Three dot sights and older eyes?

[Rmach]

I'm getting old and currently wear progressive lenses. I'm right handed but left eye dominant, so I aim with my right eye only. I'm not going to change that since it has worked good enough for me.  I have to tilt my head pretty far back in order to look through the bottom portion of my glasses to get good focus on the front sight. This works well until your head starts to drift down and you loose that sharp front sight focus.
 I can live with that, but as my head starts drifting during repeated firing, the rear dots get fuzzy and look similar to a double vision effect that is very distracting. This really interferes with the front sight focus. Should I just blacken out the rear two dots or just live with it? Thanks.

[WVNed]

I ran into this problem this year. My arms finally became too short for my near vision. I have not needed to wear my glasses to shoot before.
I mounted a Vortex Venom on my P-09 as one solution and purchased a pair of low power fixed diopter reading glasses for iron sights. I chose a pair that allowed my eyes to focus on an object at arms length.
My prescription lenses are 2.75 diopter maximum at the bottom of the progressive lens but I only needed 1.5 at arms length. This allows me to have clear sights and a slightly distorted target.

[pewpew4life]

I'd say if it's distracting to just get a nice black serrated rear sight and a nice fiber optic front sight. Nothing beats target sights IMO.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Beak Boater]

Have a similar problem....front sight blurry, target clear. Tried the reading glasses from the drug store at a 1.25 power. They helped but didn't need the whole lens magnified. Tried these, https://sspeyewear.com/products/tf-bifocal  they are magnified only in the top corner of the lens and the rest of the lens is just regular. Worked for me...and at only $35.00 its a good fix.
Also bought a Sig P320 RX with the Romeo 1 optic.....it is the true answer to aging eyes. No magnification needed, shoots great and accurate. Its a game changer for older eyes. Takes a little getting used to.....but once you do, its a new ball game.

[WVNed]

Thanks Beak Boater. I ordered a set of those. I was going to make my own.

[dominic135]

Rmach - The problem with tilting your head back is you can only see the front sight and not the target. I invested $60 in a peep sight that attaches to my glasses from Merit Optics. It attaches to your lens with a suction cup but only for a short period of time. Instead, I found an old pair of glasses and put a drop of Elmer's Glue on the suction cup. The optic has no glass. It is simply a hole (adjustable size) that shows the target and the front site in equal clarity. My performance doubled on the first day! It's the same reason so many battle rifles use peep sights! I find mine works best in the progressive, mid-range area of my lens.
Just google it under Merit Optical!

[oldfrank]

I wear progressive lenses and I just use a stick on bifocal when shooting.

No more neck craning or head tilting!

http://www.safetyglassesusa.com/bf34.html

[delphidoc]

Rmach, I'm in the same boat as you: 58 years old, right-handed, left-eye dominant, progressive lenses. It is what it is.

When I got new glasses in March the optometrist played around with different power lenses on his testing equipment for me. For giggles he dialed in a power that let me see the front sight perfectly. I shoot at 10 yards at the range and couldn't make out *any* letters at that distance with the near-sight power dialed in. He adjusted my prescription the best he could and gave me a relatively tall Seg Height at 26mm. He recommended against upside-down bifocals but I've read of people doing that before.

I can't see fiberoptic sights worth a flip- too small. I've put Truglow TFX (not Pro) on every gun that I can. The others have Mepros. I've never tried Big Dots but I've read the larger size completely obscures the target.

Something that suprised me last weekend: I brought the target up to 6 yards. I raised my SP01 Compact from low ready a few times and just pointed and shot it. I hit a 1-inch circle three times out of ten with no aiming whatsoever. If your gun points naturally it doesn't matter what sights you have on the gun if you ever need to use it for defense at bad-breath distances. You'll do just fine pointing it. I was very impressed and reassured.

[Psyop96]

With progressives, I have learned to figure out how to achieve adequate front sight sharpness when shooting with them on and not needing to tilt back much. For range enjoyment, I also use the SSP Eyewear mentioned before.....use a single top-focal lens and add stick on type lenses. Top right is a slightly lower strength than prescribed reading strength. Lower right is reading strength. Top left has no correction. Middle left is 1.0 which adds acuity for distance viewing as my left eye is not as sharp as the right eye. Bottom left is for reading and similar to the bottom right. Looks odd but it works for me

[delphidoc]

Psyop, how did you figure out the arrangement of lenses you have on those glasses?

[Rmach]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, especially the one from old Frank!  I just got back from the indoor range  and fired a couple hundred more rounds through the same CZ, but this time I blackened out the the rear sight dots with black tape. It did help with the front sight dot focus, but there wasn't a huge difference on the target. I fired four brands of ammo.  Here's two of my better targets from today:

[Nick1946]

Same problem here at 70 yrs old after cataract surgery both eyes and a macular hole surgery in right eye.  I tried a few different strength reading glasses and finally found some comfortable shooting glasses with snap in diopters.  I only need it for right eye while shooting, so I cut off the left diopter and snapped the right diopter into shooting glasses-works great for me.  Link to site:
http://spitsadventurewear.com/safety-glasses/full-magnifiers.html

[Psyop96]

Psyop, how did you figure out the arrangement of lenses you have on those glasses?

A bit of trial and error although I had an idea after years of using different lens options. Saw the SSP Eyewear offering top focal lens (they come with an extra set of non-corrected lens). Knowing your reading prescription helps and also finding an eye place that speaks the shooting sports.
Eg., I placed a +1.0  stick-on lens on the top of the left lens for additional acuity for the non-shooting eye. However, it felt like my left eye was  competing for dominance with my right eye (shoot with both eyes open) so I left it plain. The eyepiece on these frames are large enough to accommodate the three levels of correction I use.

[Rmach]

I just put the black Sharpe to work. Green dots on rear sight are history.

[mszvetecz]

I recently found an excellent optometrist who figured out the corrections, and their optician can get a custom bifocal made (upside down) that should work well, and highly tuned to my current correction(s)--getting them at least rated for shooting level shatterproofing, then adding any variety of options, cost will be between $3-500--before the frames (and they can fit them to essentially any plain jane or designer frames).  I haven't gotten around to ordering them yet, but expect to--my vision correction is weird enough I don't know if off the shelf stuff from internet would work.