Dominant Eye Question.

[MikeSlater]

I remember growing up I was taught to use my right eye to aim. My dad thought I was nuts when I tried to use my left eye. I just felt natural to me. Well now I know the deal, only took 38 yrs to realize I am right handed and left eye dominant. I cannot aim a rifle using my left eye now, seems to weird. But I was wondering what are the consequences using my right (non-dominant) eye to aim my handguns. Would I be able to achieve better accuracy using my left (dominant) eye?

 

[scooterj]

You can train your right eye to see the sights on a pistol by placing a piece of translucent tape on your shooting glasses, small enough just to make the sights hard to see. That will still give you your peripheral vision. And closing one eye really screws with depth perception and it also throws your balance off.

 

[MikeSlater]

I think I do close my left eye most of the time. Hmm, so should I train my right eye, which is the eye I have always used, to see the sights with both eyes open? Or start using my dominant left eye? When shooting a rifle, scoped or open sighted, are you supposed to close an eye? Im almost 40 and now learning all over again.

 

[gsneff]

no problem shooting either way. i too am right handed with a dominant left eye. i typically use my left eye for pistol shooting and right for rifle and shotgun due but like to change it up and use right eye for pistol sometime in training because you never know if you'll need to in real life.

 

[JBP55]

I too am right handed and left eye dominant. Some hold the gun a little off center to the left and lean their head to the right to line the gun up with the dominant eye. I can not do that due to a bad neck so I shoot with my non dominant eye. I originally learned to shoot with both eyes open but now see double unless I close one eye. Let me know if you want to shoot one day and we can determine what works best for you.

 

[scooterj]

Have you tried shooting a pistol left handed? Your body will be in a more natural position if you can aim and shoot with the same side.

 

[honestlou]

Your accuracy should be no different, as long as you are getting proper sight alignment with your non-dominant eye. The big difference is the speed of target acquisition. With a handgun I recommend using your dominant eye; I just don't see any big downside to doing so.

With a rifle or shotgun, you can close your dominant eye as you feel necessary, or use a piece of tape on the glasses lens of your dominant eye. You have to work on placement of the tape, so that it doesn't totally block your vision, but blocks the area near your sights so that your brain won't try to use that eye for sight alignment. This is more commonly done for shotgunning, as it is difficult to pick up and track moving targets with one eye only. With a rifle, there is usually less consequences to closing one eye if neccessary.

 

[MikeSlater]

Thanks for the info! I was just thinking, my buddy and I shot some skeet last weekend, I didnt pretty well, so I dont think I will worry about the eye thing with rifles or shotguns, although I would like to get more comfortable shooting my ar with both eyes open. I have never tried shooting a handgun left handed, gonna try that today!

 

[CUJOHUNTER]

You should always aim with your dominant eye. You may have to tilt your head a bit or put a slight cant to your grip.

 

[MikeSlater]

Closing my left eye is the only way I can use a scope, unless it has alot of eye relief. Guess I need to retrain my brain! I worked on it some today, I got the most improvement from working on my grip. I wasnt squeezing enough of the life out of it. I found if I gripped it untill I could feel the checkering digging in my hand the groups were pretty tight at 10 yrds. actually had one group of 5 that was one ragged hole. I cant remember which eye I was using. I also worked on my stance, settled on a modified weaver. Just so freakin hot outside....

 

[honestlou]

Closing my left eye is the only way I can use a scope, unless it has alot of eye relief. Guess I need to retrain my brain!

There's no problem with closing your left eye with a scope. With any magnified optic your left and right eye aren't seeing the same image anyway. You want to keep both eyes open when possible to help with depth perception and field of vision- you can judge distances better and you see more. This is especially important with defensive handgun shooting.

With a shotgun or rifle with iron sights or a non-magnified optic, it is best to keep both eyes open for the same reason; but it is not really a problem if you close one eye when actually pressing the trigger if neccessary. Again, speed of target acquisition will suffer if you keep one eye closed, but you're not losing much if you close it to touch off the shot.

 

[tunatuk]

I can one up you...
I have ****-poor eyes (corneal ulcers, neovascularlization, scar tissue, astigmatism in BOTH eyes). I see better with my right eye than my left.

I am also left eye, right hand dominant. So even if I try to shoot with my dominant eye, I can't see well. So I'm all kinds of messed up, and had to learn to shoot all over again once my eyes went belly up. The bad thing is, I'm only 24...

 

[Ellis1958]

Being right-handed and wrong-eyed is more common that you would think. I ran across it quite a bit over the years.

It is a total non-issue with a handgun. You should be keeping both eyes open anyway, for defensive-type shooting.

For precision target work, you have to shift your head slightly. No big deal.

I'm cross-dominant. Right handed, left eye dominant.

For long guns I place a piece of Scotch taped over the left eye so the right eye can do it's thing and see through the scope or be the rear sight of a shotgun.

For handguns it's a non-issue. As LSP said for defensive work keep both eyes open. For precision work just shift the gun 3" over to the dominating eye (rather than move the head, move the gun). One of the best USPSA/IPSC shooters in the world before he retired is Brian Enos. His cross dominance didn't slow him down much.

 

[Snookie]

What Eyes Open?

WOW

You folks actually keep your eyes open when you shoot???

 

[LACamper]

My wife is cross dominant and shoots fine.

One of my good non-shooting friends (not anti 2A just not experienced) decided to try my #5 enfield. I had a 6x scope on it at the time, just to experiment- decided I didn't like it.
We put him in prone over a log and got him settled. Before we could stop him he said "I can see better out the other eye!" switched eyes without swapping shoulders (with his eye against the scope and the rifle kinda, but not quite, on his shoulder) and pulled the trigger! It took a while but we got the bleeding stopped... left him a nice scar too!

 

[Ellis1958]

For precision work just shift the gun 3" over to the dominating eye (rather than move the head, move the gun).

Well, that depends on what sort of precision work you're attempting. Off of a barricade, you're gonna have to move your head...

Well yeah. And your torso, twist your hips a bit, bend a knee a tad. Don't forget to use cover. Don't care if you doing USPSA. Or something different doing Bianchi.

Picky, picky. Nonetheless, easy to adapt.

Think it was Tiger Mckee in some podcast that said that one third of his students are cross-dominant. Common issue. First time I went to shoot clays I went though an eye dominance exercise prior to talking about anything else. Did an Appleseed shoot and did an eye dominance exercise within the first half hour of instruction. Again, bigger issue in long guns, a non issue in handguns.

 

[G19MAG]

I'm left eye dominant and right handed also. As people have said before with handguns it not an issue as you can tilt the gun inward toward the dominant eye. However with long guns it is defiantly noticeable that extra half second that it takes for your brain to switch eyes while on the move is worth learning how to shoot lefty for me. It takes practice but in my opinion worth the hassle.

Cheers - :-)