Cross-eye dominant shooters; advice please.

[c-bag]

I need some advice on working around my eye dominance issue. I am right-handed but left-eye dominant, and I am wondering if anyone who has experience shooting with this condition can give some pointers. I had to sell off my 2 guns (SKS & .22) due to a long period of unemployment but I'm working again and looking at this as an opportunity to start from scratch. I'm planning to get another .22 rifle and some kind of centerfire rifle, plus a handgun and shotgun as $ allow. As I start out learning to to shoot these guns, I'm unsure about the following areas:

-I have read elsewhere that I should start out shooting handguns left-handed and transition to the right once I have my sight picture locked in, but when I've shot other people's pistols I've just canted my head farther over my shoulder and had no problems. Your advice?

-With rifles I've always closed my left eye when shooting irons or scopes, but if I use a reflex sight on a defensive weapon I assume I'll either have to shoot leftie or shoot right-hand and close my left eye, losing my peripheral vision. Can anybody advise how they've handled this?

-I have no experience shooting anything airborne with a shotgun, but it seems this it where the cross-dominance issue would be most critical. My immediate needs for a shotgun will be HD and maybe deer hunting w/ slugs and sights later on, but if I end up wingshooting will I be better off being used to shooting from the left side, or is this even an issue?

-Finally, do you think shooting southpaw limits you in choice of equipment, or does it cost you appreciably more money? If so, do you think the tradeoff is worth it in terms of increased proficiency?

-Thanks.

 

[Nushif]

I only shoot handguns and am, myself, cross eye dominant, like you.

How I work around it is to not close my eye (the non-dominant one) but rather to turn my head so my dominant eye is the one aiming. So what you're doing works for me.

As for the shotgun shooting I'm by no means an expert, but I've never had problems hitting flying targets of the thrown variety, simply because you don't need to be as accurate as you'd have to be with a rifle.

So well ... I guess my comment would be that I've usually quite organically found a workaround for the problem, if you will.

 

[Sam1911]

Many strongly cross-dominant shooters shoot long guns from their dominant-eye side. In your case, left handed.

You can practice shooting left handed and develop that skill much more completely than you'll ever be able to "beat" your dominant eye.

Closing the dominant eye all the time may work in a lot of cases, but you'll lose many of the benefits of shooting from your dominant-eye side. Like shooting with both eyes open for example.

With handguns, I believe most shooters simply hold the gun with their strong hand and sight with their strong eye. As you shouldn't be canting your head at all when shooting a handgun (bring the gun up to your natural line of sight) realigning to shoot cross-dominantly is simply a matter of turning the gun a hair to one side to give your strong eye the correct view.

 

[loud-mouth shnook]

If it helps at all: my cross-eye dominant middle son, with a POS .410 Noble's pump, has outshot quite a few adults with 12 gauges at the trap range where we belong. He just lays his head across the stock to where it all lines up.

 

[Sgt_R]

My CCW instructor is right handed and left eye dominant. She said that in any kind of SHTF scenario, she would just close her left eye and shoot right handed. She practices for this regularly.

In competition, she puts a 1" round sticker on the left eye of her shooting glasses. This allows her the use of her peripheral vision, but eliminates the possibility of trying to shoot with the wrong eye.

I don't have any personal experience in the matter, as I'm right/right, but she said those methods worked well for her.

R

 

[LaEscopeta]

The search function is you friend here.

Having said that,

I am right-handed but left-eye dominant,

So am I. Or at least was until the retina detached in my right eye. Now I can only see well enough out of my left eye to aim, so I had to teach myself how to shoot left handed. It still feels funny but I do OK with it I guess.

Anyway when I was a kid learning to shoot I used to close my left eye, even though the instructors told us not to. This method works at a range where you know the exact distance to the target, and your rifle is pre-sighted at that distance. When you have to adjust your sighting for distance, windage and/or a moving target I think you are handicapping yourself by closing one eye. Other solutions I’ve heard are:
- learn to shoot left handed.
- Use a reflex sight and close the cover (supposedly puts a virtual image in front of your left eye when shooting right handed.)
- Squint your left eye so you are looking through your eye lashes. Close you left eye lid slowly while aiming and stop when the focus shifts to your right eye aligned with the sights. With time (I’ve read) you can train yourself to be right eye dominant.

The last method I used what I took up shooting again about 4 years ago, and found it worked best when shotgunning flying targets with a bead sight. You need to keep both eyes focused at the distance of the target, and you just barely see the bead as you swing through the target’s path. I’m told if you practice enough the swing becomes automatic, and some trap/skeet shooters don’t have a sight on their gun at all.

