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Thread: Shooting with (Temporarily) Impaired Vision

  1. #1
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    Shooting with (Temporarily) Impaired Vision

    About six months ago I had surgery to repair a detached retina. I had a follow-up appointment today with the surgeon. In order for him to check out my retinas, my eyes had to be dilated. The retina is fine, but the dilation required me to don my prescription sunglasses, even indoots, and gives everything a hazy, gausy apperance.

    I also got the slide for my full-size PX4 from Langdon Tactical today. I had sent it to Ernie for installation of the Ameriglo sights he offers as well as converting the stock safety to de-cock only. I decided to take the PX4 to the range after the appointment in spite of the impaired vision. Worst case, I'd burn through five mags of my carry ammo (124 grain +P HST) to further vet the gun.

    I could see well enough to verify the zero and it was right on; I may need to tap the rear sight a hair to the right, but I'll check that again when my eyes are normal. I ran several different drills, mostly using an IDPA practice target. The main takeaways are that at close range (three yards) there's no noticeable degradation of accuracy, while at medium range (seven yards) the larger -0 was no problem but hitting the four-inch -0 in the head box required more slowing down than usual. I also ran the Hackathorn Test at ten yards and ended up with a 93; the front sight was much easier to see against the black B-8 bull.

    The bottom line for me is that even if you have somewhat impaired vision, you can still make good COM hits if needed.

  2. #2
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    Some decent info here that might apply.

    https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....paradigm-shift

    I’ve been surprised just how well I can shoot with veryyyy blurred sights.

  3. #3
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by revchuck38 View Post
    The bottom line for me is that even if you have somewhat impaired vision, you can still make good COM hits if needed.
    I am here to tell you that this is true.

    3 blurry targets? Middle-most front sight on the center one, and reel in the group later.

  4. #4
    My thoughts on the subject from a couple of years ago...

    https://wp.me/p6gwfx-Zl

    Short version is that I have pretty crappy eyesight without my glasses and I consider it a real possibility that I may need to use my gun when I don’t have my glasses on, whatever the reason. I may be woken up from sleep, or they might be knocked off or damaged in an altercation. At any rate, in my limited testing, I could make the hits.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  5. #5
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    @LSP552 - I've read through that thread twice, I'm 66 and pretty much do the same thing for the same reason.

    @LJP - Good read. Our right eyes are about the same, but my left eye is almost 20/20 uncorrected. I too am strongly right eye-dominant, but after the surgery, I worked at shooting with my left eye and found it doable. My right eye healed before I switched eye dominance.
    Last edited by revchuck38; 04-28-2018 at 04:57 AM.

  6. #6
    Site Supporter Jay Cunningham's Avatar
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  7. #7

    impaired vision

    I have worn glasses since the 5th grade, in the last 5 years my eyes have gotten worst. But, I do not worry if my glasses ever got knocked off in a fight or for whatever reason, because I train also without them, (shocking). I have been fortunate to been mentored by some quality instructors when was younger. One of the lessons, I learned about and pass on was what was learned from the 1984 Miami FBI shootout. Special Agent Ben Grogan, who was a great shot, and I believe was on/or trained the HRT team, had issues during the shoot out, because his glasses, got knocked off. Here in at the time, probably one of the best shots in the country who was literally in the middle of a gun fight and was not able to effect the power fully he had. I took his sacrifice to heart as any CCL with glasses should and out of respect of that, work "blurred shooting" into my practice. Do I do it as often as I should, nope. But I still feel, if ever I am in the situation, I know my limitations and abilities. One thing that I also started to do, in last few years, in my advanced pistol class, I have of course student with glasses do it, and those who don't wear vision corrected lens, have to shoot with impaired glasses. Because, in case they are in a situation, with something in eye (sweat/blood/injury), they know at a minimum of limitations. Just my opinion.

  8. #8
    Site Supporter rdtompki's Avatar
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    When your pupil is fully dilated your depth of field goes in the toilet. I notice this shooting indoors where the lighting, even in a good range, doesn't approach the outdoors. This, coupled with my shooting glasses being photochromic, means I'm good on the front sight, but much past 7 yards I loose detail on certain targets. Doesn't help that I'm 73 and have a fixed-focus lens in my right eye (distance); still, they got me back to 20/20.

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