Ragnar Skanaker has his own website

[Guest]

starting here
http://www.skanaker.se/eng/glas/Home.html

[Fred Mannis]

starting here
http://www.skanaker.se/eng/glas/Home.html

Iteresting. Is anyone planning to import and sell them in the U.S.?

[Fred]

First off, admittedly it is presumptuous of me to say anything critical about Ragnar Skanaker, so take this for what it's worth. However, while the Skanaker glasses are obviously convenient, I would question them from an optical point of view. I think Mr. Skanaker must have basically good unaided vision, because those of us who don't - and who need significant corrective lenses - know that the proper distance of the lens to the eye is vital to obtaining good correction.

With the lens attached to the hat visor, that distance will not only be too long, but will vary a certain amount, depending on exactly how the hat is put on that day. For people with good unaided vision, this won't matter much, but for the rest of us it would make these glasses unusable, no matter how convenient they might be.

Just my 2 cents, FWIW, YMMV, ETC.

FredB

[Patrick]

I saw the system in Munich last week. I'm sorry to say that it was awkward having Ragnar, medal on display, promoting the glasses. Personally, I'm not interested in a pair of glasses that ONLY work while wearing a specific hat. I took a look then politely took my leave. I'll stick with my Knoblochs.

[pilkguns]

Some answers to some questions/comments.

We are the US outlet for this product. We are working out pricing on them right now and hope to have some more pics and description on the website soon. For sure you can see them next week at FT Benning

All shooters should take the glasses to their optometrist. Of course, taking the gun is required. Maybe you need different lenses for different guns because of the sight length. Of course this is standard procedure with Knobloch, Varga, Champion etc.

Fred, The distance to the eye is set by the user. The are infinitely adjustable and very easily done. You can make them closer to your eye than normal glasses because you don’t have to deal with the nosepiece.

Patrick, you should have looked a little closer, they can easily be swapped from hat to hat if you like, and are not intended to stay on the hat during storage/transport. They have a very nice magnetic rail system that detaches the lens adjustment unit from the hat itself


Ragnar sent me the following comments

On top of "all problems" is the question- if I shall shoot fast I recommend a little stronger lens.

If the shooter has astigmatism he must set the lens in the ring so it can not move around- very important.

The glasses are made for max 2 lenses.

I think it s possible to adjust the hook up in snap- on so you can use the yellow contrast glass when using the optical lens in the ring.

I myself use an optical lens +1,75 dioptri for fast shooting and +1.50 for air and free pistol.

I always use a cap to avoide diffrent lights-also very important.

I can not understand the statement about different distance lens-eye. I recommend a serious test.

I have had 15 shooters testing them for some weeks and that problem has never been brought up.

At my age they are very useful when I drive the car, I can not see the instruments without glasses whith dioptri.So to check the clock or tachometer I just take down the glasses for a second
.

[Guest]

Fred, The distance to the eye is set by the user. The are infinitely adjustable and very easily done. You can make them closer to your eye than normal glasses because you don’t have to deal with the nosepiece.

In order for a lens to be infinitely adjustable it must have an adjustable focus. Otherwise you end up buying a box full of lenses since a fixed lens can only focus to one plane.

I assume you are trying to say that the user must pick one distance for his eyepiece, but it can be either up close or distant, since you cannot have both with only one lens.

To me they are very inelegant in the fact that you they have no advantage over spectacles other than a different attachment point which is not stable nor consistent.

[pilkguns]

Guest, if you will read my quote which you quoted, you will see that I did not say the lens was infinitely adjustable. Fred was refering the mounting of the frames and the distance to the eyes apparently assuming that the frames would cause the lense to be at some fixed point furhter out than normal which it is not the case, there is sufficient nessacery adjusment in the lens holder assembly.

Whether the setup is inelegant or not is a moot point, Certainly there is nothing elegant about any shooting glasses that I can think of, they all look like a lopsided victim of cyborg tornado. The question is do they are work and will they useful to the intended user.

