I need help from you older shooters

[rommer25]

I need advice from you older shooters who wear bi or tri focal. I wear try focal (no lines) and in the past, when I was younger and did not wear try focal, I used to shoot pretty good without a scope. The last few years, I have been using my Mauser with scope. Today, I took out the old Krag that has no scope. This is my problem: I can see the target at 100 yards but when I aim through the rifle sites, the target is fuzzy. I can see good enough to keep it in the middle area of the target but when my eyes were young, I used to shoot two inch groups with this rifle.
I just had my eyes checked last January and got a new prescription. Does anyone out there have a suggestion beyond returning to the scope?

 

[Art Eatman]

Yup. Old eyebones can't do the insta-focus change thing. I also wear tri-focals.

The problem is that you're seeing the sights through the distance-correction of the upper portion of the lens. The sights are clear when seen through the middle portion of the lens.

Solution for me, figured out when I was shooting IPSC with the Weaver stance: I got an extra lens glued to the upper inside corner of my aviator-style lens. lt give the same correction as the "dashboard" distance, making the sights razor sharp and the target only slightly fuzzy.

The lens dimension is approximately 1/2" by 3/4", oval in shape.

Normal usage is unaffected by this insert. Been using this system for over 25 years...

 

[browningguy]

Sorry to say I have given up on open sights. I still shoot a couple with peep sights ok though.

 

[StrawHat]

For handguns I had my correction ground into the upper portion of my glasses so the focus was on my front sight.

For rifles, some but not all rifles can be fitted with aperture rear sights. These work like the f stop on a camera and sharpen the sight picture. I have apertures on my 45-70s and my smallbore, the 405 WCF. Still use open sights on the 50-70. As you may have noted, most of my rifles are of the older style. However, there are aperture sights available for bolt actions and even some of the self loading rifles. There is a learning curve to them but with apetures, I can shoot as well as I used to with a scope.

 

[sniper5]

I use a Merit Disc for shooting open sight pistols. Think of it as a peep sight that suction cups to your glasses with an adjustable aperture. Brownells sells them. For my own pistol I use a red-dot so everything is focused on the same plane. For rifles either the merit disc or peep sights depending on the rifle. Or you might experiment with Optyx 20/20 lenses. They are a self adhesive bifocal type lens. Trim to the shape you want and stick on your lenses. You might want to use a pair of spare glasses or sunglasses for this. They go in 1/2 diopter increments. I use the underwater ones as gauge readers on my scuba mask. Or you could always take a spare pair of frames with you when you get new glasses and have your optometrist turn them into shooting glasses by putting in a black lens on one side and a 39" focal length (more or less depending on the distance to the front sight) on the dominant eye.