Hoping this is the right forum.

We qualify twice a year (104 rounds).

I have worn glasses/ contacts since I was a teenager (I just turned 50).  Near sighted.  Not horrible, maybe 40/20.  About 10 years ago I had to stop wearing contacts at work (LE).  I became unable to read IDs at arms length.  Without them, I can read things withing arms length.  Glasses allowed me to remove them when reading.

Yesterday, at requal, I became aware that I am not able to acquire my front sight.  With my glasses on, the target is clear, but my front sight is undetectable.  Without my glasses, the target is not recognizable, but my front sight is only slightly better... still very blurry.

So, where am I?  Glasses don't work... No glasses doesn't work.

Do I need to play around with reading glasses till I find something that works?  It is 6 months before I'm elligible for my next eye exam.

Any thoughts are much welcomed.

Regards

Have you tried monovision contacts? One eye is set up for up close and one for far off. I'm nearsighted also and it works well for me.

Never heard of those.

Almost any contact provider should be able to fit you with them.  They will determine your dominant eye and go from there. If it's set up for say arm's length where you can see the front sight you may need a set of low power cheaters for very close work but a computer screen will be readable.  I've worn them for 25 years with great success.

Sounds promising.  Thank you for the info.  I will talk to my eye doc about it.

Yeah, a buddy of mine wears contacts with two different prescriptions.  His dominant eye is corrected for distance and his other eye is corrected for reading.  It took a little getting used to, but now his brain and eyes do it without any conscious thought.

WARNING I HAVE ONLY HEARD THIS SUGGESTED; I have never tried this

In a few shooting classes, I have heard the suggestion to have the prescription for the glasses ground near the nose and at the top of the lens.  Some shooters tried turning their glasses upside down (their over the ear hear protection held their glasses in place); it worked for these people in class.

Might want to just self pay for an eye doc appointment.  Have you tried progressive lenses or bifocals?

Never tried bifocals.

Had similar, ended up being corneal edema. Went through 2 eye docs and several Rx's before it was figured out. I now use extra salinity drops like Muro 128 for a few days when symptoms return and vision goes back to only normal old man blurry. YMMV

This is the way.
Pogressives are bi focals without the line and hard transition, they take a bit of getting used to but have been gtg for me since.

I'm near sighted,  prescription glasses,  tried progressives,  tried adjusting the progressive for seeing irons, and target shooting in general.  Wasn't really successful.

I've tried the monovision contact thing and it seemed to work well.  

then I got the lasik/PRK surgery in left eye for near sightedness fix.

so my right eye can see the irons,  left eye the target.

I am right handed, left eye dominant.

I got the surgery 9 weeks ago, still healing but much improved already.  I might need another surgery as the Dr suspected I was under corrected the first time.


If you can stand the one eyed thing it may work for you.  The way I see it... :)   ...  you get used to it if you dont like it or not.

I'm 50.

cheers


ETA:  after reading for comprehension,  I think you'll want to try experimenting with prgressive/bifocal in your aiming/irons eye and distance lens for target.  If you cant get the focus for the magnifier (irons) portion of lens high enough to see them easily without adjusting or pushing your glasses to the bridge of your nose...

find the cheater lenses that give you best focus on your front sight.  grab your old pair of Rx glasses and swap the lens for a test.  use tape.. whatever.

Io think you have slightly worse uncorrected near sightedness though. at 20/40.  so the monovision thing is going to be more pronounced and you'll need to see if your brain will adapt to it.  But as I said,  if it is sink or swim you can pull it off I bet.  You'll see your way through it.  

Here's how most progressive lenses are set up.  They aren't perfect but they do work for every day general use.  Get used to the "old man head tilt" maneuver to find the sweet spot.

Attached File

I have multi-focal contacts and they work pretty well.

Yeah fading vision sucks.  Had lasik and it was great, but aging and needing reading glasses has hurt my pistol shooting a lot.  Luckily I retired already.  

However, going to a new fluorescent orange front sight like one of the Ameriglos is about 100X better than trying to pick up an old style night sight or basic iron sight.  I upgraded a bunch of my glocks with these.  It isn’t quite good enough, but it helps quite a bit.  (Should be looking at crisp sight edges and not the dot...but I can’t).  

The real solution is actually looking into a mini red dot like an RMR.  Lots of reasons to think about using one for LE work, but I believe it really makes sense for the age 40+ crowd who have trouble with iron sights.  

Personally I also wear safety glasses with built in reading glasses as well.  Doesn’t help so much with picking up the sights unless I do the head tilt (and then the target goes to shit) but it sure helps with reading serial numbers, seeing how clean a gun is, etc.  

Getting old sucks.  Lasik helped tremendously, but it has faded a bit in my dominant eye.  Rifles are easier with irons than pistols are for me these days.  But a red dot is best.  Sometimes you might need to drag an agency kicking and screaming into the current era...

The problem with progressive lenses is that most people are used to looking side to side with their eyes, but a progressive lens requires that the user look up and down and turn the head for something not down the middle.  Shooting is rarely straight up and down.  It's possible to have spectacles made specifically for your issues.  Monovision contacts are a great suggestion and option but it depends on your Rx.  Too high and the difference will present some problems such as depth perception and night vision.  There's supposedly a drop prescribed to help with vision, haven't looked into it so I have no idea how it works, but it may be worth investigating.  Most of my knowledge with this is now outdated but worked extensively 30 years ago in this area.  At the time had excellent vision, better than any Navy pilot I ever met, but now many issues are popping up with my own shooting vision.  At the point, now 60, where I'm going to have to do something either mechanically or surgically to shoot effectively.  Same problem with the OP of my front sight, and I guess my rear sights too, not being as clear as I'd like.