Old Eyes

[buckhunter]

Well it finally happened. I took my last unscoped rife to the range yesterday just to check out the "0" and see how it was doing. Darn the sights and target was awful fuzzy. Well that one now wears a scope. Oh well Mother Nature is catching up.

[Nulle]

Welcome to the club old friend

[fabsroman]

Can you guys use glasses on open sights? I know my dad has one hell of a time shooting shotguns with glasses on, but he also has one hell of a time shooting with his glasses off.

[Jack]

Happens to us all, eventually.
Fabs, on the glasses, maybe, but, when you get to the bifocal stage, it gets difficult. Often, if your head position is correct for getting your cheek on the stock, it is incorrect for your bifocals.
And, with or without glasses, the ability of the eye to accomodate lessens with age. Accomodation is the ability of the eye to rapidly change focus from the rear sight to the front sight to the target, and back again. When you're young, your eyes can do that so fast, your brain is fooled into thinking that all the sights are in focus at the same time.
With age, you lose that ability.

[Nulle]

ahhh Well I have the bifocal thing and can't see (pardon the pun) where it has effected my shotgun or pistol shooting at all.

[buckhunter]

So far the pistol is just as bad as ever:) well almost. It really hasn't effected it much. As for the Shotgun it is OK also. Its just those darn iron sighted rifles.

[popplecop]

Open sights on rifles are a thing of the past for me. Receiver sights work ok, have them on all my lever actions, scopes on everything else. I still shoot handguns with normal sights, but I use no line bi focals. I realize they aren't for everyone but if you can use them they do wonders in handgun shooting. Just have to tilt my head slightly and the front sight becomes clear.

[Jack]

Reciever (peep) sights help a lot on a rifle, IME. One less sight you have to try to keep in focus.
I have no line bifocals, too, and where I run into problems is with handgun sights. I have to tip my head quite a ways back to see thru the proper part of the lens to focus on the sights.

[DogYeller]

At about age 40 I began to notice the rear sight was getting fuzzy. I had my eyes checked and found out I had astigmatism. Glasses fixed it for a while but the older I got the worse it got. Funny thing was it didn't bother my pistol shooting. So, one day I got the Idea to move the rear sight forward on one of my muzzleloaders. About 10" was enough at the time. I've had to move it two more times. Now I have a 36" barrel with about 20" between the front and the rear sights. I've put Lyman peeps on the other rifles.

[Cal Sibley]

I do the majority of my shooting at the rifle range. When I think that I'm looking through my eyeglasses, then through a pair of yellow safety glasses, and through the scope lens, it's a bloody wonder that I ever hit anything. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

[topturretgunne]

I use for pistol---A jewelers loupe that fastens to your glasses with a lense to fit your eye--I use a 0.75--your local eye Doc can fix you up-- I bought mine from CLEAR SIGHT in Miami --- don't have a address---runs about 40 bucks with 3 lenses and a adjustable arm

[dunwerkin]

Boy am I lucky.
When i was born, due to a doctror screw up, my parents thought that I would be blind for life. As it turns out, here I am at nearly 70 years of age with only one functional eye, still able to shoot iron sighted rifles or pistols as well as scope sights right along with the best of them.

Never give up.

dunwerkin

[BILLY D.]

FABS AND CAL

AN ALL THE FLATULENT SENIORS AND OTHER FOLKS WITH EYE PROBLEMS. TWO THINGS I FOUND THAT WORKED FOR ME.

1. TRIFOCALS. VERY HANDY AT THE COMPUTER. THE TOP LENS IS TOO WEAK AND THE BOTTOM LENS YOU HAVE TO KEEP TILTING YOUR HEAD BACK. THIS PHENOMENON CAUSES NECK MUSCLE AND SHOULDER STRAIN. AFTER A SHORT TIME YOU FEEL LIKE SOMEBODY BEAT YA WITH A BALL BAT. YOUR OPTICIAN CAN FIGURE A LENS STRENGTH THAT WILL SOLVE THAT PROBLEM. WHILE YOU ARE TWISTING HIS ARM ABOUT THAT PROBLEM GET HIM TO WRITE A PRESCRIPTION FOR THE MIDDLE LENS AND HAVE A PAIR OF GLASSES MADE JUST FOR THEM. YOU WILL NOW BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR SIGHTS IN THE CORRECT PERIPHERY AND YOUR TARGET WILL BE IN THE PROPER PERSPECTIVE FOR TARGET SHOOTING.

