What To Look For In A Pair of Prescription Shooting Glasses
OutdoorHub Reporters 08.08.18
By using prescription shooting glasses, you’ll be able to shoot without sacrificing good eye sight or better yet, without having to put the shooting glasses over your existing glasses.
One of the most important pieces of equipment to have as a shooter is shooting glasses. The reason is simple: you need to be able to protect your eyes from ejected glass, dirt, or other debris while blasting lead down range.
You can certainly shoot without shooting glasses if you want to, although we highly advise against it.
What many people don’t know, however, is that you can also get prescription shooting glasses. No, these are not a special kind of shooting glasses or anything. They’re just completely normal looking shooting glasses only they can be made with a prescription, also usually referred to as an RX.
What do you need to look for in a pair of prescription shooting glasses? That’s what we’re getting to right now:
Prescription Shooting Glasses – Lens Material – Polycarbonate
Without question, polycarbonate is the best material that you can use for your lenses today. In fact, polycarbonate is the same kind of material that is used to build glass that is bullet resistant in cars, so you know that it will be a more than excellent job of stopping ejected shell casings or debris from striking your eyes.
Furthermore, polycarbonate is also surprisingly light despite its durability. They are also very scratch resistant and impact resistant. For these reasons, they are a top choice among law enforcement and police agencies from all over the world.
Prescription Shooting Glasses – Lens Colors – Choose Wisely
The color of your lenses is much more important than you may realize. The most popular choices are gray, green, brown, yellow, orange, and purple.The purpose of varying lens colors is to help block the sun’s glare without changing your perception of the colors.
Gray is a very neutral color that allows you to see any colors as they exist, and are effective in bright sunlight.
Brown – or amber – is very effective at diffusing blue lights and are also good for depth perception.
Yellow and orange are both designed to heighten your visual sense, and they are also excellent at improving the visuals of your target (assuming that your target has a bright color such as orange or red) – These are also good colors to stick to when shooting at night.
Purple colored lenses are designed to enhance the color orange against a dark background (such as if you’ve set up your target against a woodsy backdrop).
Prescription Shooting Glasses – UV Protection
Most people understand the importance of having UV protection in a pair of sunglasses, but ewer understand the importance of having it in a shooting glasses prescription as well.
If you don’t know what UV (or ultraviolet) is, it’s basically the light waves that are produced by the sun. It’s responsible for both sunburn and eye damage, and in more extreme cases, it can result in eye cancer as well.
You should look for a shooting glasses prescription that offers 99% UV radiation protection at the bare minimum, but a complete 100% would be even more preferable.
Prescription Shooting Glasses – Frame Materials – Aluminum or Titanium
Prescription shooting glasses are built using a wide variety of different frame materials, from titanium to aluminum to plastic.
Ideally, you’ll want a pair of shooting glasses that offer you extended wear times. In other words, the shooting glasses that you’re using now should be the same ones that you’re using several years from now.
To this end, aluminum or titanium will be your top choices. Plastic works, but it’s not nearly as durable or long lasting.
Prescription Shooting Glasses – Comfort
Comfort is also essential with any shooting glasses prescription, or else you’re simply not going to wear them.
To this end, your shooting glasses absolutely need to be fully adjustable to they can accommodate different face shapes and sizes, and they also should have nose pads built out of silicone for maximum comfort too.
In the end, you want to put the same effort into choosing a shooting glasses prescription much like you would a normal or reading glasses prescription. Don’t just buy the first pair of sunglasses you see because you like them. Do your research and analyze your options before you buy.
Straight shooting!