Good luck and hope this helps.

 

[russ69]

Shoot your pistols right handed, no problem there. In fact you'll have an advantage in the roll over prone position because you don't have to lift your head to see the sights.
For rifle or shotgun, switch over to the left hand side, you'll save a bunch of problems. Most guns will shoot from the left hand side without any issues. If you get into target rifles, you'll want a left hand stock but that's no problem just a few bucks more. I have a lot of guns but only a couple true left hand models. For serious target work, you'll need a left hand jacket, glove and sling but all that stuff is readily available.
I've been shooting left handed for so long, I can't even pick up a rifle or shotgun right handed, it's like throwing a ball with the wrong hand, really weird. That's the only thing I do with my opposite hand.

 

[Hawthorne2k]

I'm also right-handed and left-eyed. I shoot pistols with my right hand and long arms off my left shoulder, and it's made a tremendous difference in my accuracy with shotguns and rifles. With pistols, I use a modified Chapman stance and it works well for me with aligning my sights to my left eye, although Sheriff Jim Wilson (who is also cross-eye dominant) uses a Weaver stance and uses it VERY well. Try a few, mix it up, and one will seem right to you: That's the one you should use.

And I agree with russ69, I now feel weird when I pick up a rifle or shotgun with my right hand.

 

[Ike R]

I too am cross dominant, I shoot rifles and most shotguns left handed, practice gives muscle memory. Work on it slowly, don't rush anything, ( slow is smooth, smooth is fast, haha). Pistols and bow's I shoot right handed.

The most irritateing thing about shooting left handed is the blowback to the face from an AR. It seems to me that most rifles won't eject into your face these days. Some pump shotguns are a pain to use lefthanded as well because the pump release is a pain to reach for me, so I shoot them righthanded as aiming with a shotgun is easier than aiming through a rifle.

As far as aiming , I always shoot with both eyes open now, though originally I closed my right eye. I have 0 experiance with reflex sights so I won't lie or suggest anything to you there.

Equipmentwise its not expensive, just buy any gun you want and shoot it lefthanded alot and you will find that its actually not hard, I even shoot my AR's lefthanded and only one of them is ambi equipped. Clearing some weapons from a lefthanded position can be a pain but as I said above PRACTICE. If you just have to have lefthanded equipment its out there, and the cost can range from an additional 20 to 200 dollars to me its not worth the money and time.

Being a leftie is an advantage, not a disadvantage, you have overlapping fields of fire and increased visual perception when hunting in a group, you shoot out of a passenger side door easier than a righty, if your in the stack clearing a room your team benifits from the fact that no one has to shoot offhand.

 

[shotgunjoel]

I'm cross-eye dominant as well (left eyed, right handed). I always shoot right handed. Start shooting right handed and stay that way. With a reflex sight it doesn't matter. You just need to see the dot and your target. You can do that with one eye or two. You can seethe dot with your right eye and your target with your left eye, that's fine. You can even keep the front lens cap in place on the reflex sight and be fine, because all that you care about is seeing the dot with that eye, you are looking at the target with your left eye. With a handgun you can either lean your head way over to see the sights, or just hold the gun in your right hand, but in front of your left eye (that's what I do). With a shotgun you might have some problems. What I do is I close my left eye (this makes it a little harder for me, but I prefer to shoot right handed). You could also shoot left handed and make that work. Even if you shoot most any gun left handed you can still shoot right handed guns with little problem.

 

[rtpzwms]

Put a small dab of Vaseline on your glasses directly in front of your left eye. Or learn to shoot left handed, its not that hard! Lefties do it!

 

[exiledrebel]

I'm right-handed and left-eye dominant, too. When shooting handguns, I simply turn my head a bit. When I first started shooting, it was with a shotgun and I didn't know I was left-eye dominant, so I have always shot right-handed. When bird hunting, I keep both eyes open and have no problems. When I shoot a rifle, I also shoot right-handed but close my left eye. That works for me, at least for target shooting. I think at this stage, it would be a lot more trouble (for me) to try to switch to off-hand shooting.

 

[Caliper_Mi]

RH/LE also (recently found out my mother is, too)

I tend to close my left eye and shoot right handed with iron sights. Still haven't tried shooting lefty with both eyes open. My g/f is also cross dominant and typically shoots left for long guns, sometimes pistol as well.

