Long distance bifocal shooting glasses.

[94NDTA]

Long time reader, first time poster.

I have a patient who is an Olympic long distance shooter. He shoots targets at 1000 yards through a scope. He wants a shooting specific glass.

He sees great out of his current lenses (a Nikon progressive, not sure what) but when he goes to the bench to shoot, and trys to see his flags to judge wind out of his left eye, he is picking up distortion. His left eye is looking through the upper right corner of his glasses, which we know is not as clear as the center. His head is turned almost 45 degrees and tilted down another 15 degrees.

I have tried a lined poly FT28, still no resolution. The customer wants a reading power in the left lens incase he has to look down and remove a round or fix his rifle.

The only thing I can think of is having him shoulder his rifle, measure the segs, and attempt to cut it with the OC Up and off to the left and put the line almost at a 45 degree angle to match his position. RX is roughly +2.00-1.25 in that eye.

[MikeAurelius]

Use glass lenses, either Yellow or the X-Cel Autumn Gold to give him the contrast he needs.

Autumn Gold is available in D-28's.

There will always be a distortion problem with any plastic/polycarb material. Someone who needs a high level of accuracy should be wearing glass lenses.

[Robert Martellaro]

Welcome.

Neuro ophtho?

Consider an atoric, position of wear optimized, trivex, segmented multifocal. This will reduce the oblique astigmatism. You might have to use a SVDO for the best off axis optics in the sighting eye, depending on the availability of a high quality POW optimized segmented multifocals. Bump the minimum thickness for dimensional stability and safety.

[AngeHamm]

+1 to the recommendation of glass or Trivex. This pt. needs the highest ABBE you can manage, in addition to occupational lens adjustments.

[other_bill_fea]

If he seems to do well with a progressive currently, except for the peripheral distance, then maybe just trying a different free-form design in glass would be the best option? Something that ends up giving him the wider distance, with the better ABBE and the high-contrast color?

[Dr. Bill Stacy]

Long time reader, first time poster.

I have a patient who is an Olympic long distance shooter. He shoots targets at 1000 yards through a scope. He wants a shooting specific glass.

He sees great out of his current lenses (a Nikon progressive, not sure what) but when he goes to the bench to shoot, and trys to see his flags to judge wind out of his left eye, he is picking up distortion. His left eye is looking through the upper right corner of his glasses, which we know is not as clear as the center. His head is turned almost 45 degrees and tilted down another 15 degrees.

I have tried a lined poly FT28, still no resolution. The customer wants a reading power in the left lens incase he has to look down and remove a round or fix his rifle.

The only thing I can think of is having him shoulder his rifle, measure the segs, and attempt to cut it with the OC Up and off to the left and put the line almost at a 45 degree angle to match his position. RX is roughly +2.00-1.25 in that eye.

Are you sure he's looking through the upper RIGHT corner? To me that means he's shooting left handed and sighting the scope with his right eye, an impossible task for a sharpshooter. Maybe upper right as you face him? To optical people, that is upper left as far as a lens is concerned, and would make more sense.

At any rate, if he expects to be able to walk around with these glasses on, make it a Trivex FT-28, and I'd skip the fancy digital treatments, and center the lenses normally for his pd. If he wants a specialty pair of glasses that will only work when shooting with a scope, you could move the distance optical center of the left lens only up and outward to where his left pupil wants to be for close to zero distortion on the flags. He will probably see double if he tries to use these for any other purpose unless he closes his left eye. Or you could rig a flip down occluder for the same purpose.

[rbaker]

Observe range/firing conditions and determine windage and elevation, set dope on scope. Let it go! A glass distance correction with a low FT-28 will do the job nicely.

[Chris Ryser]

There has always been a rule for shooting glasses..............................

No multifocal should be used.

[Dr. Bill Stacy]

There has always been a rule for shooting glasses..............................

No multifocal should be used.

Low set lined bi or tri are fine, PALs are out (the shooter never knows for sure if he's in or out of the distance rx.

[Chris Ryser]

Low set lined bi or tri are fine, PALs are out (the shooter never knows for sure if he's in or out of the distance rx.

I agree to that.

Somehow like golfer glasses. Put a Kryptok in the upper left or right corner so they can see the ball through the bottom.

[Dr. Bill Stacy]

I agree to that.

