My Optician, My Pardini, And I Have An Appointment!

Sorry for another eyeglasses discussion, but I’m excited that my optician not only doesn’t object to me bringing in my bullseye pistol, but is looking forward to doing something out of the ordinary.

I am one of those with multiple pairs of glasses on his desk - distance, computer, reading, extra pairs.  Thus I’m often forgetting what glasses I’m wearing, showing up at the range, and realizing I wore my computer glasses so the red dot is blurry and smeary and the bull is a gray cloud.  

You see, my mind is going along with my eyes, or so my wife thinks - and my hearing is intact, so I know what she’s muttering.

A pair of dedicated shooting glasses in the pistol box will solve this problem, and I happened to pick up a used pair of Knobloch K1 with two 37mm lens holders for not much money.  So that’s what I’ll have her make lenses for. 

I’ve sent her Dr. Wong’s tips for opticians, and read his articles and the threads here myself.  

My plan is to get one lens for red dot and one for iron sights.  So I can swap the holders/lenses in and out as needed.  Maybe yellow tinted.  

Hoping to give a favorable report in a few weeks.

Hi Jyl,

Welcome to the bullseye-Forum. I see that you recently joined.

starreloaders.com/edhall/nwongarts.html

Besides the original guide for the eyecare professional posted on 10/2005, also note "Updates to the Bullseye Shooters' Guide For the Eyecare Professional" posted on 1/2018.  Sections "Exam In Real Space",  "Exam Using Pistol Sights Only" and "Binocular vs. Monocular Testing and the Triad" will be applicable to your vision.

Best Regards,

Norman Wong, o.D.

Rather than yellow, you might want to consider a “ Vermillion” or orange tint.  These tints are best for reducing the blue light that fatigues the eye.  They do distort the colors more, but the reduced blue I found better.

xmastershooter wrote:Hi Jyl,

Welcome to the bullseye-Forum. I see that you recently joined.

starreloaders.com/edhall/nwongarts.html

Besides the original guide for the eyecare professional posted on 10/2005, also note "Updates to the Bullseye Shooters' Guide For the Eyecare Professional" posted on 1/2018.  Sections "Exam In Real Space",  "Exam Using Pistol Sights Only" and "Binocular vs. Monocular Testing and the Triad" will be applicable to your vision.

Best Regards,

Norman Wong, o.D.

Thank you!  Your articles and guides are very detailed and helpful.  A lot of work and experience went into them, we eyeglass wearers are very grateful!

I took my air pistol to my appointment. 
My regular tri-vocals on top. Shooting glasses on bottom.

The appointment went well.  My optician is a shooter herself, and enjoyed an appointment that was "out of the ordinary".  It turns out that everyone in the optician office is either a shooter or interested in it.

My optician measured the vertex distance with the Knobloch glasses, set my prescription with some crazy Elton John-ish glasses set for that vertex distance, and tuned the astigmatism with me looking through the red-dot on the pistol.  Ended up with some crazy amount of correction for the shooting eye, like -12 diopters, which got me to close to 20/15 with no "comma" on the dot.  The lens for the non-shooting eye was set at a "computer glasses" sort of prescription.  I decided not to get a lens specifically for iron sights, at this time.  I can get the Knobloch fully adjustable lens mounts to further adjust the vertex distance of either lens as needed, if I need to add or remove a bit of power.

Ordered polycarbonate lenses, marked so that rotation in the frames can be detected.  The lab will make them with a light yellow tint with the option to darken or make more orange in the office.