[2Malamutes]

So I do not wear glasses or contacts, but I am also farsighted. I suppose it has not gotten to the point I feel I need to get aids yet lol. But I do have +.75 readers, and I can tell you that even with that very low correction a target would be very noticeably blurry. It will sharpen up the front sight, but I would not want to shoot with them on, even at 7 yds. target would be blurred, let alone 25 yds.

 

[Old Grumpy]

I wear bi-focal glasses and have a set where the correction is cut both along the bottom of the lens, but also along the top edge. Great when you occasionally work over your head. I wear that pair when I go to the range. The front sights are in focus, without tilting my head, and the target is slightly blurry. I quickly pick up where I need to hold (over or under) for the distance I'm shooting and have found that to work very well. Even before my eyesight needed assistance, I could not have both the sights and the target in focus.

Grumpy

 

[PEF]

I wear bi-focal glasses and have a set where the correction is cut both along the bottom of the lens, but also along the top edge. Great when you occasionally work over your head. I wear that pair when I go to the range. The front sights are in focus, without tilting my head, and the target is slightly blurry. I quickly pick up where I need to hold (over or under) for the distance I'm shooting and have found that to work very well. Even before my eyesight needed assistance, I could not have both the sights and the target in focus.

Grumpy

Hmmm, never thought about a different type type of spacing for correction. I wear progressive lens, and I am nearsighted, so I have to tilt my head way up when shooting to get the sight in focus - less correction on the bottom. It's become a very unnatural pose, and sometimes it's better if I just wear uncorrected shooting glasses. I need to update my glasses soon, so I'll look into having a different "spacing" for the correction.

 

[JustBurningBoolits]

Totally get it. I can't shoot iron sights if the light is iffy. Hence, RED DOT SIGHTS! I'd like to shoot iron sights in some competitions I do but just can't focus on the front sight. I do practice using iron sights for defensive drills but for competition? Dots....

 

[Greg Buban]

I wear bi-focal glasses and have a set where the correction is cut both along the bottom of the lens, but also along the top edge. Great when you occasionally work over your head. I wear that pair when I go to the range. The front sights are in focus, without tilting my head, and the target is slightly blurry. I quickly pick up where I need to hold (over or under) for the distance I'm shooting and have found that to work very well. Even before my eyesight needed assistance, I could not have both the sights and the target in focus.

Grumpy

Never tried shooting with readers. Usually I can get by without unless it's really fine print. I had laser done 20 yrs ago and it's still pretty good, except for shooting. Since I'm 74 and nothing is going to get better, I've gone to a red dot. All I need to see is the dot on the target. However, I'm slowing becoming a 1911 fan and I'm curious how one would look on my SA Ronin EMP. Anyone???

 

[Al Booth]

I spent the first part of my life very near-sighted, wearing glasses or contacts. About 20 years ago I had Lasik laser surgery, with outstanding results. In the last 4 or so years, I have started to need reading glasses. Thankfully, I can get by with over-the-counter readers.
Like the original poster, my far-sightedness makes it more difficult to focus on the front sight. The Company SSP makes shooting glasses that put the reader prescription in the inside upper corner of the lens. This is very important. It allows you, as the shooter, just to slightly tuck your chin down to look through the reader portion, rather than bending your neck way back to use an ordinary bi- or tr-focal set of glasses.
I have been using these SSP glasses for the past two years, and am very happy with the results.

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(I am not affiliated in any way with the company; just a satisfied end user).

 

[Biscut]

I'm odd man out. 50 and nearsighted. Long distance is an issue. Especially at my range with low light winter haze and iron sights to 100. Clear sunny day and I'm deadly. Overcast low light and I'm old and blind.

 

[Lincolnlog]

Good ideas. Thanks guys. Yeah, I had lasik about 15 years ago and my distance vision is still excellent, but slowly I've had to use readers for close up. That was the trade off they told me would happen when I went for lasik.

 

[1saxman]

I have always focused on the target even when I was young and nearsighted. Now I'm farsighted so its even more natural for me to focus on the target, and I shoot even better than before. I really don't get focusing on the front sight at all - I'm shooting the target, not the front sight. The sights appear blurry to me but its not at all impossible to still get a good sight picture like this. As far as I know, there is no corrective lens that will help me at all, and the only glasses I use are reading glasses.
As mentioned above, the reflex dot sight is a godsend for those like me because you are encouraged to focus on the target with it, and that is right down my alley. I only use dot sights on long guns for now and have no plans to use a dot sight on any carry or range handguns.
I put a set of sights on my Taurus G3 (service pistol size) which takes Glock-style sights; they are night sights but the front sight has a large 'day-glo' orange dot that 'illuminates' when the light is behind me. When the light is in front, the sights are black, and of course they glow in low light, so this one set of sights really covers all situations. Especially with my farsightedness, that glowing orange dot really makes the front sight stand out even as I focus on the target. Plus, this pistol has surprised me with its accuracy, along with it's little brother, the G3C, on which I have 'Night Dot' Tritium sights by Novaks - Tritium vial inside a larger white dot. The reason for the different sights is the pistols came with different style sights - one with steel sights and one with plastic, and at the time I bought sights, I couldn't get the same thing for both - but I'm glad how it turned out, because I probably would not have bought the ones with the orange dot unless I had to, and now I love 'em.

