Corrective lenses

I wear glasses. the ones I have now are bifocal and not very big. it is hard to get a round dot in a red dot sight without precise positioning.I am to get some dedicated shooting glasses. They will be large enough to be effective as safety glasses and have a large area that will allow good focus on the dot.
My question where does my eyes think the dot is? How far from my eyes do i need to have sharp focus?

Are you wearing "No Line" bifocals?



I tried using those and had a hard time with the small focal point and then switched to traditional bifocals and had no problems. I look at the bullseye and just hang the dot over the middle of it, I never focus on the dot. Even if you see a slight flare on the dot it shouldn't bother your shooting good groups because your focused on the bullseye. The whole point being that I believe that you should wear corretive lenses that let you see the TARGET clear when using a red dot. I might be wrong but this is what has worked for me. I also keep the dot turned to as low of a setting as I can and still see it so I don't get a flare on the red dot. YMMV



Virgil

Thanks and yes they are no line. This being my first foray into red dots I was not sure about the whole what to focus on. I am use to making sure my front sight was in focus. But my eyes are not as good as the once were. Although I did shoot some 25yard iron sight. I just did not wear corrective lenses and was able to focus on the front sight . It was not real easy and would move in and out of clear focus. I shot about an hour that way and my eyes hurt for the next day.

Bryan, if you know your prescription for distance try to find a pair of reading glasses that works. They're pretty cheap. If it's in minus diopter range you'll have to get a pair "driving glasses".

This is a rather complicated subject that Norman Wong OD, who's also a master bullseye shooter, wrote many posts about in the past.

Each shooter's eyes will have different preferences. Some shooters can use their normal distance prescription to see a good dot. Some need a +0.25 adder (weaker rx). Some shooters experience the dot at a plane "in front" of the target. Some shooters experience the dot at the same plane as the target. This would affect whether the shooter tends to focus on the dot or on the bullseye.

Prescription shooting glasses for iron sights tend to be anywhere from +0.25 to +1.00 over your normal prescription (weaker rx, but not as weak as your reading prescription). You may be able to manage by buying those cheap +1.25 reading glasses at the drug store, but it might be too much of a correction.

Personally, I went to Doc Wong, and we determined that my normal distance prescription tested the best for the red dot. For iron sights (1911), +0.75 and +1.00 worked well. For air pistol, 0.50 and 0.75 worked well because of longer barrel.

Cheap source of glasses is at zennioptical.com. I just get the $7 aviator frame in various tints.

http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/nwongarts.html