getting my first pair of prescription shooting glasses. i wear prism glasses with no-line bi-focals all day, every day. they are a mild script and i used to never shoot with them. could not hit ANYTHING!!!! i started wearing my glasses and i am killing almost every quail i shoot at.

the last thing i need to decide is how to handle the bi-focals.. my question to Rx shooting glass wearers is this - what are your experiences and advice on:

1.do you get the cheaters put in your shooting glasses

2.old-fashioned hard-lined bi-focals

3.progressive no-line bi-focals

4.do you put bifocals only in your non-dominant eye?

thank you very much for your help.

I just received my first pair of Ranger Rx shooting glasses. I have been shooting with contacts, but recently realized they don't do as well at distances as prescription glasses.

I was too cheap to do progressives and didn't honestly see the need, so I ordered the flat top bifocals. I have not had a chance to test them yet, though.

I shot with progressives. A little getting used to, but would not change now.

Flat topped, set low in the lens, to stay out of the way when looking thru the top

I use no line in everything. It took a little while to get use to them. On shooting glasses I have the correction set lower. First set I was still using part of the progressive near correction part of the lens when I mounted the gun. Think about the rib being in focus near or far as a distraction. I want the end of the gun in decent focus and the bird in clear focus. Solution was to move the edge of the distance vision down several mm's. Now when I mount the gun I can see clearly now. I still miss but that is due to operator error.

I've been on progressives for 20 years. I shoot just fine with them, but still cannot get the hang of walking through the woods with them on. I have a pair of single visions set on my hi-power script. for real hunting and a pair of low rise flat tops for long reading sessions. Works for me...Geo

I think bi-focals are fine for clay pigeons, but for hunting, esp in a woods, they suck. I'm not talking progressive lens, but true bi-focals. I wasn't aware of shooting glasses with progressive lens. If they exist, I wouldn't mind trying a pair for hunting, but not bi-focals. Bi-focals make for tough walking from blurry vision and give me a headache, and make me almost dizzy.

After wearing these Rangers Rx with bifocals for 5 mins, there is no way I would spend a day with them on in the woods. They will work fine for the range, but the distortion is too much to deal with in heavy cover. The bifocal was a FT 28, which ended being bigger than I expected.

I have readers in a pair of nonRx sunglasses that I use all the time with contacts
and I barely notice them except when I need them. Bifocals on top of a Rx lens is a very different creature!

I use progressives for every day and had I pair of line bifocals made for shooting with the "close" correction set very low. I like the set up very much and do hunt with them.

I've had standard "line" bifocals for perhaps a decade. Hunt with them, shoot with them, wear them all the time. If you don't wear them all the time, you won't get used to using them as intended, and it will cause you problems.

Best,
Ted

I have essentially the same set-up as tudurgs and Craig Larter---rx shooting glasses with a small (line) bifocal at the bottom of the lens. The bifocal lets me read the clubhouse bulletin board but is out of the way when I shoot.

I have worn standard "line" bifocals for 35 years +, use them for everyday wear as well as upland hunting and clays shooting. No problems. It's what I am used to, so why change? They work very well for me. I agree with Ted just above my post.

I purchased a pair of Randolph Aviator II with Autumn Gold Transition lenses with progressives from Morgan Optical this past fall. My Lasix lasted me almost 10 years but I found I needed to have a correction again so I opted for glasses again which I had before the Lasix. I really got tired of having to use readers all the time and having to put them on and take them off all the time.

I need the progressives for hunting to see my dog GPS and my cell phone. The transitions help not having to switch between regular glasses and sun glasses and I can used them for driving at night which is really nice. The only gripe I have is the progressives are a little off as far as location on the lense. Maybe I will get used to that. $550

Morgan Optical sport glasses
716) 379-8773
wayne@morganoptical.net
http://www.morganoptical.net/

I've worn bifocals full time for over 15 years, with solid line, wear for everything, including hunting and shooting and I do a lot of both. No issues, walking or otherwise. Did a field test on progressives and found they are not for me.

Wouldn't have it any other way (though I expect to have cataract surgery in about 5 or 6 years, and really look forward to a return of perfect vision afterward).

I am not clear, just what is the problem(s) presented by using progressive no line bi-focals for upland [quail] hunting? Just wondering?
TIA

Jerry

I use progressive bifocals for everyday and hunting and don't have any problems with them EXCEPT for handgun shooting.

To get a clear focus on the handgun sights I need to tilt my head back a little too much for comfort when shooting long strings (gives me a crick in my neck after a while and if I don't watch it, I start to get lazy and have a hazy sight picture). My optometrist, who is also a shooter, tells me the cure for this is to get "upside down" bifocals with the magnification on the top part of the lense. I've tried his and they work OK (of course allowing for the different prescription). But my insurance won't pay for them....

My insurance (Davis Vision) DOES pay for my regular bifocals to be made to high ANSI safety specs, which works OK for me for shooting glasses.

