Cross Eye Dominance and AR/Rifle Shooting

[whiskey1]

I have a lot of experience with this as an instructor for the last fifteen years. I find that about 2 out of 10 people are cross-dominant. For handgun shooting it does not matter in the least. You simply use your most dextrous hand in front of the naturally dominant eye. For rifle you can go either way. If you want to shoot the rifle with the non-dominant eye you simply keep both eyes open until you begin the trigger squeeze then close the dominant eye, focus on the aiming point, and finish the shot. Of course, if you are willing to learn to shoot off the other shoulder it becomes a non-issue. With a bead sighted shotgun the eye behind the gun BECOMES the rear sight. I believe that if you are ever going to become a really good instinctive shotgunner you simply must shoot it in front of your dominant eye. Remember you don't want to have a weak hand. You want to have a strong hand and a really strong hand...

[Jadeslade]

Yeah. whiskey know his stuff. I would flunk his course. I just shoot rifle with my right eye, pistol with my left and shotgun with my shoulder. Never really thought about it. Kind of like rolling paper into a ball and basket balling into a basket.

Either you have 3-D feel or you don't. Eye measures distance, brain works, body moves, trigger pulled, target hit. You can always walk it in or area shoot, but that's slow.

[serevince]

I have a lot of experience with this as an instructor for the last fifteen years. I find that about 2 out of 10 people are cross-dominant. For handgun shooting it does not matter in the least. You simply use your most dextrous hand in front of the naturally dominant eye. For rifle you can go either way. If you want to shoot the rifle with the non-dominant eye you simply keep both eyes open until you begin the trigger squeeze then close the dominant eye, focus on the aiming point, and finish the shot. Of course, if you are willing to learn to shoot off the other shoulder it becomes a non-issue. With a bead sighted shotgun the eye behind the gun BECOMES the rear sight. I believe that if you are ever going to become a really good instinctive shotgunner you simply must shoot it in front of your dominant eye. Remember you don't want to have a weak hand. You want to have a strong hand and a really strong hand...

This ^!

Due to a mild case of amblyopia my right eye is weak. Whiskey is right on in his advice. I shoot pistol right handed with a slight head cant to use my dominant (left eye). I shoot rifle and shotgun left hand.

I shoot well this way, and the plus is I still hit Alphas "weak side". Over the years I went back and forth trying various methods, and strong side pistol/ dominant eye long gun is the way to go for me.

I would strongly suggest you give it a try and hopefully save your self a few years of wasted experimentation.

[pjb45]

Right handed, left eye dominant. Many years ago, I was shooting skeet with my dad and some folks. I switch from shooting right handed to left handed. The scores were about the same.

95% of the time I shoot right handed and close my left eye. Which can be a problem because I also see with monovision. The right is is for close work and the left for distance. I noticed this was a problem at RM3G sometimes. I had to praire dog it on some targets, but that could be that I was new to 3 gun. I will probably learn to use my left eye more when locating a target hidden at 300 yards in the brush!

On some shorts are barricades, etc, I can shoot left handed with no problems and I use my left eye.

One recommendation would be go to a skeet range and practice with your left eye. You might find it easier to shoot left handed if you want to improve that technique.

[MarcO]

I am right handed and right eye dominant, but had a medical condition 35 years ago that resulted in my having a scar on my right cornea that creates kind of a "fuzzy spot" or unfocused area in one specific area of vision in my right eye. Unfortunately this fuzzy spot partially occludes the portion of my vision that I use to aim a firearm.

I am slightly ambidextrous, but not enough to allow me to easily shoot left handed. I have adapted by shooting pistol right handed but crossing over (contorting) to use my left eye with my right eye closed. For shotgun and rifle I use my right eye and close my left eye. I do not have trouble hitting anything, but I am way slow on transitional targets with the rifle and shotgun, especially if I am forced to transition from right to left. Strangely enough I don't seem to have transitional problems with the pistol.

I guess my point is to try everything from shooting weakhanded to finding a shooting position that allows you to use your opposite but dominant eye and find out what works for you. Once you figure out what works, go for it and practice until you're the best you can be.

[Sawyer]

Left handed, right eye dominant.

It is great to be able to shoot well on both sides.

I urge anyone who shoots to become proficient from both sides of the barrel.

[esskay]

My hypothesis is that a lot depends on just how dominant your dominant eye is, and how much dexterity you have with your "weak" side. My daughter is right handed, left eye dominant, and on her first session I had her shooting pistol right handed and rifle left handed which seemed to work ok. Will see how things develop for her.

I am right/right, but my right eye is pretty dominant over my left -- as a result, learning to shoot with both eyes open from the right side was very easy for me, but shooting occluded is very difficult for me. Also, shooting both eyes open with my left eye doing the aiming is very difficult. I am much more nimble with my right side, but my left arm/hand are stronger and I am more accurate with pistols (slow fire) with my left hand!

Edited August 13, 2011 by esskay

[Fenrir]

I prefer closing my left eye when shooting since I am right handed, and my left eye is dominant. My girlfriend who is the same and shoots also though just learns to shoot rifle left handed. Which messes with me trying to teach her to shoot so I brought in a friend of mine who is a Marine and shoots left handed to help her lol. She picked it up pretty well as she is a brand new shooter. I been shooting right handed for rifles, and shotguns since I learned to shoot so its harder for me to do that.

[DyNo!]

I always see two vent ribs and two iron sights - I use the one on the left because that's the one that works.

