Safety Glasses or Not

In one of my earlier post I reviewed the Oakley Half Jacket Glasses, and I said they probably weren’t considered safety glasses so I figured I would give you my definition of a pair of safety glasses. There are many types of glasses made especially for shooters but these will cost you a little chunk of money and for young shooters they are generally not the “in thing”. However, they do offer good protection because they usually have big round lenses and are plenty thick and they also come in a variety of colors for optimum vision. These I would probably consider the ideal safety glasses for shooters.

Most beginning shooters will just where the big plastic safety glasses that their parents gave them so they wouldn’t shoot their eye out. These work fine and are definitely safety glasses but as you shoot more you will want to upgrade. Also these glasses are not the most comfortable and when you are shooting for an hour straight you want to be comfortable.

The upgrade from these would probably be the cheap safety glasses for shooters that will come in clear, yellow, orange, and dark color. These are fine Smith & Wesson actually makes a good pair that you can find at a farm store or hardware store for less than $20. After I had been shooting for awhile I actually bought a pair of glasses with 3 sets of interchangeable lenses from Cabelas for $30 which are pictured above but mine didn’t have the pinkish colored lens. I also upgraded from these after shooting for awhile and figured out I wanted something better.

I started to where my pair of Oakley sunglasses that I would where as everyday sunglasses. I decided I liked them and I noticed other shooters wherein them with different lenses. Now I don’t know if I considered them actually safety glasses but they are very popular with younger shooters and Oakley supposedly said that they will take a shotgun blast without breaking. So I guess that makes them good enough.

Another concern for glasses is if you are shooting an automatic which will sometimes throw residue into your face when fired. So it is important that your glasses wrap around your face more so that the residue doesn’t blow into your eyes. Again, Oakley makes the M-Frames that are also popular and offer that wrap around protection.

Now that I’ve told you what works I will tell you what doesn’t work or what I would consider non-safety glasses. First of all I would not consider the cheap $10 pair of sunglasses from Wal-Mart safety glasses; I would actually consider them the worst thing next to nothing to protect your eyes. Also prescription glasses while I will honestly admit I wore for about a year before I got contacts, I would not consider safety glasses because mostly today prescription glasses don’t cover the majority of your eyes. Also if you were shooting an automatic they definitely don’t protect your eyes from residue.