The Gun Counter

For quite a while I've been sick and tired of wearing a set of safety goggles over my regular glasses. When the time came to get me eyes re-examined, I decided to get a pair of sunglasses, too. Then I thought "I need some shooting glasses, too, and those sunglasses will need to do double duty of keeping as much dust out of my eyes as possible when I do yard work." Instead of picking up three pairs of glasses, I went with one pair of regular eyeglasses and a pair of Wiley-X SG-1 safety frames with interchangeable lenses.

So, what did I get?

1 SG-1 frame

1 pair of removable earpieces

1 safety band

1 lanyard

1 semi-rigid carrying case

1 microfiber cleaning cloth

1 pair of prescription lenses - yellow

1 pair of prescription lenses - bronze/brown

With that in mind, I immediately set the glasses up for my USPSA competition by adding the yellow lenses and removing the earpieces and replacing them with the safety band. The yellow really modifies your eye's sense of color contrast to help make things stand out. The lenses themselves have a neoprene-type seal around them to help keep you from fogging up your lenses in cold weather due to breathing, with vents at the top to ostensibly help venting any sweat away. The only problem I've encountered so far is that the lenses don't fog up from my breath when I use the safety strap, but they fog up due to perspiration extending from the bridge of my nose outward. I've tried to loosen the strap up a little, but then it causes the seal at the bottom of the lens to lose contact with my cheek, causing breath-related fogging in cold weather. It looks like the earpieces-and-retaining lanyard method fit my face better as the sweat-induced fogging is reduced to a less-annoying level. The glasses fit comfortably, but I'd like a little more ventilation to keep my perspiration from building up too quickly on the lenses.

Changing lenses is easy; they pop out with a little twist of the bridge and some thumb pressure. The only problem I found with the lenses besides the fogging was that since they were prescription I had to get them done at the manufacturer's premises as opposed to my local optometrist's office. Waiting an extra week for the sunglasses wasn't too much of a problem, but it's just nice to have something you paid for in hand.

So, do the lenses work? Yes. I can see as clearly with them as I can with my regular glasses. Am I going to test these glasses by smacking them with a 12-pound sledgehammer, shooting at them or some other insanity? No. Will they be going to my next USPSA shooting contest so I don't have to slide a pair of safety glasses over my regular glasses? Oh yes.

The total price for two prescription lens sets, frames and other assorted equipment was around $425. Non-prescription lenses will likely cost less.

Do they make red? I'm thinking about getting some Decots made.

Unfortunately they dont offer prescriptions over +/-4.00, so it's not an option for me.

Hence my interest in Decots Rudy makes prescription inserts - I returned the set of Rudys I bought for distorted lenses, but I've been assured that it was an error - as strong as my prescription is, I prefer the flatness of Decots, regardless.

I've looked at Rudy Project too, but the prize I got quoted for my prescription was a bit higher than I could Justify. The optician said that he insisted on checking my eyes himself and not rely on a prescription since the lenses used on Rudys would distort your vision unless the prescription was made for such lenses. He said he had had too many complaints when he didn't do the check himself.

I dont know about Decots, I have to check that out.

Aglifter wrote:Do they make red? I'm thinking about getting some Decots made.

I think they make them in red. I didn't check on that color.

On the 26th I had to do a little snow removal, so I needed to head outside into the cold. Instead of using the goggle strap for the sunglasses I used the earpieces and lanyard. I wrapped up as usual with a fleece neck gaiter that was large enough to bring up over my nose and mouth and still cover the entire neck as well as a fleece hat with pulldown facemask, both made by Carhartt. (By the by, they're both very warm in below-freezing temperatures. I give them a thumbs-up for cold-weather work.) I used the neck gaiter in place of the facemask. The glasses fogged up pretty regularly once I started sweating but thanks to the cold weather cleared up quickly. There was only one moment in the first fifteen minutes' worh of shoveling where perspiration fogged up one lens so badly I couldn't see through it. After that it was minor. Short of rubbing some kind of un-perfumed anti-perspirant on the sides of my nose I can't see how to fix that problem.

There's a product called Cat Crap which is pretty awesome for keeping the fog off of your lenses. We're sometimes issued Wiley X's for deployment, and I've had one or two pair. They seem pretty well constructed, but lenses scratched very easily. I don't know if the prescription lenses are made of the same material, but if you would so much as let them rub against your flak, they'd be impossible to see through.

put this on my 2011 wish list: an updated eyeglass prescription with shooting/sighting accounted for in the prescription.

JAG2955 wrote:There's a product called Cat Crap which is pretty awesome for keeping the fog off of your lenses. We're sometimes issued Wiley X's for deployment, and I've had one or two pair. They seem pretty well constructed, but lenses scratched very easily. I don't know if the prescription lenses are made of the same material, but if you would so much as let them rub against your flak, they'd be impossible to see through.

I'll have to try that stuff. With a name like Cat Crap, it's got to be good!