Is Numa Tactical Protective Eyewear the Baddest Ballistic Eyepro on the Planet?: DR’s SHOT Show 2011 Video Report Shows just how Tough these Combat/Tactical Sunglasses are. (Photos and Video!)

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By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com

All photos and video clips contained in this article were shot by DefenseReview.com (DR), and are copyrighted. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these materials. The photos were shot with a Canon PowerShot S90 10-megapixel digital camera (still camera with video capability). The video clips were shot with a Toshiba Camileo S30 HD Camcorder (pocket camcorder).

February 18, 2011 Updated on 2/19/11.

Numa Tactical (a division of Numa Sport Optics) ballistic eyepro (eye protection)/eyewear has become DefenseReview’s (DR’s) primary eye pro, as of late. For about the last year, we’ve been running their excellent Point Ballistic and (even lighter-weight and more minimalist) Chisel Ballistic models, specifically, and we’ve been very impressed with them. Like Oakley Standard Issue and Revision Military ballistic eyepro, Numa Tactical ballistic eyepro looks good and exceeds both ANSI Z87.1 industrial and MIL-PRF-31013 military standards against impact.

The Numa shooting specs also offer UV400 level protection against the sun, and offer some unique advantages of their own. First, they utilize the patented Swiss Tough-Flex flexible/bendable polymer frame material, which is both lightweight and extremely strong and flexible. Tough-Flex is unique to Numa sunglasses, and is one of the primary features that separates them from the rest of the ballistic tactical eye pro field.

Numa also offers a unique lens color called Mandarose (Trademarked), which is billed as a “breakthrough in light management technology”, and is supposed to be ideal for shooting and daytime urban tactical operations where the operator has to go right from outdoor to indoor environments, and back out again. You can read more about this, below. Numa Tactical sunglass lenses feature multiple coating combinations that allow the lenses to perform multiple tasks, from filtering visible light and UV rays to preventing fogging and scratching.

It’s Defense Review’s understanding that Numa Tactical will soon be offering as an option a new polyurethane lens material called JetShield (Trademarked) that Numa claims offers superior optical clarity and 30% more impact resistance versus polycarbonate (at the same weight, we presume). The Numa Tactical JetShield lens option will therefore be a bit more expensive than the standard polycarbonate lens option.

DR recently got to view and handle the latest and greatest Numa Tactical protective eyewear/tactical sunglasses at SHOT Show 2011, including the Numa Tactical “T.A.S. Blackout Series”, created for Tactical Assault Systems, and the Numa Tactical Seagal Signature Series with JetShield Lenses, and we liked what we saw. Jake Bennett of Numa Tactical spent a good amount of time taking us through the product demo, which was very interesting, and a fellow attendee named Eric Langevin, owner/partner of Price-Langevin & Associates, Inc., was kind enough to act as our model for the accompanying photos. The following are some video clips we shot of a Numa Tactical product demo conducted by Jake Bennett. Watch Jake demonstrate just how amazing the Numa Tactical frames and lenses are. Definitely worth watching!

The following product information was sent to us by Numa Tactical:

Numa’s Eye-Soothing High-Contrast Mandarose® Lens: All of Numa’s three-lens kits come with their signature Mandarose® high-contrast lens. This is a breakthrough in light management technology. It makes reds and greens “pop”, and “makes the wearer feel like he’s Robocop,” as one Shot Show attendee put it, “with his own built-in digital range-finder.”

When you look out at a range of subjects you no longer see a crowd, you see each individual in that crowd: person A at 10 meters, person B at 20 meters, person C at 25 meters… When you are in the bush and look out at the trees, you don’t just see trees, you see every individual leaf. The applications for this lens are wide-ranging.

They are ideal shooting and driving lenses and especially great for brightening up cloudy or overcast days. SWAT entry teams have reported to Numa that they favor these lenses for daytime entry work, because they are dark enough to block the worst of the light outside, and light enough to function effectively indoors. Using these lenses, your eye adjusts quicker when you enter the target house than if you went from bright daylight to indoors wearing clear or yellow lenses.

Numa’s founder explained to us their reasoning in developing the new lens: “Traditional high contrast lenses, like yellow and orange, are harsh on the eye. They make you squint when you put them on. They cause eye fatigue when you wear them for too long. We knew this was not ideal, and wanted to create a high-contrast lens that you could wear all day. After extensive experimentation and field testing, we refined a dye package that is a mix of rose and orange tints.

