Shooting Glasses

[Guest carbonarcher]

What kind of range eye gear do you all use? Do you go with the "Cheap" style or have some of you gone and spent some money on higher end eye gear?

Was it worth it if you did and what brand?

[peejman]

I have the safety glasses similar to what's sold at walmart. It took a couple iterations to determine which style doesn't fog up and which fits under my ear muffs the best.

[Guest VolGrad]

I prefer Wiley-X or Revision. Here's something I wrote up for another forum .... ignore any ref to people or places you don't recognize.

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So I had the day off yesterday and declared it to be “range day”. I twisted GunNut’s arm to take the day off with me. We hit our local club around 9am and stayed until approx 1pm, shooting both pistols and rifles.

We took the opportunity to do some really informal, unscientific testing of safety/shooting glasses.

Quick and dirty test ….

GunNut had a pair of Wiley-X glasses that passed both “ballistic” test ratings. Something happened with how they attach to the frame and they wouldn’t attach any longer so they were useless to him. He also had a cheapie set laying on his bench so we wanted to see what each could stand up to.

We took the two pairs of glasses (Wiley-X were lense set only, no frame) down the berm at the end of the pistol range. We placed them in the dirt on the berm and took cover behind the metal plate rack. From a distance of approximately 5 yards I fired a .22lr Browning Buckmark into each set. The ammo was Federal Bulk box in the red/black box. Details don’t really matter much once you see the results.

The cheapie blasted into several pieces. Had one been wearing them and been struck by a round they would surely have lost an eye and most likely suffered facial lacerations.

The Wiley-X set did break into two pieces but from what I can deduce I hit the set in the part of the lense close to the nosepiece and it sort of glanced in. Based on the angle the bullet prob would have struck the person wearing the glasses in the nose but would have been slowed substantially. Would they have been injured … YES. Would they have lost an eye …. Hard to tell? The lense really did show the impact/shape of the bullet and how it was moving though. It did NOT go through/penetrate the lense. Any damage to the person wearing it would have been due to the angle at which the bullet struck the lense.

GunNut filmed this I believe but we didn’t bother taking still pics. We kind of thought this proved that “ballistic rated” glasses were MUCH better and well worth any extra cost. However, it didn’t sit well with me that I didn’t get a direct hit on the lense with the .22lr to really see what it would do so I tried something else. The cheapie set was DONE either way so that didn’t matter. I just wanted to see what the Wiley-X lenses could stand up to.

I decided to place the Wiley-X lense on the ground. From arms distance I fired directly into it at approx a 50-60 degree angle. The distance was prob no more than 3 feet from muzzle to lense. Here’s the result …

Based on the good results stopping the .22lr we decided to try 9mm fired from GunNuts G19 at the same distance. The ammo was FMJ he rolled himself, not sure grain weight, either 115gr or 124gr.

Here’s the result …

Again, great results stopping a direct hit from 9mm at extremely close range.

At this point we didn’t have any other calibers with us except 9mm and .357sig hollow points and .454 Casull.

GunNut fired both 9mm and .357sig carry ammo into the remaining Wiley-X lense and both penetrated clean through. As you can imagine the Casull went clean through too (no pics of that one).

Here’s the final pic …

[Guest KimberChick]

Native Silencer Native Silencer Sunglasses

They come with(depending on when/where/how you buy them) either 2 sets of lenses or 4 sets. My blue pair was purchased from Sportsman's Warehouse and came with clear, yellow, orange and polarized gray lenses. My black pair came from CampMor on clearance and came with polarized gray and a clear-ish "SportFlex" indoor/outdoor style. I like them because they fit small/medium faces. They fit snugly against my face but don't fog up due to little vents in the top of the frame. I can also leave the lens case in my shooting stuff and swap lenses at the range.

Don't buy them at full price EVER though. Too many places online have "last year's colors" for a steep discount.

[McAllyn]

Started with junk ones from WallyWorld, moved to Oakleys, now using Rudy Project Rydons. Love em. Can't imagine moving to another brand at this point.

Mac

[Guest VolGrad]

I've never seen the Rudy Project but know Larry Vickers pimps for them. I need to look them up.

[Guest Guy N. Cognito]

Revisions for me.

[Mike]

Oakley's

[Jasongar8]

Oakley's

+1 I have some M-Frames with clear lenses.

[JeffL]

Revision ftw!

[sacker]

Im still using the ones from WallyWorld, but would like to get something a little nicer.

[laktrash]

Sigarms glasses here. mainly because they fit well over my regular glasses

[Guest CJK]

Revision here also.

[bigwakes]

Walmart Shooting glasses, but mostly cheap sun glasses.

[tnhawk]

Any safety glasses which meet requirements for industrial use, should be adequate for range wear.

[Seaslug]

When I'm shooting outdoors, I usually just wear my regular Oakley sunglasses because I'm too lazy to swap out. Indoors, I use a pair of Eye Safety Systems (ESS) CDI Max with clear lenses. Very nice ballistic glasses, and they were pimped on 'Special Ops Mission' (with Will Willis--AKA "Whiskey Whiskey") on the Military Channel for those who watched it.

[exiton]

I've been wearing generic polycarbonate sunglasses to this point but after seeing the photos, I'll keep my eyes peeled for some better quality safety lenses.