Slow Eye ... tips to improve

[RippSpeed]

I've been shooting for only 7months and I'm having issues with watching the front sight. I see my first shot and its take a second for my eye to catch the front sight again after the first shot broke. Does constant trigger time and shooting help make my eyes quicker or do I need to really slow down and get my second sight picture...

I'm a right handed shooter with my left eye being the dominate eye... And it seems like my left eye is too slow to track the front sight... If I take my time to track the front sight its just takes too long... I also wear glass for the first time in my life this year ... And I cant even tell where my shots are going, I'll try to fix this by getting stronger glass but I still fear that I wont get any better if my eyes cant keep up ...

Anyone else had this issue with they started ???

[Custom Rust]

Are you blinking?

[RippSpeed]

Are you blinking?

nope ... I dont think soo because I seem to lose the front sight as its going up on the recoil pulse ...

[MarkCO]

If your avatar is a photo of you shooting, I am not really surpised. I understand you have a cross dominance issue, but you still need to kepp your neck fairly verticle, moving instead the gun into the line of sight. Honeslty, I would seek out a decent local instructor or coach.

[Skydiver]

There's two parts to the equation and you hit on both of them in your question.

Yes, more trigger time will help for reacquiring the front sight, but don't discount the value of dry firing. The dry firing will train your eyes to quick transition from target back to the front sight. The live fire will condition you to see your sights lifting and coming back into the notch.

It may not be a matter of getting a stronger prescription, but rather having the appropriate glasses for the sport. Based on your avatar picture, you turn your head to get your left eye lined up over the sights. I bet that when you had your glasses made, the optometrist only took into account where your eye is at when looking straight forward. Eye glass makers assume that people turn their heads when they want to look at things to their sides, rather than use peripheral vision. I remember hating losing my peripheral vision when I first wore glasses as a teenager. (Couldn't nonchalantly check out the girls as easily. )

Anyway having equal coverage on the sides is one of the things that distinguishes good sunglasses and shooting glasses. With these glasses, the lenses is "neutral" through the entire field of vision and don't introduce weird variances.

Anyway, just like benchrest and other rifle shooters, you may have to have glasses made where the center of the focal region is where you are looking through normally in your normal shooting position. Alternatively, consider using contact lenses when shooting since those lenses move along with your eye.

On my personal road for shooting, I started out shooting bullseye air pistol in my late teens. No problem there with glasses because I could turn my head over the shooting arm and get good alignment. When I went to air rifle and 3 position smallbore, I had to wear my contacts because I was getting too much distortion when using my glasses and looking off center. For shooting pistol at stand and shoot in a weaver or isosceles stance, glasses worked fine, but contacts were better. When I started doing action pistol, contacts were a must because of the situational awareness afforded by contacts while running through a course. I eventually had Lasik done a few years ago when my optometrist said I was in the window to be a good candidate. I'm still working on quickly reacquiring the front sights.

[RippSpeed]

There's two parts to the equation and you hit on both of them in your question.

Yes, more trigger time will help for reacquiring the front sight, but don't discount the value of dry firing. The dry firing will train your eyes to quick transition from target back to the front sight. The live fire will condition you to see your sights lifting and coming back into the notch.

It may not be a matter of getting a stronger prescription, but rather having the appropriate glasses for the sport. Based on your avatar picture, you turn your head to get your left eye lined up over the sights. I bet that when you had your glasses made, the optometrist only took into account where your eye is at when looking straight forward. Eye glass makers assume that people turn their heads when they want to look at things to their sides, rather than use peripheral vision. I remember hating losing my peripheral vision when I first wore glasses as a teenager. (Couldn't nonchalantly check out the girls as easily. )

Anyway having equal coverage on the sides is one of the things that distinguishes good sunglasses and shooting glasses. With these glasses, the lenses is "neutral" through the entire field of vision and don't introduce weird variances.

Anyway, just like benchrest and other rifle shooters, you may have to have glasses made where the center of the focal region is where you are looking through normally in your normal shooting position. Alternatively, consider using contact lenses when shooting since those lenses move along with your eye.

