This may have been covered before, but here goes ....
Most of us were taught many moons ago to focus on the sight for an accurate shot, with a quick check on the target for alignment. Again for many of us focus the front blade is very hard (without craning neck to look through progressives or bifocals), and focus on the rear sight for a good alignment is VERY tough if not impossible without optical assist from bifocals. This leaves two choices shoot from an un-natural compromises posture, or shoot with a very blurry sight picture.
Painting the front blade fluorescent green or orange helps some.
I have heard that some use a different technique of focusing on the target and allowing the sights to blur. Now we can easily focus on the target through our regular lenses (or no glasses for some). But can you see the sights well enough for a precise aim.

All useful comments on working with iron sights and aging eyes greatly appreciated. O--O.
Magnumb

When I shoot competition...I have shooting glasses regulated
for the front sight. Front sight clear and clean and target is
fuzzy. I also practice with my regular glasses and tilt my head
back so the midrange of my trifocals cleans up the front sight.
I was taught for 50 years to always look at front sight. Trigger pull
is the most important followed by front sight.

i was taught to focus on the front sight. The target is a little blurry and the rear sight is a little blurry but the front sight is sharp as a razor. Its because when you properly focus on the front sight the target and rear sight are in your peripheral vision

For target shooting and plinking I would suggest using optics. For home defense I would suggest using night sights. Where the front and the rear sights all glow. This will help with the darkness of a home at night. I would also practice point and shoot at 7 yards without focusing too much on the sights because in the real life home invasion situation, it will most likely be a point and shoot at 7 yards or less in low light.

My old eyes are aided with trifocal glasses. I had the technician set the midrange by using the tip of my finger on an extended arm and hand. This gives me the perfect front sight picture. It also eliminates eye-fatigue when I spend hours using my desktop computer.

Buy some stick-on bifocal lenses from Amazon. They stick to the inside of your shooting glasses with a drop of water. They come as full size lenses, but can be trimmed with some sharp scissors. I trimmed one to about 3/8" diameter and stuck it to my glasses exactly where I need it for proper shooting stance. With the small lens, it helps me take the same position from shot to shot, AND it's small enough that it doesn't interfere with my navigating the range.

Don't go overboard on power; get a +1 diopter if you can. My eye doctor is a Bullseye shooter. His advice was to set the focus point about 5 ft beyond the front sight. Reason being, if your front sight is perfectly in focus, the target is too fuzzy. With the focus in front of the front sight, it's a compromise. The sight is sharp enough and you can still see the target well enough. That's why +1 diopter is a good choice.

The best solution for my old , retinal detached eyes , is a Burris Fast-Fire .
Until the compact models came on the scene I used a Millet SP-1 tube type red dot sight, it works , but the Burris FF's are so much less bulky.
Gary

I've always focused on the front sight, but when I was a helluva lot younger, the rear sight and the target were pretty much in focus as well.
Fast forward several decades and I still focus on the front sight.
Being near sighted, I typically look over the top of my glasses to get good focus on the front. The rear looks pretty decent for aligning, and of course, the target is just fuzz.
However, I find that if I aim at the center of the fuzz, I actually do quite well. It's kinda like aiming at "center of mass" in a real scenario with thing happening fast.

For pistol shooting, I focus on the front sight. Now my vision is not only affected by age, but also diabetes. Sadly, at Camp Perry this summer, I forgot an old trick ... darkening my sights. Outdoors, I found my front sight to be more Gray than black. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my carbide lamp and carbide for blackening my sights.

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Judge control not gun control!

I played around with different prescriptions when my eyes started getting old, my optometrist is a shooter so that helped somewhat. After a while I accepted the inevitable and went with a red dot sight, I focus on the target and the dot over the target is the same focus. Pull the trigger, hits every time. I don't have an optic on my carry pistol, but anything outside of 7 yards isn't considered self defense and I can point shoot anything closer than 7 yards. You'll be amazed how easy it is when you only have to focus on two points on the same plane (target and dot) as opposed to 3 points on 3 different planes (rear sight, front sight, target). It's like cheating. Try it, you'll like it.

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Minimize the variables

I wear reading glasses, and after retiring I no longer needed bifocals probably because I wasn't on a computer all day. For shooting handguns I got some reading prescription safety glasses. I started shooting bullseye and I only shoot iron sights. I found 0.75 are right for focusing on the front sight and being able to adequately see the bullseye at 50 yards.

Spray and pray!

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Bob P.