ANOTHER ITEM THAT HELPED ME WAS THE FARSIGHT OPTICAL DISK FROM BROWNELLS. LYMAN ALSO MAKES AN OPTIC AID CALLED THE HAWKEYE SHOOTERS OPTIC AID. BOTH OF THESE PRODUCTS ALLOW YOU TO SHOOT WITH BOTH EYES OPEN, WHICH IS THE PROPER WAY TO SHOOT BY THE WAY. WHAT THEY ACCOMPLISH IS NOT LETTING ONE EYE TAKE OVER FOR THE OTHER. IE: IF ONE EYE IS STRONGER THAN THE IT WILL TRY TO MAKE UP FOR THE INADEQUACY OF THE WEAK EYE. THE HUMAN BODY NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME.

NO I AM NOT AN OPTICIAN NOR A DOCTOR, I'M JUST AN OLD GUY THATS PUSHING 70 THAT KEPT BOTHERING THE PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED PEOPLE UNTIL I GOT ANSWERS TO MY PROBLEMS.

HOPE YOU ALL WERE ABLE TO GLEAN SOMETHING FROM THIS. SOMETIMES I DON'T DO WELL IN EXPLAINING THINGS IN TECHNICAL TERMS.

[Cal Sibley]

I'm left handed and shoot from the left side so my left eye is very important to me. I've noticed in recent years the left eye is definitely the weaker of the two. I see no where near as good with the left eye, but am leery of trying to switch sides at 68 years old. Most of my rifles are target or varmint rifles with 6x18 and 6x24 scopes. I can adjust the front eye piece and get the clarity I require for maximum accuracy. I don't know how long I'll be able to do this, being diabetic, but so far so good. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

[squirrelman]

I had lasik eye operation done 1.5 yesrs ago. It was the answer to my shooting problems. Shoot iron sighted rifles ok now.

[Nulle]

I have been hearing this works good in some cases.

[Dan Morris]

Nulle, I take Occuvite....this has worked wonders for me!
Dan

[Rapier]

Squirrelman said
"I had lasik eye operation done 1.5 yesrs ago. It was the answer to my shooting problems. Shoot iron sighted rifles ok now."

Ain't it grand?

I had the lasik surgery done 9 years ago, in both eyes at the same time. I was legaly blind at the time of surgery and all of my guns had a scope or optical sight of some kind.

Six weeks after surgery I shot an International score in silhouette with Iron sights, without sight settings. It had been so long since I shot an iron sighted gun, I lost my sight settings. Today I shoot in the 90s at clays and can easily shoot 1 inch groups with my 458 Lott at 100 meters (just in case some were wondering about the flap issue) with express sights. Handguns with open sights are a snap. I have 15/20 vision in my shooting eye.

The only folks I have ever heard talk in a negative way about the surgery were people who have not had it done and have no real understanding of what is involved. The surgery has, within the past 12 months, been approved for pilots, both civilian and military.

I wrote a published article about the surgery, which some of you may have seen. Lasik, unlike all of the prior eye corrective surgeries can be corrected if an error is made and is quick to heal. Basicly, the process involves 3-D images of the eye being made by a digital camera attached to a computer. The "off" areas of the eye are mapped, a firing solution is made by the computer based on the surface maps. A flap is cut to expose the cornea. The laser, attached to the computer, then reshapes the cornea surface to the exact demensions needed to give 20/20 to 15/20 vision in your eye. The actual "cutting" by the laser takes about 15 seconds.

