EyePro At The Range: It's Not A Vague Suggestion

Some people simply have to learn the hard way.

A woman suffered an eye injury Monday at an Anderson County shooting range, deputies said.

The call came in just before 2 p.m. about a shooting at the Skip J Range on Murphy Road, dispatchers said.

The accident was reported Monday at the Skip-J Range on Murphy Road.

Lt. Sheila Cole said the woman was taken to AnMed Health System, but she did not know the severity of the woman’s injuries.

Deputies said the investigation is preliminary, but they said members of the range were target practicing at the time of the accident.

A shot fired in a different area of the range apparently ricocheted and caused what is described as a foreign matter injury to the woman’s eye, deputies said.

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Quality, impact resistant eye protection is an absolute must, which I know better than most.

Our relay of eight shooters was working on close-range carbine work, firing at paper targets backed by an earth berm cut out of the hillside. During this particular  set of stoppage recover drills, I fired a series of shots and felt something jar my glasses and push the frames to my face. There wasn’t any pain and no obstruction to my vision, so I kept on with the drill without giving it too much thought, figuring a bit of dirt had flown back of the berm, bounced of the glasses, and fell away.

It was no big deal at the time.

We finished the drill, went back and loaded mags, and rotated to a mid-range component. It was only after shooting that midrange set of drills that I took off my glasses to wipe away some of the sweat when I noticed the gouge to the glass on the inside corner of my right lens.

rightside up
My Numa Optics Point Ballistics frame simply soaked up the impact energy, and the ANSI z87 lens stopped me from taking a hit that would have drawn blood… or worse.
upside down
Thanks to impact-resistance of the ANSI z87-rated lens, the object that struck my glasses not only failed to cause injury, it didn’t even slow me down.

We’re still not entirely sure what struck the lens, but the most logical operating theory is that it was the result of a bullet striking a rock in the earth berm, and either a rock or bullet fragment roughly the size of a grain of rice bouncing back at significant speed. Based upon the severity of the gouge, I suspect that glass lens and non-impact-rated polycarbonate lens would have been cracked or even shattered.

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I get my prescription shooting glasses from Tactical RX, a company that understands shooters and shooting glasses. The ANZI z87 impact-rated lens soaked up damage that would have likely shattered my regular wire-frame glass lens, and thanks to Tactical RX’s one year warranty, they replaced the lens with no questions asked.

You may not need prescription shooting glasses, at which point I’d simply caution that you get shooting glasses with an ANZI rating of Z87 (impact rated) or ANZI z87+ (high impact rated).

Wearing your eye pro, folks. It’s inexpensive (less than a box of ammo), and can save your sight.

 

 

 

 

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