Glasses/eyesight and sight picture input

[Jamesa]

I am posting as someone who struggles with eyesight, sight picture, special RX shooting glasses... always looking for help in this area.
My first attempt at responding with quotes so bear with me.

Really? Nobody?
The group consisted primarily of new shooters. I threw one shot wide and felt pretty foolish but...........


How does the wobble zone grow. When I try this, the wobble zone is the same? The cone of vision is essentially the same, no? I'm missing something.
Not sure I can explain this effectively. When focusing on the thumbnail (front sight), your perception of an acceptable sight picture is limited as your focus is in close, not on the target. When your focus is on the target and the sights are in the foreground, there is a much better overall view of what is an acceptable wobble. As I think about this, perhaps my previous inaccuracies were from a combination of my vision problems combined with an intense focus on the front sight, leaving very little sight of the target.

Have you tried his method at 25 yards, yet? Results?

I've tried it from 3-25 yards and it works for me. You have to understand, I am not a world class shooter by any measure so perhaps a quantum leap for me would be nothing for you. As the fine print says, results may vary. This whole process was so different that I had my doubts after the class. A few days past before I could try my new skills again but it works. I've shot one competition and had two more range sessions. Another benefit to having both eyes open and focused on the target is seeing your hits. Prior to this, I rarely could see my hits if the target was more than 7 yards out. Now I see everything inside of 20 yards and that helps. Obviously, at 20+ yards, I'm slowing down and my focus will occasionally cycle from target to sights and back, just to be sure.

Willing to learn and will be trying this at the range tomorrow.

[CLBME]

Thank you all for the continued input and valuable information. Happy Holidays!

Christian

[Driften]

1. You should be focused very intently at the target with both eyes open.
2. Your dominant eye should be looking through “the window to the world”, better known as the rear sight.
3. When the view is interrupted by the little nub on the front of your gun, press the trigger.

This is an interesting idea. I am 50 and also have the same issues others in this thread with my vision. I have tried diopters on my shooting glasses and that helps some but cuts the light coming though to the eye. I have thought about using two types of lens so that my right eye is set to focus on the front sight and left with distance vision. I know some people have been happy with that for matches or target shooting but for self defense you are not going to have your "shooting" glasses on.

It seems like what Jamesa is saying would work all the time. This sounds like something worth trying! Also under the stress of a self defense situation I understand that people naturally focus on the threat not their front sights. Its also a plus point on laser sights. At least then the point of aim is where you are looking under stress...

[mongooseman]

If you need glasses for distance vision - then you are nearsighted. This is good news! I am seriously near sighted. Like 20/400. But of course without correction my NEAR sighted eyes can read 3" from my nose like a microscope. When I get corrected to 20/20 then I experience my 55 year old presyopia (sp?) so my pistol sights are blurred.

Easy solution for me is "monvision" contact lens prescription. My dominant eye wears a contact not fully corrected -3.25. My non-dominant eye gets a full correction -4.00 contact.
My binocular vision is then 20/20. But my non dom eye contact at -3.25 is dialed in to make the front sight sharp. Like 15 years ago sharp. (and I can read most things without reading glasses)

Now the target beyond the sharp front sight is quite blurry - more so than the difference 15 years ago but that is still lower priority than having the sharp front sight focus. It has worked very well for years for pistols.

Its a greater problem for irons on a rifle because a target at 100 yards beyond the front sight is EXTREMELY blurred so my days with irons only on rifles are limited.

What he said, with the addition of AmeriGlo CAP sights.

[Tennesse]

I have the same issue, trifocals. I take off my glasses and shoot with clear lens safety glasses

The front sight is clear as a bell (Glock 34) after I cover the sight with a piece of well trimmed yellow electricians tape then with a fine tip magic marker I place the tiniest dot/almost verticle line 1/16 long at the upper edge. On the rear sight I put a tiniest dot in the center of the notch's white upper edge.

I aim with the front and rear dots aligned to control windage and line across the upper edge of the front sight, the dot at 6 oclock on the target black which is out of focus. The target black is 4" and I shoot at 25yds. The edge is always the same degree of blurriness so it doesn't matter.

I considered going with the JPoint reflex sight but at $300. dollars it wasnt going to happen and I really want to stay with a mechanical sights.

The front sight for me is the all important factor, it must be clear, as the target is always going to be where its always going to be. (bullseye).

Good luck with my 66 year old eyes I can sympathize. If it weren't a safety issue I wear no eye cover (tempted but don't do it) Id rather shoot bad (which I can do consistently) than not be able to shoot at all.

