Eye dominance

[TightGroup]

If your right handed, and left eye dominant, would you shoot left hand?

This left dominace thing is a bit of bug to work out.

Would switching over to left hand be a good thing in the long run?

In handguns I can shoot better left handed but it sporadic, since I need to work on trigger control.

Actually does it make a difference ??

TG

 

[Vonschmoot]

Eye dominance is a critical component. If you don't understand what eye is dominant you are not going to reliably hit your targets.

Hold your hands out in front of you, palms open with your thumb/forefinger at 90 degrees (shaped like an "L").

#### your hands in 45 degrees and bring your hands closer together until the "y" of your thumbs forms and open triangle of light about 2" across.

With arms still extended, look through the hole in your hands at a fixed point about 15 feet in front of you (light-switch, wall plug, something similar sized to those).

Looking with both eyes open, close your right eye. Does what you are looking at dissapear? If so, you are right eye dominant.

If it stays in your field of vision when you close the right eye, you are left-eye dominant.

Once you know this, you will know which eye to use when you line up your sights.

For example, if you are right handed and left-eye dominant (cross dominance) then you know you need to turn your head to the right and hold the gun further left in order to clearly line up the sights and target and keep both eyes open.

the critical thing is keeping both eyes open.

If you can't do that, then you need to close your dominant eye in order to get a proper sight window.

for example, I am right hand/left eye. I can not shoot a rifle lefty, so I must use my right eye and close my left to keep it from taking over the sight picture.

With a bow, because you MUST line up the string with your dominant eye, I had to learn how to shoot left handed in order to attain a proper sight alignment.

It all depends on you, how ambidextrous you are, and if you are trying to align a proper sight picture or not.

Regardless, if you do it properly, and practice till you are comfortable, I guarantee you will improve if you apply it properly.

 

[Boomer]

Now and then you see a pistol shooter who is left eye dominant shooting right handed and aiming with his left eye, but with rifle shooting it is a problem. I worked at shooting ambidextrous for awhile and got reasonably good at it. I doubt if it would be as difficult for you to pick this up as it would be for a right handed/right eye dominant shooter.

 

[hfxrzw]

I am right-handed and left-eye dominant. I shoot handguns righthanded as it is fairly easy to line the sights up for your left eye, but shoot left-handed rifles. There are not that many around, but still enough to make a reasonable choice. After I got a left-handed rifle my shooting got a lot better.
Probably of consideration is how much more dominant one eye is over the other: if you can still adapt instead of getting a l/h rifle, but why would you want to compromise? Shooting has more to do with you being comfortable behind the rifle (body and mind), so listen to your body and find out what fits. My .02. Cheers, Rene.

 

[Anvil]

I'm right handed and left eyed. I can shoot rifles left handed but it is awkward. Handguns I shoot using my left eye and my favorite shotgun has a crossover stock.
It was relatively easy for me to learn to use my non dominant eye to shoot rifles. A small piece of masking tape on your shooting glasses ( centered on the donimant side) and shoot with both eyes open. Your brain will compensate and after a few hours of practice it will become second nature.
For target shooting, I use a blinder on my left eye. Now that my close focus is starting to disappear, I may switch to shooting left handed, but for most shooting I will stick with right handed.

 

[CyaN1de]

You could look at getting an offset scope mount. I have seen Target Rifle shooters who are right handed but left eye dominant that use offset target sights. I don't see why you couldn't do the same with a scope.

 

[pageophile]

Got the same problem, picked up a red-scope (AimPoint) and it's not a problem any more

You keep both eye's open and the dominate one takes over. The only downside is 2X scope maximum and the AimPoints are not cheap.

 

[50calshooter]

I had the same problem... I shoot with both eyes open, which I think is good practice regardless, however it took me a while to get used to it but my right eye is becoming more and more dominate. I put a cheek rest on my 308 as well, so that as soon as I set up I know I'm in the right spot, this helped me get used to using my right eye as well.... good luck

 

[guntech]

If you have trouble closing or squinting with the non dominant eye, wear shooting glasses and put a piece of tape over the "wrong" eye...

There is nothing wrong with shooting with one eye closed if it needs to be, and the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

 

[dryfire]

Some interesting tips on helping cross dominant individuals. Unfortunately, eye dominance is established early in life , before the age of about 10years.
Eye dominance is a result of stronger neurological pathways to that eye which dominates. This cannot be changed.
The recommendation by shooting coaches is to learn to shoot from the side of eye dominance. There's lots of info on google about cross dominance and determining true eye dominance.

 

[Northman999]

I'm right handed and left eye dominant. I shoot firearms right handed, but bows left handed. Works for me, I never learned I was left eye dominant until I was in my mid twenties with tons of shooting time already, so I was not into changing much.

 

[TightGroup]

All this information is very helpful, unfortunately I started shooting late in life, and did not really know anything about eye dominance.

With pistols I do shoot with two eyes, and did some IPSC, I was never really good at it, too slow, but my weak hand shots were awesome.

I have changed my stance to a modified weaver which lets me #### to the right thus aligning my left eye, but as with everything if I do not spend time training, I loose much accuracy. With both eyes i can target faster, but shots group off aiming point.

As for rifle I have been shooting my 10/22 and get some very good accuracy, but I fumble around alot trying to sight from my left eye.

I was just wondering if some have alleviated this problem by shooting left hand with rifles and how hard it was to transition.

Thanks

TG

 

[casterpollox]

When I took my coaching corse this was a whole section.

There are two camps on the issue.

1-train with your other hand
2-alter the rifle so you can lean over

You'd be amazed at how much of a difference it can make. We had one kid that was all over the place and we couldn't figure out why. Everything was correct but he was still scattered all over the paper, but every once and a while he would put together a good grouping. We sighted in the rifle and that wasn't it. we checked the screws and that wasn't it... nothing in the barrel, no problems with the action.

So finally one day I decided to watch him everytime he pulled the trigger. Low and behold, his left eye was "fluttering" when he tried to get a proper sight picture. I asked if he had a problem like maybe something in his eye and he said No, it always does that.

Well we got him to shoot left handed and his groups shrunk immediatly and way more consitant. Now the task of teaching him to shoot left handed and comfortably.

I have also seen stocks that were modified so a person could lay their head so they could see through the apature with their left eye. As mentioned above... an off set scope mount would work. Any competant gunsmith should be able to set something up for you.

Good luck and don't get frustrated...