I wear contact lenses while working. I have glasses for when I drive more than a few minutes form home. The glasses simply do not give me a good front sight picture so I wear contacts while shooting as well. I simply concentrate on the front sight, ensuring that it is central in the rear notch and level. I place the front sight the central point of the target and generally get to hit what I am aiming at.

Front sight, front sight, front sight!

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View from down under

Keep some jelly beans in your range bag. Small slice with a blade and stick one on your front sight. Just make sure to bring plenty with you.

When I shoot with my grandson I like to give him a hard time, when I shoot he will say "which target were you shooting at" I'll say which one did I hit. He'll say you didn't hit any of them. I tell him to keep looking, there has to be a hole in something. He just shakes his head and chuckles. Old eyes are not fun.

For about $20 you can buy several sets of cheaters ....I settled on a set of +1.25 for best overall usage in action shooting.... sights good, targets OK.

For target shooting there are several makers of prescription glasses that have a small insert in the upper left corner of the right lens (right hand shooter) the rest of the lens can be clear or prescription.

" Hansen's Eagle Eye" is one expensive...... SSP Eyewear is another less expensive brand.... both are safety glasses.

Cheapie cheaters are a solution but they aren't safety glasses. If you can afford it get your eye doctor to get you a RX that focuses at the distance to your front sight then have a pair of shooting glasses made. Not as cheap as cheapie cheaters but less expensive than your eyesight.

What kind of shooting are you prioritizing? Plinking? Defense? Bullseye?

Here's a good read from Gabe White on vision and shooting that addresses, among other things, the virtues (for some) of target focused shooting.

Bottom line, see what you need to in order to get your hits, there's ultimately no right or wrong if the results are good -- and yes, that includes the old "front sight focus" idol falling, too.

Vision – Gabe White Training

Lastly, consider a quality red dot sight; the only thing you have to focus on is the target -- no more three plane management or lack thereof.

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Pickpocket

And/or a laser sight.

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Smith. And Wesson. And Me!

My suggestion about "cheaters" was to get them to experiment to see if shooting glasses would work..before spending $200-300 or more on specialty glasses.

Never heard the Jelly Bean trick ! What flavor works best ?

If you shoot right-handed...try to train you're mind to focus the left eye on the iron sights, and the right eye on the target or vice versa. It should meld into one clear sight picture --- at least for my eyes. You might have to shift (for right-handed shooters) the pistol to the left a little bit, but the technique might be harder to perform in dark environments.

For a diopter on the glasses: You can use a leather punch, paper punch and glue address labels. Leather punch a small round piece on the address label, then use the paper hole punch to give you a small round diopter hole in the center of the round leather punch paper hole on the address label; so you can paste it (after you remove the paper backing of the address label) on the top upper left or right hand corner on the lenses of your glasses. You can paste 3 or four diopters in the same area,

But if you try to remove them...they'll leave a gooey residue on the glasses, that might be hard to remove without scratching them.

Thanks for all the good ideas. I have tried a few of these myself.
The merit optical device (a variable aperture that you stick onto your lens) helps some. It's good for outdoors (rifle too). by looking through a pin hole it's easier to focus. You can check out the concept by making a small pinhole with your index finger and thumb if you are desperate and forgot a pair of readers. You may look a bit funny but try it on some tiny text and you can see the tiny aperture works. The smaller the better the focus, but it also cuts down on brightness. These devices work pretty well on bright outdoor ranges, and not quite as well on dark indoor ranges (though you may like a little like a borg!). I also have tried a swing in jewelers loop, but those are too much power. A set of computer glassed (very weak readers with a focus around 24-30 inches) work well also.

The problem is none of this will held me in real life when I'm just walking around wearing normal glasses in a defense scenario.

I may have to come to the realization that for target type shooting at the range for best groups in slow fire, or precision plinking, optics may be the only choice. A red laser works great indoors but is useless outdoors.
I sure wish they made green lasers for K/L frame, but so far only have seen for J's.

A red dot like a fastfire, or venom/viper may be a good answers for precise shooting.

One other comment makes sense that for self defense you are trying to hit a 6-8 inch group from 20 feet away. I have not practiced point shooting, but I'm guessing its possible to do that well with no sights at all, and would be much faster.

In a dimly lit room iron sights are even worse. How can you add night sights to S&W adjustable target sights with a fixed front blade?

If the revolver has a red insert front sight and fully adjustable rear sight, you can order glow in the dark night sights from amazon. I'll try to post a link below. If the front is true fixed then I can only suggest glow in the dark paint. Or you could try to find a 640 pro series that comes with night sights from factory. Or you could change your self defence gun to a j frame of your choice and use the green crimson trace lazer. I'm sure you know this but it's just some ideas.

