Can progressive lense glasses cause parallax errors?

[6MMsteve]

go back to a old pair of single lense glasses you had maybe a fews yrs ago and see the diff..I use a old pair to shoot with...but if your shooting comp get a pair of single vision lenses or have some made up...that's what i do but I'm at home shooting so it works for me

 

[Buzzsaw]

When shooting my .22 at 50 yards, my Nightforce SHV 5-20 doesn't want to focus using the parallax knob, I even mess with my diopter ring, still not sharp.

SO, I think it is my progressives. both my eyes are different. Thinking about breaking my clay shooting Randolph glasses out to see if they work. I have sets for pistol (front sight sharp) and for clays, no close up correction.

Kinda get this too while shooting my NX8 4-32X50 at 100 yards.

bad eyes is a beech for shooters

 

[Fairchaser]

I would think progressive lenses could affect the parallax in this way. In order to focus you must move your head up and down for different part of the lens. This inherently causes you to focus the parallax knob to a different place. Once you get set and position behind the scope, you must move your head again to refocus your eye. Your eye will adjust however to compensate for being out of focus and your eye could be in a different place resulting in a slight out of parallax position. Those that have no issue are good and getting their eye back to the exact place each time. IMO, the progressive lens is just another variable you don’t need. It’s best to focus the diopter to your naked eye and save the headache.

 

[243winxb]

I distinctly remember adjusting the parallax

The parallax is first set for the distance the target is at. Then the eyepiece is adjusted for a clear picture. Now the parallax is fine tuned. The yardage markings are not always correct.

My Decot glasses have single vision corrective lenses. They are meant for pistol shooting

These are set more to focus on the front sight of the handgun. Closer vision.

For rifle scopes, the lens used for distance, giving 20/20 should work best with a properly adjusted scope.

Lucky for me i shoot handguns right handed. Rifles are shot left handed.

 

[Straightshooter1]

A progressive lense will not cause parallax error. Assuming one has their reticle in sharp focus, the parallax adjustment simply brings the image's focus in alignment with the reticle (that is to say, in the same plane as the reticle lense). Moving one's eye alignment around with a progressive lense can change the focus on and even the alignment with the reticle, but that's not an issue of the parallax adjustment.

 

[No.343]

A progressive lense will not cause parallax error. Assuming one has their reticle in sharp focus, the parallax adjustment simply brings the image's focus in alignment with the reticle (that is to say, in the same plane as the reticle lense). Moving one's eye alignment around with a progressive lense can change the focus on and even the alignment with the reticle, but that's not an issue of the parallax adjustment.

I believe you are right sir. I think I figured out a couple of things since then. One, I do not want to wear progressive glasses while shooting F-class. Two, I think that my problem was that I was working on changing from a hard hold to little cheek pressure on the stock. I believe that my head position was very inconsistent and when that was combined with the progressive lenses it led to problems focusing. I've made sure that I had the correct glasses on since then. I'm also happy to report that my scores have gone up.

 

[Ned Ludd]

No.343 - I have shot F-Class for years wearing soft contact lenses. The few times I tried to wear glasses at a practice session (I have both progressive and non-progressive lens glasses), it just about made my head explode. I've observed this on multiple occasions, so it is not my imagination. I can't tell you with any certainty that wearing the glasses affected parallax differently than the contact lenses; it doesn't seem as though that should be the case. In fact, I suspect it may be more an issue with the focus of the reticle than parallax. I can also imagine that exactly where [vertically] in the lens that the top of the transition is located could make a difference, i.e. not all progressive lenses are necessarily the same. For example, my progressive lenses are relatively narrow top to bottom, and the transition ends up closer to the middle height of the lens than it would with a taller lens. Regardless of what it was, I can only tell you that for my eyes that were used to shooting while wearing contact lenses, the difference was noticeable and large. I rather suspect if I were to wear glasses all the time while shooting, it would become the new normal. But the abrupt transition from one type of eye correction to the other made a big difference for me.

The bottom line is that it doesn't really matter whether the progressive lenses affected parallax, reticle focus, something else entirely, or nothing at all. If your mind perceives wearing them as a difference, then doing so can affect your shooting. For that reason, I'd suggest practicing regularly with whatever corrective lens setup you decide to use, so that your eyes become accustomed to it.

 

[BoydAllen]

The correct parallax adjustment involves the shooters eye, and any corrective lens between it and the scope. Properly adjusted the eyepiece is focused exactly in the plane of the reticle. If a given shooter wears different corrective lenses, then the parallax setting should be adjusted for each. The one issue that I have with some of the answers is that one would think that if one is in shooting position, sighting through a scope, that the shooter would be looking through a progressive lens near its top, well away from the transition. On the other hand, if he was using a parallax setting that was not done with that particular pair of glasses, or without glasses then there would be a good chance that there would be parallax. One thing puzzles me, the only proper way to determine if parallax exists is by testing by the shooter, if he or she knows what parallax looks like, then how could there be a question as to whether it exists?

 

[Straightshooter1]

It seems there's confusion over parallax, especially for those who wear glasses (like me or have glasses with a progressive lens). Those of us who wear glasses actually have two parallax issues. There's the parallax within the scope where the objective lense needs to focus on the reticle lense. Then there's the parallax from the reticle lense through the ocular lense by way of the lense on our glasses to the retina. If the focus from the reticle lense to the retina changes, then you have a parallax problem that has to be adjusted with the ocular adjustment . . . not the scope's parallax adjustment. And to keep from having changes in that parallax, one need to be sure their position relative to the scope doesn't change. Progressive lenses can make it pretty challenging to keep that alignement just right to avoid this other parallax problem.

 

[Bill K]

I have shot progressive lens for years and have no issues, as you adjust and dial your scope with them on, so it is set for your vision, just as anyone does with or without glasses.