A couple years back, before they came to Boomershoot, I bought a pair of smoke gray ESS ICE shooting glasses. I also bought the snap-in prescription lenses that go with them.
I wore them at Boomershoot and on multiple range trips. They are as tough and comfortable as ESS says they are.
Fast forward to last month and my beginning this welding course. I needed a pair of “safety glasses” that I could weld in and also protect my peepers. Perfect fit, you’d think.
Except that after one day of use I discovered that the smoke gray alone wasn’t strong enough for gas welding and, with the welding hood on, was just a bit too dark to see what needs to be seen when you’re holding fire. Also, I got a headache that day (coincidentally, I thought). So I ordered a new set of clear lenses.
Fast forward again to 10 days later when the clear lenses arrived. I inserted my prescription lenses into the clears and take them to class the next day. Again, I got a headache. And the next day. On day three I decide to not wear my ESS glasses and two things happened: My welds got better and I didn’t get a headache.
I get home that afternoon and investigate and I find that while items at arms length can be seen fine, items closer than that are fuzzy and I am “manually” correcting for this. Now that I have figured this out, I look to find out why this is happening. It turns out that the curvature of the ICE lenses is pushing my snap-in prescription lenses inward at the outside edges.
I wrote to ESS to see if they make a different set of frames that I can use my prescription snap-in lenses in that won’t bend them in at the edges. They do not.
Pissed off at myself for not noticing all of this beforehand, I set out to find a set of standard shop teacher style safety glasses I can toss prescription lenses into. I have them now and now is also your opportunity.
I need to sell off the ESS shades. Otherwise, I will have $70 worth of safety eye wear sitting in a drawer somewhere doing nothing and I’ll feel even more pissed off at myself for that.
So here is the deal: They’re normally $34 each. I’ll sell them for half-price. $17 each, or $30 for the two of them to the first person who wants them (with preference going to those who want the pair). Shipping will likely be around $10 also. So for $40 you could have some high-speed, low-drag peeper-protecters and get almost a whole other one for free.
They are great protective eye wear for the range, with or without snap-in prescription lenses. I’ll even throw in the nose piece so that you can get your own lenses made if you want to put them in. I just don’t need them for shooting (my shop teacher glasses do the job, though they don’t look as cool), and I could use the extra cash.
Hit me up at my email addy in the top bar if you’re interested.
UPDATE: Sale pending