With any kind of optic, I keep both eyes open. I have no trouble concentrating on the image in a scope even with my left eye open and having both open prevents eye strain.
Recently got a slug gun and put a reflex on it. Both eyes open seems to work well there too. I focus on the target and while I see the optic double, only one of them has a red dot on it (left eye is too far out of the field of view for the red dot) so it is easy to line up the bright red dot where I want to make a hole.

 

[killchain]

I'm a cross-dominant shooter.

I shoot pistols left-eyed and rifles right-eyed.

My suggestion if to learn to shoot a rifle with both eyes open. Worked for me.

 

[grndslm]

I was just shooting a rifle the other day with both eyes open. Not difficult at all.

In a SHTF type of scenario... I'd want to have both eyes open with a handgun, as well. You're going to want to pay attention to the angle of the slide/barrel, not the dots and/or sights. From the hip means 2 eyes are better than 1.

 

[oneounceload]

Learn to shoot from the dominant side. Are you sure you're not one where the dominant eye switches back and forth?

Many shotgun shooters will use static-cling "dots" for the lens or vaseline (a little messy though), to make their shooting side eye do the work while still giving them binocular vision.

 

[AKElroy]

SAM1911 has this exactly right. I am LED & RH, and I follow Sam's description exactly. I tend to buy lever guns, single shots & left hand bolties. When dove hunting, I really like my auto's, I just can't forget the shooting glasses.

For pistols, I shoot RH w/ the left eye; the Horatio Cain cant. It is not ideal, and I find it creates a POI bias to low left. I drift the sites on my carry guns to match the POI I naturally tend to produce. Anyone else shooting my handguns would not find them hitting thier POA.

I do fine from an accuracy standpoint, especially once I decided to start modifying both my purchases and adjustments around my "disability" rather than fighting to correct it.

 

[hardluk1]

I to am another right hand -left eye shooter atleast with open site pistols. Does not seem to be a problem just move the pistol over a bit and lean your head a bit and shoot. Now rifles ,all mine have scopes or dots and those i do shoot right hand and eye. I do practice lefty for shoots to close to turn. On a dot scope i just turn up the brightness and shoot both eyes open right hand and eye.

 

[ArtP]

Another left eyed, rightie.

I always say I'm better with my right eye than my left hand. Forcing left handed is more of a liability than forcing right eye. For rifles I use my non dominent right eye.

I'm not a competition pistol shooter, so I don't have any problem shooting right handed, aiming left eyed.

Maybe you could make a poll for cross-eye dominent shooters, see which way they shoot?

Being cross eye dominate sure helps for hitting baseballs & boxing. Oddly enough I'm left footed, eyed & eared. Someone forced a pencil into my right hand.

 

[RainDownmyBlues]

I'm the same way.

Used to shoot clays and .22lr rifles all the time.

Got in the Army and realized I shoot MUCH better left handed. Getting used to shooting lefty is a bit awkward at first, but it's not too bad. No where near as complicated as guitar or something the requires a lot of dexterity.

All Ar's come with the brass deflector, so it's not that big of a deal, seeing it cross your FOV in your right eye is a bit annoying though...

 

[lawson4]

When choosing a shotgun, look at where the safety is, if you are going to shoot left handed. You will want a tang located safety, no one on the trigger guard. The ones on the trigger guard are for righties and are awkward for lefties. Moosberg and Browning have tang safeties.

Rick

 

[RainDownmyBlues]

When choosing a shotgun, look at where the safety is, if you are going to shoot left handed. You will want a tang located safety, no one on the trigger guard. The ones on the trigger guard are for righties and are awkward for lefties. Moosberg and Browning have tang safeties.

Rick

Meh, I haven't had much of a problem. I have a Mooooooseburg and a 60's Remington Wingmaster(willed to me) that both have the safety on the trigger gaurd. I don't have much of a problem with them. And if I remember how they work, shouldn't be TOO hard to switch up.

 

[1KPerDay]

Many strongly cross-dominant shooters shoot long guns from their dominant-eye side. In your case, left handed.

That's what I do. Handguns right handed, long guns lefty.

 

[redbullitt]

+1 on lefty long guns. I don't need to b/c of eye dominance, but I practice it anyway. Its pretty fun with a 22 and makes a good trick if you can switch hands lol.

 

[bugmania]

Same problem here, RH LED, but I don't have a problem with rifles if they are scoped. When using irons I close my left eye.

I was watching Top Shot the other day and noticed that the young kid, Kelly I think his name is, had a couple pieces of scotch tape over the left lens of his shooting glasses. I was wondering if he has the same problem and that is his "fix" for it.