If you wear bifocal, trifocal, or progressive lenses, you’ve probably experienced some frustration with lining up a decent sight picture when aiming a handgun. It can be difficult to figure out which lens to look through in order to focus. Do you want to use the near lens to focus on the sights, as in this picture? Or should you focus on the target, using the distance lens, as in this next picture?
Which is better?
Difficulties in Aiming a Handgun with Progressive Lenses
In this GunMag TV video, Daniel Shaw says that this is a common issue with students who wear bifocal, trifocal, or progressive lenses. After they make the shot, the recoil misplaces their focus, so then they have to figure out which lens to look through again. The common response is to move the head up and down to get the eyes looking through the right lens for the situation.
Shaw says “I can tell by looking at the student shooting if they’re wearing transition lenses, bifocals, or trifocals.”
Aside from being frustrating, it decreases your shooting speed. Thankfully, there is a better way to manage the situation.
Aiming a Handgun with Soft Sight Focus
If you’ve got bifocal, trifocal, or transition lenses, this video could help you with your aiming technique. Shaw teaches the Soft Sight Focus technique to students who wear transition lenses to more easily find their aim. With this technique, the shooter uses the distance lens to focus on the target, while the peripheral vision aligns the blurry front sight inside the blurry rear notch.
Why Does it Work?
Shaw says that the Soft Sight Focus works because the target is stationary—it doesn’t move. Thus, there is less need to move your head up and down to find the right lense to look through. By having that target focus with the Soft Sight Focus aligning the sights and putting it on the aiming point, the shooter doesn’t need to adjust his or her head position to get the view they’re looking for.
