Old eyes and handguns

Old eyes and handguns
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Not only do I have old eyes I'm also fighting Glaucoma, so I know some about failing eyesight and handguns.

Here's something that's a kicker, the smaller the sights the better I shoot them.

My original 1911s and my Uberti Colt Clone have very small sights that many complain about, myself I love them and shoot them very well.

On the other hand Ruger Blackhawks with the typical wide front blade and the wide blade front sights on many 1911 style guns I don't shoot as well.

Maybe with the smaller sights I concentrate more on the sight picture, all I know is they work for me.

Something contrasting on the front sight blade does help.
I polished a spot up high on my Uberti Colt Clone front sight blade, it's like having a small silver spot to look at.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com
 
JeffK said:
Thanks for the tips, sounds like at least different reading glasses would help, with custom glasses being an interesting idea. My reading glasses are too powerful for shooting, but something weaker might let me focus on the sights without blurring out my distance vision entirely.
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I've been through this. For reading I typically wear lenses with about a 2.5 magnification factor, and at my last visit to an optometrist she said I should probably move up to 2.75. For shooting, I've found that drug store reading glasses in the 1.50 to 2.00 range work pretty well.
 
Here's what I've done:

Arranged to visit my optometrist with my handgun. He played with his lens until I could see my sights extended at arms length as sharp as they were when my vision was 20/15 - I can also see the target clearly to 200/250 yards before it startes to get a little fuzzy.

I purchased the glasses, which had interchangable lenses, so I have one clear and one smoked - I now can't use my ole eyes as an excuse for just plain poor gun handling.

For those times when I don't wear the shooting glasses I use a red dot - on the 1911 I had the slide milled, so the dot is at the same level as the rear sight use to be - it's fast and accurate - so again, no excuses for a score less than 100.

Do whatever you have to do in order to rid yourself of not having a clear and precise sight picture - sometimes that can cost a few bucks.
 
What Deaf said, a short sight radius might help, it does for me. As a young man I prefered just plain black sights but now some color or fiber optic seems to work better for me.
 
Get your arms stretched.
I have not bought one yet, but I do like the front fiber optic sights on the XDS 45. If their XDS9mm was thinner, I might give it a go.
 
I'm up to tri-focal glasses and Millet SP-1 Red Dots on the handguns. Without the Millet's I had given up shooting accurately. These new compact sights like the Burris Fastfire's look nice and unobtrusive on a gun. If I had the disposable income I would get one, or two, or three.
Gary
 
I hate it when my eyes get tired and there's still ammo left. The Lasik I got a while ago cured my extreme near sightedness, but sometimes the sight picture fades after a while. I'm going to put some electrical tape in the range bag to try the aperture on the shooting glasses trick. If that works, I'll spring for the Merit version. Anyone else try this?
 
I'm going to put some electrical tape in the range bag to try the aperture on the shooting glasses trick
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I was thinking of trying that too. The aperture needs to be pretty close to your eye though, and glasses distance will narrow down your field of vision quite a bit.
 
Looking through the posts I don't find anyone mentioning cataract surgery which is what I have. I found that the only thing I can do is to use trifocals with an extra wide intermediate area. This enables me to focus well on the front sight. Progressive lenses aren't ground in a way that is conducive to the kind of focus we need for shooting.

willr
 
Another trick I've adopted is to have a wide rear sight and a narrow front sight.
This allows lots of light around the front sight and makes it much easier to pick up and center, even in low light.
 
Something to consider, and Im certainly not saying its "the" answer, but something to consider, is skipping the glasses and letting your eyes get stronger.

About 8 years ago, I was wearing trifocals, as prescribed by my eye doctor, which I broke at work, and due to where I was working, wasnt able to get a replacement at the time. Id got them 5 or 6 years previous to that, and every other year or so, they kept increasing the power of them, as they did with the set of fixed power "reading" glasses I had for a number of years before that.

When my glasses broke, I went on to just wearing my safety "sun" glasses in their place (my regular glasses were also sun glasses). Over the months, I began to notice I really didnt miss the trifocals, and the only time I felt I needed glasses, was when I was trying to read small print on plans, or labels. I solved that issue with Walmart 1.25 "cheaters".

I also noticed my shooting did not seem to suffer without the glasses, and in fact, seemed slightly better as time went on.

My thoughts here are, that the eye glass industry is really a big racket. Im not saying that there arent people out there who really do need them, there are, but I think there are probably more, who really dont, or didnt, and once they got their hooks in you, and started increasing the power with each additional visit, your eyes just kept getting weaker and weaker as the power increased, and you became, for lack of a better term, "addicted" to, and needed them more.

