Cross dominant shooting safety

SureShot60

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Just curious for other cross-dominant shooters out there: do you select rifles with the ejection port in accordance with your eye dominance? Or according to your hand dominance?

As someone that is is cross dominant (left eye, right hand) I'm used to firing right-handed rifles. However, I'm considering whether it's worth it to purchase an ambidextrous or left-handed rifle to help with rapid target acquisition & also as a safety measure for higher calibre rifles. Don't want to go into details, but have been injured before by split & hot casings at a range when shooting on the bench, and now I'm more leary about having an ejection port pointed towards my face.
 
This is a very interesting trend. Hand dominance is much more difficult to work with than eye dominance, especially when the solution is to close one eye?
One can't easily just begin to write, play hockey, or bat, with their opposite hand? So what makes folks believe that they can shoot this way? And what is the purpose?
While having both eyes open while shooting has its advantages, it certainly isn't a requirement for extremely accurate shot placement.
Not to the point where having a wrong handed rifle would end up being an advantage?

Before a fella changes his rifles out, wouldn't it be prudent to try shooting the dominant hand to see if there any discernable difference? The results would show not?

R.
 
This is a very interesting trend. Hand dominance is much more difficult to work with than eye dominance, especially when the solution is to close one eye?
One can't easily just begin to write, play hockey, or bat, with their opposite hand? So what makes folks believe that they can shoot this way? And what is the purpose?
While having both eyes open while shooting has its advantages, it certainly isn't a requirement for extremely accurate shot placement.
Not to the point where having a wrong handed rifle would end up being an advantage?

Before a fella changes his rifles out, wouldn't it be prudent to try shooting the dominant hand to see if there any discernable difference? The results would show not?

R.

Completely disagree. A large part of shooting, probably the most important part, is to be able to see the target. Simply closing one eye is not the solution. It is WAY easier to learn to manipulate a firearm off the other shoulder / hand than it is to change eye dominance.

My wife is left handed and right eye dominant and she has learned to shoot right without much trouble. She is an excellent marksman and has shown me up the odd time. If a 50 year old woman can do it, I'm sure you can too.

I am fully left handed and with a bit of effort can definitely shoot right side when I need to. It just takes a bit more concentration.




To the OP, I would say, just shoot right handed rifles off the left shoulder. When a case lets go, it won't make that much difference what side the ejection port is on. Years ago a right handed friend, shooting right was lucky to keep his eye when a case split. We all should be wearing protective glasses when shooting. In my 37 years of shooting, I have been hit in the face by only 1 casing and that bounced off my glasses. I have experienced a blown case, which did not cause me any harm. Those kinds of events are pretty rare, not something I'd worry about honestly.
 
My daughter is left eye dominant and right handed. When she first picked up a rifle she wanted to hold the rifle right hand and sight with her left eye. That obviously doesn’t work and it was easier for her to shoot left handed. My brother is the exact opposite and he shoots right handed like any other right handed shooter would. I know I’ll get blasted for this, but it’s not just a matter of closing one eye. You aim where you naturally look. Your dominant eye leads you to that location.

Obviously this is much easier for a younger person to adapt to. But I have a cousin who lost the vision in his right eye earlier this year and is now shooting left handed like it’s how he has always done it.
 
My daughter is left eye dominant and right handed. When she first picked up a rifle she wanted to hold the rifle right hand and sight with her left eye. That obviously doesn’t work and it was easier for her to shoot left handed. My brother is the exact opposite and he shoots right handed like any other right handed shooter would. I know I’ll get blasted for this, but it’s not just a matter of closing one eye. You aim where you naturally look. Your dominant eye leads you to that location.

Obviously this is much easier for a younger person to adapt to. But I have a cousin who lost the vision in his right eye earlier this year and is now shooting left handed like it’s how he has always done it.

You shouldn't take any guff at all because what you have written is exactly correct.
 
My wife is right side dominant for hand and foot coordination but left eye dominant. She had never recognized her cross dominance until first trying shooting with me. She noticed it in herself as she wanted to get her left eye behind the scope from a right handed position. Prior to this first shooting experience, she had only ever looked through binoculars and never a monocular or telescope. She tried shooting left handed but did not care for the ergonomics and felt awkward with trigger control. She adjusted quickly by closing her left eye. She eventually wore an eye patch to help disengage her dominant eye.

A good friend is also cross dominant. For rifle, he shoots right handed but uses a Bavarian style stock with an extra drop so he can get his chin over the comb and get his left eye into the scope. It looks so awkward when he is lining up but he shoots well enough to get his deer, but no long range stuff for him. For shotgun, he shoots a lefty and keeps both eyes open.
 
I'm right handed, left eye dominant. Started shooting right handed because I didn't know any better, switched after about 5 years, first with shotgun then rifle a few years later.

I don't put too much thought into the ejection port, I care about controls. Some guns are fine left handed, others suck. Safeties are a big one, cross bolt safeties suck from the wrong hand for instance.

Bolt action rifles I much prefer left handed, especially for things like hunting where I am likely to be cycling the action from the shoulder. Shooting a right handed bolt gun from a bench is one thing, I do it all the time, but in the field I much prefer a lefty. My only dedicated left hand guns are my Rem700 hunting rifle and a bolt action 22.

Shotguns I mostly don't care - my most used shotgun is a Mossberg 500, with its tang safety its pretty ambidextrous. My semi auto has a cross bolt safety but I generally use that gun in situations where I'm either not using the safety or have plenty of time to take it off (trap range, duck blind, etc).

My only single shot rifle is a Henry, its completely ambidextrous.

