Shooting with Iron sights

J

Jeryray

New member
I typically use a red dot RMR on my sig226.
I am installing the stock barrel for a match (iron sights)

I have one pair of glasses for far and one for near.
Tried the distance glasses, could not see the sights.

When using the close glasses I can see the sights but the target is pretty blurry.

Anything else I could try?
 
Some people use upside down bifocals, for good distance vision with the head up, and sharp sights when the head is lowered slightly.

I wear "single eye focus" contacts, with the dominant eye focused at front-sight distance, and the weak eye focused to infinity.
I've been wearing them every day, for years, and it works pretty well for not only shooting, but reading and work.
 
The trick is getting the focal length where it needs to be. If you don't want to invest in Olympic style rifle eyeglass frames (see, why Olympic sharpshooters look like cyborgs) and a custom-made prescription lens, the next best things are usually computer glasses and the like. Mine are at 1 diopter and work for pistol shooting. For young eyes, as little as 0.5 diopter works, but either way, you want to measure the distance from your eyeball to the front sight, divide the inches by 39.37 to convert them to meters, then divide the result into 1 to get the maximum diopter. Divide that last result by 2 to get a minimum diopter. That's the range you want to be in.

Example: You get into position with your rifle while your supportive spouse uses a tape measure to get the distance from your eye to the front sight without poking you too hard in the eye (to get even with you for imposing the inconvenience of the exercise). A trick here is to close your eye and allow the poke. Suppose the resulting measurement is 35 inches.

35 inches / 39.37 inches/meter = 0.889 meters

1 diopter/meter / 0.889 meters = 1.125 diopter

1.125 diopter / 2 = .5624 diopter.

So, rounding to practical values, you will want something between 0.56-1.1 diopters, depending on your eyes. That number would be in addition to your normal prescription for distance vision if you don't wear contacts or other correction before using this correction.

If you have good vision or if you wear contacts that correct your vision to normal, you will find a pair of reading glasses may do all you need. In the above example, you could buy a pair that is +0.75 and another that is +1.00 and see which one does better on the front sight at the range.

Part of the advantage of the snazzy Olympic style frames is you can adjust the lens height and position and axis angle to center the lens over and on a plane perpendicular to line of sight, regardless of the angle you are looking at the sights with. For many persons, especially in prone position, conventional glasses need a lot of nose pads or to be worn upside down to raise them to where the top of the frame doesn't interfere with your line of sight. This isn't as good as the custom frames and lens, but it's certainly an awful lot cheaper for just trying things out.
 
Those Olympic style shooting frames are most commonly Knoblochs. A ton of guys who shoot hi power matches with iron sights use them. Before I had cataract surgery I went the whole route from stick on diopters, prescription lenses, as well as just making do. Problem with that is that over time as your eyesight changes so does the cost of correcting and/or starting over. If I had started with Knobloch frames in the first place I could have bought way more guns, Ammo, and paid more match fees. I recommend them. You will be amazed at how flexible and changeable the system is. In the US, Champions Choice has all the frames, lenses, accessories, etc.
http://www.champchoice.com/store/Main.aspx?p=CategoryBody&c=OPEYCH


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Merritt optical device. It really works.
Click to expand...

Yes they do! But if you're cheap, like me, a piece of black electrical tape about an inch long with a 1/8 inch hole in the middle works great.

I wear "clip on flip up" 1.0 readers over my distance eye glasses. The combination gives me good focus at around 35 inches. Add the homemade black tape iris, and the front sight is in perfect focus. Rear sight just slightly blurry as it should be, and target a bit more blurry as it should be.
 
My last two sets of glasses have been occupation trifocals. Regular bifocals on the bottom, distance vision above the bifocals and trifocals at the top of the lenses. I could only get them in plastic but I did get them in safety glass thickness. Also got scratch resistant coating and uv blocking coating. I really like them and for the first time ever I see a text book sight picture. Sights in focus and target a bit fuzzy.
 
I have progressive lenses. I can tilt my head to get clear sights.

It works for shooting pins and when I do not use the Merrit Optical device.

David
 
For action style shooting I have a pair of glasses that have the right eye focus for the front sight, left eye has a distance lens in it. This works well IF you shoot with both eyes open. It takes a few minutes to get used to them but after that I don't notice I have them on til I start to drive home. Bifocals/trifocals will work for bullseye but not well for IDPA and such. I tried upside down bifocals years ago, don't work for me.
 
I never heard of these glass's that olympic shooter's use. Always been my belief that the eye cannot focus on three points at the same time. It's difficult for me to shoot iron and fortunately only have one iron sight only rifle, mod 62A Win 22 RF.
 
I've got some of these 'Olympic' style glasses. I got them for my PU scope (no focus, couldn't see the reticule sharply) but use them with open-sight rifles (Enfield, M-N, etc.) as well. I also have some conventional shooting glasses for pistol, with the focal length on the end of my arm.
 
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