Visual patience & high-visibility sights

[coldcase1984]

I'm 55.5 and got bit more than 7 years till retirement. For the past five years I've been using a right contact lense that makes my front sight in focus and the left eye is set for distance.

The sight picture looks just like it was in my 20s thru mod 40s. I must still use readers for close copy.

My brain seamlessly integrates what I'm seeing. A co-worker and my wife simply cannot make that set up work for their eyes and brains.

I've also had glasses set up with normal bifocal at bottom of lenses and the "perfect front sight" formula at the top of the right lense so I can use good stance and not do the Danny Glover head position.



I can see every

[LSP972]

[QUOTE=LSP552;318990] I borrowed one of LSP972's RDS 19s for a month and sent 1,000 rounds down range with it. Accuracy at distance was like the old days when I could see. QUOTE]

That one is now a magic pistol; the zero changes unexpectedly. Something is obviously broke or out of kilter inside the optic; rather depressing, since Trijicon doesn't produce or service that particular product anymore. And due to the slide milling, I'm stuck with the JPoint "footprint". BTW, I verified this with the JPoint off of my AA .22 kit.

And the OST slide/RMR "plug and play" package I suggested to you? The RMR02 is acting like its about to puke as well. Its back to irons for me, for now.

.

[LSP552]

I'm 55.5 and got bit more than 7 years till retirement. For the past five years I've been using a right contact lense that makes my front sight in focus and the left eye is set for distance.

The sight picture looks just like it was in my 20s thru mod 40s. I must still use readers for close copy.

My brain seamlessly integrates what I'm seeing. A co-worker and my wife simply cannot make that set up work for their eyes and brains.

I've also had glasses set up with normal bifocal at bottom of lenses and the "perfect front sight" formula at the top of the right lense so I can use good stance and not do the Danny Glover head position.

I can see every

Tried that in a pair of range glasses and my brain hated it. Bruce Gray advised me to try a lower power reading prescription in both lens and this works best for me. The lower power magnification lets me see my front sight OK yet doesn't distort the target too much. It's not a perfect solution but works better for me that the two lens setup with one corrected for front sight and one for distance.

[LSP552]

Just a suggestion, but have you ever shot a handgun with a brass or gold bead front sight?

Like this:



I know everyone's eye sight is a bit different. I'm a bit color blind and find the brass dot gives enough differentiation to pick out easily but is not so bright as to wash the target out or be annoying. I have admittedly not ran them on a semi-auto, but really enjoy them on one of my revolvers.

Interesting, thanks. i haven't tried a gold bead yet.

[rsa-otc]

I'll be 56 in June. Through out most of my life I have been near sighted. This worked out great when I was shooting PPC, I would leave my glasses in the range bag and my sights would be perfect. Since the target was going to be blurry no matter what, it forced a front sight focus. I was rabidly in favor of plain all black sights.

As I entered my 40s reading glasses became an evil necessity and I was able to continue on with progressive lens. Still having a strong preference for all black sights.

Oh what a difference a decade makes, entering my 50s progressive lens no longer worked. I couldn't shoot with any realistic speed with all black sights and came around to the orange front sight crowd. For tactical training the contrasting orange front and black rears even though some what blurry with my every day glasses works well enough that I can make reasonably accurate hits at speed. That said my long distance accuracy it not to my old PPC standards.

Over the last 2 years in competition I have been using glasses regulated for a sharply focused front sight. I went to the eye doctor and discussed my problem with her and she somehow tweaked the prescription so the sights are clear and the target isn't as blurry even at distance. It is now time to get the prescription refreshed. I truly believe all the time spent staring at the screens on the computer,tablets and smart phones has accelerated the deterioration of my eye sight. Oh living in the age of modern conveniences.

[vcdgrips]

Pardon me in advance for such a long winded posting.

I have needed a distance correction with a bit of astigmatism beginning law school in the early 90’s. This timeframe corresponds with my interest in shooting. As I have gotten older, my Rx has settled down to Left Eye -1.50/Right Eye -2.25 . Plus or minus a .25 in either eye. I am told this .25 is par for the course an can vary by the day, time of day, our perceptions that we relay to the eye tech, the eye tech and even the equipment itself.

Despite having an eye exam within the last 6 months or so with the parameters I outlined above, I have noticed that I now see the front sight with complete clarity when I do not have any correction ( contacts or glasses in the RX above) when I am at full extension. Conversely, I no longer have that same level of clarity when I have correction on my eyes. The issue becomes that as lighting conditions darken, I simply cannot read facial expressions and body language to my level of satisfaction i.e. past 7-10 yards uncorrected.

In an effort to see the front sight clearly but be able to read facial features etc., I first tried a correction where I corrected my left eye at standard strength (-1.50) and made my right (and dominant) eye under corrected with a - 1.50 contact as well. While I saw the front better with this set up,
I was still not satisfied.

I then tried a “monovision” correction where I corrected my left at its std-1.50 and my right went uncorrected the idea being my left was for distance and my right was for close up. This was a definite improvement but was a bit slow feeling to me. I confess that I only did this for about a week and perhaps my eyes/body simply needed more time to adjust.

On a whim, I went back to the dual contact set up where my right eye was under corrected and put on a pair of cheap +1.5 readers I had around.
WOW!! I could see dust flecks on the top of the front sight. My distance correction was a bit blurred past 20-25 yards but that happens anyway no matter what we do.

I then checked Amazon, looking for a full lenses reader, safety rated. I thought perhaps I could go down in magnification to get the distance acuity back without losing the front sight focus. I bought the +.5 readers linked below. When coupled with my -1.50 correction in both eyes, I have excellent front sight focus with very good distance as well. I am thinking about getting a set of +1.0 to see how much distance softens. I suspect that I will be fine. I am jumping to +1.0 v going to just +.75 as I know about the .25 margin of error as discussed above.

NOTE: I am recommending FULL LENSE glasses and NOT Bi-Focals. I think a Bi-Focal set up is too slow and has typically has the correction area of the lense too low to help with shooting.

+.5
http://www.amazon.com/Rx-500C-0-5-Fu...863027&sr=1-20




+1 ( I just ordered these)
http://www.amazon.com/Rx-500C-1-0-Fu...s=elvex+rx-500

[LSP552]

If you are the type of guy that can focus on that top edge of the front sight hard, then the dots have a bit more black metal in the corners for your eye to pick up. It's a pretty small difference though

I now have some decent time on both styles of ProGlo orange front sights, the square and the round. The square on a G19 and the round on a G17. Objectively, the difference seems pretty small and could likely be attributed to day to day variation and the fact that I shoot the G17 a bit better than the G19. Having said that, the round does seem to allow a better hard front sight focus because you can see the black edges of the front sight, especially when I cheat and use my range glasses. The smaller circle also allows for a bit more precision when covering a smaller target. The high-vis circle is still bigger than the white outline on most front sights and is very easy to track.

The ProGlos have been significant improvements for my old eyes, in speed and surprisingly, accuracy also. The square will stay on the 19, but the next ProGlos will be the round version. It could simply be a preference on my part.

Also, the visual patience thing gets better with practice, amazing how that works. Initially, they were so attention grabbing that they made me reinterpret what I needed to see for a given shot requirement. That has pretty much disappeared now. Working smaller targets (slow and fast) and some distance targets were a big help in learning not be distracted by the big bright thing on the front sight.