I am pondering purchasing a pair of shooting glasses.

I wanted to know what is the proper and recommended lens tint color and fram color?

Now that you mentioned it and I keep forgetting, I have green clip-ons made by my optometrist for my prescription glasses. I use when driving and playing golf. I also have light yellow clip-ons for night driving. I have been meaning to try the green clip-on with painted white animals against our sand berms.

If I remember???, I'll see if any difference using my green clip-on's this week in low light and bright sun. Been meaning to do this summer and get side tracked. Jon

teetertotter wrote:Now that you mentioned it and I keep forgetting, I have green clip-ons made by my optometrist for my prescription glasses. I use when driving and playing golf. I also have light yellow clip-ons for night driving. I have been meaning to try the green clip-on with painted white animals against our sand berms.

If I remember???, I'll see if any difference using my green clip-on's this week in low light and bright sun. Been meaning to do this summer and get side tracked. Jon

Let me know how the green works out. I am leaning to a gray lens but I have not decided yet.

My mistake, my clip-ons are GREY. I plan to be at the range today or tomorrow afternoon. Will advise.

Added: I'm tinkering with scope height and rings for ANY improvement! So, at the range more than usual this week, b/4 Sat Tournament! I need some confidence builder this year!

The Grey specs just might do the trick, too!

It all depends on the light conditions. My grey sunglasses are great for full light. However when I am shooting on number 6 and I'm in the shadows part of the time they tend to annoy me. Most shooters use the yellow tinted lenses. I say you get clear safety goggles and tint your scope!

I am surprise more expert class shooters have not replied. The Anschutz 1712, Leupold rifle scopes and Hardscrabble leather vests are pretty damn close to being the standard gear that the Master class uses. I have difficulty that a standard lens color has not also been adopted by the best silhouette shooters in this country.

The frame designs and color are unique to a face shape and/or personal preference, as long as the frame design allows the shooter to see through the lens correctly in a shooting position. The best lens color varies with the conditions and color of the targets, but the scopes on the smallbore rifles give plenty of visibility of the targets so no real enhancement is needed from shooting glasses. The magnification on scopes on the rifles used by master shooters is from 20x to 30x so for targets 100 meters or less away, you can pretty much see every paint line on the targets. If the target gets missed, it's likely not because of not being able to see it. Also, if you look across the master shooters at any of the big matches where protective eyewear isn't required, you'll see that a lot of them don't even wear protective eyewear. Of those that are, there aren't many that are wearing tinted lenses. I personally wear sunglasses all of the time that I'm not actively shooting if it's a really bright day and I wear clear protective eyewear when I'm actively shooting, especially when shooting highpower silhouette. If it's not really bright, I just wear the same clear ones the whole day.

There hasn't been an answer on the best lens color to use for smallbore silhouette here because there isn't really an answer to give. This might get a better response in the lever action silhouette forum, where lens tint can actually make a difference in ability to see the targets based on the color of the targets, color of the berms behind the targets and the light/weather conditions at the time. It just doesn't matter as much for smallbore silhouette using scopes.

I tried my grey clip-ons this afternoon in bright sunlight. It is better without them for me. It did not improve the contrast with our painted white animals against the sand berms. I use black construction paper with red dots to sight-in and there was no difference to me either.

teetertotter wrote:I tried my grey clip-ons this afternoon in bright sunlight. It is better without them for me. It did not improve the contrast with our painted white animals against the sand berms. I use black construction paper with red dots to sight-in and there was no difference to me either.

Hmmmmm, I wonder if yellow lens would work better?

This could make an effective argument for shooting glasses with interchangeable lens.

I have yellow clip-ons too, for night driving, but generally pull down my clip-on car visor attachment. With my shooting environment, I did not bother to try my yellow clip-on's in bright sunlight, since the grey does nothing.

We have a multitude of trap shooters too, and they do not wear sunshades of any type. Same on our pistol shooting range as will wonder over next door to to chat sometimes. The high end paper pistol shooters wear clear safety specs.
My .02 cents

I have a set of those lenses for my scope................... All they do is cut down on the light through the scope. I can't see that they work. Could be my OLD eyes.

I can add one more thing. 2 years ago, I asked my optromitist what color lens I would need for black animals against a sand berm.
He called me back and said PURPLE. He made some lenses in light purple and through in the frame. I still could not tell any difference.

DavidABQ wrote:I am pondering purchasing a pair of shooting glasses.

I wanted to know what is the proper and recommended lens tint color and fram color?

Can only say what I've used for several years now...Zeiss frames (probably obsolete) with lined bifocals so I can see the scope #s, clear for overcast days and brown for sunny bright days, worked really well few times I shot Phoenix and Raton (HP but still same effect), reduces eye strain. Only hindrance with the brown is on covered firing line it's still hard to see the scope settings. Worked great till I took up iron sighted M1 competition...didn't realize astigmatism would make that much difference with irons, it does. Replaced couple of front sights cuz they were "bent" ahhhh....duh

I have these and like them, not expensive and very versatile, quality is pretty good for cheap glasses.
http://www.amazon.com/Radians-Remington ... ng+glasses

I actually tried a pair of yellow lens, clear lens workshop protective glasses, and a set of grey lens sunglasses.

I tried them out on a very bright day and switched between them. The big winner for me was the yellow tinted lens.

Thank you everyone for your feedback.