Im convinced for me, this was the case, and my eyes are stronger now, since quit wearing them, than they were 8 years ago.

Ive had a couple of eye exams over the past eight years, and asked the doctor giving the exam at each of them, if this was possible, and they both seemed to blow me off, and want to skirt the question, and basically said no.

Now both of these doctors were different doctors from different places, and neither was the one who prescribed my last pair. Interestingly enough, while they said I did need glasses (who'd have thunk?), their prescriptions were not as strong as the ones I broke.


These days, I wear my $6 safety sun glasses when I shoot, and I have no troubles seeing the sights, or making good hits on the targets. I still need the "cheaters" for reading the small print on stuff, but at $7 a pack of 3, its a good bit cheaper than the $500+ a pair the last set of trifocals cost me.
 
^^^
Kind of like asking most doctors if nutritional supplements are any good. :o
I discovered the same thing.
Most eye problems are due to eye strain that cause the eyeball to change shape, throwing them out of focus.
Learning how to relax the eyes helps a lot.
There's relaxing exercises available on the web, from various sources, easily found with a web search.
The only time I really need glasses to shoot is with precision type shooting, like small targets at longer distances.
Reading is another matter, though.
 
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right there with you

Age 56, and I had great vision up to about 2 years ago.

A set of 1x readers is working for me, for IDPA and paper shooting, I slip them on and it works fine. Not practical for SD or hunting.

One thing I am considering is mounting a small dot like the Burris Fastfire on top of my big Glock 10mm for a deer pistol. I will kill a deer with that blaster yet.
 
..There is a First Step..

Hi JeffK, you said:
"This must be a common problem. As I've gotten older, my near vision has gradually gone to hell, to the point that at an indoor range with low lighting, I can barely focus my eyes on the sights. If I try hard, I can do it for a little while and am accurate, but then my eyes get tired and my accuracy drops because the sights become little blurs and I have to guess where I'm aimed. This is less of a problem outdoors in bright sunlight. Short of a scope or laser, what do other folks do to help with this problem? Reading glasses would bring the sights back into focus, but then the target would become blurry - maybe that's still an improvement, I haven't tried. Bright headlamp? Fancy glasses with mirrors and diopters? "


There have been some interesting replies; However, the very first thing you

should do is have your eyes examined by an Ophthalmologist. This exam may reveal

other issues related to your vision besides the loss of flexibility. You may have

astigmatic issues that impair best focusing. If you primarily shoot paper bullseye

targets at your range; then focusing on the front sight blade is what 99% of all

Bullseye competitors do while aligning the front and rear sights. There is no exception

to this mandate. NRA match shooters lift and then hold the pistol in their Aiming Area,

waiting for the commence fire command. The black bull is ALWAYS a dark gray

fuzzy or blurred blob.


So, what you must do, is tell the Ophthalmologist that you want to have a prescription

for the distance from your eye to the front sight blade when in your shooting stance.

This being while holding the pistol with your outstretched hand, or both hands;

it depends on how you shoot. I have done this; having the optician tech cut

lenses for some older discarded glasses frames. Obviously you only need one

lens for your dominant eye. I've also had a lens cut for my Vargas shooting

frames for 10M air pistol and 50M(Free Pistol). There is a negative aspect to

using something as an iris to sharpen up your sights, it also sharpens the target

which has a very bad distractive affect on precise bullseye shooting.


Of course, if you plink more than you shoot paper bull targets, then AFTER you

get a prescription for a corrective lens for your dominant eye; the diopter is a

fun thing to use. There is a commercial adjustable diopter available from the Merit Co.

It sticks onto the glass lens with a suction cup and rotates into and away from

your line of vision. I wish you good luck and successful shooting.:)


Tony(72 years old and still shooting Bullseye)
 
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h3fG_LCqhE

As others have said, you need to have your sights in sharp focus and you need to be able to see your target clear enough to make an accurate shot. My solution to this problem was to have a different power contact lenses made for specific use in each eye.
My left eye is better than 20/15 and my right (sighting eye) is about 20/30. This combination allows me to see a 25 yard target as small as the 1/2" dot in my above YouTube video.

I have been using this method for almost twenty years since my vision changed in my early forties.

Mark aka BubbaBlades
 
I use variable focal contacts. It is as close as you can get to young eyes. I also took a pistol to eye doctor. There are trade offs but for shooting they work well.
 
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