Any time you shoot, you've got to protect your eyes. A lot of people I know scoff at this but it really is important. Shooting can have unexpected surprises that really make eye protection necessary. The obvious one is shooting on steel targets. Your rounds are going to hit the target and splatter, sending high velocity fragments everywhere. Less obvious are the wierd phenomena. Once, while shooting at a developed range with a bunch of other shooters, I had a fragment of something come back from the berm and strike me in the forehead. Whatever it was could have just as easily struck me in the eyes ruining my LE career. So, always wear eye protection. While talking about eye protection, it is important to remember to wear glasses that offer some type of side protection. Especially when shooting steel, it is very easy to develop laterally traveling fragments that can bypass the front of normal glasses and damage your eyes. There are a variety of options for eye protection and most anything you buy will be sufficient - if you wear it. I can only speak for what I've used: Gargoyles and Uvex Glasses. As soon as I had my eye surgery, I bought a pair of Gargoyles - I suppose it was some residual 80's attraction to the Terminator look. I ended up not liking them because they sat very high on my face and left a large opening along the bottom of the glasses. Perhaps my nose is defective but I just didn't like them. What I've ended up using are Uvex safety glasses which one of my local shooting stores sold for less than $10. Its been my experience that cheap plastic lenses scratch easily so I make sure that the glasses are stored in their box and I haven't had any problems. Return to the Main Gear Page

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