mr surveyor
11-15-2009, 04:25 PM
You can google "eye iris" and find some background information on the real, professionally made devices, but this is something I cooked up several years ago... and it works, to some degree.
Background: I think it was about 1961-62 when I was diagnosed as being very "nearsighted". Within 10 years my glasses looked like a few others here have described as Coke Bottle bottoms, and I was elated to find that there really were these new fangled contact lenses (in 1972) that would actually fir under my eyelids (I didn't realize it was "shape" and not "thickness"). Anyway, somewhere along the way, in grade school, I was taught the principle of how light bends through certain medium, particularly how light passing through an orifice would be "magnified" and could be focused. That was when I learned the trick of making a pin sized hole in a piece of paper or cardboard (or pinching three fingers together to form a small "hole") and looking through that to actually see without the aid of glasses. Even today, after having gone through several stages of vision quality for the last 48 years, I'll use the pinched finger hole to see something on TV if I've already put away the contacts and glasses for the night.
Fastforward: Some three or four years ago I was struggling with target shooting at the pistol range, having the normal problem of needing mild strength readers to be able to focus the sights while sacrificing clarity of the target. I think I must have run across an essay about the "Eye Iris" as it pertained to Olympic shooters and others much more proficient than I would have ever been. It's a very simple device.... a hole in a solid object that one eye can focus through. The "real deal" I believe can cost anywhere from $200-300, up to thousands of dollars, and no doubt has aided many top flight shooters. Remembering the little trick I learned about the "pin hole" vision correction, I started out on a "mission"!
The Experiment: Sitting around my gun cleaning table one night after a frustrating range trip shooting clays, I punched a pin hole in a business card and looked through it while holding my Kimber pistol out at arms length. At the same time my sights came into perfect focus, and the spot on the wall some 30 feet away was still in focus, I remembered having read the "Eye Iris" write up and the "better idea light bulb" flashed. Out of the dozen or so pairs of cheap plastic shooters safety glasses I had laying around, I chose one to sacrifice for the experiment. I cut a very small dot of electric tape and, with the glasses on and pistol in shooting position, I found the (near) exact spot on the glasses which coincided with my gun sights and downrange target. Then, I took my tiniest drill bit and drilled a hole through the plastic lens that would be in line with the line of vision...actually at somewhat of an angle to the curve of the lens. Next, a circular area, about an inch in diameter was painted on and around the hole with a black magic marker. Wow, the results were amazing. Not only does this help correct the vision problem, it forces one to focus attention on the target itself as it obviously lends itself to tunnel vision.
Conclusion: I still take my el-cheapo "eye iris glasses" to the range occassionally when all I want to do is attempt to put multiple rounds in the same spot, but knowing my lack of talent as a bullseye shooter, that's not real often. Mostly, I try to shoot with the same "vision" (or lack of) that I would be forced to shoot with in a defensive situation... basically "minute of bad-guy".
Anyway, maybe some of y'all might want to experiment with this, just for fun, and see what you think.
surv:)
Background: I think it was about 1961-62 when I was diagnosed as being very "nearsighted". Within 10 years my glasses looked like a few others here have described as Coke Bottle bottoms, and I was elated to find that there really were these new fangled contact lenses (in 1972) that would actually fir under my eyelids (I didn't realize it was "shape" and not "thickness"). Anyway, somewhere along the way, in grade school, I was taught the principle of how light bends through certain medium, particularly how light passing through an orifice would be "magnified" and could be focused. That was when I learned the trick of making a pin sized hole in a piece of paper or cardboard (or pinching three fingers together to form a small "hole") and looking through that to actually see without the aid of glasses. Even today, after having gone through several stages of vision quality for the last 48 years, I'll use the pinched finger hole to see something on TV if I've already put away the contacts and glasses for the night.
Fastforward: Some three or four years ago I was struggling with target shooting at the pistol range, having the normal problem of needing mild strength readers to be able to focus the sights while sacrificing clarity of the target. I think I must have run across an essay about the "Eye Iris" as it pertained to Olympic shooters and others much more proficient than I would have ever been. It's a very simple device.... a hole in a solid object that one eye can focus through. The "real deal" I believe can cost anywhere from $200-300, up to thousands of dollars, and no doubt has aided many top flight shooters. Remembering the little trick I learned about the "pin hole" vision correction, I started out on a "mission"!
The Experiment: Sitting around my gun cleaning table one night after a frustrating range trip shooting clays, I punched a pin hole in a business card and looked through it while holding my Kimber pistol out at arms length. At the same time my sights came into perfect focus, and the spot on the wall some 30 feet away was still in focus, I remembered having read the "Eye Iris" write up and the "better idea light bulb" flashed. Out of the dozen or so pairs of cheap plastic shooters safety glasses I had laying around, I chose one to sacrifice for the experiment. I cut a very small dot of electric tape and, with the glasses on and pistol in shooting position, I found the (near) exact spot on the glasses which coincided with my gun sights and downrange target. Then, I took my tiniest drill bit and drilled a hole through the plastic lens that would be in line with the line of vision...actually at somewhat of an angle to the curve of the lens. Next, a circular area, about an inch in diameter was painted on and around the hole with a black magic marker. Wow, the results were amazing. Not only does this help correct the vision problem, it forces one to focus attention on the target itself as it obviously lends itself to tunnel vision.
Conclusion: I still take my el-cheapo "eye iris glasses" to the range occassionally when all I want to do is attempt to put multiple rounds in the same spot, but knowing my lack of talent as a bullseye shooter, that's not real often. Mostly, I try to shoot with the same "vision" (or lack of) that I would be forced to shoot with in a defensive situation... basically "minute of bad-guy".
Anyway, maybe some of y'all might want to experiment with this, just for fun, and see what you think.
surv:)