One or both eyes open?

[Hoser]

Both eyes open is what people like to preach.

Do what works for you.

 

[Drail]

Do you drive your car with just one eye open? Do you close one eye to walk through a doorway? Closing one eye to aim a firearm is a just bad habit someone taught you.

 

[mgmorden]

Do you drive your car with just one eye open? Do you close one eye to walk through a doorway? Closing one eye to aim a firearm is a just bad habit someone taught you.

That's oversimplifying the issue a bit. The thing with gun sights is that you're aligning two things rather close to you - and to each other. Your'e not doing that driving a car or walking through a door. With those tasks you're typically focusing on a single thing at a time and your eyes will adjust to match whatever you're looking at. That just doesn't work for seeing two items at once.

Try this: hold up a handgun and align the sights with both eyes open. Now close your dominant eye. You'll notice that now the sights are not even remotely close to being aligned. As a matter of fact if you open your dominate eye again while you'll naturally tend to prioritize one, you can actually see the front and rear sights twice - aligned, and non-aligned.

While it's completely possible to still focus on the "primary" image, some people prefer to close one eye to eliminate the second image of the sights entirely.

As Hoser said - do what works for you. Trust me there are DARNED good shooters of both preferences.

 

[Hookeye]

Both open, everything. I can move my right eye (dominant) a little to cause a blur out and make the left go dominant.
Used to do it all the time when younger but now such antics fatigue me.
Left eye has Duane's Syndrome. Used to be proly 20/10 both eyes, dunno always saw really well..............just left eye doesn't turn left much.
Eyesight degraded to 20/15 in my 40's. It sucks in 50's. Proly need bifocals now.
Used to do all sorts of fine pitch detail stuff in my old job. People couldn't believe it.
Was just normal for me.
No way I could do that gig now
This getting old crap I aint liking one bit (down all day with some pinched nerve in back).
Blind and crippled I be gettin' LOL

 

[Sav .250]

Personal choice. One eye works for me.

 

[PapaG]

Trap, skeet, sporting, all handgun both eyes open. Bench rest with high power scope or aperture sights, one. One eye in shotgun sports challenges your binocular view and constantly changing depth of field.
My opinion.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

This is what happens to me. I don't close it entirely, but I think I get the "tape effect" by slightly closing down one eye. I can do a million dryfire reps concentrating on slamming both eyes completely open, but when the chips are down I'm going to squint (NOT close) the right eye every time. I shoot left hand and have a slight left eye dominance.

Same here. Right handed, cross-dominant. Learned to shoot with right eye closed. Now it usually merely almost closes. Haven't tried the tape routine, but I've heard it works for some. My shooting doesn't seem to suffer much, except shotgunning. Still have a lot to learn about doing that right with my handicap, but it's early, as I pretty much just started that.

 

[davidb72]

I have tried very hard to develop into a both eyes open shooter (USPSA / IDPA iron sight pistol).

At this late stage (mid 40's) it isn't easy. I find that dry firing that way has helped quite a bit.

 

[hdwhit]

25-5 wrote:
About 2 years ago I started using both eyes. One eye is a tough habit to break./QUOTE]

Amen.

I was taught to shoot with only one eye open (since that was the eye looking down the line of sight) by my grandfather. And since my grandfather was a senior marksmanship instructor at the Infantry School at Ft. Benning from the 1920's through about 1943 - over a million men learned to shoot under his direct instruction - I had little reason to doubt what I was told. So, for three decades I have been trying to break the "one eye" habit.

Still, using one-eye, I can take my Armi-Jager AP-74 (an Italian-made clone of the M-16 in .22LR) and using just one eye over iron sights and without a rest, can reliably put 9 out of 10 rounds in the 2.75 inch divot of a milk jug at 100 meters.

 

[muncie21]

I am left handed, meaning I eat and write with my left hand, however I throw and shoot with my right. Guess what? I'm f*cked when it comes to traditional eye dominance. I prefer to shoot with one eye open, but which eye isn't really an issue, just when both eyes are open, I have problems.

Oh for those that are wondering, I drive and walk through doors with both eyes

 

[FL-NC]

I used to shoot with both eyes open but now I squint my weak side eye. I had an eye injury years ago and now it just feels better to squint.

 

[Lafitte]

Sometimes it looks like I am shooting with 'em both closed.
Lafitte