Can you be right-eyed or left-eyed?

[SouthpawShootr]

I'm cross-dominant. Right eye dominant and left handed. Very fine work gets done with my left hand. Over the years, I've learned to shoot right handed. Saves me a good bunch of time and money in that I don't have to pay extra for left versions of holsters and, where available, guns. Also don't have to wait for limited lefty runs of popular holsters. I've also worked on shooting left handed and have done pretty well with it.

 

[wuluf]

Right hand, left eye. For handguns, I cock my head slightly to the right and shoot with both eyes open. That works til i get tired (300 rounds or so) then i close my right eye.

 

[Nortonics]

Here's an easy, sure fire method to tell what eye dominance any other person has in seconds.

Watched a hunting firearms instructor perform this on 25+ students in a class where he absolutely identified each persons eye dominance within 5 seconds each - he did the entire class in about 2 minutes.

He had everybody stand up and face him at about a 20' distance. He had everybody point one arm straight out with their finger pointing straight at his nose, with both their eyes open. As they did this, he looked at their eyes. What is seen is one eye looking straight at his (the testers) eyes, and the other eye is sort of looking off in a slightly different direction. Whichever eye is looking straight into his eyes was the persons dominant eye.

It absolutely works, every time. It's actually kinda' funny to see this! Try it yourself with friends. One nice thing about this method is the tester determines which eye is dominant, not the student. I've corrected numerous people who believed their dominant eye was the opposite of what was factual...

Every so often you'll find a person who has both eyes looking straight at you, or equal dominance. This is THE WORST condition to have, because neither eye is truly dominant, or can sometimes be so slight a difference that either eye can capture dominance. When clay bird shotgunning where both eyes should remain open (best choice) this truly sucks as the angle change can really throw off the point (notice I said point, not aim).

 

[bikerbill]

I'm right and right, learned about it in a KR class a few weeks ago ... I always shoot with both eyes open, I just find it's easier to pick up the target and keeps your peripheral vision in play ...

---

When they kick at your front door,
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?

 

[Harvster]

If you close one eye. Dominance doesn't seem to matter. Try all the tests with either eye closed. You'll find that you can point, center the diamond etc. easily with either eye when one is closed. So, in a situation like shooting through a scope, if you close the eye you're not looking with in the scope you should be fine.

 

[joshk-k]

I am right-handed and left eye dominant. I (am just learning how to) shoot handguns with both eyes open. It takes a hair (just a hair) longer to get my sight picture, but keeps my peripheral vision open (if there's one bad guy, there's often more, and I'd like to see them coming instead of missing that because one of my eyes is shut). I figure that I do everything else in life (drive, cook, etc.) with both eyes open, so I should be able to do this too. I shoot shotguns with both eyes open and rifles with left eye (the dominant one) closed, although the next time I'm out shooting, I plan on practicing with both eyes open.

Josh

 

[GLOOB]

gloob

I right handed, and slightly R eye dominant. But when shooting a pistol, I find I can use either eye. When shooting off hand, I usually use my left eye. I always keep both eyes open, and just pick up the inner set of sights. Muscle memory gets the right sights onto target, and the appropriate eye takes over from there.

 

[Tom Fury]

Right Hand, Left eye here:

In a combat stance with a pistol (left side to the target) My chin ends up against my slightly extended right shoulder.

Now just for fun, you can notice who is what in the movies and TV: I believe David Caruso (Horatio Caine, CSI) is also RH & left eye dominant; Bruce Willis is LH, and I seem to remember watching his chin rotate into the opposite direction in some two handed shooting scenes from Die-Hard (I believe he shoots with both eyes open tho).
Cheers, TF

 

[Tom Fury]

Parallel thought

Not to hijack the thread, but does anyone find they shoot really well with one barrel length and not another? My eye hand mojo seems to work really well with Commanders or less, but I don't do well with 5" 1911s at all.
Cheers, TF

 

[LegalAlien]

Dilemma of "mono vision" Contact lenses

I have dominant eye situation taken to the next level. Due the normal aging process,I to wear either bi- or multi-focal glasses, or Mono Vision contacts. For those that dont know, Mono Vision contacts consists of two contact lenses of totally different strenghts. One contact is for reading (up close vision) and one contact is for general far seeing. I am right handed and right eye dominant, with the result that I have the far-seeing contact in my right eye.
After my most recent eye exam and lens upgrade, I now find that the gun sights (both front and back) are blurred, but the target is beautifully clear!! Before the last adjustment, I was able to see the front sight and target pretty clearly with the rear sight being somewhat blurred.
I have now started practicing to lean my head over slightly and using the strong reading contact (left eye) for sighting to get a clear gun sight view - the target ends up being somewhat blurred if I close my right eye. It is going to take a fair amount of training to remove the muscle memory of right eye sighting.
Time will tell

 

[pittspilot]

X-dominate here

Right handed, left eye.

I cant pistols slightly to the left instead of canting my head. Also keep both eyes open.

For rifles, I close the dominate one just before the shot because it is hard to get your chin over the gun.