For me, the problem is in the woods where vines, trees and other obstructions all blend together in the progressives. I get dizzy and disoriented. Falling in the woods is real problem for me....Geo

For shooting glasses, I lean toward having the close-up Rx being straight line, but small and low enough to not be remotely in the way of your sight picture when shooting.

Allan Lehman [Optical] in Dewey, AZ is one of those guys who is older than dirt [he has a year on me], a shooter and that can & will do it right the first time. 1-800-255-0205, if you are interested.

FWIW, he re-did a pair of 'High Shooters' for me this past year. They require hand drilling to not break the lenses and tedium of some significant order. He said they belong in the shooting glasses museum as they had not been made in at least 45 years! Ha! I'd simply had them rat-holed a long while, but they are as good as new again now & w/my current correct Rx in a shade that I wanted.

He does not mince his words, but his advice is always sound, the workmanship solid and pricing fair. He meets his stated delivery time as well.

I'll heartily second the above about Allen Lehman.
I've used his Post 4 Optics Ti frames and line bifocals for over 15 years.
I have two pair, one with a normal line bifocul in DriveWear a changeable polarized tint. Another pair with line bifocals with max magnification for trout fishing.
Progressive bifocals have a differnt focus depending where in the lens you look and are designed for you to move your head to obtain a clear picture at different distances. That's whats causing your dizziness in the woods, normal line bifocals have none of that and are just fine in the woods hunting for me.
For hand gun target shooting or hunting, I have a blank Transistion tint in my right eye so I can focus on the sights, works great! The newest Transition tint get almost as dark as the DriveWear but are not polarized.
There is a whole range of Transition tints now available, so choose carefully.
The only difference I have with Allen, is that I do not want any false tints while hunting. I like to enjoy the beauty and the tints bother me.-Dick

My question...I've been told you can't change between line [for hunting] and no line bifocals [business] with regularity without causing causing focus problems in your eyes? True False Maybe Also I notice the line bifocals, cause an aberration in scope crosshairs the no lines do not seem to affect as much.
TIA
Jerry

I think that is my problem - the FT28 bifocals on my Rangers are big, much bigger than the readers on my nonRX sunglasses. They are too noticeable in my peripheral vision for a day of walking in heavy cover.

I have also heard that standard progressive lenses don't work well for shooting because the focal point is lower than optimal for shooting. But this may vary by person depending your vision and your gun mount (head up vs. stockcrawler).

Allen Lehman who supplies me with Decot shooting glasses told me last yr, progressive lens are not an option with shooting glasses. Maybe this sentiment has changed?

FWIW, Allan has done Decots, Zeiss and B&L Ray-Bans for me as well and the work has always been of very high quality.

If you are having issues w/Rx shooting glasses, he can likely help you get something that you will be comfortable using & keep you from making a poor choice.

edit: one additional note: you can also get the focal point of the on-eye lens set to be dead on or spot on when you have the gun mounted rather than in the general center of the lens as it is frequently or normally done, but doing so means that there will generally be some barrel distortion if you are not mounting it EXACTLY the same every time or make any slight adjustment in alignment or shooting different guns or having facial changes due to weight gain or loss and the glasses will not be good to drive with or even walk around wearing them because they will be slightly out of focus &/or distorted when looking straight out of them. I found that out the hard way and it wasn't Allan that made those particular lenses for me. Was a time I thought that having zero correction on the off-eye lens & the on-eye lens exact focal point offset as described above would be the cat's meow. It wasn't, at least not for me.

Have a second set made with just your distance prescription.. I did and I shoot better.

I am a Bifocal glasses wearer and went a different route. I wear contacts as I hate glasses. I solved the bifocal requirement by using one eye distant and one close.

For shotgunning this works great for rifle shooting not as good.

I have a contact prescription that makes my left eye the reading eye and my right eye the distant eye. This also solved the potential issue of cross-eye dominance

It took a week or so to get used to it, but after I did I now wear that set up 100% of the time whether down range hunting, shooting, even jumping out of airplanes. I have been set up like this for more than eight years to include Iraq and Afghanistan trips.

My eye doc gave me a prescription standard no line progressive eyeglasses for those few hours of the day at home I wear glasses.

Perhaps yours could give you a shooting glass prescription for your shooting eye and the reading eye.

As an FYI, I went the contact route to the extent of getting the new variable focus lenses, but my old stubby fingers had a very hard time getting the lenses out which are good for only 24 hours. Ended up with red, painful eye at times. They may have been a brilliant solution for shooting but my primary emphasis was not having to insert glasses in my Bell hemet for Track events at Road America.
Eventually, last year got some straight temple Persols with line bifocals that work fine in helmet, never did get to try the contacts for shooting.
So I spent a few hundred $$ and some pain and frustration but if you have good manual dexterity then contacts may help. Contacts would have solved a multitude of problems for me.-Dick