Which hand should I hold my gun in?

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corney

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So I'm left eye domainate and right handed. Shoot long arms left handed and I am having good results with rifles and shotguns. Struggling with handguns to hit anything accurately. Better with revolvers than semis.

Anyone have this issue? Which hand you holding with and how are you looking down the barrel?

Thanks
 
You could try shooting with your right hand and turning your head to the right to give your left eye a more dominant view.

Or if you are shooting right handed then 'learn' to shoot with your left hand, as most cross-dominant people I know of have switched to left handed shooting.
 
Left hand, left eye, right hand right eye. If you had to take a shot that your life would depend on, which hand would you shoot it from?
If you're left dominante, learn to use your left eye, or use both eyes open, and be even more versistile...
 
Left eye, right hand. I'm working on shooting my rifle right handed but there is no way a shotgun feels correct at my right shoulder. Fortunately my dad realized that I was left eye dominant at an early age and I learned to shoot left handed. A pistol in my left hand doesn't feel right.
 
Rutger said:
+1 on right hand, left eye with head tilt. Thats what I do, and it works for me in IPSC.
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This is your answer. Why complicate your life with trying to alter either your dominant eye or hand. Head tilt and a slightly off centre position with the pistol solves the problem. As for both eyes open, you should be shooting this way from the start, with all firearms.

TDC
 
Ok gun in right hand and head tilt I will try. I have never been much good at two eyes open and was taught to shoot right handed and was always looking over the gun. I was shooting skeet one time at a club and an older fellow watched me and suggested I shoot left handed and it opened the door for me.

Thanks for the advise.
 
okay just a thought here .. I have been a pistol instructor for a bout 5 yrs I have been shooting for well over 20 ..never held much in all the malarky about left eye right eye dominant.. here is the thing .. if you are right handed and hold the gun in your right hand.. by closing your left eye .. it pretty much makes you .. right eye dominant.. you said you can't shoot with both eyes open .. so the eye that is open is always going to be the dominant one. I know this over simplifies things and people are going to jump down my throat about the whole left eye right eye thing which really doesn't matter unless you shoot with both eyes open.
 
go with what feels natural, im left eye dominant and shoot a bow left handed...but i can switch eyes and only shoot right handed through right eye (and left handed through left eye when IPSC deems necessary).
Go with what feels comfortable, i never found right handed shooting with a left eye over the gun to be that effective, but thats just me..play around with it and see if you can effectively shoot right and right.
 
tilting your head will just give you neck aches. simply bring the gun up more to your left side so you get a clear, straight sight picture. your head should not move.
 
left handed, right eye dominant. shot initially both pistols & shoulder guns right handed. with practice now do both matching eye to hand. Now more accurate with hand gun left handed - working on rifle but still getting used to it. both eyes open in all cases ( unable to close right eye by itleslf due to childhood operation)
 
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Shooting a handgun, one handed, being right handed and left eye dominate means you change your stance to bring your right hand over. No head tilts. Move the back leg.
It's best to shoot with both eyes open and concentrate on the front sight.
 
BrockPython said:
okay just a thought here .. I have been a pistol instructor for a bout 5 yrs I have been shooting for well over 20 ..never held much in all the malarky about left eye right eye dominant.. here is the thing .. if you are right handed and hold the gun in your right hand.. by closing your left eye .. it pretty much makes you .. right eye dominant.. you said you can't shoot with both eyes open .. so the eye that is open is always going to be the dominant one. I know this over simplifies things and people are going to jump down my throat about the whole left eye right eye thing which really doesn't matter unless you shoot with both eyes open.
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I won't jump down your throat but I can't close just my left eye. I guess I'm making it hard for someone to help me out. :confused:

I'm going to try some different methods and see what works for me.

Probably trying to look for an excuse because I'm such a bad shooter with a handgun. My fifteen year old son kicks my a$$. I would really like to try shooting PPC but my sons play hockey and ball and I can't really commit to showing up every night. Been my experience that you only get better if you keep practicing.

Thanks again guys for your input and I know some of what everyone says has merit.
 
forcing people to swap dominant eyes very rarely works. moving the gun slightly to the side of the dominant eye works much better (when eye and hand are opposite). if you have trouble with the right eye messing you up, put a piece of tape over your shooting glasses. start with a solid piece until your eye gets used to that, then move on to a semi solid, and then to that murky stuff for wrapping presents, and then nothing (keep the glasses on, hehe). your focus and concentration should be on the front sight, it should be crystal clear in your vision. the rear sight and target will be slightly blurry (depending on shooting distance). nothing really complicated, just practice, practice, practice. this is also a good thing to practice with dry fire.
 
Hold the gun in your right and line it up with your dominant eye. From there learn to shoot with both eyes open.

The fact that you're not accurate probably has zilch to do with your eye btw... gotta learn proper shooting technique.
 
There is an exercise you can do and is covered in a book called "eyerobics" or some such, it involves alot of eye exercise which actually leave one somewhat crosseyed. It helps your shooting but doesn't do much for your social life.
 
I'm right for both, but when I shoot weak side, I still just naturally use my right eye, no head tilt, I just bring the pistol in line with the eye. I did it that for a while before I even noticed that is how I was doing it, and it works ok. The only time I close either eye is when I'm using a magnifying scope on a rifle.
 
corney said:
So I'm left eye domainate and right handed. Shoot long arms left handed and I am having good results with rifles and shotguns. Struggling with handguns to hit anything accurately. Better with revolvers than semis.

Anyone have this issue? Which hand you holding with and how are you looking down the barrel?

Thanks
Click to expand...

A number of handgun shooter have the opposite eye dominance, and shoot very well just using the sights with their offside eye.

When I shoot lefthanded I still use my right eye - I'm a righty.
 
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