Lastly Ragnar does supply and reccomend hats with a hard bill such as is commonly available in the states and most of Europe. It would be useless without one. A hard bill hat is going to be as stable and as consistent normal frames without all the disadvantages of the normal frames as is outlined elswhere. In fact for those that are hat wearers, which I presume you are not, the hat is a much more consistent application to hold the lenses by virtue of its familarity. Shooting glasses are something that is worn only for the time you are actually shooting, and are in fact detrimental for any other acitvity. A favorite hat on the other hand, is wore often and a little kilter off to one side or the other is instantly noticed and corrected, so in this case familarity does not breed contempt, but rather a more exactness in the placement.

[Fred Mannis]

And let me add, Scott, that it is far easier to take off a hat than it is to remove shooting glasses. When I shoot Bullseye, where scoring is done at the targets by the shooters, I have to take off my Vargas and put on my regular glasses so I can see the holes. Switching hats or assemblies on a rail sounds good.

Fred

[F. Paul in Denver]

I'm intrigued by the Skanaker product but I question whether placement of the Skanaker lens relative to the eye is in fact more consistent than a good pair of properly fitted shooting glasses.

I'm keeping an open mind and maybe I'm missing something but:

A hat is almost never worn the same way twice and when you change hats, this inconsistency becomes even more pronounced.

I assume that in order to conveniently store the apparatus, it must be removed and then reattached to and from the hat after and before each shooting session.

Even if reattached to the very same hat the next time - it is much more likely it will not be attached exactly in the same spot and/or the hat position on the head will not be the same. If one changes hats from one session to the other, the problem becomes even more pronounced.

With shooting glasses (especially the Champion\Knobloch variety) once they are properly set up and tightened down, a stable and consistent lens to eye relationship is dependent only on whether there has been a change in the relative positions of the bridge of your nose and the center of the eye. Dependency on a particular hat, the position of the hat on the head and the placement of the lenses on the hat all seem to invite consistency problems

Traditional glasses seem like they are much less susceptible to misalignment and the need for constant adjustment.

It would be very helpful if Ragnar's product were endorsed by an eye care professional like an optometrist whose expertise could be very persuasive.

P.S. The temperature at an indoor range even one as well air conditioned as the OTC here in Colorado Springs can make shooting AP with a hat on a very uncomfortable proposition.

[F. Paul in Denver]

Fred M - why not get your Vargas glasses set up with a prescription reading lens for the non shooting eye?? You could even have that non shooting eye lens made into a lined bifocal with the lower part for reading\scoring and the upper part for mid-range or distance.

Mine are set up like this - shooting eye set for mid range (front sight). Non shooting eye is a bifocal with the lower part for reading and the upper part for distance. So, between the two lenses, I can see clearly at all distances - albeit with just one corrected eye. I think the docs call this monocular vision. This way I never have to remove my glasses to shoot, score or see what's going on way down range or across the room.

You may think it's hard to score or see anything with just one corrected eye but you easily get used to it.

[pilkguns]

Obviously there is a great deal of misunderstanding of how this works, and after going back and looking at the pictures on the website, I can see that there is'nt really a good description, either verbal or pictorial of the system.

Soooo, I guess I know how I have to take pictures for the page on my website. But for the moment all I can say is getting this in the exact position again on the same hat, or another one modified to accept the system, is a snap.

And no offense intended to Paul, but at least for me, if a cap is not on consistently, at least for me, then my whole world is a kilter, and I have to adjust to get my balance back to normal

[F. Paul in Denver]

No offense taken Scott. The fact that you believe in a product says alot about it.

I'll look forward to seeing the photos and keeping an open mind until then.

[CraigE]

I would really like to see these glasses. I agree with Scott......a hat IS very personal and even those of us with very little hair can sense when one is misplaced by a hat that's askew. MHO, YHSMV(your hat size may vary).

CraigE

[Guest]

The Skanaker design does look like they were designed to provide an amber tint for light filtration over a pair of prescription spectacles, if a user wore them. Having a narrow visual area they would restrict the field of vision somewhat and, if the shooter was wearing a pair of clear spectacles with some prescription correction, the contrast might help to some extent in shooting at fixed ranges. It would take some getting used to, though - cap mounted glasses were among the earliest designs, dating back to the Da Vinci era and it is interesting to note that someone is trying to bring them back.