Hunter Education course and dominant eye going with left or right shouldered shooting

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labradort

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I'm in the online hunter education course from huntercourse.com
Some bizarre stuff in there that doesn't match reality.

One is the concept of the dominant eye determination being used to find out if
you should shoot from the left or right shoulder. I'm dominant on the left eye
but I'm right handed. I would be useless moving to the left at this point in my life.
Maybe if I was in my teens I could try, but I'm established. I've never heard
of the dominant eye determining this.

What have others found works for them? Did you learn based on your
natural preference for the shoulder side, or picking a shoulder side
based on dominant eye?
 
Makes complete sense to me. I am right handed, but being left eye dominant, I shoot rifles and shotguns from my left shoulder. When I shoot pistols, they are from my right hand. Do you shoot now? Another thing to consider is how dominant is the dominant eye, in my case I wouldn't even attempt to shoot from my right shoulder. God knows where that bullet would land!
 
are we talking shotgun or rifle? rifle, close one eye, the brain has to use the open one, shotgun, you shoot with both eyes open, then your brain is in charge.
 
Yes, I shoot now and it works fine using my non-dominant eye for rifle. I've never hunted with shotgun, but I did fire one at some weeds once - seemed to work OK. I've done plenty of target shooting with the non-dominant eye for open sights or scope and it works fine for me. I think the two eyes operation of shotgun is where it would come into play. Still, I can't imagine forcing myself to learn how to have all the required dexterity with the left hand just because that eye is dominant. The only thing I do on the left is shooting a hockey stick, and in that case the right hand is still in control of the wrist shot. Bowling, golf club and everything else is right handed, for me.
 
I am left handed but right eye dominant. I had to switch when I started shooting sporting clays. Closing one eye impaired my shooting. Took less than a season and my scores jumped up into the mid 80%. I'm now shooting off my right side for everything, and find the change worked very well.
 
Im left eye dominant and shoot right handed. If I was to start all over again, i would have made sure to shoot left handed. But now that I'm accustomed to shooting off the right shoulder, i've learned to compensate. However, i know i still miss shots because im cross shooting. And shooting at weeds means nothing. Things quickly change when you start shooting at 4" targets that are moving at 60 km/h!
 
I see many first time shooters and help them take their first shots. Cross- dominant shooters seem to have no problem shooting handguns (their dominant eye takes over) but as soon as they switch to rifles, it all goes to hell, unless they can force their dominant eye closed. It's surprising how many people can't do that. Being new shooters, it's not terribly difficult for right handed/left eye dominant shooters to just switch to left handed shooting.

I can always tell when someone is cross dominant when shooting a rifle, as they will consistently miss the target in the same place. Often they are aiming 6-10 ft over the target. I get them to swap shoulders and they hit the gong. :)
 
My wife shoots with me often, when out at the pistol range she is wicked with a 9mm and the first time she picked one up she was a natural and out shot me and still does often.

While out in the bush with long guns I out shoot her, in fact she was terrible. I couldn't reconcile her being so good with a pistol and so bad with a long gun so I did the eye dominance test on her and sure enough she was right handed but left eye dominant.

I switched her to left shoulder stance and even though it felt a bit uncomfortable, bingo! she was nailing the target like never before

incidentally, I'm also left eye dominant but also left handed
 
News to me. My Dad was in Cdn Army for over a decade and taught us shooting. Maybe he never thought about it if he was right eye dominant. He was always a "show you" more than "tell you" kinda guy.

Is it more rare to be left eye dominant? I had always thought left shoulder designed guns were as rarely produced as left hand oriented guitars, so it was a left handed thing. Oh yeah, google it.

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/the-cross-dominant-shooter/

So 1/3 of us are left eye dominant, and 1/10 are left handed, and 30 percent of us are cross-dominant. But 1/3 of long guns sold are not left handed. So most of the left dominant shooters are either shooting like I do, or they are putting up with the wrong gun.

You guys are probably correct that this would be an issue with shotgun use where two eyes open are needed, but I do well with rifle, either scope or open sights, with my right eye. I'm too old to change. The right shoulder has been the place to put the butt ever since my 60's Daisy pop gun.
 
