Ever since I started participating in shooting sports, one of the greatest obstacles I had to face involved my quest to locate a decent pair of prescription shooting glasses. As a recreational shooter and hunter with less than perfect vision, I can genuinely appreciate the need for quality prescription shooting glasses. However, if you require prescription shooting glasses, you may find your options somewhat limited and expensive. So when you are searching for a pair of prescription shooting glasses, where do you begin?
Basically, you will have one of two possibilities. Those choices include the following:
- Custom made prescription shooting glasses either by your eye care professional or by a custom shooting glasses manufacturer.
- Production grade shooting glasses that employ a removable insert that generally mounts the prescription lens within the interior of the glasses in front of the line of vision. By production level, I’m talking about shooting glasses that are mass-produced.
Just like everything else, custom made prescription shooting glasses have pros and cons. For starters, expect custom shooting glasses to be expensive. Depending on the manufacturer, expect to pay anywhere from $150 to $500. There will be quite a bit of variation between those prices ranges in quality and options. Generally, with custom makers, you can expect the lens to be in one color only. Some manufacturers will offer an interchangeable type of prescription lens in a few different lens colors, but those models will probably be closer to the $500 price point. Also, note that some brands of custom prescription shooting glasses are only designed specifically for one type of shooting. For example, there are a few brands out that are designed for clay or trap shooting. Those models are formulated to be used with a mounted shotgun. They might also work for pistol shooting, but they aren’t designed for that use. On the upside, the custom prescription glasses will contain your exact prescription, be specifically fitted to your face, and provide a good, clear sight picture. The production shooting glasses mentioned above offer a different style solution. This type of shooting glasses are usually less expensive than a custom option and typically offer greater versatility. By that, I mean that these style glasses are generally available with different colored lenses and can be used for different types of shooting sports or hunting activities. The prescription portion of this set-up generally mounts into some type of carrier that fits inside the glasses directly in front of the eyes. Shooting glasses of this nature can usually be worn either with or without the prescription lens insert.
In most cases, both the custom made glasses and the production glasses will accept bi-focal or tri-focal vision corrections as well as standard corrections. Many will also work with the newer transitional type bi or tri-focal lenses. The production glasses with interchangeable lenses offer the added benefit of being able to utilize a different set of a prescription lens with one pair of glasses. For example, say you liked to shoot the long-range rifle and also like to hunt upland game. In a scenario like that, you might prefer to have a prescription that emphasizes a long-distance correction while you might prefer a closer in correction for the closer distances of upland game hunting. A customized pair of shooting glasses would require an entirely new set of prescription glasses to accommodate those two situations.
Hopefully, the information presented in this article will serve as a starting point if you are still searching for the best pair of shooting glasses for your needs.