Eye dominance question.

C

coasttocoast

Inactive
I went shooting for the first time with a friend over the summer and found out i have cross eye dominance (right hand dominance, left eye dominance). For me it's a hard for me to close my left eye without having my right eye squinting unless i have something like an eye patch. Is there any way to make the eye dominance switch or something like that? Or will i have to get used to shooting with my left hand or using something like an eye patch over my left eye in order to shoot with my right hand? Lastly if i wore glasses would this issue be fixed (I need glasses since one of my eyes are slightly worse than the other but I don't wear them since stuff never seems blurry or unfocused whenever I drive or do anything)
 
right vs left

After 50+ years of shooting with a dominant right hand and right eye, my left eye became dominant soon after eye surgery. Lots of frustration!

For handgun competition I went to a red dot sight and found that a slight head turn to the right cured the cross dominance issues.

For rifle shooting, a scope was the answer.

Here is my problem; shotgun. Whether it be skeet, trap or sporting clays, I find it nearly impossible to consistently hit birds using my right hand, right shoulder and right eye. My scores are in the basement and pheasant hunting is about 50% where I normally hit every bird I aimed at.

Good luck!
 
I am also cross-dominant (right hand, left eye). You should be able to eventually close either eye individually if you practice it for a while.

For many things, I will shoot with both eyes open. This includes shotguns, pistols, scopes and red dots. For many rifle iron sights, I cannot do this and have to close my right eye.
 
I also am right handed and left eye dominant . It suck when shooting period for me and trying to shoot Service rifle which is all iron sights is very hard for me . To the point that I do not enjoy it . Thinking of shooting left handed instead for service rifle .

Hand gun is the same issue .
Shoot with both eyes open?
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I've tried this many times and it is VERY hard for me to do . With LOTS of practice I may get better but when both eyes are open I can't find those little 3 dot sights after recoil . The first shot is no problem because I have a little time to find the sight but after the first shot it can take 4 or 5 sec to line my sight up . Even then it's a crap shoot which eye will find the sights first . Some times it will be my right eye and other times it's my left .

I've had now formal training when it comes to hand gun shooting so If I had some good instruction I'm sure I could do better but I've been truly thinking about switching to left handed shooting for everything . Boy what a commitment that would be . :rolleyes:
 
Is being right handed and left eye dominant when shooting handguns that big a problem?

When I got into my late 40's and had to start using reading glasses I discovered my right eye sees good far off and my left eye sees better close up. I had rather be able to see the sights on a handgun even if the target is a little blurry. I just cant the gun to my left eye and shoot away. I don't claim to be a good shot, my eyes probably have a lot to do with that(or at least that is my excuse:D) I shoot rifles with my right eye but they all have optics.
 
Since you're just starting out, you might consider switching sides and learning to shoot lefty. That's how quite a few people handle it, and it's easy enough when you haven't developed much muscle memory yet.
 
Well when you're shooting you should be using shooting glasses to protect your eyes. I knew a guy that attached some of the cheap flip-up sunglasses to his shooting glasses, he removed the lens from the right side and put some tape over the left lens. Instant flip-up, flip-down eye patch.

I don't know of any method to actually change your right/left eye dominance.

For rifle target shooting several folk I know have a wire and cardboard thing attached to the rifle itself so that when they bring the rifle up to the shooting position the cardboard blocks their left eye.

There's lots of discussion about this topic on this forum. Do a search and read the previous posts and see if anything helps.

Good luck.
 
Is being right handed and left eye dominant when shooting handguns that big a problem?
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That's how quite a few people handle it, and it's easy enough when you haven't developed much muscle memory yet.
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And that's the issue . I've been shooting for many years ( 30+ ) with a very high concentration of that shooting in the 6+ years . I have some very ingrained habits that are hard to get over . Interestingly enough some are the type that hurt your ability to shoot and yet I can shoot pretty good . I have a huge trigger flinch . How ever I can consistently shoot little tiny groups with both rifle and hand gun .

So those issues hurt when trying to fix other things . I learned several years ago about my left eye dominants and have tried to work on the issue like just using my left eye when shooting hand guns . How ever I've been using my right eye for so long that more times then not when I bring the gun up my left eye automatically starts to close . I then find my self blinking my eyes trying to line the sights up in the correct eye .

I'm not a hand gun guy though . I like them and have several but I like shooting rifle much more and do so . I put very little effort into hand gun shoot when compared to what I do when shooting rifle . I'm sure I could iron out a few things if I truly made a concentrated effort to do so .
 
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