If you've been around shooting very long, you've had it drilled into you: always wear shooting glasses, no matter what you're shooting. And when you look at the statistics, this is some very valid advice.

But choosing the right pair of glasses can be hard. Shooting glasses come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and materials. Different types are designed for different uses. Once you start adding in a prescription, things start to get really complicated. The bottom line is, before you invest in protective eyewear you should consult an optometrist or optician to find out exactly what you need.

Suellen Dickeson is a licensed optician who owns her own business, Suellen's Family Eyewear, in Quincy, Florida. She's been making all kinds of glasses for 18 years, but her specialty is protective eyewear. She and her husband both shoot, so Suellen has had ample opportunity to learn what special problems shooters have with safety glasses. She says the factors you need to consider when choosing glasses fall into several categories.

Lens Materials

The first thing you need to decide is what your shooting glasses will be made of. The highest priority is protection; optical quality is second.

"The most protective lens is polycarbonate," she says. "You can drive a nail through it, and it won't shatter. The downside of it is that it scratches very easily. It's very tough, but also very soft." You can get polycarbonate lenses with coatings on both the front and the back to reduce scratching, but these coatings do not completely solve the problem.

The next level of protection is from plastic, which is less resistant to impact, but also less inclined to scratch. Most of today's prescription glasses are made from plastic.

The next consideration is optics.

"The best optics are in a glass lens," Suellen says. "But that's the worst lens to wear for protection. Second-best is plastic. Next is polycarbonate." If you insist on lenses of safety glass you can get them, but they will be considerably thicker and heavier than either plastic or polycarbonate.

So, depending on yours needs, what you choose will be a balancing act between protection and optical quality. If you're buying a non-prescription pair of glasses just for shooting, you're probably going to want polycarbonate. On the other hand, if you're selecting prescription glasses, the kind of correction you need will determine if you can use polycarbonate or if you'll have to go to plastic. Here is where your optician will have to advise you.

Fit

You'll also need to think about how the glasses will fit your face. "It's just like putting grips on your gun," Suellen says. "Everyone's hand is different. Everyone's face is different, too. You want something that's going to be comfortable and functional at the same time."

If you already wear prescription lenses, you may want to consider a pair of wraparounds that go over your regular glasses. These are made of polycarbonate or plastic, are light and easy to carry, and make the entire question of what kind of shooting glasses to wear very simple. But in my experience they have a down side: they're often bulky and hard to wear, and tend to slip around and fog up in warm weather.

Unlike regular prescription glasses, many shooting glasses are wraparound styles, which give you better protection than front-only lenses. One of the most popular styles of wraparounds is Gargoyles. Many law enforcement officers wear them, and they have a good reputation for protection and durability. A number of other companies provide excellent quality wraparound styles as well.

"You can't put a prescription in something like that, because it's made from one piece," Suellen says.

Color

Once you get into color, the question of what pair of glasses to buy really starts to get complicated.

"A yellow lens is best for shooting in the early morning and late afternoon, because it makes things brighter," Suellen says. "Most shooting glasses that you see ready-made have a yellow tint in them. If you're shooting in the middle of the day and want to use a dark lens, grey makes things are truer color. Brown tends to make thing rosier. Bausch and Lomb came out with an 'amber-matic lens,' which is light yellow in the morning. As you get into the middle of the day it turns light amber, and in the most intense light it turns gray."

And color is not necessarily what you think you see. Sometimes it means putting special coatings on a lens to enable your eye to work more effectively, or to protect your eye from UV light.

"Anti-reflective coatings make everything crisp and clear, so you can see every little detail," Suellen says.

Prescription Lenses

Now that you're thoroughly confused, it's time to throw one more complication into the plot. If you wear bifocals, you may or may not want to have the close correction worked into your shooting lens. You and your optician will have to make a decision about this based on the gun(s) you are shooting and on your individual needs.

"If you're shooting and all you want to see is the target, when you lift your head up to look at the target you don't want to get into the bifocal," Suellen says. "Or, you may not want to go with only the distance correction. You may want to do something in between."

One thing Suellen points out is that a regular prescription lens is not enough to provide full protection for shooting.

"A plastic lens will shatter if it's hit hard enough," she says. "A glass lens will shatter. The glass lens will be like your windshield, with all the little pieces, but you could still get one of those pieces in your eye."

Price

What you'll pay for shooting glasses will depend entirely on what you buy. A pair of polycarbonate wraparounds that fit over your prescription glasses may run as little as $15. Plain shooting glasses start at $60 and go up. Gargoyles run around $110. That's without any prescription lenses. Add in your prescription and the price goes up.

When you start looking for a pair of safety glasses, you'll find literally hundreds of kinds already made. There's no one answer to the question "Which pair is best?" But with the help of your optician you can sort through the many alternatives available and decide whether one of the ready-made types will do, or you'll want to have a custom pair made. Either way, now you have some idea of what questions you'll need to ask to decide what's best for you.