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Ok. Shooting USPSA Production Division. Keeping both eyes open I still see double vision. I see two sights and two targets. I know what sight and target to use and I really concentrate on the the front post. Just wondering if the double vision thing is normal. Thanks.

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Yes, keep shooting. When you are shooting a stage do you notice double vision? Your mind will start ignoring the extra image. If it doesnt, you might not be aiming with the correct eye.

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When I first started shooting with both eyes open I ran into the same thing. I dryfired a lot and picked different sized objects to aim at. I played around with an object size that gave me the least amount of double vision, and practiced at that sized object. After a while the double vision went away.

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I just came down with some Bells Palsy, I have no choice but to keep my weak eye open, I can't blink it!

In all seriousness though tape over your glasses for a few range trips should fix you right up

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Thanks all for the replies. Doing the tape over the weak eye helps in practice. The double vision will always be there I guess. I will just have to ignore the "wrong" sights. It is just so hard to line the sights up with center of the A Zone because there is little double vision of the targets. My eyes see two targets overlapping. Very frustrating.

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Have you established which of your eyes is the dominant eye?

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After establishing that, align the sights behind that dominant eye and the "double vision" should be gone and be able to focus on front sight.

Perhaps you are right handed and left eye domininant like myself?

Taping over the non-dominant eye helps if the dominance is not distinct, but if you left eyed, embrace it and use what you have, don't force the right eye to be dominant. (Long guns are the exception)

IMO then you are wasting time on developing your eye dominance rather than developing your shooting.

Good luck

DVC

Edited by flack jacket
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I tried tape over the weak eye, but it gave me a headache after an entire match. I started using lip balm to smear over the weak eye before I shot, then removing it after the stage. That kept the headache at bay. But I must not have used the technique long enough, as I still have some double vision. I have just reverted back to closing one eye when I aim.

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I've been going back and forth on this, which probably doesn't help.

However, I had LASIK about five years ago, and my dominant (right) eye didn't get corrected to 20/20 like my off (left) eye did. When using tape, my good eye was seeing the tape and screwing up the stereo image. Last match, I wound up getting frustrated and closed my left eye and shot better as a result.

I've since gotten a contact for my right eye, so I'll mess with trying to use the tape again this weekend.

I'm not terribly different from Patrick, tho, I'm not sure it translates well. I've heard you shoot faster with both eyes open, but have no empirical data to back that up.

In an interview on one of Matt Burkett's DVDs, Brian Enos said to just close your eye if that's how you shoot better.

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Thanks for the replies! Very much appreciated. I am going to stick with it (both eyes open). It just seems that the more I shoot this way [if I stay calm] the easier it becomes. I am really not seeing the other sets of sights or the double targets as much. If I freak out on a stage and get anxious, then all the evil inputs comeback into focus. Staying calm keeps the front sight a priority.

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I think I have this figured out after a good bit of struggle, and it has nothing to do with eye dominance (other than needing to align the sights to your dominant eye, which is always true anyways).

There are two things going on: convergence and focus. Convergence affects whether your sights or the target is doubled. Look at a distant object then put your thumb in front and you'll see two thumbs. Then "look at" your thumb and you'll see the distanct object doubled. With both eyes open you cannot see a single image of both a close and far object simultaneously.

Focus is whether the target or the sights appear sharp. When we look at things without conscious effort, whatever our binocular vision converges on (and appears single) appears sharp, because convergence and focus go together naturally. You cannot see both near and far objects in focus simultaneously, whether with one or both eyes open.

Two things are essential for me to shoot with both eyes open. First, always converge your eyes so you see a single target and double sights. It's easy and natural to know which sights are the "real" ones after one dry fire session. However, you'd never be able to pick out the real targets on a field course if you're converging on the sights and seeing double targets. Second, learn to de-couple focus and convergence. On a far/tight target requiring precise aiming, you can converge your eyes on the target so you see one target, yet focus on the front sight so that it's sharp and the target is slightly blurry. This is a very unnatural thing but becomes easy with practice. On close targets I both focus on and look at the target because it's not necessary to have a classic front sight focus to hit A's.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just came down with some Bells Palsy, I have no choice but to keep my weak eye open, I can't blink it!

