower end red dots and stick with the major players. I've tried several bottom tier red dots and all were lacking in major ways. All the ones I listed are expensive but work extremely well.
 
Some of the major brands have issues as well. I bought a Burris Fast Fire and found it wandered. I had to clean and add some blue thread locker to the adjustment screws to fix it. When dry they were almost a sloppy fit in the body. So paying more doesn't always work.
 
My experience with red dots seems counter to most. My vision isn't all that bad correcting for front sight distance with only -1.50 diopters, not much.
I shot a dot in bullseye competition for years (high expert) but started noticing I couldn't isolate the dot and my eye would go back and forth between the target and the dot. I took the dot's off my guns and went back to open sights with glasses that give me a very sharp front sight picture (of course, rear sight and target are blurry, as they are supposed to be) and my shooting has improved. I'm using front sights with red round inserts and find I can concentrate on them quite nicely.
Stu
 
Old Eyes Ghost Ring & XS Big Dot

I ended up having David Milam of Cajun Gun Works make me a Ghost Ring Rear sight to Go on my CZ-75BD I tried a lot of ideas on the front sight with Laser Ammo and ended up with an XS Big Dot Front sight. It took a lot practice for these 72 year old eyes to get used to covering up the target with the big wad of front sight, but it was worth it for me. I can shoot almost the same with or without glasses in any light as long as I have a flash light to light up the target.

I don't think I am quite as accurate as I am with target sights with a fiber optic front sight in good light on a good day. I can hit with the Ghost Ring and Big Dot every day. I also have Crimson Trace laser Grips on the CZ-75. I have a laser sight of some kind on every gun I may need to use in a tight spot as my eyes aren't improving.

GC

The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow. -H. G. Wells
 
I just found this thread.

I assume your eyes are healthy, and that the only problem is "old eyes" which won't focus on the front sight.

If so, since you have to wear protective eyewear anyway, why not skip the contact lenses completely? Just have a special pair of shooting glasses made.

  • First, hold up your gun in front of you, and have someone measure the distance from your eye to the front sight.
  • Next, go to your eye doctors, and have a set of shooting glasses made. Just ask them to hold the eye chart at the distance you need (bring the tape measure) and you'll have the best vision you're capable of at THAT distance.
The target will be blurry. The rear sight will be blurry. The front sight will be clear. All of that is as it should be.

What I didn't realize at the time, is I should have asked them to use polyarbunate plastic for the lenses, rather than the plastic I now have. I did use a frame that is rather large, as I wanted the additional protection.

I've also got the progressive lenses that start as reading glasses at the bottom, and gradually change to distance glasses at the top. They would work too, if I put my head in just the right "tilt" so the front sight is clear, but the ones I've got are more "stylish" and not as large as what I want to wear for shooting.

.........as others have said, red dot sights seem like a perfect solution (not someone as stubborn as I am, as I still want to learn how to shoot well with iron sights). The target and the red dot will both be sharp. It seems to me that this already resolved most of my own problems from 71 year old eyes.
 
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Your Eyes; You Can't Get New Ones

My very best advice to start with would be to find the best ophthalmologist within 50 miles and make an appointment to see him.

There are a whole bunch of things that can be affecting your vision that just wearing eyeglasses won't help a bit. It could be a cataract forming, you could have glaucoma, macular degeneration just to name a few.

You mentioned that your eyes are "pretty old"; so are mine; (they've been around ever since 1932. ) I had great eyesight til maybe my early 40's; then I had to start wearing bifocals; 5 or 6 years later, I needed trifocals; 12 years ago, I needed a new prescription, went to Wal Mart, the guy who owned the optical shop told me.........you need to see an ophthalmologist, ASAP, and that I had glaucoma. That fellow probably saved me from going blind. Glaucoma isn't a "disease" per se, it's more of a "condition"; there's a certain amount of internal pressure on the viscous fluid that's inside of your eyeballs; for whatever reason, on quite a few individuals this internal pressure becomes higher than normal; and that's essentially what glaucoma is......a buildup of "interocular pressure"; there's no way to "cure" it, but one drop of a certain ophthalmic solution in each eye every day will reduce the pressure to normal. And if you don't use this solution?

The eyeball has thousands and thousands of tiny light receptors; when the interocular pressure becomes elevated, these tiny receptors start dying off; you can lose quite a few of them without even being aware of it; (I already had! ) But fortunately, the guy at Wal Mart saved the day for me! I went to a very good eye doctor, got the glaucoma under control, and found that I had a cataract forming in my right eye; The Doctor said we could wait for a year before he removed it, and "install" a new "lens"; I had the cataract done about 7 years ago; after maybe 90 days of healing, my vision in my right eye was back to almost 20/20 or maybe 20/25; he also told me then that I had a cataract forming in my left eye, but it didn't need to be "fixed" for maybe 5 to 10 yrs, if ever.

His diagnosis was pretty accurate! It suddenly started going south within the last year, and I had the left eye cataract removed about 4 weeks ago. At the same time, I had been noticing for a couple years now that my right eye was getting a little "fuzzy"; without me even mentioning that, when the doctor examined my eyes, he told me that I had a bit of scar-tissue growing in my right eye, and that as soon as my left eye was completely healed, he would remove the scar tissue with a laser in his office, in about 10 minutes. I'm now ready to have that done; Here's the best part; I'm now 82 years old, been wearing trifocals since my early 50's; as soon as I have that laser procedure, and a week or two to heal, I'll be getting a new trifocal prescription, BUT I won't have to even wear my glasses except for reading and close-up stuff.

I realize this is lengthy; it's not something that can be made any more "brief"; If I hadn't found the things I did, when I did, I would very possibly be needing a "seeing-eye dog" today. But I I did find out, and I did "do something about" what I found out, and because I did, within a short time, I'll be going without glasses part of the time for the first time in 40 years. I hope you'll be doing as well also.

Charley C
 
Locally we have an optometrist that allows customers to bring their handgun in to be fitted for shooting glasses. He has been pretty popular with the indoor range folks.
 
As suggested, test with a cheap pair of reading glasses to find the maginification that gives you the cleat front sight and a reasonable view of the target.
Then look at these.

They are mountable anywhere on your plain glasses and that permits you to see clearly without raising your chin up to find the sweet spot in your variable bifocals.
 
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