I'm copying something I wrote on another forum in case it's useful to anyone:
Safety glasses. Do you? (safe sight for a tenner)
I'm always surprised how few shooters I see at my club or Bisley wearing eye protection (other than clay shooters). Unlike ear protection, which is worn by all, yet burst ear drums are a damn sight easier to fix than burst eye balls.
When I've asked people often their reasoning is 'I don't need to, my prescription glasses are plastic' which, is true, but as its not made to withstand much force that particular plastic can just create a lot of shards which then imbed themselves in your eyes. Nice.
I've just been doing a lot of research as I needed a new pair and thought I'd share what I found out.
Firstly, why I wear eye protection:
Yes, I know that I'm not running out of spec, hot reloads in my rifles,
Yes, I know if a round doesn't go 'bang' I'll wait for an appropriate amount of time before opening the bolt,
Yes, I know that if one shot sounds considerably quieter than the others, that I'll check that there isn't a bullet jammed part way up the barrel before merrily sending another one up after it.
However, I don't know any of those things for sure about the people shooting either side of me. If you've seen any YouTube clips of rifles going 'pop' there's a lot of metal and wood/plastic as well as powder and lead that gets sprayed out to each side any small particle of which could cause a real downer on your day.
How to choose:
All glasses are not made equal but there are ratings which make it easy for a shooter to find appropriate ones. (And they definitely don't have to be called 'shooting glasses' as we all know how much the word shooting can add to the price of anything. God forbid you add 'tactical' into the mix too.
Ratings to look for:
En166f is the highest EU rating for glasses
(Showing they can withstand a 22mm steel ball weighing 43 g dropped onto the lens from a height of .38 meters)
The US standard to look for is ANSI z87+ for impact rated glasses (the plus is important and ones without the + may be rated a lot lower.)
(This tests that the glasses can withstand a 6.4mm steel ball at a velocity of 45 m/s)
There is also the US military rating for glasses: MIL-PRF-31013 that is a lot more aggressive than Z87+
(This tests that the glasses can withstand a 3.8mm 0.376 g projectile at a velocity of 195 – 201m/s)
http://www.radians.com/radsite/pdf/R...-FastFacts.pdf
How much will it cost?
Personally, I figure that you may as well go for as high protection as you can, as well as getting anti-scratch and anti-fog coatings to make them pleasant to wear. So, I wanted to have all the above which I thought would be expensive, especially when my initial research turned up glasses for £80 upwards.
Turns out that you really don't need to spend much at all.
In one test for example
http://shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopi...05992&p=844081
the Pyramex Rendevous did incredibly well despite costing about £7
As the US standard seem to be higher than the EU I tended to search by 'Z87+' or 'MIL-PRF-31013' on US retailers sites then found the same model on a UK site.
There are a lot of models that fit the bill for very little money and even if you really feel they you want ones that have all the above and happen to be on the US military/law enforcement approved list (which I assume are selected partly due to a financial agreement between the companies and the procurement for the military as there are plenty that meet all the same criteria that aren't on the list!) then you can either buy one of the big names (such as Oakleys for £200) or go for one of the Uvex brands on the list such as the Genesis (which are the ones I went for) that are the princely sum of £13 Inc delivery from US Amazon
List here
http://www.peosoldier.army.mil/equipment/eyewear/
For those that have a prescription, many of the brands you'll see can have a prescription insert (often referred to as an 'RX insert') for not much money too.
If you've tried some before and got annoyed at the arms either stopping your ear defenders from getting a good seal or simply being painful being pressed into your head, many now have very thin arms expressly for this reason (ESS Crossbows for example). It's normally pretty apparent from the picture of them.
One thing worth noticing when you try yours is the fit at the bottom. I found with some of the larger wrap around types (I.e. ESS Ice) that they sat quite high up and left a very large air gap between their lower edge and my cheek which, if you're a pistol shooter (when most nasties are most likely to come from eye-level) probably isn't an issue, but for rifle shooting where your rifle (and those next to you) is below eye level, I think it's better to have as small a gap as possible here.
Couple of other test articles if you're bored:
http://www.luckygunner.com/labs/eye-...lasses-review/
http://blog.safetyglassesusa.com/how...rated-eyewear/
Hope that helps someone.