Don't you love being able to see? To read the written word, to see your kid, to see your target as you shoot it? If so, you should be protecting your eyes and investing in shooting glasses. Shooting glasses aren't only sunglasses you wear at the range. These glasses are specially made to be durable and resistant to impact.

At the range, the most common hazards to your eyes are carbon and debris. Yep, it can be painful and distracting for sure. That's good enough reason to wear eye protection, but an even better reason is a catastrophic failure. A catastrophic failure is best described as when a gun fails in such a way that it explodes. These failures could be caused by chambering the wrong cartridge, an out of battery detonation, an overpowered round, or numerous other causes.

Here is where eye protection is crucial. When something explodes, and hot metal is flying through the air at a 1,000 FPS at eye level, you want a layer of protection for your soft, squishy, and priceless eyes.

What exactly makes a pair of glasses worthy of being used behind a gun? Well here are our must-have features.  

Glass is excellent, but polycarbonate is much safer (as it won't shatter on impact like glass will. No one wants shards of glass in their eyes). It's not only more reliable, but it's stronger, more scratch-resistant, easier to make impact-resistant, and lighter weight than glass lenses. Polycarbonate lenses are a must-have.

Besides being polycarbonate, they need to be resistant to impact to actually to protect your eyes. The good news is we have a handful of organizations that issue realistic ratings. The most common are ANSI standards. The Z87.1 is the minimum rating your shooting glasses should have, and Z87.1+ is even better. These ratings ensure that your eyes will stay optimally protected from any fast-moving projectiles in your surroundings.

The sides of some glasses leave a lot of space to allow for debris to get through. If you are shooting at a range, you are likely to have shooters to your left and right. Wrap-around lenses will protect you from their debris and potentially catastrophic failures.

Most people fire guns with both hands, and therefore their hands are tied up in safely operating their weapon. It's important to remember this as you shop for glasses because you may not have a free hand to adjust your shooting glasses constantly. You want glasses that stay on your head as you shoot without constant readjustment. If you add in the participation of action shooting sports, then this is a critical consideration. You can't be adjusting your glasses as you are running a 3-Gun course.

Allows you to swap lenses for low light and bright light shooting. Plus these lenses are easy to replace when worn and scratched.

Eye protection typically refers to glasses being able to protect you from dirt and physical debris, but having added UV protection is a bonus.

Okay, this one might be silly, but when I pay good money for nice glasses, I typically want the ability to wear them outside of the range and still look respectable.

Keeping your eyes protected should be a top priority. They are quite fragile compared to the rest of your body, and protecting them is incredibly easy. Always remember that shooting guns is essentially holding an explosion in your hand. Respect that, understand what can protect your eyes, and then wear the appropriate shooting glasses. At this point, it's just common sense.