Best way to deal with "aging eyes syndrome" in your shooting glasses setup?

[maximus83]

I am starting to deal with presbyopia, aka "aging eyes syndrome" (let's call it AES) which makes it hard to see fine details up close. The challenge that AES raises is, when you do a lot of iron sights shooting, both pistol and rifle, it gets harder to keep the sights in focus. Problem is, while there's surgery for many other vision issues, there's no slick surgery yet for curing AES, so it's going to involve some type of corrective lenses. And that makes it even more tricky for me, because I already wear contact lenses with correction for near-sightedness.

So here's my question: For guys who have faced a similar scenario, what approaches have you found work the best to correct for AES in your shooting glasses setup?

Do you.....

1. Get some type of bifocal or prescription shooting glasses to correct for the AES (that work in conjunction with your other vision correction, contacts, whatever)? If you've gone this route, what are some good brands of shooting glasses that enable you to use prescription lenses?

2. Keep using non-prescription shooting glasses, and handle the AES correction elsewhere (via your contacts or regular glasses)?

3. Use some other option?

Don't know if it makes more sense to correct for the AES via the shooting glasses, or whether it makes sense to keep the shooting glasses relatively simply, and do all the correction via regular eyeglasses or contacts? I'm leaning slightly toward option 2, because I have to think that if I'd benefit from having correction for the close-up view in shooting, I'd probably benefit from having that view just integrated right into my everyday contact lenses. That would keep the shooting glasses simpler and cheaper, and that way, if I ever had to use a weapon without shooting glasses, my corrected view of the sights would still be the same (I wouldn't have to put on a pair of special correct shooting glasses to get the view I was used to training with).

[C-Fish]

Tag for info...Good topic, I'm in the same boat.

[Belmont31R]

I highly recommend Decot glasses. Ive used them for a while and they are good at getting the correct setup based on your needs. You will need a recent RX for lenses...


http://www.sportglasses.com/Default.asp

[M4Fundi]

I've been dealing with this for a few years. Started with RX lenses behind shooting glasses. Very fishbowl effect and you could focus on sights but had a distorted view of world. They were heavy and wanted to jump off the nose and had lots of light flares from stray light bouncing between the layered lenses. They worked, but sucked for me.

Got some fantastic contacts

Cooper Vision Biomedics EP +1.75

that are a type of semi-bifocal. Bifocal is completely unnoticeable. They work perfectly for sighting
(I can now see front sight of pistol & carbine:D), but have a few drawbacks:

1) They ARE contacts and when your eyes go into hyper aware/open they can dry out & blur out & crap can get under them (typical contact probs)
2)Contacts for me cause point light sources at night & red dots at night to bloom or as I call it "supernova":mad: at night and on red dots during the day this is mild, but there.

anecdote: on the line during a recent 3Gun match I dropped to the prone & suddenly my right contact blurred and the RO was saying, "Fire, Fire, you can Fire now...tick tock:eek:" and I was laying there blinking as fast as I could to rewet the contact so I could see the irons:eek:

I shot daytime red dot with them today and had no problems with the dot shape, but could see VERY SLIGHT star streaks emanating from the red dot. Not a prob today. At night its bad. For CQB I think it would be fine, but not for longer precision work most likely.

I plan to play with some different prescriptions with cheap RX safety glasses until I get the RX that works best and then have some RX Oakleys made for me.

MY 0.2 cents

[LegalAlien]

I've been dealing with this for a few years. Started with RX lenses behind shooting glasses. Very fishbowl effect and you could focus on sights but had a distorted view of world. They were heavy and wanted to jump off the nose and had lots of light flares from stray light bouncing between the layered lenses. They worked, but sucked for me.

