Non dominant practice = humbling

B

Butzbach

New member
Had carpal tunnel surgery on the right paw two weeks ago. Practiced left handed with the LCR at the 7 yard line today. It was humbling. About 60% in the vitals of a full sized silhouette. 110 gr. .38 Special Hornady Critical Defense. The left thumb has some problems too and that was a good load from a recoil standpoint. From what I’ve seen on line recently, I doubt the CD would expand out of a 2” barrel.

The left handed draw was pretty ugly too. But, that’s why we practice.
 
Thankfully we were required in the police academy to shoot with the non-dominant hand so I'm no stranger to it. We all should anyway in case of a boo-boo like you have with your dominant hand.
 
I was in a company league at one time and we had to shoot one stage with the non-dominant hand. It was interesting.
 
I don't train non dominant as much as I should. but I rarely struggle with it. Where I always struggle is kneeling, 1 knee down. Feels so unstable.
 
My knees won't allow kneeling. I can actually shoot pretty well left handed. Not as good as my right, but I'm OK if I had to do it. Both my hands hurt a lot anyway.
Going to the bathroom is another story. It's a nightmare! I hurt my hand once years ago (Like I was 23-24) and I can't even imagine how bad it would be now using my left hand.
 
ghbucky said:
I recommend 'dot torture' training.

https://www.ammunitiontogo.com/lodge/dot-torture/

This routine makes you do a series of drills that includes weak-hand shooting.

I found it very useful.
Click to expand...

I forgot all about this one. It seemed soooo easy reading the instructions. By the time I went to my weak hand, my first shot was dead-on. Subsequent ones weren't. Then, changing back to my strong hand just carried over bad shots because I was so hung up in my head why I had only one good shot and subsequent shots nosedived.

This drill is fantastic in developing mental toughness/acuity.
 
Used to shoot steel challenge more. Often towards the end of the season, as things got progressively more difficult, the target array would be weak hand only for the stop plate, or weak hand only for the whole stage. You drew strong hand and passed the pistol to your other hand. My joke was that you could time me with a sundial, or a calendar.

Canting the pistol a bit helped, but times were definitely slower for a lot of us. Great practice, though.
 
An old bull's-eye shooting team coach's technique is to take a shooter with bad habits like flinching or ambushing the ten ring and have them shoot weak hand-only for a while, learning to shoot all over again with it. The idea is that none of the bad habits have been inculcated on that side. Often they end up shooting better from that side after a while. Only then will the coach let them try their strong hand again, which then also has to relearn a bit and often does so without the bad habit.
 
I'm weird, I guess. I'm lefty for writing, eating, and shooting pool, but righty for everything else, and have always been right hand dominant for shooting. But since I've gotten older, I've become left eye dominant, which actually makes my shooting pretty even with either hand. Still feels weird to grab for a gun with my left, though.
 
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