Shooting with old eyes. Any Suggestions?

[geobru]

Alas, by posting this thread, I am admitting to the world that I can no longer see worth a darn.. After living most of my life with 20-10 vision, this admission is the pits!!

This is especially annoying when trying to use open sights. The last time I went out shooting, I tried using my "far" glasses, and couldn't see the front sight when I lined up on the target. After shooting enough to get a sore shoulder and getting mixed results that went from seemingly brilliant to definitely embarassing, I tried a pair of reading glasses and I could make out the front sight alright, but the target went away. I think it was still there because there was no wind, and I hadn't noticed any earthquakes or any other natural disasters, but I sure didn't have what I would consider a decent sight picture.

I know that I am not the only one in this forum that has "Old Eyes" that don't work very well any more, and I was wondering what some of you might have discovered that help you when you are shooting your leverguns. Thanks

George

[Chuck 100 yd]

Peep sights have definately helped me. The Merrit adjustable aperture I use when shooting on the range helps to make the front sight and target look clear again. I am almost 62, have had to wear glasses since I was 12-13 and cant see opens without help.

Try this... Take a piece of black paper(card stock,construction paper) poke a hole through it with a pin or paper clip (paper clip is just about the right size). Now hold this apperature up to your glasses and look at your sights through it. I bet those sights are much clearer now. Yes/No??

You can do the same thing with a piece of black plastic tape and stick it to your glasses. Thats what I did before I got the Merrit one that sticks to the lens with a little suction cup. Now I can shoot my ML rifles with their primitive open sights.

[bsaride]

I know that I am not the only one in this forum that has "Old Eyes" that don't work very well any more, and I was wondering what some of you might have discovered that help you when you are shooting your leverguns. Thanks

George

George,

I've been wearing glasses for 40 yrs. I find that if you use some form
of peep sight (need a hole in the rear sight to align with) and a hooded
front sight (I use Lyman 17s), the sights almost align themselves. Then
you can use your far vision glasses to see the target with somewhat
blurry sights and still score well.

So, an aperture/peep/tang sight in the back with a hooded front sight
(I prefer a blade insert up front) should work for you.

[Bigahh]

You may also try a Fiber Optic front sight. May be easier to see through the peep.

[Yodar]

A peep sight, tang or receiver, on a rifle helps. Have your eye doctor give you a prescription for a pair of shooting glasses with a 1 meter focal length, or however far it is from your shooting eye to the front sight. That will help you keep that front sight in focus. It worked for me and my 70 year old eyes with both pistol and rifle.

[Ben_Rumson]

+1 Chuck 100 yd said.. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he copied & pasted that from one of my previous posts.. Same age here too..The Merit is a bit pricey but well worth it..Other less costly types are available in the form of a clip on ..They have a wheel affair with several different size holes to choose from..You just rotate the wheel until you find an aperture what suits you..The merit devise has an iris that adjusts down to a fine pin hole..Merit also offers the iris as an item that can be screwed into the aperture of a receiver sight ...also they offer a feature where they will have a small lens ground to fit in the device made to your glasses prescription.. good luck

[Old Savage]

Put a scope on it!

[jeepnik]

Look at either red dots or my favorite holographic line the C-More's. Most have no magnification, and work very well with both eyes open. You don't have to worry about "light gathering" ability. I've used the C-More on by GS for several years now. Needless to say, recoil on this rifle is stiff, especially with the loads I like to use. It has held it zero (except for one airline trip). I'm even starting to use these type os sights on handguns.

[gon2shoot]

Yep, my eyes went from eagle to beagle in the past 10-12 years. Reciever sights help

[jnyork]

I'm 68 and have the same problem. Fixed it with Marbles tang sight, Merit adjustable aperture disc and Lyman 17a front sight.

[geobru]

Old Savage Posted:

Put a scope on it!

Good suggestion, sometimes... I scoped my BLR, but I don't think that is an option for my 86's. The 40-82 has a buckhorn rear sight and the 45-90 has a Redfield peep on it. That particular day, I was having trouble with the peep too. It made me realize that the limiting factor for hunting with these guns isn't how far the gun can shoot accurately, but how tired my eyes are at the time, light conditions etc.

