One vs Two Eyed Shooting, Cross Dominance, etc...

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Dave McCracken

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Lots of us older shooters that learned to shoot without the enormous benefits of good instruction learned any which way. And lots of us close one eye when we do. There's a couple reasons for this.

We didn't know any better.

We shot rifles too.

We had cross dominance problems.

This last has some relevance to me. The nuns at St Agnes didn't want me writing lefthanded, so they tied my left hand to the desk and MADE me write with my right. To this day I have horrible handwriting and problems with authority.

A quick check for cross dominance, which is when your master eye and hand are on opposite sides....

Look up at the corner of the room most diagonal to you, the one where the ceiling and walls come together. Point to it with your firing hand. Close the eye on that side.If your finger moves away from that corner, fine. If it stays where it was,you're cross dominant.

Rifle and handgun shooters have two sights on their tools, and the cross dominance problem is not as severe an issue as it is when shotguns enter the picture. We know the eye is the rear sight on the shotgun. If that eye is an inch or so over off the top line of the shotgun, we 'll shoot very badly.I did.

There's a couple remedies for this, though nothing's perfect.

One, shoot from the other side. For tyros, this is the preferred fix.

Two, close the other eye. This will MAKE you use the proper eye, but stereoscopic vision is lost, and there may something happening over to the blind side you need to know about. That could be a straggler quail or The Republican Guard.

Three, switch the eye over. A lot of folks are not strongly dominant with either eye, and focussing on using the proper eye will train you into better habits. This is what I did,though it took decades. Now I shoot with both eyes open, and I'm shooting better than ever.

Hope this helps, sing out if there's questions....
 
It's a handful, as a strong left handed and eyed person I never had cross dominance problems, but as I shot more my right eye got stronger and sometimes with both eyes open I get dual dominance. Fun with a pistol or shotgun, I see two beads or front sights. The benefit is I catch my self still looking down the sight rib while my right eye watches the reload into the tube or chamber. With a scope it gets truly weird, I can see reticle, target and side of gun all at once and still get hits. If I want it to stop I just blink my right eye.

Watch new shooters, and make sure they are using the correct eye. Hard to tell with a pistol if using a centered stance, but with a shoulder arm it usually looks really goofy. I'm proud of myself, I recently saved a real tyro, 10 yr old with his first .22 rifle, from years of possible misery. I kept noticing him shooting the rifle right handed but rolling it on its side a good deal. At first I thought it was poor instruction and too small to hold the gun, but I figured it out. Told the dad, questioned the kid, he had been using his left eye. Dad was clueless about what to do so I told them the options were squint or close the left eye and sight with the right or shoot left handed. The kid picked left handed, hope he does well. Sad that lots of people struggle like this, don't know enough to know what eye dominance is and no one bothers to help.
 
I too have very little dominance in my strong side (right) eye. It can play funny tricks on you but if I focus with the right eye strongly it is no problem. Likewise when shooting left handed, like we ALL should do at least 10% of our practice, I can use my left eye as the dominant eye and have an easier time with rifles and shotguns from the weak side.

EVERY handheld arm should be shot with BOTH eyes open PERIOD. Pistols, shotguns, bows, rifles, bazookas, whatever it happens to be it needs to shot with both eyes open. Scoped rifles are one of the easiest to shoot with both eyes open and 90% of shooters refuse, go figure......
 
Thanks for the responses, folks.

H, true about shooting from the off side, but one small caveat.

When in the steep part of the learning curve on any type of firearm and discipline, it's best to stick to one side and one kind of shooting, Once some proficiency is achieved, then switch to the off side.

Good work, Joe. Everyone should pass on what they know.
 
Good post.

I'm right-handed, but left-eyed. Rifles (iron sights or scoped) are no problem, and I do very well with ghost-ring sights on shotguns. My success with pistols seems dependent on the exact sights that it's equipped with, and I don't do well at all with traditional shotgun "sights" (whether that be a bend, vent rib, or some mutation thereof).

Placing a sticker or magnetic "dot" on the left lens of my glasses works for bulleye shooting, but I haven't tried it out yet when doing any other type of shooting. Frankly, it really doesn't feel like the right solution for me.
 
Eric, learn to shoot left handed. SEEING is far more important than what hand or shoulder the gun is in, your dominant eye is stronger and there is very little you can do about that. You can learn to shoot left handed easily and quickly, and it can provide a chance to start fresh without any bad habits you may have picked up along the years of shooting.

If you want to shoot to your potential with rifles and shotguns you need the gun under your dominant eye, handguns are not nearly so critical.
 
Eric, H is preachin' Gospel. Unless there's an overriding reason not to, like missing digits, switch over to port side.
 
Really? I gotta be honest, I never considered that as an option. I can use my left hand fairly well (and it contains all five digits ;) ) , though, so maybe it'll work for me. I'll give it a try the next time I'm at the range with the shotgun.

As far as rifles go, there doesn't seem to be a problem - I'll probably stick with shooting those right-handed, unless I get totally confused.
 
Eric,our old qualifiers weren't nearly hard enough, but I passed all of them one year shooting from the weak side, and above 90%. Right wrist was in a brace for tendonitis.

At that point, I don't think I'd ever fired a Mini 14 or other rifle LH. Got me to thinking and did after.

Anyone capable of typing well enough to ask a question here is probably capable of operating weapons from the off side.Familiarization is important.
 
Lack of dominance

I recently took a lesson at my club, which I just newly joined. I'll use "Sensei" for my instructor, because there was a lot of "be one with the clay," and this really suited me! As Yogi Berra might way, about 1/2 of clays games is 90% mental.

