Right handed but left eye dominant

Hey fratri,

I also have this issue. I will be honest at first it was weird but once I found out (when I took my pal course) I decided I would shoot left because of shotgun shooting with both eyes open. I was at the time shooting a bow right handed and would just close my left eye but it was never really perfect. After a year or some my marksmanship left handed is great and actually I use my left hand allot more now then I did before. I think its because I was taught right handed as a kid but maybe I was always a lefty.

Get yourself a 243 or something similar in left hand and just shoot it a bunch. Savage and Tikka Both make great options IMO I have owned a couple of both and I believe the Ruger American can be found in left as well.

Now on the flip side I just bought and started to shoot handguns a few weeks back. I had shot some before but now my own and it was an okay range day but nothing really good until I switch. I decided to shoot right handed the last round of targets and hit all 6. The benefit here is you can still line up with you left eye while shooting right handed with handguns.

however my trigger pull is better left handed so that's something I will be working on.

I say shoot with the dominant eye then you don't have to worry about where those special glasses are :D

Just my 2 cents :)
 
the spank said:
I have the same issue. It only effects me when shooting a shotgun. It has no bearing on me lining up through my rifle scope. Close my left eye and I shoot a scoped rifle w/o issue. With the shotgun I always shoot both eyes open so now I just have a Magic Dot on my left lens centred with my pupil so my left eye doesn't take over and cause me to shoot to the left. If I was going to shoot my rifle both eyes open I'd just wear my shooting glasses with the Magic Dot. It takes a bit of getting used to at first but now I no longer notice it and you still retain good peripheral vision.
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This probably explains missing a few turkey with fibre optic sights....
 
from my army experience working a range, I noticed we would get about 1 in 50, cross dominants people (so about 2% of population?), its a challenge for a person to use their less dominants hand while shooting but its achievable, and ive seen shooting scores improve greatly from a get go, my son has the same problem but was able to overcome it by practicing with the proper arm off the bat
 
r.j.medals2 said:
Practice shooting with both eyes open, once you master this method your shooting can improve significantly. Cheers.
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This does not work if you are opposite eye dominant as well as you would think. Your vision will keep flipping back to dominant eye. Almost impossible with open sights and chalenging with optics. Better to learn to shoot wrong handed. Or close dom eye. Or go full pirate with an eye patch.

My son has this issue and when he was learning to shoot silouette the coaches finally switched him to shooting wrong handed. With a bow he has a messed up anchor point that allows right hand draw but left eye peep alignment. Weirdly he writes righty, bats lefty, plays hockey righty.

My wife has it worse. She is neither eye dominant (somewhat common in women, almost unheard of in men. Compounding this she cannot close just one eye. So her vision always switches to eye that is not in obstructed by sights or scope. She has to either carry shooting glasses with a piece of tape over one eye or if she is wearing glasses instead of contacts when hunting she puts a piece of scotch tape on the stock that she puts on her off eye glasses lense before shooting. We used to have a "blinder" made from plastic on her scope but it was a pain in the but.

I am ambidextrous and can shoot either hand. I can write with either hand but left is a bit messier due to lack of practise and smudging ink. I bat either hand, curl and bowl righty, can throw a football either hand, ball is better righty but i think it was because my ball glove fit my left so more practise. I am right eye dom but can shoot left eyed with both eyes open. It is a rare and uterly useless skill.
 
Left eye dominant right hander here. While shooting left handed sounds like the solution, I'm not carrying my gun around on my off side all day. I shoot right with my left eyelid half-winked.
 
9.3mauser said:
I would think this is actually the wrong approach. With both eyes open the dominant eye, in this case left, wants to take charge. You need to learn to squint or close your left eye so the right eye is forced to take over.

If you're at the range, I've seen partly opaque stick-ons for your glasses to acheive the same effect. Not practical for hunting though.
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Exactly what I was thinking. If you are shooting using your non dominant eye to aim the other eye has to be closed.
 
I'm in the same boat (well... kinda left-eye only)... and so I shoot all my guns left-handed. No problem at all, though my ZB-26 with the sights offset to left is a little weird, but I doubt you're likely to have that problem...
 
I have the same issue. I switched to left handed over 65 years ago. More recently my granddaughter was at our cabin and seemed to be having difficulty with the sights. I checked her and found she was left eyed dominate. It was only a matter of moments before she was way more confident using the rifle left handed.
 
