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| Do the next right thing  |
I've had enough brass bounce off my eye protection that I don't need anything more to convince me. | |||
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Member |
The closest I've come to an eye injury has been when I crawled the stock on an FAL and got a little too close to my rear sight. I've got the scratches on my glasses to prove it. I have also been hit in the face and head by jacket fragments, as far back as 200 yards from the targets. I've never had a kaboom, but I've witnessed a couple. In both cases the shooter's face was peppered by both powder grains and stock splinters. I've always worn glasses, if not for protection that just to see what I was doing. I've worn corrective lenses since I was a teenager. Finding shooting glasses to wear over them has been a huge problem until relatively recently, so many years ago I started ordering two pair of glasses whenever my prescription changed. One for daily wear and the other (yellow tinted) for shooting. Sometimes I'd order a 3rd pair too, dark prescription sunglasses for driving. But that got pretty expensive, especially since I had to go to bifocals, since most insurance plans will only pay for the first pair. I'm glad that reasonably well-fitting safety (and sun) glasses are available now that fit over my prescription glasses. | |||
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Down the Rabbit Hole |
A number of years back, a co-worker was watching me shoot the old Steel Challenge Triple Threat stage at my range. He was standing at least 15 yards behind me. A piece of lead hit him in the eye leaving a red spot that lasted several days. He was lucky. Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell | |||
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| Member |
I was in the pits at a High Power match when a bullet struck a metal target frame and fragmented. The shrapnel struck my glasses, only got a couple of cuts on the cheek/forehead. Shooters were firing from the 600 yard line. Got to wear those glasses ALL the time when you are around firearms. Phu Bai, Vietnam, 68-69 Baghdad, Iraq, 04-05 | |||
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| Down the Rabbit Hole |
I have several MGM targets including a Bianchi plate rack and several 18x24 solos that are only used for pistol calibers. I also have a few that are used for rifles only. Those are pretty dinged up with some pretty deep craters. A few years ago, my son had a brain fade and shot one of the rifle targets from around 20 yards away. A piece of jagged copper jacket came back and hit me in the stomach. I should have removed the rifle targets from the range before we started shooting. OUCH!  Diligentia, Vis, Celeritas "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell | |||
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| Triggers don't pull themselves  |
No major incidents but surprisingly, shooting .22 rimfire semi-auto pistols is where I encounter more debris flying back into my face. Most of the time is just flakes of powder but occasionally I notice bits of the lead bullet being shaved off during the feeding cycle and becoming airborne. | |||
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Member |
While shooting just a few years ago wearing prescription Ray Bans I had a hot .45 ACP brass hit me in the forehead then fell down between my glasses and cheek. So yes I always wear some kind of eye protection. After all we only have 1 set of eyes. | |||
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| Member |
How important? Like on a scale of one to ten? Ill go with a solid 11. Maybe even a 12. I’ve had more than enough stuff bounce back into my face; steel, wood, brass, lead, and who knows what else. Yeah, I like to see. I like to see clearly. Binocular vision is kinda cool! From my perspective, it’s not so much new shooters, but more the “intermediate” group. Ones that have been doing it long enough to let their guard down, lack in paying attention, and just enough knowledge and not enough experience to get into trouble, group that is kinda like “meh… I don’t need glasses, they get into the way”. I like the ones “Im not going to have shooting glasses on the street when shit goes down!”- usually from the “Tacti-fool” or “gear-queer” groups. Beginners usually listen, the ones that have been doing long enough pretty much know… (or NEED THEM because we’re damn near blind without them  ) However- running through a rather important qualifying course years ago in a stall. Damn .45 brass got ejected, bounced off the wall, something else, and landed perfectly between my eye glass frame and my eyebrow. YEAWWW that stung for a second.  ______________________________________________________________________ "When its time to shoot, shoot. Dont talk!" “What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.” —Author Tom Clancy | |||
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| Freethinker |
Wearing a hat or cap that covers the gap between one’s face and eyewear is just one of the many firearms safety rules that I constantly preach and require at my range sessions. During my first NRA instructor development course one of the other students told a story about one officer who had a 223/5.56 case fall behind his glasses and actually burned the eyeball. There are reasonably-foreseeable exceptions to almost all practices. If a law enforcement sniper’s vision is compromised because his glasses are fogging up due to the sweat pouring down his face or due to rain, it would probably be acceptable to run the very small risk that a cartridge would rupture the one time it was necessary to fire a hostage rescue shot. When firing large numbers of rounds during training and qualifications, though? What’s the excuse then? All the members of my agency’s SWAT team always wore protective goggles during training and during real call-outs, and there was no reason not to. Plus, a top level trauma surgeon who presented an emergency care class I attended years ago said that most severe eye injuries that soldiers suffered would be prevented by wearing good eye protection all the time when in military combat. Before the development of strong polymers decades later, various military forces experimented with other means of eye protection, such as a fine metal chain screen that hung down in front of the face. ► 6.4/93.6 “It is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire.” — Thucydides; quoted by Victor Davis Hanson, The Second World Wars | |||
