One of the fundamentals of marksmanship is the sight alignment. This is different from the sight picture. Sight alignment means that you have the top of the front sight even with the tops of the rear sight, and the same amount of daylight on either side of the front sight. Here's a picture of how it is supposed to look. This is the sight picture of a Beretta 92/96 pistol. As you look at the picture, you'll see that the front and rear sight are both in focus. That's fine if you're 19 years old, but most people can either focus on one or the other. You should focus on the front sight. Remember that the two most important things for pistol marksmanship are: sight alignment and trigger squeeze. In practical shooting, it is essential to see the front sight and make sure it is on the target. You may not hit the exact center when you do this, but you'll get close.
I've worn reading glasses for the past four years. I've been shooting on a regular basis for the past four years. When I started, I could see the front sight pretty well, and focus on it, but in the last couple of years it has been harder to focus. My reading glasses help be focus on things that are less than 20 inches away from my eyes, but the front sights are out around 25 inches. A year ago, I got glasses for far vision, but I can't see the front sight very well with those. It was clear (or maybe "unclear" is a better word) that I needed one more pair of glasses so that I could get the front sight in focus and concentrate on that all important sight alignment.
That's where matters stood for awhile. Last summer I was an IPSC match and noticed that someone had a very strange pair of glasses. They were regular Gargoyles, but with prescription inserts. This looked like just what I needed. It turns out that Mark Ewing, our friend at Westlance Arms in West Virginia, is a Dillon Precision dealer, and Dillon has Gargoyles and inserts in their catalog. The inserts are shown at the top of this Web page. Here is a picture of the actual Gargoyles. These are clear. Mine are amber.
I had all of the right ingredients, but then had to find an optometrist who understood the unique requirements of shooters. Mark came to the rescue again by recommending Dr. Iris Flores in Winchester, Virginia. Dr. Flores' office is at 21 West Jubal Early Drive and her phone number is (540) 722-6346. Because she is a shooter herself, it was easy for her to understand how different shooting positions (where you bend your head at an angle) can effect what part of the glasses you're looking through. Another benefit of working with Dr. Flores is that while another optometrist might have you hold a giant bottle of Scope at arm's length to simulate trying to focus on the front sight, she encourages you to bring an unloaded firearm to get the exact sight alignment with various corrective lenses. This makes a huge difference in the suitability of the end product.
In a few days I should have the new prescription inserts, and next weekend there will be a chance to test them out. I know one thing for sure already. They're going to look very strange. Maybe this will help me frighten the other competitors. At my age, any advantage helps. With the new glasses, being able to focus on the front sight will help a lot.
It has been awhile since the inserts arrived, and I haven't had time to update this page. I have had time to try the new glasses and they work great. Now I can see the front sight - which was the general idea all along. Nothing is perfect, however. When I'm not looking at the front sight, the left eye has normal distant vision, but the right eye doesn't do so well with distance. That's ok. I'm going to try this in a match in a couple of days. If this doesn't work well in a match, I may do something even more radical: see if I can get the shooting prescription in the top one third of the right lens, and my regular distance prescription in the bottom two thirds this would let me wander around between stages and be able to see the scenery. Then, when it comes time to shoot, I can look through the top part of the lens and pick up the front sight. This may be the next experiment.
Sometimes, when I forget to take my shooting glasses to the range, as was the case last night, I have to shoot with my far vision lens (I don't have regular bi-focals, but instead switch to reading glasses when I need to read something, which is most of every day). With my regular glasses, this means the sights are still fuzzy, but the target is clear. For a long time I adapted to this situation, either by lining up fuzzy sights or by getting something like the new "Hi-Viz" sight which is bright and easy to see. I can still do pretty well with this setup, but in the long run I'll do better by focusing on the front sights. The new inserts are perfect for this. The experimentation which led to this setup was expensive (I could have done this in the beginning), but worth the investment.
I am very pleased that I took Mark Ewing's recommendation to see Dr. Flores in Winchester. Now, just by tilting my head a little, nothing is fuzzy anymore.