In all seriousness though tape over your glasses for a few range trips should fix you right up

Vanniek71, how is this coming along? Bell's palsy is a huge pain in the rear end. I woke up with it on January 1. It takes 3-6 months to resolve. I started on steroids the first day and started acupuncture. I was very skeptical at first but 3 weeks later , I was 99% resolved. Try it out.

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  • 1 month later...

I tried tape over the weak eye, but it gave me a headache after an entire match. I started using lip balm to smear over the weak eye before I shot, then removing it after the stage. That kept the headache at bay. But I must not have used the technique long enough, as I still have some double vision. I have just reverted back to closing one eye when I aim.

After seeing a GM shooting with tape over 1 eye, I decided to try it. My right eye is dominant, but not very. It's pretty easy for me to focus on stuff with my left eye too, so sometimes the double target images can be cluttered, and it makes it hard to focus on the front sight. At first, I was using about a 3/4" square of tape, and I brought an untaped pair of glasses for everything except shooting. After reading some brian's comments, I trimmed a little off the bottom, and it doesn't seem to bother me when hanging around, loading mags, taping targets, etc... It only comes into play when i bring the gun up (and probably bring my head down very slightly) to block off the left eye's view of the front sight. So basically, I'd experiment with reducing the height of the tape piece until you can see fairly normally, and then see if it still is low enough to block the sight when you are shooting.

Edited by motosapiens
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I'm right eyed dominant, and have corrective lenses for distance. (Senior shooter.) With the correction, I couldn't see the sights in focus. My eye doc gave me a right eye lens that focuses on the front sight and I kept the normal distance prescription on the left. That at least helped me see the sight, and make walking around the range still possible. But it didn't help with the double vision issue. I spent hours dry firing to work through shooting with both eyes open, until it was "natural." Then I hit matches, where the targets are at wide-ranging distances and require quick focus changes, and I started struggling. Occasionally, I'd stand there blinking and shaking my head to get a focus. Finally I just said "f-it" and let my eyes do what they wanted without my thinking about it or forcing it. Closer targets both eyes stay open and on the far targets my left eye closes. All those intermediate targets, it just depends on how fast I'm shooting, ambient light, etc. Bring the gun up on target and shoot.

I wasted too much time worrying about the issue. I read on BE, and elsewhere, about folks struggling to shoot with both eyes open, struggling with double vision, tape on lenses.... Just shoot! If you close one eye and take no more or less time, and hit what you're shooting at, why worry about it?

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I wasted too much time worrying about the issue. I read on BE, and elsewhere, about folks struggling to shoot with both eyes open, struggling with double vision, tape on lenses.... Just shoot! If you close one eye and take no more or less time, and hit what you're shooting at, why worry about it?

That makes sense, but for me, taping the glasses also made sense, and actually speeds up my target acquisition. I suspect that everyone is a little different in terms of how their vision is wired.

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I wasted too much time worrying about the issue. I read on BE, and elsewhere, about folks struggling to shoot with both eyes open, struggling with double vision, tape on lenses.... Just shoot! If you close one eye and take no more or less time, and hit what you're shooting at, why worry about it?

That makes sense, but for me, taping the glasses also made sense, and actually speeds up my target acquisition. I suspect that everyone is a little different in terms of how their vision is wired.
Tape is good for some people. I recommend using "frosted" scotch tape horizontally so your eyeline is blocked under normal sighting but you can rotate your head slightly and see with both eyes when you need to.

Becareful to use tape that allows light through. If you block light to one eye it will give you headaches and cause problems over time because one eye will be dilated different from the other.

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To help myself get through this I always took a target paster and put it over my week eye. What I did is when dry firing index the gun then focus on the front sight with both eyes open, take the paster and put it over my week eye where the focal point was on my glasses. This still gave me most of my vision except the point where I focus aka the front sight. Also since I find myself helping RO a lot of matches I always carry 2-3 pairs of glasses so that 1 will have the tape over it and the others will be clear or shaded so I can avoid the headache and just swap them out before and after shooting. Hope this helps.

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