Sensei did a drill with me, and determined that I have no dominant eye. When I point using my left hand, I use my left eye and vice versa.

From low-gun position, my routine was to identify the target with both eyes open, then close my left eye while mounting the gun. (I shoot right-handed.)

I asked at the end of the lesson "should you always close the left eye when shooting?" He said he never would, but he is right eyed. He said I should, as should other people with no dominance. I didn't ask about cross dominance. I have to assume the answer would be 1) close the left eye, or 2) shoot left-handed.

I asked about blocking the left lens of shooting glasses, and he said he didn't like that. His explanation was that two eyes were better for hunting. I don't intend to hunt much, at least as compared to shooting clays, so that doesn't matter too much to me. I actually like the idea of something opaque on the glasses. I can't keep my right eye wide open and close my left eye.

Danny
 
I'm right-handed/left-eyed, and the advice I got when starting shotgunning last year was…squint. If is close my left eye about half way, so I’m looking through the lashes, it switches dominance to my right eye, but I still see enough out of my left eye to get stereoscopic depth perception and peripheral vision. This was working for me, with skeet scores improving with almost every round.

Until about mid summer, when scores leveled off and then dropped. This was accompanied by trouble seeing the computer screen and driving at night, all of it caused by the retina in my right eye coming loose and finally detaching (partially.) To make the story short I’m recovering from surgery and will shortly get to start trying the other method of dealing with cross dominance, learning to shoot left handed. Feels pretty unnatural when dry mounting the gun, we’ll see how it goes at the range.
 
Is it fair to say that the retina detaching had nothing to do with the squinting?

Doesn't sound like much fun.

This is a good thread, as I'm also right-handed and left eye dominant. My big problem is that no matter which eye I use, I still see double images with both eyes open, even if it's my dominant eye. I still have to close the other eye (or put tape over the glasses on that side) in order to see a single image. It doesn't matter whether I'm focusing on the sight (handgun) or focusing downrange (shotgun), the other area will always be doubles. Because it's more awkward to shoot left handed, this has kept me from making more of an effort to switch to my left side for shooting. Just doesn't seem to be much of an advantage, I guess.

Anybody else set up this way?
 
dmarbell, your "Sensei" isn't making much sense.

It is possibly you are one of the very few people who doesn't have a dominant eye. It's exceedingly rare. The dominance might not be strong but I don't think your "instructor" knows how to tell the difference.

I instruct and frequently with women among whom cross dominance is more prevalent. No instructor worth his sand would ever tell a student to close one eye while you are raising the gun and I've learned from some of the best and watched them deal with cross dominant shooters.

There are three ways to address dominance issues. Learn to shoot from the dominant side. If you can't do that then alter the dominance. The advice against using a piece of tape on the glasses is wrong. I keep a roll of clear tape in my shooting bag for cross dominant shooters and it works. I've also used a dab of grease on their lens. It works wonders.

The third way is a custom made crossover stock. They are very expensive and not common. Here's what one looks like.
21062006101651.gif
 
Wow I feel like a freak! At least it's an advantage for a change :D

I shoot "double" duelist style in cowboy action shooting. (Single handed, unsupported, left hand shoots left pistol, right hand shoots right pistol.)

When I shoot lefty I use the left eye and squint my right eye just a tiny bit.
When I shoot righty I use the right eye and squint my left eye just a tiny bit.

I'm still using both eyes, the squint just seems to override the "stereo" attempts my brain makes without removing my depth perception.
 
Is it fair to say that the retina detaching had nothing to do with the squinting?
Was squinting the left eye, and the right retina let loose (which is why I'll be shooting left handed now; not likely to get enough vision back in the right eye to aim.)
 
In digging around for a front sight, I did run across this:

Hi Viz Magna Optic Sight.

Since I have trouble with ghosting while using both eyes, this seemed like a halfway decent solution to try. Supposedly, the fiber optic sight is only visible when you look at it straight on. In my mind, that sounded like only the eye inline with the sight (while focusing downrange) would see the bright color, so there shouldn't be ghosting.

It seemed worth ~$30, so I ordered one a few minutes ago. Hopefully, I'll get to try it after turkey day. I'll report back on how it goes for me.

Keith
 
Well since one can't miss with all them pellets , I just throw the gun up in the general direction close eyes, slap trigger and be done with the whole deal...

Al Thompson taught me that...*neener*

Some of ya'll make stuff too hard....*grin*
 
A quick check for cross dominance, which is when your master eye and hand are on opposite sides....

Look up at the corner of the room most diagonal to you, the one where the ceiling and walls come together. Point to it with your firing hand. Close the eye on that side.If your finger moves away from that corner, fine. If it stays where it was,you're cross dominant.

Help me out with this... where do I focus? If I focus on my finger there are two corners, if I focus on the corner there are two fingers.
 
I am usually right-handed and have a very strong dominant left-eye, so my scores are usually very poor with the gun on my right shoulder. Recently I have been attempting to use my left side for shotgunning. I am running into a few issues, mostly due to gun fit, but I am a much better (read: consistent) shot from the left as I really can get my eye lined up with the barrel rib.

A few questions:

1) Are/Were there any left-hand 870 Wingmasters made? I see the Expresses are available, but I would like to get an older LH 870, especially a Trap gun. If not, any recommendations on who can build a cross-over stock? I assume I would have to get fitted for it, so a local (metro Atlanta or north Alabama) would be a plus.

2) How do other lefties handle the safety on a regular 870?
 
They started making LH WMs long ago, but they're scarce.

When I shoot LH, I take the safety off with my thumb and on with my left index finger. Just roll the hand around the wrist of the stock.
 
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