shooting two eyes opened...

[Bouttime]

When i was a kid my Dad always told me to keep both eyes open, I was 8 then. I was on the Marine Crop rifle team and we were taught

then to keep both eyes open. If you learn to keep both eyes open I think you will shoot better.

[Field]

i actually do see 2 guns and 2 sets of sights most of the time with both eyes open but then im only paying attention to the good sight picture from my left eye. the right eye is seeing more of the side of the gun.

its only really noticable when your just pointing at stuff and actually TRYing to notice it.

Edited September 11, 2010 by Field

[thomjb]

after you shoot a while it becomes automatic both my eyes are always open i don't think about it any more

+1 with broadus123, but with these old tired eyes, if find myself tilting my head and squinting a little more as the shoot goes on:)

[gohuskers]

I'm cross-eye dominant but have never had a problem bringing the gun up to my non-dominant eye and shooting. Maybe i'm just lucky that way, or as Duane referenced perhaps my eye dominance is minor.

[Downrange58]

When I first noticed I was shooting groups with both eyes open I noticed I was seeing a single sight picture and a single target. I can replicate this at home when dryfireing to.

But as soon as I add a transition or movement the double sight appears again.

I'm guessing that this might change if a continue to let my shooting to evolve naturally.

I think it's just a mental barrier.

I'm not sure dough

This is exactly the problem I have as well! It is the transition that makes me cross eyed..

[Maksim]

Both eyes open here... feels unnatural now to close one eye...

[Field]

I'm cross-eye dominant but have never had a problem bringing the gun up to my non-dominant eye and shooting. Maybe i'm just lucky that way, or as Duane referenced perhaps my eye dominance is minor.

yeah with pistols i dont know why anyone even should have any trouble with this issue but rifles is a different story especially with iron sighted ones

[fastmtnbiker33w]

Reading this thread is a trip. I almost did a graduate thesis on cross-dominance. It's common in lots of sports with the most impacted being the shooting sports. We're talking golf, tennis, pool, yadda yadda.

I'm not sure how the army trains pistol shooters, but with rifle shooters, they make you shoot left handed if you are left eye dominant. With almost a month of familiarization before ever hitting a live fire range, it seems to work.

I got interested in this because my wife is cross dominant. She learned to shoot her compound bow left-handed and she's a pretty good shot. We're still working on the pistol thing and we're shooting right handed, both eyes open with the squint technique that the guys at Front Sight recommend. She likes "quiet" sports so it's hard to pull her off the archery range when we go to the club. Oh well. At least she likes to go with me and it's kind of good because we can put the 5 month old in the baby backpack and she can shoot arrows all day and not make him go deaf.

Edited September 28, 2010 by fastmtnbiker33w

[JxMAN25]

i shoot both eyes open and i also see to sight pictures. im a new shooter but after a stage if you asked me if i could see the front sight of the pistol in the rear sights when i was shooting i couldent tell you. But i did get mostley A's,

[Reinz]

Don't remember not using two eyes, except maybe when I was a kid.

I started reading gun magazines as a teenager, I guess I picked up the tip of shooting with two eyes open somewhere along that line and have been ever since.

[Alanlib]

Well,

As with most things with me back to my swimming back ground.

I breath in a pattern and ALWAYS have both eyes open.

Guess I am no th trusting type.

I even sleep with my eyes open.

Alan

[Field]

i was looking through a telescope yesterday and found that when using my dominant eye i could effectively keep both eyes open and i was able to get a nice double image where i was both seeing through the telescope and seeing outside the side of the telescope out the window.

[Neil E.]

I caught myself closing one eye (I am left eye dominant) last night at a match. It was the first stage. After shooting the first array of 4 targets something seemed off balance. I realized what I was doing and made a mental slap up the side of my head and opened both eyes and the rest of the stage and match went real well.

[kikilabulle]

I always draw with both eyes open regardless of the weapon, the aiming system and distance. my eye is the right director, but when I shoot, I'm a lag between my right eye and my left eye.

[eternal24k]

While I have found that drills and constant practice have helped with me wincing my left eye, the other day I was running some fast drills (see pistol-training.com) after painting my front sight neon orange (super bright), i realized that with a really bright front sight I am wincing a lot less since it takes so much less to acquire.

try it out

[Duane Thomas]

I'm not sure how the army trains pistol shooters, but with rifle shooters, they make you shoot left handed if you are left eye dominant.

Not necessarily true. When I went through Army Basic Training they figured out in short order I was cross-dominant (right hand/left eye) but on a basic (no pun intended) level it just made absolutely no sense to me to shoot from my less dexterous side, especially since the people who were left-handed told me they found it intensely distracting to have brass shooting across their field of view, so I told the drill sergeants, "I'm going to shoot right handed with my right eye," and they said okay. Their attitude was that, as long as I hit the targets, they didn't care which eye I used to do it, and that I would find the rifle overall easier to manipulate since the controls are all set up for a right-handed shooter. Shooting right-eyed didn't really hold me back, I left the Army with an Expert (as high up as it goes) rating on the M16A1 rifle (and the 1911 .45, AAMOF, though I used my left eye for that).

