Why Are Shooting Glasses Yellow? What Does It Do?

Last Updated on Mar 13 2024

When you head out to the shooting range, you’ll likely see quite a few people with yellow shooting glasses. It’s not all about style, although some people certainly like the look. 

There’s an actual reason that many shooting glasses are yellow, and if you’re looking to get your own pair, there’s a good chance that you’ll want to go with yellow.

Here, we break down all the perks and highlight a few other popular options that you might want to consider.

Why Are Shooting Glasses Yellow?

There are a few different advantages of wearing yellow shooting glasses. First, yellow does a great job of filtering out blue UV rays of light. Not only does this provide better eye protection from UV rays, but it can actually make it easier to see the orange color of a target.

Second, the yellow hue also increases contrast and depth perception, which helps improve overall accuracy.

Due to these benefits, yellow shooting glasses are a clear upgrade over clear ones.

Do You Have to Wear Yellow Shooting Glasses?

While yellow shooting glasses have a few distinct advantages over clear ones, you certainly don’t have to use them. Moreover, while they’re a great choice, they’re not the only option out there.

Others include amber, purple, blue, brown, or gray. Amber lenses provide all the same perks as yellow glasses and work better on low-light days.

Purple and blue lenses provide great contrast against green backgrounds, which is often the case when there are taller grass or trees around.

Brown lenses help reduce eyestrain and improve contrast in bright, open areas. Finally, gray lenses reduce the amount of light that comes through the lenses, which is advantageous if you’re out on an extremely bright day.

What Else Do Shooting Glasses Do?

Not only can shooting glasses help improve your vision and increase your accuracy, but they also double as safety glasses.

Between ricochet, ejected cartridges, and other debris that can get worked up while shooting, wearing the glasses helps protect your eyes.

You never know what will happen when you’re shooting. All it takes is one accident to have permanent eye damage, which shooting glasses could’ve prevented.

Other Safety Tips to Follow While Shooting

There are many safety rules to follow when you’re shooting, which is why we highly recommend taking a gun safety course before heading out to the range.

Here are a few additional safety rules that you’ll want to follow while shooting, as a refresher or if you’re just trying to get ahead of the game. Just know that this list doesn’t cover everything that you should do while at the range!

1. Control the Muzzle

It’s the number-one rule when you’re holding a gun: Never aim it at something that you’re not willing to shoot. Keep muzzle control at all times and never point it at someone else.

2. Keep Your Finger off the Trigger

You need to pull the trigger to fire the gun, but if you’re not in the process of shooting, keep your finger off the trigger. This is one of those “no exceptions” rules. Unless you’re ready to fire, keep your finger off that trigger.

3. Think About What’s Behind the Target

Bullets travel at high rates of speed, and depending on the caliber that you’re shooting, they’ll travel through just about anything. So, keep in mind what’s behind the target. The last thing that you want is to fire a round into something else (or someone) because you didn’t account for what was behind the target.

4. Keep It Unloaded

Until you’re out at the range and ready to shoot, don’t keep ammo in your weapon. Even then, don’t chamber a round until you’re ready to fire.

If there’s no ammo in your gun, you can’t accidentally shoot something that you shouldn’t. Regardless, always treat it like it’s loaded.

5. Don’t Count on the Safety — But Keep It On

Too many people put too much trust in their weapon’s safety. Safeties can fail, and if that happens and you’re counting on it, you can be in trouble.

Still, it’s a safety device that you’ll want to use. Keep the safety on when you’re not firing, but pretend that it’s off.

Final Thoughts

When you want to head out to the range to fire a few rounds, do it with all the right equipment and gear to get the best results and keep yourself and others safe.

Yellow safety glasses are a great start and are far better than their clear counterparts. Feel free to head out and get your own pair.

Featured Image Credit: Vladyslav Starozhylov, Shutterstock