Also, not all red dot scopes will do this. In fact I bought a bushnell multi-retical red dot and it comes with polarized lenses you can take on and off to lessen the glare (the 2 lenses are housed in one rotatable housing, so when you attach it to the sight, one lens is stationary while the other one moves, which makes it brighter and darker).

To say you get a “blank screen” is an exaggeration. I still use the old Bushnell with my polarized shooting glasses. I just have to crank up the brightness as far as it’ll go and it’s OK.

I’ve actually held two lab-grade polarized lenses and rotated them against each other. (Well, the rings. You don’t want to actually run the lenses together.) When they are perpendicular, it is opaque. Completely. A good tutorial is here:

http://www.laramyk.com/education/dispensing/polarized-lenses.html

I say get out the scope & shades, I’m ignored. JKB says do it and you jump.

I guess you missed the part where me and jimmyb said we’ve done that?

If I had a tie I’d adjust it and say “no respect, no respect at all.”

Myth busted.

Whether this happens to any one individual depends on the plane orientations, whether the polarization is precise or covers a range of angle, etc.

As suggested try looking into your sight while rotating the glasses to find the angle in which the visual goes dark.

I have a pair of sunglasses that has a problem with the LCDs on gas pumps if I cock my head slightly right. Rotate left and I can read them with no problem.

So when a sunglass lens and a holographic sight are not lined up “just so,” there is a loss of light transmitted through them to the eye. Usually it is not enough to notice. If the alignment gets bad, the dot is lost as the sight dims. If it gets gets worse, the view is like looking through welder’s goggles (very very dim to black).

Can one position one’s head 90 degrees to the optic? Yes, under extremely odd shooting positions such as laying on one’s back firing to the side.

Knowing there can be a problem, the solution is to ditch the shades if one drops to the ground in a firefight, I would suppose.

My problem with polarized PLASTIC lenses (i.e. Oakleys, Wiley X’s) is that they distort vision, especially at the edges, and they distort color as well (look at your i-pod or laptop screen through plastic poliarized lenses).

I never had this problem with glass polarized lenses (i.e., Ray-Bans).

Wonder why the difference.

Get the polarized glasses, fire up the optic and rotate the glasses through 180 degrees. My guess is when the polarizing bars crisscross, the image will dim a lot but not totally vanish.