Do your eyes get blurry?

[William@swrmfg.com]

Yesterday I was shooting various calibers (all rifle) with a buddy and noticed that for all the centerfire stuff after about shot number three my eyes would start to get blurry. I've noticed this before but I've just begun to wonder if others have this problem and if there's anything I can do to combat it? I wear contacts and was wondering if the recoil was making them "float" on my eyeball. I asked my friend if he was having similar problems. He agreed that after about 3 shots it was harder for him to focus on the target too. He doesn't wear any corrective lenses. We both were wearing safety glasses and none of the rifles were fitted with any type of muzzle breaks that could have diverted gasses back towards us. Both bolt guns and semiautos produced the same effect to varying degrees.

My questions are:

Is this a common issue?
Does wearing contacts make this issue worse? (Once I get another set of glasses made I'll be able to check this out for myself)
What do you do to alleviate this problem?

-WE

[Saginaw79]

I sometimes have that issue as well

[PlatoCATM]

blink

[rly45acp]

A friend of mine was on the Marine Corp marksmanship unit and he said they put a piece of green cloth on the ground next to them. When their eyes begin to have problems, they look away from the scope, blink and look at the green cloth. He said they told him the color green was soothing to the eyes. I tried it and sure enough, it works for me. Maybe only the power of suggestion, but if it works, use it.

[billy-s]

This sounds like heat mirage from the barrel affecting your line of sight. If you're not practicing rapid bolt manipulation, keep the bolt open after each shot to aid in cooling the barrel.
My old Sig 3000 came with a strap that hooked on the front of the barrel and the back of the barrel. The strap was to stop any heat waves getting in your line of sight.
When we switched to .338s heat mirage started to really get noticable, especially if firing from an enclosed location with no wind to help cool the barrel. It was noticalbe after the 3rd shot.
It does feel like you're going blind though.

[TacticalIntervention]

Common simple problem with simple fix.

Eitehr your comb height or LOP/distance between eye and scope ares wrong.

LOP/scope to eye distance problem can be diagnosed easily. Get in natural shooting position that is confortable with eyes closed.

If you have to move your head back when you open eyes to see full site picture with no black areas, your too close to scope. If you have to move forward your too far away. Move scope by LOP adjustment or moving in rings to fix this problem

Now if you have to lift head up or push down when you open your eyes, the comb is too low or too high. Adjust up or down by adjuster or building with foam and tape

Hope this helps

[Spade]

my right eye is always blurry that is why my lens is thick enough to allow normal people to see into the future

[ra2bach]

a lot of time spent peering through a scope can do that. when it happens to me I take a break by closing my eyes for a spell and then by moving my focus from the butts to a midpoint to something on my bench and then back again.

I do this several times in a row and let my eyes linger just a little while and then move on. it seems to help.

[William@swrmfg.com]

Well obviously I need a lot more range time to try out all these suggestions.

Common simple problem with simple fix.

Eitehr your comb height or LOP/distance between eye and scope ares wrong.

LOP/scope to eye distance problem can be diagnosed easily. Get in natural shooting position that is confortable with eyes closed.

If you have to move your head back when you open eyes to see full site picture with no black areas, your too close to scope. If you have to move forward your too far away. Move scope by LOP adjustment or moving in rings to fix this problem

Now if you have to lift head up or push down when you open your eyes, the comb is too low or too high. Adjust up or down by adjuster or building with foam and tape

Hope this helps

This does help TI. I've been thinking I need to do this. What worked on the bench didn't work in the field. Thanks again.

[thopkins22]

If it's not a scope/equipment issue as others suggested...

Don't forget to breathe. I used to(sometimes still do,) get behind a gun and all of my focus would be on some aspect of shooting and I'd forget to keep my system flooded with oxygen.

I'm pretty sure that the eyes are the first part of the body to suffer degraded performance without lots of oxygen. And the first stage of that degradation is blurred vision.

I wear contacts, blinking helps keep them moist and if properly fitted it helps keep them centered. If my eyes are having problems from contacts, I know it's the contacts. I imagine if you're an experienced contact wearer you know the difference as well. I find I get much better focus with contacts than glasses, so it's worth it.