I shoot a lot of 22s that are right handed. My right forearm gets burned by powder or hot brass occasionally in T-shirt weather, and a lot of them use safeties that aren't conducive to left-hand use (crossbolts, or things that aren't easily reached from a left hand grip) but there aren't a lot of 22s that are lefty other than bolt actions. Winchester Wildcat has a reversible safety and ambi mag release, but its still Right-side eject. Thats the closest I have to a lefty 22 that isn't a bolt gun.


Long story short, a lot of the time I'll just put up with RH guns, but I do prefer a lefty when its an option. Ejection port side is pretty low on my list of why I like a lefty though.


My daughter is left eye dominant and right handed. When she first picked up a rifle she wanted to hold the rifle right hand and sight with her left eye. That obviously doesn’t work and it was easier for her to shoot left handed. My brother is the exact opposite and he shoots right handed like any other right handed shooter would. I know I’ll get blasted for this, but it’s not just a matter of closing one eye. You aim where you naturally look. Your dominant eye leads you to that location.

Obviously this is much easier for a younger person to adapt to. But I have a cousin who lost the vision in his right eye earlier this year and is now shooting left handed like it’s how he has always done it.

Closing one eye is fine if you're shooting a scoped rifle from a bench. It is not a good solution for shotgunning or using iron sights though. Its also a recipe for headaches and fatigue if you spend any amount of time doing it. I closed one eye for years, and at least for me, switching sides was a game changer, especially with shotguns and iron sights.
 
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If your like me my left hand can't work a bolt properly use right handed rifles. Only one different is a left handed pump. Never had trouble with hot brass except with a semi laying prone shooting a 30-06 with a t-shirt on . Had a perfect burn shaped like a 30-06 brass.
 
I am left eye dominant and right handed, I shoot left and tried to change that years ago by firing at 1000 rounds from my right shoulder then went to the woods and shot my next 10 anamials off my left shoulder lol, learned to shot with right handed rifles on the left shoulder and have no issues with it. Last moose killed I put 3 rounds in him at 260yds all good hits, my buddy thought I had a semi auto
 
Just curious for other cross-dominant shooters out there: do you select rifles with the ejection port in accordance with your eye dominance? Or according to your hand dominance?

As someone that is is cross dominant (left eye, right hand) I'm used to firing right-handed rifles. However, I'm considering whether it's worth it to purchase an ambidextrous or left-handed rifle to help with rapid target acquisition & also as a safety measure for higher calibre rifles. Don't want to go into details, but have been injured before by split & hot casings at a range when shooting on the bench, and now I'm more leary about having an ejection port pointed towards my face.

There are more than a few target rifles built with right handed actions, and left port openings, and some with left rt loading and right port ejection!
I have several friends who are left eye dominant but are right handed ( two with only the left eye working ) and they all shoot left handed , some of their rifles are right handed .
My son is left handed , and when he started shooting , he was left eye dominant. His eye domination changed in about a year, and with irons he kept rying to use his left eye- which is how I noticed the eye domination change. I switched him to shooting right handed with no issues.
Cat
 
Didn’t realize I was left eye dominant until I started shooting handguns. I shoot rifles like a normal right handed person. However , with handguns, I aim with my left eye while using right handed grip.
 
So what are the safest actions to be staring down the port when pulling the trigger? The savage has a kind of baffle. The remington doesn't have a cutout for the extractor. The sliding plate extractors are backed up by steel instead of hanging out in the lug raceway. The weatherby extractor is also backed up by steel since it's located on the advance side of the lug. Does it really make any difference? As a lefty I wonder about it
 
So what are the safest actions to be staring down the port when pulling the trigger? The savage has a kind of baffle. The remington doesn't have a cutout for the extractor. The sliding plate extractors are backed up by steel instead of hanging out in the lug raceway. The weatherby extractor is also backed up by steel since it's located on the advance side of the lug. Does it really make any difference? As a lefty I wonder about it

Probably the remington 3 rings of steel in an unaltered 700. - dan
 
There was the incident where a shooter was firing a right handed 700 from the left shoulder. The rifle had the so called Sako style extractor conversion. The cartridge case failed, and fragments, including the extractor, were expelled back through the right hand lugway and out the ejection port, causing grievous injury. Had the rifle not been altered, there shooter would have been protected by the design of the M700 breeching system.
So yes, there can be situations where the being exposed to the ejection port can make a difference. Most of the time it is irrelevant, but still might be something to consider.
 
There was the incident where a shooter was firing a right handed 700 from the left shoulder. The rifle had the so called Sako style extractor conversion. The cartridge case failed, and fragments, including the extractor, were expelled back through the right hand lugway and out the ejection port, causing grievous injury. Had the rifle not been altered, there shooter would have been protected by the design of the M700 breeching system.
So yes, there can be situations where the being exposed to the ejection port can make a difference. Most of the time it is irrelevant, but still might be something to consider.

Yes and what about all the other brands with sako or m16 style extractors that are hanging out there like the modified 700, are they not just as vulnerable. I had a winchester Alaskan I sold because I didnt like looking at the extractor. I think my model 70 push feed is a better system. Another thing, the newer click over the rim Mauser type extractors is not the Mauser locking down the extractor tip also a safety feature that is compromised by the click over types like the cz 550
 
The Sako had a baffle behind the locking lugs that blocked the lugway. What brands are you referring to that have M-16 type extractors? Do the extractors line up with the lugway when the bolt is closed?
 
20240107_123955.jpg20240107_123955.jpgView attachment 736602[/ATTACH]20240107_124926.jpgyou can see the end of the extractor on my ks arms left hand action. With the recessed bolt face the tip is backed up but the rest is unsupported. The two other bolts are steyr and weatherby they are the only ones i know of where the extractor precedes the lugs to rotate and are fully backed up
 

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