The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - I've never been "blinded" by muzzle flash, have you?

Rangerrich99 · March 12, 2018, 05:07 PM

Recently at a low light defensive handgun class I noticed something along the lines of this topic. While I didn't lose my night vision per se; I could still see the targets even out as far as 50 yards, I did notice that I did seem to lose the ability to see details on those targets as the round counts increased during a particular drill. For instance, our silhouettes were bowling pin-style black lines on white paper with a 5-inch square in the middle. This was pretty easily visible before I started shooting at 15 yards, but after 6 rounds I found that while I could still see the outline of the bowling pin, seeing the square was much harder. I only noticed this because in that drill we were asked to fire our controlled pairs into the top right corner of the square. Well after just a few reps, I was having a hard time finding the corners of the square.

Now there are plenty of factors that could've/probably had as much to do with this phenomenon as anything else. My age, 48 (the eyes seem to go faster as you pass 40). How much flash is inherent in the manufactured ammo I was using. It was breezy so there could have been a film of dust on my glasses. And so on. But several other students agreed that it was harder to see the square after just a few shots.

Was this an example of muzzle flash blindness? I can't say for certain, but I can't rule it out either.

March 12, 2018, 05:07 PM	#4
Rangerrich99 Senior Member Join Date: March 20, 2014 Location: Kinda near Phoenix, AZ Posts: 1,254	Recently at a low light defensive handgun class I noticed something along the lines of this topic. While I didn't lose my night vision per se; I could still see the targets even out as far as 50 yards, I did notice that I did seem to lose the ability to see details on those targets as the round counts increased during a particular drill. For instance, our silhouettes were bowling pin-style black lines on white paper with a 5-inch square in the middle. This was pretty easily visible before I started shooting at 15 yards, but after 6 rounds I found that while I could still see the outline of the bowling pin, seeing the square was much harder. I only noticed this because in that drill we were asked to fire our controlled pairs into the top right corner of the square. Well after just a few reps, I was having a hard time finding the corners of the square. Now there are plenty of factors that could've/probably had as much to do with this phenomenon as anything else. My age, 48 (the eyes seem to go faster as you pass 40). How much flash is inherent in the manufactured ammo I was using. It was breezy so there could have been a film of dust on my glasses. And so on. But several other students agreed that it was harder to see the square after just a few shots. Was this an example of muzzle flash blindness? I can't say for certain, but I can't rule it out either.