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Eyes & Ears, Part 1 HOOTING GLASSES AND HEARING PROTECTION are two of the most basic needs of the shooter. Neither should ever be neglected. I am hard of hearing today
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lenses: a pair with yellow or amber lenses for dim conditions, and one with gray or green lenses for bright sunshine. This is definitely basic coverage; the best solution is a bit more complicated. There are high quality glasses with interchangeable lenses in many colors, including amber polarized lenses for fishermen. The most well known are Randolph, Decot, and Wiley-X. Any of these will do anything you desire of shooting glasses and I have used them all at various times. Shooting glasses should ride higher on the face than standard sunglasses. Since the head is inclined forward in shooting, one tends to look over the top of standard glasses. If you need corrective lenses, they, too, are available. Interestingly, Decot makes a lens with a bifocal in the top for handgun shooters who are too, uh, mature to see the sights clearly. Randolph disagrees with that approach. The company instead has a direct relationship with Morgan Optical and through it offers prescription lenses, suggesting a complete lens has advantages over just a bifocal. I don’t know which is better, so pick whatever works for you. Why do I think shooting glasses are indispensable to the shooter? Glad you asked. My brother Randy was once at the range shooting his .38 Special revolver. He was wearing hearing protection, but not shooting glasses. He had fired several rounds of lead wadcutter ammunition when something went wrong. A shot hit the steel bracing of the target stand and fragments of the lead bullet bounced back, hitting Randy in the eye. He nearly lost the eye, but doctors managed to remove the fragments and save his vision. He learned a valuable lesson: You never know what will happen, so wear those PHOTO COURTESY STEVE LAMASCUS
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because, in my youth, hearing protection was not commonly used. Since I don’t wish to be hard of seeing, I make certain to wear eye protection when I am shooting, particularly when testing new loads or guns. This edition of Guns & Gear will deal with shooting glasses; next month we will cover hearing protection. There is a wide selection of shooting-type glasses on the market, although anything with shatterproof lenses will suffice, but glasses made specifically for the shooter are better in all ways. In addition, the conditions under which we shoot are so dynamic (everything from ultra-bright July sunshine to dim, cloudy December evenings) it is logical to assume that one pair of lenses will not do for everything. Two pairs of glasses provide basic coverage for those who do not wear corrective
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shooting glasses. I have seen bullets bounce back from backstops and target stands many times. This is especially true if you are shooting at steel targets with lead bullets. Shotgunners, because of the dynamic forms the shooting takes, should be especially faithful in wearing shooting glasses. I was hunting dove once on a place near Uvalde. We were sitting under a mesquite tree on the edge of a grain field. A few dove were drifting back and forth, but it was still early in the afternoon and the shooting was pretty slow. Some time later, another group of hunters arrived. One of them took up position across from me and a bit to my left. No problem, usually, since dove are shot at in the air. All the shooter has to do is keep his shots up high and the shot rains back down harmlessly. This guy hadn’t read the script. For some reason, a jackrabbit picked that time to run across the field between us. The guy across from me leveled his shotgun on the rabbit and shot straight at me before I could even yell. The shot hit the ground, bounced up, and centered me. It stung like crazy but only one pellet broke the skin. Several hit my sunglasses and the bill of my ball cap. Without the sunglasses, at least some pellets would have hit my eyes. I learned the same lesson that day. Shooting glasses are like bulletproof vests: they protect you only if you are wearing them. Medical science has advanced by leaps and bounds over the last 50 years, but your eyesight is still irreplaceable. Protect it.
E-mail Steve LaMascus at guns@fishgame.com
On the Web www.randolphusa.com www.decot.com www.wileyx.com F E B R U A R Y
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