question of the day: Should you aim and shoot with one eye closed or both eyes open

When you close one eye, both dilate to some extent. So shooting with one eye closed is similar to using a larger aperture peep sight instead of a smaller one.
 
It seems to me shooting with both eyes open is to give you depth perception (shooting moving targets birds etc.) If you have a depth perception issue (I do) it really screws thing up. other then that it is basically a matter of choice.
 
i put this up for discussion not for me specifically
my point was to get a thread going with good replies, and i got it
as for dominant eye i find my dominant eye is my right eye and when at the range doing target practise i tend to focus down with one eye,
however ive been told its better to do with both eyes

talking about shooting at range here for target practise
 
cereal83 said:
I shoot with one eye open. I have been doing IPSC this way for a year now. If I keep both eyes open, I have no way of lining up my signs as my point of focus swicthes which sounds weird. People put tape on their glasses to combat this to make it bluury for one of their eyes.
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your probably left eye dominant

I shoot right handed left eyed. Doing pretty decently (headed towards B class Carry Optics in USPSA, before going to school).
 
Right handed but left eye dominant ...
with handguns, two-hands and strong hand- 1) both eyes open 2) left eye closed, week hand - both eyes open ..
with shotguns and rifles, right handed - iron sights and red dot - left eye closed, riflescope 2+ - 1) left eye closed 2) both eyes open ..

results are comparable but not identical, plus they depend on external light conditions ... bright sun causes better results with left eye closed ..
but it could be also attributed to the fact that when I started over 40 years ago I was trained to shoot with left eye always closed ..
 
I'm a lefty, but right eye dominant. Just starting to get the hang of shooting pistols, with both eye open. I tend to want to close the left eye, if I don't concentrate. A quick blink of the left eye, does help to focus.
 
sailor723 said:
I am profoundly lefthanded but right eye dominant. I have tried both aligning the sights with my right eye and taping over the right lenses on my shooting glasses while keeping my right eye open. Neither solution seemed to work very well and I find my results are better with just closing my right eye.
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Me too, well, lefty with right dominant eye, I shoot both sides equally bad, but I close the eye not used. I passed a holster course last year useing right hand ( barely passed) but I only had a right side holster at the time. However there was no question when we switched to weak side ( left hand) that I shoot much better from left hand! I tried both eyes open a couple times but haven't really pushed myself, perhaps next time at the range I will run a few hundred .22 handgun/rifle to see if I can do it!
 
I learned to shoot with both eyes open, the reasoning being that it improves your situational awareness while shooting.
Then I got older and needed laser eye surgery. I went with monovision, which corrects your sight one eye near sighted and one eye far sighted. Works great in day to day life and when shooting using an optical sight. But when shooting iron sights with a pistol, it brings my front sight into focus with the wrong eye. So I had to re-learn and compensate for that. My non-dominant eye, which is corrected to see up close, has to be "half-closed".
 
I've learned to shoot with both open, pistol, rifle, shot gun. Took practice but it's worth the effort.
 
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Tried shooting my hand gun today with both eyes open,,,,,,,cannot do it, no problem with a red dot on a tactical rifle but I just can't get it with a pistol, so I will stick with what works for me, one eye closed for pistol
 
edgy said:
Tried shooting my hand gun today with both eyes open,,,,,,,cannot do it, no problem with a red dot on a tactical rifle but I just can't get it with a pistol, so I will stick with what works for me, one eye closed for pistol
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Although I agree that you should do whatever works for you trying something new for one day will rarely, if ever, get you the desired results. Just like everything else you do with a handgun shooting with both eyes open will take practice.
 
LOL, the size of my browser window cut off the last two words of OP's thread title so it read: "question of the day: Should you aim and shoot with one eye closed or both"

Both eyes closed of course!

:p
 
lavino said:
Have that said, I certainly hope all our Canadian police are taught to shoot with both eyes open...
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My instructors preferred it that way, but being extremely left eye dominant and right handed it was of no use to me. I have to close my eye, and shoot the work 870 right handed due to the amount of muscle memory built in. C8 is all lefty and two eyes open, and god help me if I ever get in transition situation because it takes me a second or two to get focused back on pistol.
 
Always shoot my firearms with both eyes open.
The few times I tried shooting (especially rifles) with the non-dominate eye closed I found fatigue in my open eye and loss of depth perception.
 
This topic gets so much discussion steeped in dogma that it is usually very confusing to most new shooters.

The truth is this: Do what you need to do to see your sights well enough to make an acceptable hit on the target. It does not matter what you do to your eyes to get there. Keep both eyes open, or close one eye, or tape your glasses, or wear an eye patch and a parrot on your shoulder.

It does not matter.

Personally, I get far too much visual confusion when I keep both eyes open, so I close an eye. I shoot just fine.
 
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