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| Member |
I went to a rather wild range shoot demo at Triggrcon back when it was in Washington and some people started shooting steel cross range. I took spall to the face and neck but my eyes were ok because I had eye protection. It was surprising each time and no way I could have closed my eyes in time. I had some sratches in the plastic but my lenses are ANSI rated and didn't scratch. I don't play around with not wearing eyes or ears on range. | |||
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| Member |
That's a great point; we had a guy take a ricochet right above his glasses, and it drew blood. Having a hat probably would have saved him from getting domed but on the bright side we finally got our agency to blow bark in the backstop. | |||
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| Member |
I always wear eyewear and often a cap, but I did on one occasion have a 9mm shell casing strike the underside of the caps' bill and lodge behind my glasses. It was held against the skin just below the eye and burned the bejeebers out of me. Not fun but I still am a proponent of wearing safety glasses when shooting. One incident in all the years I have been shooting just shows that the odd accident can happen but is highly unlikely. I could be struck by lightning when I step out my front door but it probably won't happen. The “POLICE" Their job Is To Save Your Ass, Not Kiss It The muzzle end of a .45 pretty much says "go away" in any language - Clint Smith | |||
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| If you see me running try to keep up  |
I’m 55 and have been shooting since I was a kid. When I was a teen, we had BB gun fights and nobody ever got injured (not sure how we survived that). I have never had any close call until recently, but I do wear ballistic glasses when I shoot. I was shooting pistols on steel targets with a friend and one of his shots ricocheted and hit me in the back. It was hard enough to have done some serious eye damage if I would have been hit there. That reminded me why I wear mine. | |||
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| Member |
There's more than enough of us here that have been doing this for a long time. We've experienced, seen, and heard of anything from "accidents" to "Damn, someone is that stupid?!?" Again, in the beginning, we listen and try to learn. In the middle, when we "think" we know stuff, something might happen; a close call, that "one in a million shot", an accident... first had or not. HOPEFULLY we learned from that too! (Hopefully it was from watching someone touch the hot stove )We try to mitigate the Danger Factor as close to Zero as possible, but I don't think we'll ever totally achieve it. ______________________________________________________________________ "When its time to shoot, shoot. Dont talk!" “What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.” —Author Tom Clancy | |||
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| Live long and prosper  |
Many years ago i was practicing on my own at the Practical Shooting field when i shot a target leaning on a tire, just a couple of feets away. Something hit me hard on the head and disoriented me briefly. Then i felt a burning sensation on my temple. When my hand reached for the area it came back with my .40 cal bullet, barely scratched it had lodged itself between my temple skin and the side of my glasses. Bullet still like new, i have it somewhere in my shooting bag. Close call, glad i was wearing protection. 0-0 "OP is a troll" - Flashlightboy, 12/18/20 | |||
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Member |
Same. I have never used some “tactical” glasses either. Just my normal sunglasses. They work and have, for hundreds of thousands of rounds. What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone | |||
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| Ammoholic |
I’d agree with the 11 on a scale of one to ten comment. At a one class I was in the middle of a drill when I took a chunk of frag to the forehead a little above my glasses. That was a little distracting. I think my son was 11 when he took some frag in his arm while shooting steel challenge with a P229R with a 22lr conversion. | |||
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| Member |
I am right there with you. It's a real eye opener when it hits just right, no pun intended. | |||
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| Member |
There was an Army unit shooting M16a2's at Camp Lejeune 40 years ago. One soldier had a kaboom and was badly injured on the right side of his head. I went out to the Naval Hospital with the First Sergeant to check on him. He didn't lose his eye,but his face was full of shrapnel. I can't remember if it was ammo related or a rifle malfunction, but he was lucky he kept his sight. | |||
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| Page late and a dollar short |
Prior to working at a range I didn’t realize how often OOB discharges happen. I wear polycarbonate prescription glasses so I’m always wearing something while shooting. I’ve noticed that my Suppressed Victory 22 has a propensity to blow unburned powder and debris back into my face when using Winchester white box 40 grain rounds but not when using Federal Suppressor rounds. Not exactly a pleasant experience getting peppered even with glasses. -------------------------------------—————— ————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman) | |||
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