How to deal with eye dominance

[m1a convert]

I am right eye dominant and because of that I can't shoot from my left shoulder because I can't see the sights. (My eye dominates that much) I would like to train/strengthen my left eye so I can shoot from both shoulders.

How do I do that?

 

[txgw]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

Lots and lots of practice. One way to get started is to tape over your shooting glasses on the right side. That forces you to use your left eye. It can take a while but just be patient and keep working on it.

 

[Leadberry]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: txgw</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Lots and lots of practice. One way to get started is to tape over your shooting glasses on the right side. That forces you to use your left eye. It can take a while but just be patient and keep working on it. </div></div>
+1

Theoretically, if you cover up your dominant eye, the other eye should try to compensate.

 

[Miles2go]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

Also practice keeping your left eye open when shooting from the right shoulder. I think that helps the transition, but your dominance sounds severe.

 

[Alaskan Troll]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

Patch your right eye when your dry firing at home to get comfortable, so you build a good comfortable position. Try not to squeeze your right eye shut when dry firing because you will fatigue your eye and and shift your head on the stock. Play around with the placement of your head on the stock and you should find a spot that comes and goes with good clarity. once you find it keep trying to repeat it. Once you find that spot do reps of getting on and off your rifle, so you can start building a decent muscle memory.

 

[Defcon424]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

some good advice here . Im right handed but cross dominant myself and am getting tired of shooting semi autos lefty especially since I'm buying a few cans, it's only gonna get worse with gas in my face...

 

[9H_Cracka]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

Ignore it unless shooting shotgun at moving targets with both eyes open.

Monocular sighting systems don't recognize "eye dominance". Stop perpetuating the myth that they do.

 

[jephs422]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

I am STRONGLY left eye dominant and right handed. For the last 10 years I have kept an eyepatch in my shooting bag. Any time I'm at the range, the patch goes on. When I'm in the field it's not an issue, but when doing range work spending hours looking through glass, I become a pirate.

In the field I have my shooting glasses that have a flip down shade. That helps a ton too.

 

[bogeybrown]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

This brings me to a related topic, and please hold your laughter.
I normally shoot a scoped rifle with one eye closed. In watching the Magpul Precision Rifle video, I realized everyone is shooting both eyes open with a scope. Can I assume that I've been wrong all this time?

 

[txgw]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

You are more aware of what is going on around you when you shoot with both eyes open, because you can see more than just what is in your scope FOV. To me it also helps get on target faster.
You also end up with less eye strain/fatigue because you aren't fighting to keep one eye closed and one open.

I'm not going to say what is "right or wrong" but I prefer, as do many, to shoot with both eyes open.

 

[bogeybrown]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

I use both open when I'm trying to acquire a target, but then close my left eye to shoot. I guess I've been working under an incorrect belief that both open altered the sight picture in some way, sort of like introducting parallex, or giving me a non-repeatable sight picture or something. I'm definitely going to use both open from now on if it doesn't affect accuracy.

thanks

 

[Trapshooter12]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

This is a Shotgun story but it might pertain to the OP. I had a friend that was having problems shooting Trap. This guy was buying new Shotguns like people eat candy, trying to fix his problem. He then had eye surgery done and it still did not fix his problem.
I told him several times he had an eye dominance issue and how to fix it.
All he had to do to fix it was put a blade of tape vertically so his left eye couldn't see the bead of his Shotgun. He thought I was full of shit.
The Club that I shot at brought in a Pro Shooter to give a class on shooting and to help with problems. It cost my friend $600 to find out all he needed to do was put a piece of tape on the front of his Shotgun like I had told him.

 

[gbernardski]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

I too have struggled with this. In basic training they gave me the eye dominate test and I tried to fake the DI out but didn't work. They made me shoot left handed. Let me tell you that sucked, I've shot right handed since I was 11. I struggled hard trying to even zero my rifle before I could even shoot at the range. After a week or so they let me shoot right handed and I shot 38-40 targets eventually when we qualified. It was funny the one thing I thought I'd do awesome at during basic training gave me the biggest problem I'm 40 now and shoot with both eyes open most of the time. I found for me the tape on the eye trick didn't work, it was more of a distraction for me then anything. I, just started concentrating on looking through my right eye while practicing my trigger control and now I have no problems.

 

[Graham]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: _9H_Cracka</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Ignore it unless shooting shotgun at moving targets with both eyes open.

Monocular sighting systems don't recognize "eye dominance". Stop perpetuating the myth that they do. </div></div>Agreed. <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aequitas 1/1</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This brings me to a related topic, and please hold your laughter.
I normally shoot a scoped rifle with one eye closed. In watching the Magpul Precision Rifle video, I realized everyone is shooting both eyes open with a scope. Can I assume that I've been wrong all this time? </div></div>No. Not everyone shoots with both eyes open. Doing so efficiently takes practice.

I close one eye to shoot during matches. Why? Because my NPA is on a single target at a time, I am on target for a only a short time, and the air-to-lead density ratio is low.

 

[njnicky]

Re: How to deal with eye dominance

i could never figure this out thank God im not cross dominant