Don't shift your focus back and forth , sight target sight target, its a path to frustration and only worsens the problem. You'll be surprised how well your brain will compensate for the blur at the target, its always the same. Also train your brain from 10yds and gradually move back. I shot off a rest until my eye and brain worked well together. It took a summer in the back yard, hold your eyes wide open no squinting.

Just found this sight I promise not to be a pest! Its a fun place it looks like.

[jlw]

I ended up going to contacts. They correct my astigmatism, but don't do anything for being farsighted.

They work very well when pistol shooting. I am able to see the front sight extremely well.

Funny thing is that the astigmatism is worse in my normally dominant eye; so, when handling a shotgun, the non-dominant eye is trying to take over. This doesn't manifest itself nearly to the same level with rifle sights and is non-existant with peep sights.

[Hatchetman]

At 55 and as a person who formerly had 20/10 uncorrected vision I've played around with this a lot. Ran a pair of Bolle Vigilante sunglasses that allowed you to mount a correction in the frame behind the darker lens then had one such insert made with a reading correction that ran across the top of the lens. This allowed me to lower my head and get a crisp sight picture, and raise it slightly to get a good view of things at a distance. Alas, on hot days and particularly during daylong classes at a dusty range the glasses would get dirty and then I'd have four lenses I had to keep clean, and would have to take the insert and sunglasses apart to do so. Led to way too much farting around.

Found a really unique eye doctor soon thereafter (my wife has major eye issues so we first found this guy for her. Think Dr. House, but for eyes with a better bedside manner, though pretty socially tone-deaf). He ran me through various permutations of contacts; we settled on a schema that has my left eye set up for distance and my right set up for close in. It has definitely improved my shooting, but leaves distance too fuzzy for my tastes. My wife collects cats so I'm endlessly trying to keep cat spore off my contacts, and have a long commute so tend to drive a wee bit over the limit; it can be an issue not being able to see that bit of a glint a half mile down the road behind the bushes. Next time in to the eye Dr. I'll likely see if he can lay a pair of glasses on me I can wear with contacts that will give me sharp distance vision.

Threat focussed shooting was also mentioned; I've been introduced to the concept recently though find my accuracy falls off past 15 feet or so. Not sure if this is because my eyes have different corrections that leads to less than a bilateral image when I punch the gun straight out and focus on the threat. Gonna have to play with this uncorrected sometime and see what happens.

[SC_Dave]

As I read the OP I could totally identify with everything he said. I’m pushing 60 and good eyesight is a thing of the past. I’ve got the special shooting glasses, I’ve painted my Heine front sight orange and tried every other trick in the book.

None of it really worked very well and a couple of weeks ago I decided to take a fundamental competition class taught by Dean Brevitt at Caswell Ranch in NC. Dean is a highly decorated shooter, Distinguished Master, 5 gun Master, yada, yada, yada. Here’s his site if you’re so inclined: http://caswellranch.com.

At the beginning of the class, he put us all at the 7 yard line and said at our own pace, shoot 15 rounds at the 8” circle on an IDPA target. Nobody cleaned it. That’s right, I didn’t either but I’m trying to make a point. His next question was how many of you were focusing on your front sight? All hands went up.

He warned us his next comments would probably go against everything we had ever heard about how to accurately shoot a handgun. He only asked that we listen with an open mind and give his method a try. His point was that in a defensive shooting and to some degree in a competitive shooting, few people if any will be looking intently at their front sight. His method is as follows:

1. You should be focused very intently at the target with both eyes open.
2. Your dominant eye should be looking through “the window to the world”, better known as the rear sight.
3. When the view is interrupted by the little nub on the front of your gun, press the trigger.


To demonstrate his point, he asked us to hold our strong side thumb up and focus on our thumbnail. Overlay that thumbnail view onto the target and move it around to establish the wobble zone while intently focusing on the thumbnail. Do it until we were comfortable with the size of the wobble zone.

Next we were asked to continue with thumbs up but to shift the focus to the target. The wobble zone grew, a bunch!

For whatever reason, that clicked with me. I immediately removed my special shooting glasses and went back to my regular bifocals, you know, the ones that allow me to see the rest of the world. Within a few minutes, I began to shoot more accurately than I have in years. Since that time I have removed the orange from my front sight as it has become an unnecessary distraction.

Now perhaps this Eureka moment was only applicable to my feeble eyes and brain, but it works. Proper trigger manipulation, and proper alignment of the sights can’t be ignored, but I encourage you to give this a try. It’s also a lot cheaper than bifocals, diopters, RMR’s and such.

I am having trouble wraping my brain around this. I really want to understand it as I am having the same trouble as others here. I have tried to duplicate this the way I understand it but it's not computing with me.