I'll have to look into some of the optical suggestions that you guys have come up with. Thanks for the tips. I hope it helps others who might benefit from this information.

[Rusty]

Scope it!

I'm mounting one right now.

[KirkD]

I'm 53 years old and have worn glasses for 41 years (short sighted and astigmatism). Recently, I purchased a set of prescription 'far' glasses, which seem to work great for me. I can keep the front sight and the target sharp. The rear sight is blurry, but I think I can still center it well enough to get five-shot, 2" groups with open iron sights at 100 yards, if the rifle and load is right.

[donw]

i definitely PREFER open sights but...in real life i have to used the optics now for most application. mostly red-dots or HUD for the "close in".

for the "long"shots...i use telescopic sights now.

gettin' old ain't fer sissies...

[86er]

Claroxan

[NonPCnraRN]

B Jones Sights makes a special aperature with a lens like a contact held in place by a tiny O-ring. Just screw out the aperature that comes with any peep sight and replace it with this. The lenses are + and - depending on your needs. IIRC he is/was an ophthamologist/shooter. When ordering just tell him what power reading glasses brings the front sight into focus to get you in the ballpark. You can exchange it to a different power if necessary. He also has specially designed AR, tang, M-1/M-14 sights for competition shooting. I got one and it looks like the stock aperature until you look through it. I used to see 2 front sights now only one! The lenses come in different colors also. Check the site out!

http://www.bjonessights.com/

[Bis]

I am in the same boat, about to turn 62. The Williams FP peep sights have been a great help. I just can't bring my self to put a scope on a lever gun.

I guess the Golden Years arn't all that great.

[Old Savage]

1886, well now you go and complicate it!

Here is a 71 though

http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewtopic.php?t=6815

[Pete44ru]

http://www.fda.gov/CDRH/LASIK/

[JReed]

Peep sights are the way to go if you dont want to mount a scope. With the Military peep sight on an M16/AR15 I can see the front post with out my glasses and I am blind as a bat. With open sights forget it. Now this doesnt mean that I can see the front post and the target well with out my glasses but the front post is all you need to see well any way IMHO.

[Lefty Dude]

If you wear dark shooting glasses, try shooting with the clear lenses. My shooting glasses have a very light pink tint.

By wearing dark glasses your are making your eye iris & pupil get larger, thus limiting your depth of field. By having your pupil smaller this will increase your depth of field. My Son who is 43 gets his target misses when he is wearing dark glasses and forgets to put on his clear lenses.

Many of us who shoot Cowboy Action have shooting glasses which have the lens of the shooting eye corrected so our rear & front sight is in focus. The other eye lens focal length is corrected for distance.

This might sound strange, but it works. Your eyes will adjust to this in short order. And if your eye care specialist is a non shooter he will think your are not carrying a full load up-stairs.

If I forget to change from my dark sun glasses to my shooting glasses I have a greater tendence to miss my targets, both near & far.

Forget Transitions lens they are terrible for shooting.

My eyes are 70 years old and by having correct shooting lens I can still shoot with Iron sights. Not quite like I did several years ago, however.

One of my shooting Pards is an eye correction specialist.

And by the way for hunting, well I buy the best scope money will buy with the greatest amount of light gathering possible.

[bj94]

1. Get some glasses that allow you to focus on the front sight, whether you can use off the shelf reading glasses or you have to have a special prescription made. If you are using reading glasses or something similar then go just strong enough that you can see the front sight. Remember- if you can't focus on the front sight then you might as well not go any farther.

2. If you can't see the rear sight, then replace it with an aperture sight. Use an aperture as small as you can for your conditions or lighting, etc. If you have plenty of light then a merit on your glasses will help too.

3. After all of that, you have to do the best you can to see the target. If you can see your sights but the target is blurry, you can hit the blurry target. If the target is clear but the sights are blurry, you won't be able to hit anything. If it happens that you can't see the target because of its size, color or lighting, then the only option is an optical sight.

