A question of dominance.

[IMFletcher]

I went clay shooting for my second time today. Mixed results.

My first time out was a few days ago, in the pouring rain. I shot single trap from the 16 yard line and I don't remember thinking much about what I was doing and the first round. My first time ever firing the shotgun, from position 3 I broke 22 of 25 clays. Round 2, shooting 5 from each position I broke 20, round 3 was 19 and round 4 was 21. By then I was drenched and it was time for me to leave.

Today I went out and got talked into shooting skeet. I broke... 5? clays the entire shoot. I followed all the advice I was being given as I shot. Especially the bit about keeping both eyes open as the enhanced peripheral vision would be a great boon to me in my attempts to break the clays in skeet. Needless to say I was pretty bummed out by my performance and went back to shooting trap.

I shot 5 rounds of trap and the worst I did was a 20. My best was a 24.

So the bit about dominance... I'm certain I'm right eye dominant, but when comparing notes with my wife, it seems that with both eyes open, I'm seeing a fairly strong double image if I hold out my thumb and focus on a background object, or if I focus on the thumb, the background object doubles. It's always been like this in my experience but she claims that this doesn't happen for her. If I close my left eye, the thumb is in roughly the same position as it was with both eyes open (at least the stronger of the two images is) but if I close my right eye the thumb moves sharply to the right, and down a bit.

Is it possible that I should be shooting skeet with just one eye? Can this be done successfully? Am I stuck shooting trap only? Does anyone out there have the same problem and know what I'm talking about?

I'll keep hammering away at trap for the time being but I'd like to eventually shoot sporting clays.

 

[mvarley84]

Try putting a strip of scotch tape down the middle of your left lens on your glasses. It will keep your peripheral vision for picking up the bird, but it will eliminate the double vision when it comes time for bang bang.

You can always shoot with one eye open, whatever works for you.

 

[bmcrae]

There is an minor advantage to shooting with 2 eyes open vs 1 eye. Not everyone can do it. I cannot without the aid of a patch (see the above post on scotch tape).

I would never coach someone to use the 2 eye method if it resulted in them seeing "2 beads or 2 birds". In this case, it is a disadvantage to use 2 eyes because you never know which eye has taken over when you pull the trigger.

Stay with 1 eye, or work on putting a patch on your glasses. I'd recommend working on 2 eyes with a patch.


Brad.

 

[gwagen]

I use tape over my left eye, I have the same problem, being able to see simultaneously down the rib and along side the barrel. Only effects me on stations 3,4,5 High target, everything else I can shoot without the tape, but I always have it on.

If your goal is to be a competitive skeet shooter and want to subscribe to the default lead method, that being sustained lead. You really need two eyes.

Either that or you have to move your hold points in, basically look in the window with your right eye and start swinging that gun like crazy so the target doesn't beat you.

I used to shoot swing through, I was self taught, no one really helped me at my club, besides the regular you were ahead/behind/overtop stuff.

I did reasonably well with that, but I decided to take a clinic with Bender and he put me onto shooting sustained lead and using both eyes and now I find I see the targets much faster, they seem slower, like there is more time to shoot them and my scores are more consistent.

Try the scotch tape, I wouldn't bother with those dots they sell for the same purpose for $20, scotch tape is cheap.

 

[adamg]

It's also not unheard of for a new shooter to shoot multiple 20s in trap and then on the first day of skeet shoot 5s. Very different shots.