I have great vision but I'm cross eye dominant with what seems like an ever so slight bias towards the right. Can't shoot with both eyes completely open using irons, always had to close one eye to get a usable sight picture and that's how I learned how to shoot (shouldering on the left nets me the same/maybe slightly worst sight picture). At some point I unconsciously started only slightly closing my left eye rather than completely closing it.

I have long eyelashes and from what I can tell when looking at what I'm doing in a mirror, I close my left eye just enough to put my eyelashes in front of of my pupil. As soon as that happens my sight picture clears right up and I can still see, although not as clearly, out of my left eye.
 
I blame my opposite eye dominate on my mom being left handed and my dad right handed.

I have 2 brothers, one is right handed, one is left like me. We all grew up being ambidextrous, I can remember not knowing what arm to throw with. I'd catch a ball, take the glove off and throw it back with same arm lol. Switch hit too
 
I too am RH and LED.
My maternal grandfather was US Navy, and taught us kids how to shoot on the farm when we were young.
Of course, as he was taught and drilled, he was teaching us to shoot open sights with both eyes open.
I couldn't hit the broad side of the barn while in the barn! LOL
One day he got up and walked around behind me and realized I was leaning over the rifle trying to use my left eye to line up the sights, in order to keep both eyes open (which he hadn't noticed while sitting beside me).
He had me try shooting left handed, and it has been that way ever since. Whether it be rifles, shotguns or archery.
I find with handguns that I tend to use them right handed more often, but use my left eye for aiming. My accuracy is better when I use my left hand, but I believe this is mostly because of trigger finger control and muscle memory, and the fact that I shoot slower with my weak hand.
I have also learned how to shoot rifles right handed using my right eye, but must close my left eye in order to focus on the sights and crosshairs properly. (Although I have not done this with shotgunning.) I do lose the ability to judge distance as well, and it limits my width of view, but I am able to open my eyes to track target movement and then reclose the left eye to focus for the shot.

I later learned through articles published about eye dominance, that it established by the time we are about 5 years old. The brain determines which eye will be used to focus (be dominant) on objects, while the other eye accounts for depth perception and field of view. Eye dominance can change over time, but typically due to injury or eye disease. While 10% of the population is RH, over 25% of the population is LED. Women tend to be more LED than men, and aboriginal people also tend to be more LED than caucasian people. (When working in archery as a bowtech, approx. 27% of my customers were LED, regardless of handedness.) Neutral eye dominance isn't common, but does occur. I hadn't read about women being more common than men in being eye dominant neutral, but can see how it would be similar in comparison to their being more LED than men.

A person can learn to train their brain and non-dominant eye, to become dominant through extensive focus and training, to be able to become dominant for various purposes and/or lengths of time. Most people do not take the time, or practice this, but it is possible.

When shooting, it is easier to learn to shoot with the dominant eye, and the results will usually be more accurate. Many people have a hard time wrapping their minds around this, as it is difficult for them at first in trying to overcome the muscle memory issue of doing actions with their weak side handedness vs their strong side handedness. It really is the matter of learning new muscle habits and obtaining muscle memory. Once they get used to the idea, many are surprised, and often relieved, that their abilities improve greatly. And if we want to recruit and retain more shooters and hunters, we need to set them up to win! Start them off with their dominant eye!

And it matters little whether it be for shooting long guns (rifles and shotguns), archery, or handguns. Shooting with the dominant eye improves our ability to shoot well.
The testing for eye dominance is very simple, and should be done from the get go in order to improve a person's ability and success, which helps them want to continue with something. When working on RH bows, I must close my left eye in order to focus on the sights properly and shoot well.
 
I am left-handed and right-eye-dominant. I discovered this shooting a bow as a kid. I was shooting left and realized I was closing my left eye while trying to aim with the right. I switched to shooting right-handed and started hitting the target. Being left-handed living in a right-handed world I was already used to using my right hand for a lot of tasks I found the switch to be easy.

I've tried shooting both ways over the years for fun and have noticed the following:
1. When a quick shot is required the only way I can hit anything is with my dominant eye.
2. When I have all the time in the world I can shoot better off hand with my dominant hand, but only by a tiny bit.
3. Shooting a handgun doesn't seem to make a difference. I use both eyes open and either hand. I thank Duck Hunt for that.
4. I actually feel lucky, right-handed firearms are much more plentiful.
 
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