Sighting in questions

[Not a Clue]

I've run into an issue several times on pistols and rifles and I don't know the answer so I thought I'd ask. In shooting pistols, I often shoot with people I consider to be very accurate. When I shoot their guns, I'm always off a little, when they shoot my guns, they are always off a little. I've always considered that because I've got my pistols sighted in, compensating for my poor(er) skill set, and their skill set, at a higher level, is more accurate. That was my rationale for the variance. When I moved into red dots, I saw the same thing. I can shred a bullseye with my red dot equipped pistols, hand it to them and they are a couple inches off. When I shoot their red dots, they shred the bullseye and I'm off a couple inches. I'm taller than all of them and I often wondered if my arm length played a role, being the distance from my eye to the sight was longer, but that was just a question I had.

Then I went to the long range with one of them, who is very accurate at long range. I got my rifle dialed in pretty good at 200 yards and handed it over to him. All shot from a bench. As he shot, the first shot missed the target by 18". Second shot, same place. He adjusted, third shot, missed it by 6", next one by 6" again.

Then I realized that he's left eye dominate, as well as the other person I mainly shoot with. Once he got on target, he crushed it, but there was such a massive difference in where I was hitting steel and his first shots that I knew something was happening.

My question is, does left eye/right eye dominance affect the sighting in of iron sights, red dots, and scopes? Can, or should, that make any difference at all? Part of my brain says of course it makes a difference, it changes the angle between your eye and the sighting device (scope, red dot, iron sights). But then again, I can also see that something sighted in perfectly, from mechanical methods, could be dead right and then any variance from that would all be operator issues.

The way it's looking is when I have my rifle sighted in for me, it seems to be sighted in for me. I thought that once it was sighted in, just about anyone would be close, maybe needing a little change.

Any education on this would be greatly appreciated, because clearly, I don't know the answer

 

[Deleted member 10043]

There are numerous informative articles and online conversations on this topic and your assumptions and questions are valid. Everybody is built different. Firearms are sighted in to the person and not the gun.

 

[dzander]

A couple inches off with a red dot pistol can easily be the shooter, trigger control , how you anticipate the recoil. Id say that would be very common unless your a rock solid pro.

18" is a awful lot in my opinion for a scoped rifle. That would be 9" off at 100 yards. Seems very excessive to me. I could see a couple 1-2 inches maybe.
I wouldn't think parallax would even have that much variation? Maybe it could.

 

[napt0wnc1ty99]

Frank has a great section about this in his book. Your gun is going to be fitted to to you, where your eye relief is, where you put the stock on your shoulder, etc.

18” though seems like he’s pulling real hard on top of another issue. Sure the turret didn’t get moved?

 

[PAYDIRT]

I shot 10 meter in college, my buddy was low left VERY consistently with my rifle, we later found out he's low left on every one of my rifles.

 

[nealm66]

Ha ha, first time I shot a bowling pin shoot, strong hand, weak hand , both hands, when I shifted to weak hand I used my other eye and was a full foot off target. Weird but that’s how it is

 

[seanh]

So if I'm understanding this correctly you're right-handed, left eye dominant... Cross dominant.

Assuming this is true there are options to fix this.
1. Shoot with the other hand/side
2. Close your dominant eye and start using your non-dominant eye. Don't want to close the dominant eye then put some Scotch tape on your shooting glasses at the dominant eye. Not that super clear s***, old-school opaque. The brain won't like the blurry image and the non-dominant I will take over.
3. Nofucksgiven... Pray and spray
4. Train the brain so that the non-dominant eye takes over as necessary when you're shooting... takes a little time but it's very simple.
5. Just get a shotgun
6. Move the gun in front of the dominant eye.


I lived with the same issue... Right handed, left eye dominant. The fucked up part is I have an astigmatism in that eye and nearsighted... It's my reading eye. Hasn't always been there, I think it started in my late thirties early forties. My right eye just happens to be far sighted. ( this gets kind of fuked up when you're shooting open sights, especially on a bow).

Oh, also have wandering eye each eye. That's a lot of fun at parties, after a few drinks get tired I get to looking like the doctor from The Cannonball Run... LOL. My eyes can get so f***** up that the last time I was at the range squeeze in a couple rounds off I thought I had a new gun... Nope, turns out it was the shooters gun at the station next to me.

So, I had a choice of surgery, contacts figure out how to turn the dominants off, or always need a Blinder. So I decided on bitch slapping the dominance. Basically, I taught my brain to choose which eye it uses in what situation.

Oh, if you think you're going to fix the problem by patching your eye to change dominant, nope can't happen. About the age of 6 is the limit for that. By then the brain is pretty much hardwired, less of course there's some traumatic injury to the brain.

Don't know if any of this helps or not but it's what I can offer.

 

[Slab74]

My dad and I are both right handed and left eye dominate. He shoots a pistol right handed, but uses his left eye. Looks weird, but he won a bunch of matches in his younger days. I shoot with both eyes open with a pistol and red dots. I’m not as good, but I do ok. The scoped rifle is a different thing. Do you cant your rifle when you shoot? Not always a bad thing, but cant can change your sight in process.

 

[Not a Clue]

Thanks for the info guys. I'm right handed, right eye dominate, the other guys are right handed, left eye dominate. We all shoot relatively well with our own stuff but can't do as well with the other's stuff.

I'm also considerably taller than the other's I shoot with, so I always thought on my pistols, my longer arms changed some angles there, which had some influence on things.

Now I know, the gun is sighted to the person. Thanks for the info!

 

[Not a Clue]

I also just realized the person mentioned above, shoots left handed. He's right handed, left eye dominate and shoots left handed. So the perfect storm for things not matching up well between us, I suppose

 

[frank320]

I am right hand right eye dominant, so is my buddy. He had an accident and lost his right eye. He got on my MPA chassis rifle and shot left handed left eye and hit the bullseye at 300yds with 5 shot 2 inch groups on my rifle setup.

My brother-in-law is left handed left eye dominant and he too nailed the 300yds target on same setup same rifle. From my experience, as long as parallax is adjusted properly, and shooting technique is sound, they should group pretty close regardless of shooter hand/eye dominance, with some margin and spread between shooter to shooter.

18” at 200 yards seem extreme. Maybe the rifle setup and chassis did not fit him, resulting in bad recoil management.