The rose element creates an eye-soothing effect by filtering out violet segments of the spectrum while the orange creates a high contrast effect by filtering out the blue/indigo that creates haze and diminishes visual acuity. The spectrograph of these lenses shows a wholly unique double-dip in their light spectrum filtration chart.

The proof of the engineering is in the wearing. We have gotten such a wellspring of positive feedback on these lenses that we are pursuing a patent on the technology and have put considerable resources into developing two variations that will be bringing to market in the near future. The first is a photochromic version of the Mandarose lens, that shifts from Mandarose to dark grey in harsh light conditions – the tactical applications of that lens are obvious – you never have to change lenses, the lens changes itself to suit the condition. The other is a polarized photochromic Mandarose, which we have made darker for bright light conditions, but which still creates the eye soothing and high contrast effects of our signature lens. This lens goes from dark to darker in bright light.”

Numa’s “T.A.S. Blackout Series”: Numa has created a “Blackout Series” for Tactical Assault Systems (TAS). This series will be available in late Spring, exclusively through Extreme Outfitters, in Jacksonville, North Carolina (www.extremeoutfitters.us). Numa used a rubberized black coating on its frames, to eliminate glinting and reflection, and applied their logo in matte black. The black-on-black printing creates a super-cool low-key effect – the logo is invisible unless you look at the frame from just the right angle. (Perfect for the operator that wants to use quality gear, not pimp a logo.) In case you forgot what glasses you were wearing, look inside the frame, and you’ll see the T.A.S. vampire-skull logo on the inside:

The series includes three ballistic models (the Point, Chisel and Reflex) and two sport models (LoPro and Shark), and all come with a 3-lens kit: Polarized Copper, Smoke and Clear.

[Editor’s Note: To learn more about the TAS Blackout Series ballistic eypro, check out Video 2, above.]

Seagal Signature Series & JetShield® Lenses: Numa also unveiled at Shot Show its forthcoming Seagal Signature Series with JetShield Lenses. People watching Steven Seagal in the news recently, as a cop on the force in the biggest drug bust of Arizona history two weeks ago, or hugging protégé Anderson Silva after his successful bout at UFC126 last week, might have noticed that Seagal doesn’t go anywhere without his Numas. Seagal swears by his eye protection and was overheard saying at Shot Show that these are the best sets of eye protection he has ever come across.

Numa is launching a signature edition of the frames Seagal wears to showcase their new JetShield® lens – a polyurethane lens that is 30% more impact resistant than polycarbonate and optically superior. It takes its name from the history of the material. This is the polymer that was developed for the military for use as cockpit windshields for US fighter jets. It is also able to accept coatings that do not adhere to polycarbonate: a superior anti-fog for the interior surface and an amazing super-slick hydro-oleophobic for the outer surface. The clarity on these lenses is amazing, and the anti-scratch hardcoat is superb.”

Additional Photos:

Company Contact Info:

Numa Tactical / Numa Sport Optics
245 East 54th Street, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10022
Phone: 646-648-0099
Fax: 646-496-9183
Email Contact Page
Website 1: http://www.numatactical.com
Website 2: http://www.numaoptics.com
Numa Sport Optics Facebook Page

Tactical Assault Systems (TAS) / Extreme Outfitters
100-A Western Blvd.
Jacksonville, NC 28546
Phone: 910-219-7763
Fax: 910-219-7764
Email Contact Form
Website 1: http://www.outdoortactical.com/tactical_assault_systems.html
Website 2: http://www.extremeoutfitters.us©

Copyright 2011 DefenseReview.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without receiving permission and providing proper credit and appropriate links.

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British Army Equips Troops in Afghanistan with Ballistic EyePro from Revision

Oakley Tactical Eyewear: Ballistic Eye Protection (Eyepro) for Tactical Shooting

Is Numa Tactical Protective Eyewear the Baddest Ballistic Eyepro on the Planet?: DR’s SHOT Show 2011 Video Report Shows just how Tough these Combat/Tactical Sunglasses are. (Photos and Video!) by

About David Crane

David Crane started publishing online in 2001. Since that time, governments, military organizations, Special Operators (i.e. professional trigger pullers), agencies, and civilian tactical shooters the world over have come to depend on Defense Review as the authoritative source of news and information on "the latest and greatest" in the field of military defense and tactical technology and hardware, including tactical firearms, ammunition, equipment, gear, and training.

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