Competition shooting is in a boom period, with the last few years perhaps giving the sport its biggest spotlight in decades.
Helped by the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, which led to both viral moments and some excitable discussions surrounding the full complement of events from air pistol to outdoor clay shoots.
Everything from Yusuf Dikec’s silver medal run whilst wearing no perceptible gear to the tremendous popularity of the record-breaking Kim Yeji has led to discussions about eyewear. So why do some shooters wear highly customised shooting glasses with different lenses?
Shooting lenses are not magnifiers, which are banned by the International Shooting Sport Federation. Instead, they are used to either assist the dominant eye during fast-paced shooting rounds, to avoid distractions or to block out glare.
Most competition shooters will wear shooting glasses to reduce glare and correct ametropia, an extremely common eye condition where the eye does not focus properly on light rays and can cause slight vision distortion.
Competition glasses are designed to be highly customisable and there are generally three main accessories aside from the lens that are used to help with shooting and target practice.
The first of these is a Mechanical Iris, which works like the iris diaphragm found on a camera lens to improve the depth of focus when aiming.
Some shooters use a coloured disk, known as a Filter, which helps to enhance the contrast of the sight picture.
Finally, there is an Eye Cover, which helps to reduce eye fatigue of the non-aiming eye by allowing it to stay open. It also helps to prevent distractions outside of a shooter’s target field of vision. Our Champion Target Shooting Glasses come with translucent and solid eye covers as standard. We also supply clip-on eye covers for daywear glasses.