If you are thinking about it, just go see a doctor that does a thousand or more prochedures a year. Your % of a good outcome, first time, are increased.
Ed

[shooterjon]

I hear ya,I have had cataracts removed and Crystal lenses implanted.All this 9 mos ago and my vision is worse today than it was with Cataracts.For this blurry vision honor I had to give the Doc $10,000.00 OUCH.Looks like 2 more surgery's to get the eyes seeing correctly.OH WELL,I'm not the happiest camper in town!all this surgery so I wouldn't have to wear glasses.HMMMMM?:confused:

[Rapier]

Shooterjon,
I know you understand that what you had done, cornea replacement, is not lasik surgery.

I have never quite understood why they can reshape the existing cornea perfectly and can not get a replacement artificial cornea shaped correctly out of the box. It would seem that the two prochedures would have the same result. But, I have heard a good many complaints exactly like yours. I just hope the pending correction works for you, sight is a very precious comodity.

Best of luck.
Ed

[Brithunter]

Hi all,

For shooting I use single prescrption lenses but normal wear I use varifocals. the work great for driving but I still find I tend to remove them for reading and using the computer. The varifocals are a nightmare for using scopes and binos as the distance viewing area of the glasses seems to be so small, this is not a problem in normaly use, but with scopes and binos you really need to get your eye in the right place hence I had as et of single vision specs made up and use them with the binos and scopes.

[MtnMike2]

I'll add my woe to this discussion. Was using a Win 1886 w/ buckhorn sights this year and shot over a deer from a tree stand at about 60 - 70 yds (fortunately it was a clean miss - no blood found on snow). I grew up w/ iron sights and like the lean look of rifles, especially old models, w/ the iron sights. But, as I get older (I'm 57) I guess I better use a scope if I want to make clean kills... damn. BTW, I wear trifocal (varifocus) glasses too.

Mike

[Nulle]

So far I am getting along with the old peepers although they are weaker then a few years back to be sure. Hitting so darn close to 62 years I can spit on it I have been pretty darn lucky the way I have abused my body.

[popplecop]

Nulle, just went to the Optomologist and passed again, no change. Even though I've got the start of catarcts they aren't a problem. Anyway how are you doing?

[Rapier]

Tomorrow I go see the eye surgeon that did my Lasic operations. I saw him three months ago and now at "going on" 65 we have cataracts. I guess they can make great progress but no one or nothing can stop the aging process.

After 10 years and diabetes my vision has declined from 15/20 down to 30 or 40/20 depending on the day and how my sugar is doing. I passed my drivers eye exam two weeks ago without glasses, so not so bad. But nights are starting to bother a bit, with the oncoming headlights being a fair blast of light. I guess that is the cataracts refracting the light.
Ed

[wrenchman]

I bought my in line muzzle loader becouse i started haveing a hard time seeing my front blade in low light.
MY son loves the side lock so all is still good i gess.

[popplecop]

I put a fiber optic on the front and a peep on the rear of my percussion hunting rifle, I too like that big old hammer.

[Rapier]

What I used in competition for several years was an old Gilmore red dot with a 2.5x lense that screwed onto the front. They stopped making the lense but every now and then one pops up for sale. The Gilmore has a 2 MOA dot in it for rifles. Now Gilmore is Gilmore Leupold or Vis Versa as Leupold bought them out. I still have two of the sights, bought the last one while walking around a gun show. A guy had come in and walked all over the show trying to sell it and no one at that show knew what a Gilmore was, he about fell out when I said what do you want for that Gilmore as he walked by, so I bought it cheap.

They are great foe a coal burner.:)
Ed

[buckhunter]

I had a pocket full of cash and was all set to lay it down on a mil spec 1911-A1. Held it up look down the barrel and handed it back. That tiny front site just didn't cut it. Oh well gotta find something else.

[Rapier]

You might try .50 reading glasses if you are still using the naked eye. They allow you to see the sights and the target out to 200 yards or so. I use them to shoot with iron sights now. You can order them on the net.
Ed

[popplecop]

Buckhunter, try a 1911 with Hienie Straight 8 sights, they work well for me. On my old Colt LW Commander I have a fiber optic front sight and that works well too.