Borelli Consulting
Revision
Eyewear Revisited
22 October 2007
Some
folks have called me a doubting Thomas. Others seem to feel that I'll write
something nice about any company that sends me equipment to test. To that second
group I say, "You have no idea how much stuff I've sent BACK because it failed."
In the case of this week's review item - a recheck of Revision Military Eyewear
- I decided to put my own convictions to the test. I have long been a fan of
Revision Eyewear and believed their ads about "37 hits, no penetrations." I
decided not to take it for granted and test it myself. This week's review has
pictures of ONE pair of Revision's Sawfly eyewear protection system that we shot
THREE times with 8-shot. The short report is "92 hits: no
penetrations". The
long report is... below.
Off to the range I went. My test shotgun was my Remington 870 pump 12g with a
20" slug barrel. My test load was Federal 2.75" 8-shot shells. My target, as you
can see from the photos, was a cardboard "backer" hung and fitted with a pair of
Revision Eyewear Sawflys. To simulate eyes, nose and mouth in a way that would
clearly show hits, I used black adhesive dots from Shoot-N-See products which
show yellow when penetrated (or scraped hard enough). I felt that shooting the
target from 16 feet, which is what Revision did for testing, was a bit
unrealistic. My feeling is that, from that close, a blast of 8-shot is going to
do so much damage to my head that I won't care about my eyes. What was a more
realistic distance? A distance that I believed would result in superficial
facial injuries - not incapacitating - where damage to the eyes through the
closed lids would be blinding. The distance I decided to start with was 15
yards.
So, from the 15 yard line I fired one round of 8-shot at the target. Accounting
for muzzle rise I tried to aim accordingly and the resulting hit pattern is
visible on the photo shown to the right here. I probably aimed just slightly
lower than I should have, but the number of hits in the Shoot-N-See dots are
easy to see. The holes in the gray head are also worth noting. Each respresents
a puncture in skin, cheek, forehead, chin, lips, ears, etc. What is important is
that, of the 16 hits counted on the glasses from this shot, none penetrated.
So, okay cool. From about 15 feet a blast of 8-shot isn't blinding. But that's
just one shot. How about another? I had to find out. So, making sure the Sawflys
were still in place on the target I took that second shot. I adjusted my aim a
little higher this time. I wanted to get maximum impact on the head area of the
target, increasing my chances of getting as many pellets as possible to hit the
glasses. What I was trying to find out is if the lenses, having been impacted
once, would have weak spots that could be penetrated with a second volley of
shot. As you can clearly see from the next photo down, the glasses survived the
second shot and prevented any penetrations. I had to do the counting: we added
another 23 impacts to the Sawflys (my aim was better) for a total of 39 hits (so
far) without any penetrations.
As you can see on the right side of the target's head, the glasses were being
pushed into the cardboard pretty well. Obviously, the impact energy of 39 8-shot
pellets is still enough to do some damage. I found it significant, though, that
even on a second blast, the glasses hadn't failed. What would a third shot do?
We were about to find out. I made sure that the glasses were still in place and
stable. I moved my firing position up to the seven yard line: 21 feet. Standing
there looking at the target that close I remember thinking, "Even if the eyes
are still there, the head won't be." With that in mind I loaded my round of
8-shot, took aim and fired.
After the shot it was almost humorous to see the target still there with just
the eye section punched out. The Sawflys were on the ground behind the target
and the target's "face" was a mass of hits. The Shoot-N-See dots were covered
with more yellow than black. I had to search behind the target to get the "eye"
pieces and put them back in place. The right side Shoot-N-See dot showed yellow
scrape marks where the Sawflys pushed through the cardboard. Still, I had to
look and see just how well the glasses had held up to a third blast fired from
much closer. After I got everything put back together I was suitably impressed.
After putting everything in place I was quite pleased to see that there were
still no holes in the eyes.
If you look carefully you CAN see a few holes in the gray shaded portions of the
head that would have been behind the glasses. Since none of the shots penetrated
the glasses, I have to assume that these pellets pushed through in between the
lenses and frames or nose piece after the majority of pellets had impacted. When
I picked up the glasses the lens had seperated from the frames and the nose
piece had fallen off. I reassembled the glasses and started counting hits. That
blast added another 53 hits for a total of 92 hits fired in three seperate
shots. In that final picture below you can clearly see just how covered in
pock-marks the lens and frame are. For as much damage as the glasses took, think
about the damage to eyesight that they would have prevented in this case.
The thing that I have to remember is that the Sawfly protective eyewear system
is only ONE that Revision makes. I consider them representative of the other
protective eyewear products Revision makes - although I know that I will be
taking a pair of Hellfly sunglasses out to the range to shoot up sometime in the
near future too.
In addition to the Hellfly and Sawfly protective eyewear systems - which
strongly resemble sunglasses - Revision also makes two types of goggles: The
Desert Locust and the Bullet Ant.
All of the Revision eyewear products are ballistic rated and designed for
specific purposes. The Sawflys and Hellflys are exceptional for daily wear. As
eye protection for law enforcement and/or special assignment personnel, they are
excellent. For special operations work the goggles do great... or, on the
recreational side, the Bullet Ant goggles are perfect for eye protection while
you're riding your motorcycle. And if they'll stop repeated rounds of 8-shot,
they should be pretty good at stopping bees and rocks.
Like any company, Revision creates slogans for their advertising campaigns and,
if you're a reasonably well informed adult, you learn to look through the
slogans and slick sounding statements to see what the products are really about.
In this case Revision's slogans are pretty much spot on:
In Just The Blink Of An Eye
You Can Lose An Eye
Be Revision Ready
You Can't Hit
What You Can't See
Be Revision Ready
Looking at the company's performance you can see that it isn't just about
slogans, though. With more than 500,000 sets of Sawfly protective eyewear
delivered to the Army, Revision has both the Sawfly and Desert Locust products
available for purchase through DoDEmall, GSA, and more. They both have NSN
numbers. For all that, Revision is releasing new colors for the Hellflys at the
'08 SHOT Show.
So, I started out double checking what was being put into the advertisements and
came away more than satisfied. 92 cumulative hits later and the glasses can
still be worn. Of course, you won't see much through them now, but more
importantly, NOTHING would have gotten through to damage your vision. What's
that worth to you? BE SAFE!!!