Rifle shooting and cross-dominance

S

sentiency

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I am right handed but left eye dominant. I'm in the process of building a SBR and I'm not sure what to do. I've always had trouble shooting my other rifles as I have to keep my left eye closed and it just doesn't "feel" right.

I've heard of some people in similar situations shooting with their left hand. Should I purchase a lefty upper? Or just continue to work on shooting with my dominant hand, ignoring the cross-dominance?

Suggestions?
 
That's the problem at current. I had major surgery on my left shoulder 5 months ago involving a 4 inch incision along the front of my shoulder, a 5 inch incision in the back, and 25% of my humeral head was replaced with an allograft donor bone transplant.

It is exceptionally painful on a daily basis and trying to shoot left handed at current just...it just isn't possible. I have an appointment with a pain clinic next week to see about possible cortisone injections or potentially anything else they can do to help me. I'm worried that I'm always going to have this pain in my shoulder.

At the same time, I really have trouble keeping my left eye closed, especially for a long period of time if I try to shoot right handed.
 
Get a red dot and learn to shoot both eyes open. It's weird at first, but with the dot, it works. With my irons sights, I still have to either shoot lefty, (not happening), or close the left eye.
 
I have always shot rifle's LH,it's just been natural to me. I also trained myself to shoot RH many years ago,and I can shoot almost as good RH as I can LH.
Growing up,all the rifles I owned/shot were RH,and it has never been an issue,but now I own several LH bolt action's. All of my AR's are RH.

You can easily train your eyes for dominance issue's by wearing shooting glasses and covering up the opposite lens. It takes a little time,but your brain will adapt to the differences.

I shoot pistols with either hand also,and I'm accurate either way.
 
You should be shooting with both eyes open regardless of the sights if possible. That won't help with this. He'll still need to close one eye because his dominate eye will take over and he will be looking down the side of the rifle instead of through the sights, regardless of which type.

The best solution is to learn how to shoot lefty. Until your shoulder is better the only other real option is to continue to close one eye.
 
In your situation, for sure just shoot right handed and close the conflicting eye when aiming.
Just squinting it a bit might do as well.
What choice do you have.
People have been doing it that way for centuries.
No biggie.
 
In spite of what has been deemed "best", the great majority of all shooters close their non-aiming eye anyway.

I am right handed and SEVERELY left eye dominant. This is to the extent that my right eye amount to little more than peripheral vision for my left eye. I can NOT shoot a gun right handed with my left eye open. It's like trying to look at sights in my peripheral vision.

I don't know why closing your left eye doesn't "feel" right except that you're thinking about it too much. Just do it, you'll be fine.
 
Cross dominance is a lot more common then people think.

It is an easy handicap to over come.

1: You really need to learn to shoot with both eyes open.
2: You should never shoot anything without safety glasses.

Taking the three into account, cross dominance and the other two are NOT incompatible.

Lets assume one is right handed and left eye dominance. If you can't see the sights or the target with your dominant eye then your non dominant eye will then become your dominant eye.

But again you want to shoot with both eyes open.

Simple fix, cover the left lenses of your shooting glasses with dark cardboard, black tape or pasties. When you shoot, your left or dominant eye is open, but you cant see. The right or non-dominant eye takes over. Sight your rifle in for the right eye.

Problem solved.
 
The open eye is more relaxed even if you cant see anything.

Closing one eye screws up your equilibrium, same as being death in one ear.

Plus closing one eye is more tiring on the eyes.
 
If it feels more natural or less stressed for the person to block rather than close, I see no reason not to do it. I've never noticed any problems simply closing my eye, but then again I've done it since I was 6, so I'm pretty acclimated at this point. Having to put the glasses/cover on/off/on/off/on/off every time I alternately wanted to either see or shoot would be more annoying to me.
 
This may be a dumb question; Is it OK to shoot a right handed AR with my left hand and not have to worry about the brass always possibly smacking me in the face?
 
The older ARs, SP1/M16A1 were difficult to shoot left handed because of the brass in the face.

The Army use to issue brass deflectors for lefties that worked quite will.

The newer, M16A2 style (and later) have a deflector built into the upper that deflects the brass.

Last weekend I conducted a CMP Clinic/Match where I had two new shooters who wanted to shoot in the Modern Military Category, both were left handed. I let them try my SP1 and My 'A2 style.

The SP1 did dump brass into the face, the 'A2 didn't.

So basically, it depends on what AR, Most do have the brass deflector built into the upper and lefties have no problems.
 
sentiency said:
This may be a dumb question; Is it OK to shoot a right handed AR with my left hand and not have to worry about the brass always possibly smacking me in the face?
Click to expand...
Not only will the brass deflector keep brass from your face, but I know a bunch of left-handed people (two of whom are instructors) who think that a right-handed AR is great for left-handers and all you need is an ambidextrous safety lever. And I tend to agree with them.

As long as you have an ambidextrous safety lever, everything else on an AR is easily adaptable to left-handed shooting: Press the mag release with your right thumb while you remove the empty magazine and stow it away, and press the bolt release with your left index finger. And lefties even have an advantage: They don't need to take the extra step of tilting the rifle to check the ejection port when the bolt locks back on an empty mag.

If you still want to get a left-handed AR, that's fine, but keep a few things in mind: First, many parts on a left-handed AR are proprietary. And considering left-handed ARs are not popular at all (even among left-handers), those proprietary parts will be a lot harder to find. Second, should you decide to sell it, it will be a lot harder to sell considering they're not very popular. And third, if you get used to the operation of a left-handed AR, normal ARs will feel unfamiliar to you. One thing I love about the rifle is its universality; I can pick up pretty much any AR-15 and immediately feel comfortable with it. But if you're only used to left-handed ARs then the vast majority of ARs will feel foreign to you.
 
I have the same problem. Right handed shooter left eye dominant.

Close your eye. I do it for all my shooting including shotgun and have never had any issues.
 
I've firearm trained for years, till I finally discovered that I could train both of my eyes too meld together as one sight picture; without using prescription glasses.

It might just be me...but might right dominant eye is 20/20 --- but far sighted --- and my left eye is 20/40 but near sighted. The iron sights are blurry with my right dominant eye; but I can see the target clearly.

So I've trained my left eye to aim the sights --- which I can see clearly --- while using my right dominant eye for the target picture; which feeds my mind to be one single picture. It seems to be very difficult for me to use this technique in dark environments.
 
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