Somehow like golfer glasses. Put a Kryptok in the upper left or right corner so they can see the ball through the bottom.

Yeah my son is a scratch golfer with + 4 cyls o.u. He wants me to try inverted flat tops that way; I have to work through the optics of flipping them but I'm ready to try it for him in trivex...

[EyeCare Rich]

"Are you sure he's looking through the upper RIGHT corner? To me that means he's shooting left handed and sighting the scope with his right eye, an impossible task for a sharpshooter. Maybe upper right as you face him? To optical people, that is upper left as far as a lens is concerned, and would make more sense."

Dr Bill, please reread the original posters statements. He is correct in that it is the upper right corner of the left lens (the eye outside of the scope) as the shooters chin is being tucked down and to the left so that his gaze into the distance will be through the upper right hand corner of the left lens.

To 94NDTA, welcome to optiboard. Nice post, great question. I see you having 2 options. First, I agree with many here stating the FT28 or other segmented bifocal as best choice for his shooting glasses.
If he is dead set on progressives, then option 2 of staying in prg, but getting him into a wider viewing area than the Nikon/Essilor product. That will be tough with the +2.00-1.25, but I'd try an Individual2 Balance or follow up with the poster above named other_bill_fea to see which camber lens he would recomend.
Good luck!

[other_bill_fea]

For this application, Camber may not be the best option on the moment. It's geared more towards all-around use, and it also depends on whether glass would be beneficial for the patient. I'm assuming that at the level of Olympic shooting, it's going to be a second pair. It's not just a question of the lens type (bifocal or progressive), but also the material (glass or trivex) and the color (yellow or clear). It may be a matter of presenting the options to the patient to give them some things to try, as if they are very serious about what they are doing, then I'm sure they'd be open to trying a few things to get the exact performance they want.

OP had said "I have tried a lined poly FT28, still no resolution. " - what was the issue with the FT? You mentioned about needing reading in the left lens to clear the rifle. Was it maybe that the add too high, since he's probably a little further than reading distance? Or was the problem the lack of intermediate?

[Dr. Bill Stacy]

"Are you sure he's looking through the upper RIGHT corner? To me that means he's shooting left handed and sighting the scope with his right eye, an impossible task for a sharpshooter. Maybe upper right as you face him? To optical people, that is upper left as far as a lens is concerned, and would make more sense."

Dr Bill, please reread the original posters statements. He is correct in that it is the upper right corner of the left lens (the eye outside of the scope) as the shooters chin is being tucked down and to the left so that his gaze into the distance will be through the upper right hand corner of the left lens.

To 94NDTA, welcome to optiboard. Nice post, great question. I see you having 2 options. First, I agree with many here stating the FT28 or other segmented bifocal as best choice for his shooting glasses.
If he is dead set on progressives, then option 2 of staying in prg, but getting him into a wider viewing area than the Nikon/Essilor product. That will be tough with the +2.00-1.25, but I'd try an Individual2 Balance or follow up with the poster above named other_bill_fea to see which camber lens he would recomend.
Good luck!

OK you're right, and now I think he is sighting through the scope with his right eye and shooting right handed, so his right eye will be using a point near the upper LEFT corner of the right lens and his head will be tilted quite a bit to the right shoulder. This is the typical firing stance and he probably is looking off into space with his left eye during firing (or closing the left eye if that's his habit). Ok so far?

Then when he pulls back and down and tilts his head toward his left shoulder, peeking around the rifle toward the flags with his left eye, he will be using a spot on that left lens that is in the upper RIGHT corner, as the original poster said. I assume his right eye is then resting, looking at not much except the gun itself, or closing the right eye if that's his habit.

If I finally have this right, then the fix is to place both optical centers closer together than normal, and way higher than normal. I'm sticking to Trivex ft-28 and forget tilting the segs. It's a nice idea, kind of elegant, to keep the lines parallel with the horizon, but would be totally wierd to look at, not to mention adding another level of complexity for the poor guy who tries to lay this thing out. Keeping them normally positioned (I'd set them medium to low at his normal near p.d. and cut the add by .5 or so unless he's got some really tiny stuff to look at or dial in between shots).

The lab will have to grind some prism to achieve the OC placement I'm recommending, and they probably won't work well for anything other than shooting and reading.