[NonPCnraRN]

http://www.fda.gov/CDRH/LASIK/

If you are over 40 y/o you will need reading glasses after Lasik. I had it done to my dominant eye only. It is called monovision. My brain uses my right eye for distance and my left eye for reading. UNFORTUNATELY, I didn't think this through and now I can't focus on the front sight with my shooting eye. With a pistol I just aim with my left eye but had to get a B Jones aperature for my receiver sights. As previously mentioned it is like a contact lense mounted in the aperature. I ordered one and just transfer it from one peep sight to the next. If you don't need reading glasses now, learn from my mistake and just have your non shooting eye corrected for distance vision. That way you can see at distance with your left eye and see the sights with the right eye, assuming you shoot right handed. I hope this info helps prevent a costly mistake with your vision. Monovision works great...just make sure you have the correct eye done! If you already need reading glasses get the BJones insert. The guys at Camp Perry swear by his little gizmo. It has allowed old eyes to compete with iron sights. If I had a Springfield M1-A, his National Match sight would be the first thing added even if it was a 16" SOCOM.

[24thMICH]

I was told about 25 years ago that I was going to need reading glasses ("eye crutches"). I ignored the suggestion and instead started practicing various eye exercises based on the Bates Method of eye improvement. Suffice it to say, I'm 56 years old and only wear the weakest prescription I was able to argue out of my optician. I wear my glasses only at night when I'm reading in bed or that I wear when I'm really tired and stressed out, in very poor light or when I have to read that ultra-teeny tiny print they have on certain medicine bottles.

Other than those exceptions, I still don't wear glasses and my vision is fine, so long as I do my eye exercises.

The thing is, the exercises aren't hard!

Here are a couple of resources you can avail yourself of if you don't want to wear eye crutches, have some doctor cut into your eyeballs or something else like that:

Here's a really good presbyopia (farsightedness: need "reading glasses") reduction exercise that really works if you work at it :
http://www.i-see.org/gottlieb/presbyopia_chart.pdf

Here's a more advanced version of the exercise. It's pretty hard so don't try it until you're very comfortable with the first exercise:

http://www.i-see.org/gottlieb/string_of_pearls.pdf

A good program you can usually find on ebay for cheap (the program new costs a couple hundred dollars: I bought mine on ebay for about $10) is the "See Clearly Method." It's very easy to do and very much worth looking around on ebay for.

Here's a copy on ebay right now: http://tinyurl.com/5zxko5

This one is on CD. The one I got was on VHS and had a hard copy book to go along with it. Take your pick. It's just a matter of deciding what version you want and then hunting for it (pun intended).

Lastly, if you're the kind of person who likes to fully understand what you're doing, a good book on the subject is Relearning to See by Thomas Quackenbush. You can get it more cheaply used on bookfinder.com or you can buy it new on amazon.com at
http://tinyurl.com/6r5rhm

.

[gamekeeper]

Some sound advice on this post, my old eyes need all the help they can get.

[geobru]

Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread. I knew that that some of you would have experience in overcoming sighting problems when the old optics start to decline.

It sure has given me some new ideas and best of all, hope that I'll be able to draw a bead on that target that disappeared on me!

[colo native]

I'm almost 70 and have used stick-on bi-focals on my glasses, just google stickon bifocals cost bout 15.00

[JohndeFresno]

This reply may sound a little off-topic, but for the fact that the posting did not specify leverguns only, or rifles only. I am also one of the over-40 bunch who had to switch to glasses.

For my handguns, hunting or defense:

Since I don't want to be putting gizmos on my glasses or other stuff when I need to make a quick shot (either in the woods or in home defense), I have found these remedies for handgun shooting:

1) Blended lenses instead of bifocals. Some can adjust to them, some cannot. Your head adjustment becomes second-nature. For me, I was good to go after wearing them for 15 minutes, after having worn bifocals for several years.

2) Crimson Trace Laser grips - laser runs along right side of pistol - for my .45 ACP - great!

3) 10.5 inch bbl Super Blackhawk SA .44 Mag for hunting. The long sight radius allows my old eyes to focus properly on both sights; something that my 6.5" .44 Mag won't allow me to do.