[Romans 13 4]

I'm right handed, left eye dominant. I taught myself as a youth to shoot rifles and shotguns left handed. I was almost legally blind in my right eye with out contacts or glasses. Lasik took care of that, but by that time I was so use to shooting left handed, I just continued that way.

Another trick you could use during practice or a match is an eye patch. Pick one up at any pharmacy. Plus chicks dig it.

Gordon

[Dwain C. Baer]

My shooting hand and eye dominance is different, but have managed to deal with it okay enough

[Tuukka]

I am left handed, right eye dominant.

I shoot both short and long weapons left handed as I felt I do not want to learn it all over again from the weak side.

Shooting SMGs/rifles ( and pistols ) both eyes open has not been an issue, atleast I have not seen it as something that would hinder my performance with long guns, either with iron sights or red dot / variable power scopes. I use a 1-4x Short Dot LE on my IPSC / 3-gun rifle.

I shoot both pistol and rifle IPSC at a national level and I am currently on the Finnish Open rifle team.

Like said above, have not noticed any limitation to my performance from cross eye dominance.

With the mention of shooting on the move, here is a clip from the rifle match portion of the Finnish 3-gun championship;

http://www.vimeo.com/22519804

I did not utilize the small Burris red dot sight, as it is not in an optimum place due to the mounting, cant mount it lower due to the large illumination turret on the S&B. Im probably gonna sell the Burris as I have not seen an advantage with it.

Edited October 10, 2011 by Tuukka

[Boomhower]

I thought I was the only one.

Right handed/left eyed dominant. Other than pulling a trigger, I have no idea why God gave me a left hand. I'm useless with it. You should see me throw a ball left handed. Your wives and daughters look more manly, I assure you.

I have read many stories in this thread like my own. My dad picked up on my left eye dominance when I was hunting as a kid and immediately made me switch. I had problems with the Remington 1100 ejecting the shells across my face so he got me a Browning BPS (ejects out the bottom) that I still shoot today. That was almost 25 years ago.

I actually like being cross eyed dominant. All of the points made before about using your strong hand to support the gun are true. Also, I have started getting left handed bolt actions and I honestly think it's better to use a right handed bolt action when shooting left. You can cycle faster. Same goes for pump action shotguns. I can cycle my BPS almost as fast as most auto shooters. It's not that I'm that great, it's that I'm using my dominant hand to cycle it. (It doesn't hurt that I've been shooting the same gun for every year for 25 years, either.) Also, I can reload pretty quickly with my right hand.

The downside of it is the availability of left handed guns. There's not a lot of selection for lefties. I'm wishing there was more of a selection of lefty auto-loader shotguns for 3Gun. As it is, I have my eye on a Bennelli Super Black Eagle II. I know it's not the ideal shotgun for 3 Gun, but I'm limited. I do have a left handed Stag 3GL that I'm real happy with.

Also, I'm all cockeyed when shooting a pistol. Hold in right hand and aim with left eye is probably not the best way to do it. Shooting a pistol in the prone position is especially tough when you are trying to cross over. But, if I try to hold it in my left hand I feel like the thing is about to fly out of my hand. Pistol is definitely my weakness of all the disciplines.

I can shoot long guns "OK" with my right hand/right eye, but not great. I'm probably better than the average right/right trying to shoot lefty, but that's only because I'm going back to the way I should be.

I think the best of all worlds would be to be left handed/right eyed dominant. The benefits of cross dominance and a world of firearms to choose from.

For the dads out there, I would keep an eye on your kids for eye dominance and if they are trying to shoot a long gun by using the opposite eye, switch them...quickly. I'm sure glad my dad did. It'll feel weird for a minute, but kids are resilient. They'll bounce back quickly. My boys are 4 and 2 and I'll be watching for eye dominance pretty soon on the older one. I think the best way to check would be to have them shoot a pistol. That will bring out the eye dominance real quickly. But, most people don't want to give a 5-6 year old a pistol of any kind!

Edited October 29, 2011 by Boomhower

[Natdad]

I found an optic that works great for me on an AR15 and "cures" me of my cross dominance issues. I am right handed, left eye dominant and was thinking about shooting left handed, but for action rifle matches etc, I am not as quick or comfortable using rifle on my left side. Someone showed me the ACOG TA31 ECOS sight in a store. It's very expensive, but it does solve my problem. This optic has a red dot sight mounted on top of the ACOG 4x32 optic. The idea is to use the red dot sight for close in targets and the ACOG for far away ones, but it happens to work great for the cross dominant shooter. Because the red dot sight is mounted high (on top of the ACOG), you simply tilt the rifle towards your left (using your right side) and the red dot sight is now perfectly in line with your left eye. You can keep both eyes open, use your left eye to look through the red dot sight which is now perfectly aligned with your left eye, using your right side to shoulder the weapon. It allows for very quick acquisition of targets. For longer range, and slower acquisition targets, I hold the rifle straight up, look through the ACOG with my right eye, and close my left. It's a perfect solution for me.

[laz2011]

I'm right handed and left eye dominant.

I shoot with both eye's open just concemtrate on using my right eye with the rifle.I can't shoot well left handed.

Train at home with multiple targets and focus on the right eye.

Hope it helps.

[theblacknight]

Right handed, left eye dom, shoot rifle right handed, but am pretty much ambi. I shoot pistol right handed but sight with my left eye,and do a good job of hiding it. I dont do the weaverish body cant thing.

My dad broke me of left eye on rifle when I was like 6. Years of shooting smallbore and plinking got me good with both. I think it somehow helps me when using the issued ACOG at CQB distances ,because you basicaly ignore your scope eye view,and use the none scope view, which your brain will paint the reticle over to your non scope eye.