Shooting Glasses

[Dancy]

Reading about the recent accident has got me to thinking about safety. I went hunting last weekend and didn't think to wear safety glasses. Most of the time I do, but not always.
How many of you wear them while hunting? I have never been to a formal shooting match like at Friendship, are they required there? Are they required at civil war reenactments and such? I don't notice them in photos of blackpowder shooters much, do folks like Mark Baker that do the primitive living and others use them? Trying to get a feel for how the black powder community as a whole thinks about their use.

James

[chapmans]

   I wear perscription glasses so I always have my glasses on, my son wears contacts so he wears saftey glasses when he shoots. I don't think you have to wear glasses at Friendship but they are strongly recommended. When I see someone shooting without glasses I usually ask them if they like shooting muzzleloaders, they usually respond with a resounding YES, then I tell them that if they don't start wearing glasses someday they won't be able to shoot because they will be blinded from getting something in their eye, I don't understand why anyone would not wear glasses when they shoot any firearm.
  Regards, Steve Chapman

[b bogart]

I need glasses because of my eyesight, but I encourage all those around me to wear them (Historically Correct or not), because the loss of vision is a scary thought. Now if I was just as particular about hearing protection.... Oh well
Bruce

[BrownBear]

I carry them, telling myself that I'll put them on before shooting.  But I HATE walking around in them.

This year was pretty typical.....  Deer, bang, whoops.  Forgot the glasses.

All that's going to change in the near future, because like glasses or not, I fear I'm on the edge of needing prescription help.

[Artificer]

I've had to wear glasses since second grade.  What I do is have prescription safety lenses fitted to my reproduction "period correct" glasses so I don't have to worry about it when doing reenacting or living history.

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

There is more to it than the shot.   

I have read in an old sea island plantation owner's journal of the writer's turmoil at his teenage son's loading accident and  ultimate loss of use of several fingers, due to loading directly from the flask in the 1850's when on pest control duty in the crop fields.   (see TOMBEE, Portrait of a plantation owner).  Lon 

[490roundball]

Always, not just for the flintlocks.  I also hunt upland birds and the thick stuff we push through has slapped me in the face more than once.  I have had thorns slide off the glasses and stick me in the face, they could have just as easily hit an eye.  I have seen powder specs from flintlock and gas blow back from modern guns hit faces.  just cheap insurance.

when I reenacted, I closed my eyes at the shot, I got burnt from powder or a flint chip square on the eyelid once.

[roundball]

I've worn "eyes & ears" at all shooting ranges all my life, and usually at least sunglasses for open field hunting like quail/doves but not for deer hunting as I was in dark wood either AM or PM.

But a few years ago I had to start wearing drugstore reading glasses to get the sights sharp again and in doing so got the full size glasses so I'd also get eye protection as well and wear them hunting all the time...with clip on sunglasses if I need them

[Roger Fisher]

I wear 'em because I must and I want to....!

You can get debris in your eye/eyes also from your shooting neighbor next to you when his flinter with that railroad tunnel vent fires. 

Couple or three yrs ago I had gently mentioned to a co shooter that he should really wear the safety glasses.  Mos later he fired his 'cussin' rifle and got a piece of cap stuck just below his right eye in the cheek that the blood ran down said part of his face.   Now he wears safety glasses...

Many other occurences could be listed...

[Daryl]

Back in the 70's my wife picked up a cap fragment in the lid of here left eye lid. It was there, a small green spot until about mid 1990's, when it finally came to the surface and came out - no scar, even.  I've worn some sort of protection since about 1976 or so, generally shooting glasses before that, date but not always until Tracy picked up that frag.  Now, I were perscription glasses due to a requirement to see well so always have protection nowadays automatically.  That they aren't period correct, doesn't bother me any more than being politically correct.

I cannot imagine being on a firing line with cheap cap locks or flinters and not wearing some sort of protection.  Neither of my cap locks throw fragments as they have properly locks with good leaf springs.  There are enough coil springs out there throwing cap fragments, along with flinters throwing hot fouling sideways, that wearing glasses is a must.

Those with rifles having coil springs and buy replacement locks having leaf springs from outfits like Trackofthewolf. Minor inletting is required.

In my most humble opinion, of course.

[Dancy]

Sounds like their are a lot of horror stories directly related to not wearing eye protection. I still get the feeling lots of people into BP shooting/hunting don't wear protection because I don't see or hear it talked about much in print (ML or MB), even compared to other shooting sports. I haven't been to any shooting matches or events yet so hopefully that impression is wrong.

James

[Berks Liberty]

I wear shooting glasses when ever I shoot, no matter what the gun is.  Even a pellet rifle.  With the work I do, I am a tactical firearms instructor so wearing shooting glasses along with hearing protection is part of the job. One thing to keep in mind.  Just because you wear prescription glasses doesn't mean they can take the place of shooting glasses.  The shooting eye wear I promote is a lense which covers the entire eye socket and wraps around the side of the face.  There are all kinds of glasses which I call the LL Bean wear, no pun intended against LL Bean but the glasses which sit off the face and only provide protection to the front of the eye like 99% of the presciption eyewear out there.  When you look at yourself while shooting your flintlock, your head is cocked.  If you are wearing a prescription style, off the face eyewear there is a space between your nose and eye which opens up more.  Anyone can take a chance while shooting with poor eyewear, but it will be that one time when something does happen that you are trying to avoid.  I also like wearing glasses while hunting, tree branches, grass and other material hitting your face is not good and we've all probably got poked in the eye with a branch at some time while hunting.  Ouch!  The safety glasses I prefer are the ones which wrap around and cover the entire eye socket and can take a blast from bird shot.  And believe me they work.  Of course the shot will penetrate your skin but that will grow back, your eye won't. 

Jason

[Acer Saccharum]

A friend of mine, the man who introduced me to the Old Saratoga Club, shot musket without glasses for years. He ended up with some kind of tumor in his right eye, and ultimately could not see out of his eye. I don't know if this was caused by the musket cap debris, but why put yourself at risk?

Tom

[Don Getz]

Being a trap shooter, I have a pair of Ranger shooting glasses with pop-in lenses in different colors.   Those yellow lenses
are great for hunting, especially on an overcast day, it will really brighten things up.   They are also large enough to give
you great protection.   I think if you are attending a historical event, such as the Eastern Rendezvous, or any of the other
rendezvous throughout the U.S., I don't think you will ever be condemmed for wearing good eye protection while shooting...............Don

[Daryl]

Yellow lenses are necessary for hunting in Penn. due to the normally overcast, rainy weather. They help raise otherwise very low spirits.

[longcruise]

I wear prescriptions with a safety rating.  I've been hit on the face twice by cap particles.  Once just below the left eye.  A bit higher and it would have hit my lense.  A bit higher with no lense probably would have cost my vision in that eye.

[roundball]

I used the first pair of full size 'drugstore glasses' shooting Flintlocks at the range for  about 3/4 of the Saturdays year round, 50 shots per Saturday.
One day in the light just right I noticed both lenses looked like they had been lightly sandblasted...so even putting aside the possibility of a Flint shard, some sort of debris is coming back most of the time