[Rexster]

I will be following this thread closely, as my eyesight has been going downhill lately, after a lifetime of 20/13 or better. I have noticed that it helps if the front sight is farther away; for example, I cannot focus on the front sight of an AR15 with a 16" barrel, but can do so with one with a 20" barrel. It also helps me to use a smaller aperture. Yeah, I know that AR15s are not lever rifles, but I use them at work, and wanted to compare apples to apples, everything the same except for the distance to the front sight.

With open sights, I have found it better if the rear sight is a bit farther out than before. I have noticed this while handling various rifles, with similar, but not identical, rear sights. Y'all's experiences may vary, of course.

This is just my small, negligible contribution; I am mostly following this thread to learn from others.

[Montanan]

My eyes got so bad here of late, I can't even read a menu without my readers or bifocals on. Same problem with rear sight fuzzy and couldn't center front sight. Went down to see Tim Skinner and looked thru his rear sight, I could see the front sight centered no problem.

Now I got a Skinner Sight on my 1895G and the 336C

Aquiring target and hitting what I am aiming at is much more of a pleasure.

[scr83jp]

When my vision started going i had to have bifocals but I couldn't see the front sight of my S&W Mod 19 6" so the optomitrist suggested Trifocals that helped but now pushing 74 I use scopes on centerfire rifles & tc encore pistols

[Slick]

Peep sights are the way to go if you dont want to mount a scope.

+1 on that! I switched to peeps and never looked back (no pun intended..)

[AmBraCol]

I guess the Golden Years arn't all that great.

They say they call them the golden years because of the color of the stream running down your leg...

[Bruce Scott]

Last night I mounted a Leupold fixed 2.5 x 20mm scope on my 9422. While I would have preferred to stay with peep sights my eyes, and results, tell me I need something else.

[Mutt]

I'm now using Tri-Focals . Just have to remember how to lean my head a bit. Better than before......................at least!!!!!!!
Mutt

[fgarnold]

George,
I have the same problem, I can't see worth a darn anymore. Just turned 61 and the old eyes don't work as good as they used too. I have had a Henry rifle in .44 mag for some years with the standard buckhorn on the barrel. I noticed my groups have gone to h--- the last few years. I just installed a Skinner peep sight on the barrel and my groups have tightend up considerably. Most of my rifles have scopes on them because of my eyesight but I wanted to keep the Henry more traditional.

[Ram Hammer]

When I started competing with iron sights, I took all of my old glasses that I had laying around and tried each while at the rifle range. I found that one of my old pairs of glasses was outstanding at giving me a good picture. Also speak with your optomitrist. Remember that when you use your glasses in normal walking around, you look through the middle of the lens. When shooting a rifle you will look through the upper left quadrant (shooting right handed). The optomitrist can put the best focus in that spot of you spend some time with him discussing your specific needs.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[RonJ]

I gotta agree with Chuck 100 yd. I couldn't use the open sights on my 1894c and XS ghost ring was too fuzzy. I added a Merit adjustable iris to the XS and voila, nice tight groups.

[JohndeFresno]

Shooting from prone or uphill -

As an afterthought: If you are prone or shooting uphill, bifocals will present a problem; I don't know about trifocals since I never tried them.

This is especially where scopes or peep sights (or a longer sight radius on a handgun) might help!

After a certain age when my eyes changed and I was wearing glasses, I noted that I could no longer consistently hit the 10-ring in combat shooting in the prone position, because I couldn't get my head at the right angle to focus on the front sight. For those of you who are not "sight challenged", try throwing your head back at a 45 degree angle, lying down, and looking down your barrel while lying on your stomach! I tried rolling to one side with limited success; you are shooting under strain from a one-point platform.

Like Ram Hammer, I had my optometrist change the dividing line of my bifocals, and it helped a bit, but didn't solve the problem when totally prone and shooting upwards at fairly close distances where an extreme elevation angle of the handgun was required.

Carrying a pair of reading glasses, as mentioned above, helped. But, of course, this doesn't work in a real police / combat scenario ("Wait while I put on my cheaters, you young whippersnapper!"), or even a surprise shot at a suddenly appearing buck.