My last two pairs of glasses are what are known as occupational trifocals. They have bifocal lenses on the bottom as normal with my distance prescription above the bifocals and finally trifocal lenses at the top of the glasses. This works great for working at a computer station and even better for shooting pistols for me. This allows my preferred slightly head down stance for shooting out of my modified isosceles stance. They are not real popular so some compromises may have to be made. Mine are plastic lenses of safety glass thickness with anti-scratch and UV protective coatings. My next pair of glasses will be more of the same.

Then, as years pass, replace the jelly bean with a marshmallow, then tennis ball, then-..........

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60-10,640-1,G30,G41MOS,1911

Great tip!
I keep a good fresh permanent black marker in my range bag.
Just put a “Steel is Real” stainless gripframe on my old 45C Blackhawk and after enjoying the glow of how much better the balance is I blackened the front/rear sights and dry-fired the drywall.

Sometimes trifocals allow the middle lens to focus the sights and the distance lens to pick up the target.
Have not tried a comparison, tri vs progressive, outdoors yet as our reloading is on hold until the modifications to the station are finished.

We hunt with fishing rods in South Florida so reading the sonar just requires that the polarized sun glasses and the sonar screen are oriented properly...... do my glasses have a switch that when worn shut my sonar off, asked the new yachtsmen?
True story as the electronics company just missed that boat.
A new screen cover arrived promptly.

I focus on what I want to hit, the target. One advantage of a revolver for me is the sights are displaced forward just enough to be adequately in focus. My reading glasses are 2.25 diopters so I'm not extremely farsighted.
Faster shooting up close? Put the front sight on the target.

Give up, get a dot and shoot Carry Optics division, or Open. It's only gonna get worse.

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Minimize the variables

If you need only a little near-distance correction, a pair of these Foster Grants in +1.50 diopters will be only about half that in the upper part of the lens. I have a pair for the rare days that I wear contacts to the range instead of my "shooting glasses" (a 25 year old pair of glasses that just happen to be 0.75 diopters weaker than my current long-distance prescription, and so about perfect for my front sight).

Foster Grant Multi Focus

They're not "real" safety glasses, but the ranges I go to will accept them. You can buy slip-on side shields for about five bucks if you want lateral protection, which is a good thing!

You can make an aperture out of 3M blue masking tape and it will go on and off without leaving any residue. If you have a clean surface to stick it on between uses, you may even be able to reuse it a few times. Maybe store several on the inside of the lid of a plastic ammo box?

I've made one by cutting a tiny "square" hole out of a "square" of tape with an Xacto knife, and it seemed to work somewhat. The "square" in each case was really a sloppy quadrilateral, because I'm not very careful or picky. It didn't seem to matter that the hole was not round.

Try a Merit Optical aperature disc. Suction cup sticks it to you glasses. Sharpens up the front and rear sights. It is great for my 58 year old eyes.

You can keep a Bic lighter and plastic eating utensils in your Bullseye box. Light the handle end of a fork or spoon. The black smoke coming off works great in a pinch.

I used to compete in target archery for many years. I was taught to focus on the spot I wanted to hit, and let the pin blur and float.

Now that I have transitioned to pistol and gotten competitive in IDPA, plus carrying everyday, I have tried to switch gears and learn this front sight focus.

I gotta say I haven't been terribly successful. I find I need to close one eye to be able to do it, which goes against the grain, plus doesn't lend itself to situational awareness, either.

I've come to the conclusion that I just need to do what works for me and stay with focusing on the target. Maybe with continual dry fire I can make the transition.

Sent from my LG-SP200 using Tapatalk

Because of 5 partial retinal detachments (some in each eye) and subsequent laser repairs I have chronic floaters in both eyes & my left eye 20/50 with my glasses while my right eye is 20/20 with my glasses.

Being left hand left eye dominant I now have to train left hand right eye dominant for handgun shooting. I am managing that pretty well. Shooting handguns I tend to focus on front sight & target. I ignore the rear sight. In fact on my G27 I switched to front sight night sight only., my rear is standard blade with no illumination, this alone makes a better sight picture at night...front sight glows., put it on target forget the rear sight.

Long guns not so simple...I still shoot lefty but find a good red dot helps me stay on target...

As to general defense shooting...I practice a modified point shooting., i.e. gun up, line up to target with front sight generally alighned & let er rip..don't get hung up on the front sight too much & forget the rear sight.