[Duane Thomas]

i actually do see 2 guns and 2 sets of sights most of the time with both eyes open but then im only paying attention to the good sight picture from my left eye.

Matt Burkett says that when he first started shooting with both eyes open he saw two different sets of sights floating out there. But he figured out which set he should be paying attention to and just focused on that. In short order it was like his brain figured out the other set of sights wasn't important and they just disappeared on their own.

[mgood]

i actually do see 2 guns and 2 sets of sights most of the time with both eyes open but then im only paying attention to the good sight picture from my left eye.

Matt Burkett says that when he first started shooting with both eyes open he saw two different sets of sights floating out there. But he figured out which set he should be paying attention to and just focused on that. In short order it was like his brain figured out the other set of sights wasn't important and they just disappeared on their own.

I don't think I have a naturally dominant eye. When I started shooting, as a kid, we'd try the test where you make a circle with your hands and look at something through them, like a clock on the wall or whatever. I might be using my right eye on one day and my left eye on a different day. I taught myself to be right eye dominant because that seemed to be the way to go for a right-handed shooter.

If I focus on the front sight, I see two targets. If I focus on the target, I see two front sights. Slow fire, all I'd ever done before I got into practical pistol last year, I had time to figure out which one I'm shooting it. Doing it with the timer running has caused me to squint my left eye a little; not close it, but just blur that image.

I've been toying with using my left eye when the stage calls for weak hand only. I do that naturally if I'm standing there slow fire. But with the timer running, I revert to squinting my left eye, forcing myself to use my right eye. Then I wonder why I have the gun pulled all the way across to my right eye, and figure out what I'm doing.

On classifiers, I often see - String 2: shoot this, reload, shoot it again weak hand only.

I've been working on closing my right eye during that reload so that when the gun comes up, it goes to that left eye.

Since I've started working on that, I've shot three classifiers and none of them had WHO. (What are the odds?) So, I'll have to get back to you on how this works out after I've gotten to try it at a match.

[stavee]

I have good days and bad ones. A single image or double. My eyes are close in dominance, however the right has a slight edge. So with the double image I always select the image on the right. Or I find if I turn my head to the left the double image goes away.

[MemphisMechanic]

Both eyes open.

Lefty.

Right-eye dominant.

I scotch-tape the right lens of my glasses. Shooting with both eyes open and making sure you're not blinking is the ONLY way to fly.

[wurm]

I'm finally going to make a real go at shooting with both eyes open. I've tried it in the past and I get one of two things. First option I see two blurry targets, two rear sights and one perfectly in focus front sight. Problem with this one is that I see the front sight with my dominant left eye (I'm a lefty) and I also see it with my right eye which can see some of the side of the front blade. Messes up seeing the front sight clearly in the rear notch. The other option is to slighly back off on the razor sharp focus on the front sight which gives me two blurry targets and now I see two different guns floating a few inches apart. I'm going to try the second option for a little while and see if I can train myself to ignore the second gun my right eye is seeing. I shot about 200 rounds yesterday just shooting slow and bullseye like, playing with where I need to have my eyes focused when they are both open. Makes my brain hurt a little. This had better be worth it. If all of you are messing with me and just telling me shooting with two eyes open as a practical joke I'm going to be very upset

[rlv65]

My experimentation in one versus two eye shooting this year went as follows:

45 yr old, mid C class, production, eyes starting to weaken after having Lasik type surgery 5 yrs ago.

I ended last year and started this year with the intent of shooting with both eyes open (I read that is how all the fast guys do it...) working on it during live fire and matches (busy at work and 2 kids in sports - I trade dry fire practice for sleep).

Match results using two eyes open - was only getting 70% of the available match points, 59% of my shots were A hits, 24% were C hits and 4% were Mikes. Found that I was waiting on my eyes to focus (convert multiple blurry targets & sight picture into a single clear sight picture) which was killing my already sub-standard speed.

Match results using one eye open - getting 86% of available match points, 75% A hits, 19% C hits, 1% Mikes with speed and overall match results greatly improved (i.e. - I'm not a GM but having more fun). Found that with up close & open mid-range targets on movement stages, I was still using both eyes with one eye being used for tight and / or distant targets.

My $0.02 - give every option some consideration and use what works best for you and the eyeballs you have available.

[xxdabroxx]

I'm right eye dom., & right handed. I shoot with both eyes open, but still battle blinking. When I really focus I can keep them open, but it's not natural yet.

I can see a whole lot more with both eyes open, and my right eye seems to be much more dominant than my left as I can always seem to pick up the correct sight picture.

I too see the blurry second front sight, but it seems dimmer to me and I automatically ignore it as incorrect.

[jmac]

I have been shooting with both eyes open for awhile now. Took some time to get used too, but I prefer it.

[BoyGlock]

I shoot w/ both eyes open w/ pistol and rifle. I also developed the skill to use my left eye when shooting weak hand (Im right Handed) w/ pistol but still w/ both eyes open even before Eric G. made public he does it all the time.