Shooting glasses

[John1959]

Can anyone suggest an optician in the Cheshunt, Hertfordshire area who could make a lense for target shooting. I'm long sited and have trouble focussing on the near site with my standard glassesas I tend to end up looking like Eric Morcombe looking out of the side of them. I want to get a set of frames but cant find where to get the lense made.

[silvershooter]

John, Some of the experts will probably chip in shortly. But the focus is on the foresight, the rear sight and target are out of focus (as the eye can not focus on the 3 distances at one time). I am long sighted but I can focus perfectly on the foresight. So try it without any glasses first.

[Hemmers]

Yeah, you shouldn't be able to focus on your rearsight. It's generally too close to your eye to focus on properly.

Your foresight should be in sharp focus with the rearsight and target slightly fuzzy.

[zooma]

Your regular optician should be able to sort this out for you once you have chosen your shooting glasses as they come with no optical lens fitted. You would probably be better off buying the shooting frames from a specialist supplier of shooting products as most opticians do not sell them in anycase.

You can buy them with either one of two lens holders depending on what you want and often choose the size of lens holder you prefer - pistol types are usually bigger diametre that rifle types.

I made an appointment to see my local optician after letting him know what I wanted and to advise him that I would be taking my pistol with me so he could accurately measure the correct lens I would need to put the front sight in sharp focus with my dominant right eye.

When I got there he used one of those lens fitting frames all opticians seem to have and swapped various lens types until the front sight was in sharp focus when I held my pistol at arms length in my usual shooting position.

Then I had a lens measured for the other eye so I would be able to focus clearly with both eyes when wearing my shooting frames so I did not "fumble about" trying to load the pellets by feel alone. This also enabled me to read and see things at about "reading distance".

I left my shooting frames with him to get "glazed" and picked them up a week later ready for use.

The other thing I found helpful was to add a "drop-down" opaque cover over my non-dominant eye - easilly flipped up when I need to see anything close or even peer underneath it when loading etc.

[Old Bill]

Have you consided an eagle eye?

[tufty]

Good advise from Zooma, I got mine done at the same time as my reading glasses,it's a slightly weaker prescription,so that the target doesn't look too fuzzy,also took my pistol,the optician said he really enjoyed doing it,as it was a break from the normal stuff they do,he also took a lot of care correcting a slight astigmatism as he thought it may effect alignment of the sights,all for £25 Specsavers,Kingston.....highly recommended