 

[markm]

I started loosing my near sight some 15 years ago, I used cheaters for a while and the prescription readers and computer glasses. If I used my computer glasses I could see the sights but targets were blurry. What I found was going down 1/2 diopter from the computer glasses allowed me to still see the sights but the targets also. I have one set of bifocals that I hardly use because that spit is distracting but then again I think you do most shooting out of the top of your glasses. I can't use my shooting glasses for RDSs though cause I just see pretzels for the dot.

 

[jimh406]

As it turns out, I went for an eye exam last week. That's only relevant because of what I learned.

I do wear reading glasses. I don't have a problem doing almost anything outdoors without glasses. However, I do have issues with iron sight focus. No issues with scopes. I can read a tape measure usually pretty well outside in bright daylight.

Anyway, as I was doing my eye exam, my dr suggested that I try my new glasses to see how they work with iron sights. If I can see well, they can make them into shooting glasses. I read before to use safety glasses that are essentially reading glasses. Those work ok. However, I'd prefer real lenses that correct my astigmatism. My dr suggested +1.0 should be pretty good for me. My right is is farsighted with minimal astigmatism while my left is not with a significant astigmatism. She suggested that the combination is what makes my glasses work for both close up and distance to some extent. I'm right eyed dominant and right handed, so it works out well for me.

When I got home, I tried my current reading glasses. They actually work really well. My sights are completely clear. Note: I intentionally had them made so that I could see pretty well at 20-25 ft as well as close up. I needed that to be able to see the whiteboard/presentation screen, but also, see my computer screen or notepad. That means that they are good to about 6 pt which is fine for most uses. My new glasses will be made in a similar way. That is, they aren't "optimized" for reading, but good enough.

One other thing to note is that my dr checked for peripheral vision as well as a check to make sure that I wasn't having a depth perception problem close up as in walking, etc. My distance vision is still 20-25 with the glasses. YMMV.

 

[Fastball]

I've noticed the last time I was at the range, I'm having trouble with the sight picture as well. My eyesight has always been a bit borderline for glasses. Hell, I'm the only one in my family that has never worn glasses. I did get a pair of RX readers last year, but the things give me a headache if I wear them for more than 15 minutes.
I've been looking into better sights. I cannot do red dots being crosseyed dominant. Really like the looks of the XS Big Dot sights. May try them on my home defense pistol, Sig P227, and see how I fair with them. If all is good I may put them on a couple of my carry guns.
Just another alternative.

 

[ether]

I'm becoming far-sighted in my old age. My eye doc said it's not bad enough yet for a prescription, but he said it will only get worse. For now, he recommended reading glasses from the pharmacy, and those have helped tremendously. I can still see to shoot, but not like I used to. And God help me if I need to drive against traffic at night these days...whew!

 

[Fastball]

At night and in the rain yet! Just hellish!!

 

[cglhawk260]

I wear contacts for "distance" and wear .5 diopter lens magnifier safety glasses. I can see the sights yet the target is only slightly blurry at 25-30 feet.

 

[Dsdmmat]

My shooting glasses have the prescription at the top of the lens so I can see the front sight clearly. The target is not clear but that is the way it is supposed to be.

 

[threewinmag]

I started this same path about 10 years ago when I could no longer focus on stuff at the end of my arms. I ignored it for a while because I was still hitting good groups at distance. As I aged, my eyesight deteriorated to the point that I couldn't shoot a rifle from the bench without stopping after every shot to put on glasses to mess with the glass or something else. Eventually, everything in my life was being affected by my eyesight so I ended up wearing glasses full time.

Now, I have no-line trifocals and, after getting used to them, I like them quite a bit. I toyed with getting a red dot on my pistols, but what a PITA it would be to replace all my pistols and that wasn't going to happen. I split the difference by replacing my front sights with a bright red night sight and wearing glasses.

 

[SdAufKla]

I don't have any solutions to offer, but I will caution anyone considering laser-type eye surgery to think hard about the details.

My wife had vision correction surgery a few years ago, and for anyone whose vision is way off, the standard treatment is that each eye is corrected slightly differently than the other. That is, one is corrected for far-sightedness and the other for nearsightedness. My wife had her dominant eye correct to see far and the other to see near. She now has a very similar problem as the OP here - she can't see the sights on any firearm now.

Not too bad with hand gunning since she usually shoots at fairly close self-defense ranges. Both sights and POA being a bit blurry is not a showstopper. However, rifle shooting with iron sights is very problematic.

 

[JD11]

Sadly, its been a few years since I've gone out to shoot. It occurred to me that my farsightedness that has gotten worse over the last few years might be a problem. Got out my 1911 and held it up. Sure enough, I can't focus on the sights. I wear reading glasses. Of course if I look thru them I can see the sights, but then the target is fuzzy. I did a little googling and searching here and guys talked about getting bifocals and even contacts. I'm wondering if the best thing at this point is some readers that aren't powerful enough for me to read a book, but just good enough for me to see the sights at the end of my stretched out hands and maybe not so powerful that I can still see the target thru them. Do you all have any better solutions? Thanks.

You might check out Cooper Vision Multifocal contacts, I've been wearing them daily for about 25 years. IMO they are amazing, of course everyone's eyes are different. The multifocus feature is really helpful when it comes to pistol shooting. Late at night at home I take out my contacts to soak and clean over night, then I'm stuck with bifocal glasses which I dearly HATE.