Got some fantastic contacts

Cooper Vision Biomedics EP +1.75

that are a type of semi-bifocal. Bifocal is completely unnoticeable. They work perfectly for sighting
(I can now see front sight of pistol & carbine:D), but have a few drawbacks:

1) They ARE contacts and when your eyes go into hyper aware/open they can dry out & blur out & crap can get under them (typical contact probs)
2)Contacts for me cause point light sources at night & red dots at night to bloom or as I call it "supernova":mad: at night and on red dots during the day this is mild, but there.

anecdote: on the line during a recent 3Gun match I dropped to the prone & suddenly my right contact blurred and the RO was saying, "Fire, Fire, you can Fire now...tick tock:eek:" and I was laying there blinking as fast as I could to rewet the contact so I could see the irons:eek:

I shot daytime red dot with them today and had no problems with the dot shape, but could see VERY SLIGHT star streaks emanating from the red dot. Not a prob today. At night its bad. For CQB I think it would be fine, but not for longer precision work most likely.

I plan to play with some different prescriptions with cheap RX safety glasses until I get the RX that works best and then have some RX Oakleys made for me.

MY 0.2 cents

Interesting comments about your experience with the bi-focal contacts.

I currently have mono-vision contacts, with left eye for close up reading and right eye for distance. This really screws with the front sight post on both the handgun and rifle - unless I switch to left hand/left eye.

I am considering switching to bi-focals for the next set of contacts to see how that works out, otherwise I will have to get Rx glasses to compensate for current sighting issues.

[Bosbar]

Unless you're shooting competition, get bifocals for everyday use and adapt. If I ever have to use my pistol in a self-defense situation, I can't say, "wait, let me put on my shooting glasses!"

[dutch308]

Hey guys, I am in the same boat as many of you with the contacts and having the blurring close up while shooting. Awhile back I picked up a pair of sunglasses that had amber colored lenses and were marked as "driving glasses" with uv filtering. They dont just shade things but with the filter they clarify images like greens and bring objects into alittle bit sharper contrast and reduce glare. I have found that the eye strain and blurring are reduced while wearing them and I do wear them alot while out and about onduty and off. I am currently looking for a couple of extra pairs as mine are getting abit beat up. I found this particular pair at a drug store while waiting on some scripts for about $15.00. I also checked at the place were I get my contacts and found some similar types of Driving glasses, both presc. and non, but they were quite a bit more expensive, I am gonna have another look at them when I go back for my next Rx. Hope this helps! D

[jkingrph]

I had variable lenses and was having problems. While in USAF Res. a new friend, an optometry officer suggested plain bifocals, I went one step further and got trifocals so the upper is distant, mid is arm length perfect for most table top chores and hand gun shooting, lower for closer up and reading. Still none of these are what I would call excellent for iron sight shooting on a rifle, scope, red dot, no problems.

[maximus83]

After reading some of the above responses, I think I am just going to keep it as simple as possible. I may end up doing something like this:

* Bifocal contacts (with backup bifocal glasses) for everyday wear
* Bifocal prescription shooting lenses, which I can wear without any separate glasses or contacts when shooting.

The above will be kind of expensive, but will help me avoid a situation where I am having to combine TWO layers of correction--one that I wear daily, plus my shooting glasses layer. That seems overly complicated.

One wildcard factor is whether I get the LASIK surgery to correct the nearsightedness (even though it can't correct for the aging eyes). If I get that, and can get close to 20/20 uncorrected, I could dispense with the contacts, and just get some shooting glasses that have a bifocal view with uncorrected on top, and corrected for close view on the bottom. I could set up similar reading glasses for non-shooting use. The nice thing is, with the LASIK, if it gets me pretty close, at least I wouldn't be having to deal with TWO types of correction.

[glocktogo]

Since I shoot mostly pistol competition, I had a pair of shooting glasses set up with the focal distance in the dominant eye at arms length, and the non-dominant for distance. It's kind of weird getting used to it, but it allows me to shoot quickly without hunting for the sights in a bifocal. It works well for irons on rifles, but not so much for RDS.

[Buck]

My answer was to buy a shotgun...

[74Highboy]

Some interesting information here

http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/nwongarts.html

[Beendare]

Wow, 74 thanks- great link-