I do just fine with most rifles being left eye and left handed shooting left, but I don't used bolt actions because its awkward
 
labradort said:
So 1/3 of us are left eye dominant, and 1/10 are left handed, and 30 percent of us are cross-dominant. But 1/3 of long guns sold are not left handed. So most of the left dominant shooters are either shooting like I do, or they are putting up with the wrong gun.
Click to expand...
I've introduced scores of people to shotgunning and based on that I wouldn't agree that 30 per cent of the population is truly cross dominant. I'd put the number closer to 10 per cent with a slight majority of those being female.

It's a complicated subject. Some people have eyes that are only marginally dominant. Eye dominance can change due to age, laser surgery or even fatigue. I have a strong dominant right eye but start to have trouble with crossing targets at the end of a 500 round day.

In any event it's not a tough problem to solve. A piece of clear tape affixed to the shooting glasses over the dominant eye is usually enough to sort out the issue.
 
I am cross eye dominant and right handed. My left eye is stronger to the point that I have to shoot bow left handed.
Regardless, I shoot rifle and shotgun right handed as that is how I pull and focus.
For handgun I force my right eye since I draw and grip naturally right right handed. When shooting ipsc I would put some tape over my left lens of my shooting glasses to force right eye focus.
 
I was looking to see if people had issues with the 10/22 and using it on the left, for my son to try switching to that. I found this forum item at rugerforum:

http://rugerforum.net/ruger-10-22-rimfire/27880-10-22-left-handed-shooting.html

Ruger don't make a semi for left handed. Reading this forum, you'd get the impression the left handed shooters are left handed in general, not merely left eye dominant. Savage does make a left handed semi, so I might need to look at something like that if my son feels he will be able to shoot on the left. The 10/22 spits out brass in random directions, so I'm just wondering how bad that will be for him. We'll give it a try the next time we go to the range.
 
in my case, when I bought my first rifle at age 12, I started shooting it right handed and something seemed to be not quite right. For some reason I tried shooting left and it all felt good. I have been shooting left for decades. It was only a couple of years ago, that I came across this dominate eye thing and low & behold, it turns out that I am left eye dominate. I recently tried shooting a left hand bolt action rifle and that did not feel well at all. So, I'm a left hand shooter shooting right hand rifles until the day I don't shoot anymore!
 
I'm right-handed, left eye dominant.

I forced myself to learn to shoot lefthanded one summer and drastically improved my shotgunning. Now, I can shoot either way if I want; I can do OK shooting righthanded but better left handed. This actually comes in pretty handy once you learn how, if you hunt from a blind with a partner who's opposite dominant, or if you're hunting a creek or something and you want to switch sides to take advantage of some cover.

I still shoot rifles almost entirely right-handed.
 
Daughter tried shooting right hand, but knowlegible coach(not me) convinced her to try left handed. Went home and shot air rifle. Ting. Ting.Ting on the target, no going back, she is now most definately a left handed shooter.
 
I've taught new young shooters for thirty years or so. I'm sot so sure about adults, but many 12 year olds have poorly developed eye dominance, or are cross dominant. If they are strongly left dominant but strongly right handed, I teach them to shoot from the left shoulder. I have no memory of having a left handed and right eye dominant student, but it must have happened. I do have an old hunting buddy like that. I find that girls are somewhat more likely to have poorly developed eye dominance than boys, a condition I believe is related to how many activities they have been involved in that required hand-eye coordination - ball, darts, frisbee, archery, throwing rocks, etc. in addition to shooting firearms.
It certainly works better to go with the strong eye, not the strong hand.
 
For some reason I see more Asians that are cross dominant. When I get a group of 6 Chinese guys, it's not uncommon to have 2 right handers that are left eye dominant. Left handed and right eye dominant is less common but left handers are less common, so that may be part of it. But I've seen it. I've also seen someone that using a red dot they needed to shoot left but using a scope they needed to shoot right handed.

I don't think there is any rhyme or reason behind some of it, so I think what's best is to lean what works for you. If you are right handed and right eyue dominant, it makes things much easier than anything else, of course. I use prescription glasses with a very weak prescription. I can see fine without them but glasses crisp things up. My left eye is stronger by a tiny margin in that it needs less prescription, but the right eye still dominates.
 
So... This is intersting stuff. What does it mean when you have to keep both eyes open for all your shooting? I kinda pride myself on being a better than average marksman with rifle, shotgun and pistol, but I can't close an eye, I have to do it all with both eyes open to be accurate. I'm right handed and I think right eye dominant. When I look thru a scope and close my left eye, everything goes to hell LOL keep it open and the game changes and I'm back to hitting where I aim. I've been shooting that way since my first pellet gun LOL
 
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