Shooting with both eyes open

i shoot with both eyes open always when shooting handguns, and 99% of the time with a rifle.

your sight picture should be as follows. blured rear sight, blured target and focused on the front sight. by blured that dosen't mean that you should be seeing double, unless of course " i have one for each of you"

i have never really had an issue with using 2 eyes open, so it isn't something that i have had to over come, but there are alo of folks in your boat. i hope some one can come on here and give you some better assistance. for me it is just draw the gun and shoot. i don't have to force my eyes to stay open, they just do it.

yeah there is always one eye more dominate than the other as far as i know. my right eye is more dominate.

Try focusing on the target first and learning to get your gun into your line of sight intuitively, then focusing on the front sight if the need for accuracy demands it.

-RJP

your sight picture should be as follows. blured rear sight, blured target and focused on the front sight.

Click to expand...

This statement is not true for shooting with both eyes open. It is true when using only one eye. With both eyes open, you should be focused on your target. If you focus on the front sight with both eyes open, you will see double on your target... this can get very confusing in a SD situation.

Try taping over your weak eye on your safety glasses. Keep both eyes open while shooting, and focus on your target. Over time, you will automatically disregard the weak eye.

when i open both eyes, i only see one front sight. i dry fire with my targets on my bedroom walls. of course, place targets in safe direction away from people and maybe with a good backstop.

try this. when you aim, tilt your head so that the non dominant eye goes to the ground. then only your dominant eye can see the front sight. then look upright again.

this works really well for me since i am left eye dominant and right handed. in the weaver stance my non dominant eye automatically lowers.

Practice such that you keep both your eyes open. You may need to determine which eye is dominant and practice using that eye. In times of high stress when you really, really need your weapon you probably won't be able to close one eye anyway. Fine motor skills go away pretty quickly in a high stress situation.

Start with one of the opaque flip-down lens covers on either the shooting glasses or the bill of a baseball cap. That'll get you use to keeping the eye open w/o the confusing sight picture. Eventually you'll probably find that you can dispense with the cover. Champion has the clip-on for $8 or 9.

Painter's tape on the off lens may work as well - I prefer the flip style since I need to flip it up to score a target...blind in one eye, can't see out of the other, and I have the targets to prove it!

/Bryan

you may want to check this out there is a lot of good information there including how to teach yourself to use both eyes

http://www.kuci.org/~dany/firearms/all_drills.html

Mulligan, you may not be right eye dominant, or the dominance may be weak.

It is vital to determine your eye dominance!

Start with masking tape, to get you used to having both eyes open. once that isn't bizarre, try using packing tape, scotch tape, or something like that. The idea is to make the vision from the non-dominant eye blurry. Practice like that often; shooting, dryfiring, etc.

Once you are fairly used to shooting with the tape on your glasses, remove the tape, and see if its any easier for you.

Another way you can test your eye dominance is like this:


- Pick a small object across the room (doorknob, lightbulb, etc.)
- Make a circle with your fingers and thumb.
- With both eyes open, center the object in your circle.
- Close one eye, then open it and close the other. The eye that keeps the object in the center is your dominant eye.

try this. when you aim, tilt your head so that the non dominant eye goes to the ground. then only your dominant eye can see the front sight. then look upright again.

Click to expand...

Similar to this, I turn my head toward my weak eye, so that the bridge of my nose blocks the sights from that eye.

Regardless of how you approach this, understand that the eye is a muscle, and like other sports, muscle memory is one objective in proper training. The more you train, the more muscle memory you will develop, and the easier it will become to shoot will both eyes open.

Two eyed shooters

Becoming a two eyed shooter takes time and countless rounds unless you were started that way. 4 of the members of my trap shooting team are 2 eyed shooters the 5th has been trying to make the transition for several years.
You must first achieve perfect gun fit and placement.
The gun must be in perfect alignment each and everytime you shoulder it!
Once this is achieved a gick glance down the rib to double check gun placement and aquire your sight picture. I once had the rib fall off my Model 12 half way though a round and it made little or no difference.
2 eyed shooting once mastered is as easy as pointing your finger at the target....as long as you keep your eyes on your target the gun follows.

jsconnelly said:

Another way you can test your eye dominance is like this:

- Pick a small object across the room (doorknob, lightbulb, etc.)
- Make a circle with your fingers and thumb.
- With both eyes open, center the object in your circle.
- Close one eye, then open it and close the other. The eye that keeps the object in the center is your dominant eye.

Click to expand...

I used to use a variation of that to check eye-dominance until a friend offered a far simpler method:

• 
  Pick up a camera and look through the view finder. Which eye are you using? That's your dominant eye.

I've had mine change from right to left in some circumstances, possible fatigue, strange lighting, or different glasses. It's confusing when it happens. Reverting to 1 eye shooting helps when that happens.

Paul

I think I may be left eye dominant according to your test jsconnelly. What happens if the object is still in the circle on both accounts? My wife says she has the object there no matter which eye is closed.

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Make a very small circle, smaller than a dime, with your index and thumb, then hold your hand out at arms length, both eyes open, until you can just see this:



X




Then close one eye. That ought to do it. The eye that sees it is dominant.

DrBoomBoom mentioned something I left out. Your circle should be at arms length.

I'm no expert on the subject but what I've been told is that the dominant eye is used for precise positioning of an object and the non dominant is used for depth perception.

Mulligan: My wife claims the same thing. I think she's moving her hand or head and re-centering each time she closes one eye. :banghead: We argue about it every time I take her to the range. She shoots better with her right eye so i tell her to stick with it. My argument is that unless you have no space between your eyes , then one eye will be looking from an angle that would be impossible to the centered object. However, my wife can sometimes shoot laser beams at me from her eyes so maybe she can bend light with them too.


Jeff

I'm in the "keep both eyes open and focus on the target" camp. The only way I can focus on the front sight is if I'm closing one eye. And like many other have said in a SD situation you will instinctively focus on the threat... It would take a LOT of training to break that instinct.

Practice such that you keep both your eyes open. You may need to determine which eye is dominant and practice using that eye. In times of high stress when you really, really need your weapon you probably won't be able to close one eye anyway. Fine motor skills go away pretty quickly in a high stress situation.

Click to expand...

Although... I rememer... a long time ago... reading a situation about a night time shooting... and the shooter realized that with night vision and muzzle flash... you might get two good shots... one with the left eye and one with the right.

Use tape on the lens of your shooting glasses on the non-dominant eye side. Position the tape so that when your arms are extended you cannot see the gun with your non-dominant eye. You should be able to see your wrist, but not the gun. This will give you the benefits of having both eyes open while eliminating the double images. You may reach a point where you train your eyes and can shoot without the tape.
Watch this video-not for the subject, but to give you an idea of positioning of the tape. It's not transparent tape to make the positioning obvious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN0rTnL1fJs

Also, look at the cover of Brian Enos' Book. If you don't have a copy, you can find one here:
http://personalshootingcoach.com/store/?c=6

if you are left eye dominant, and shooting handguns its no big deal. just use the left eye, and keep everything else the same.