On my personal road for shooting, I started out shooting bullseye air pistol in my late teens. No problem there with glasses because I could turn my head over the shooting arm and get good alignment. When I went to air rifle and 3 position smallbore, I had to wear my contacts because I was getting too much distortion when using my glasses and looking off center. For shooting pistol at stand and shoot in a weaver or isosceles stance, glasses worked fine, but contacts were better. When I started doing action pistol, contacts were a must because of the situational awareness afforded by contacts while running through a course. I eventually had Lasik done a few years ago when my optometrist said I was in the window to be a good candidate. I'm still working on quickly reacquiring the front sights.

I need to give contacts a try... I was told to do lasik but I turn it down because my insurance would not cover it ... And I had to plunk down $2500 cash to do. Maybe this is my excuse to do it and be able to wear my cool shades again instead of my buddy holly glasses ...

[scap99]

Lasik was the best $4k I've ever spent!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Skydiver]

I need to give contacts a try... I was told to do lasik but I turn it down because my insurance would not cover it ... And I had to plunk down $2500 cash to do. Maybe this is my excuse to do it and be able to wear my cool shades again instead of my buddy holly glasses ...

If your employer offers a flex spending account, put the money into the FSA to pay for the Lasik so that at least the $2500 cash is pre-tax.

[carlosa]

Justin,

I have a drill that might help you.

Hit me up at Norco.

It's simple you need about 2oo rounds..

Load up all your mags stand 7 yards away from a berm

Hold the gun in front of you and pull the trigger as fast as you can.

This are the goals..

1)get through a hole mag without trigger freeze

2)get through a hole mag without adjusting your grip

A few shots into each mag you will know if you blink..

Becuse you will stop blinking, Matt Burket said once you can move your finger faster than you can blink...

The thing with blinking is that sometimes you don't know if your blinking until you stop becuse the difference in what you see is that much more complete than what you were used too

Anyway,

Do 200 rounds straight of this drill..

Once you accomplish goal 1 and 2, then continue doing the drill but shift your focus to the front sight and just watch it bounce..

It's a simple drill that most shooters are to timid to try..

But it's an incredible way to learn to observe at speed

Hit me up at the range if you have any questions .

Cheers!

Edited December 4, 2011 by carlosa

[DarthMuffin]

Justin,

I have a drill that might help you.

Hit me up at Norco.

It's simple you need about 2oo rounds..

Load up all your mags stand 7 yards away from a berm

Hold the gun in front of you and pull the trigger as fast as you can.

This are the goals..

1)get through a hole mag without trigger freeze

2)get through a hole mag without adjusting your grip

A few shots into each mag you will know if you blink..

Becuse you will stop blinking, Matt Burket said once you can move your finger faster than you can blink...

The thing with blinking is that sometimes you don't know if your blinking until you stop becuse the difference in what you see is that much more complete than what you were used too

Anyway,

Do 200 rounds straight of this drill..

Once you accomplish goal 1 and 2, then continue doing the drill but shift your focus to the front sight and just watch it bounce..

It's a simple drill that most shooters are to timid to try..

But it's an incredible way to learn to observe at speed

Hit me up at the range if you have any questions .

Cheers!

So on this drill what should we be looking at? I mean, I can can pull the trigger as fast as I can while looking at my feet. Is it literally just dump the mag as fast as we can (I don't see what that will teach me) or are these fired as fast as we can reacquire the front sight?

[carlosa]

Shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger. Let your eyes catch up to the front sight. If you only shoot as fast as you can see your sight, you will not teach your eyes to shoot faster. If you run the gun faster than you can see the sights, eventually your eyes will become used to seeing at that speed. Then, you will be able to track the sight throughout recoil. This drill also helps you with trigger freeze because it teaches you proper trigger control at speed. This drill also develops your grip which is the most fundamental aspect of having the sights return to the same place between shots.

There is a lot you can learn from this drill, you just have to open your self up to it.

[MarkCO]

As for lasik/etc.... go slow and get several opinions. My eye doctor, given what I told him, advised me to avoid it and he was one of the first to offer the procedure and has remained at the "cutting edge" (pun intended). I know some who have been happy and some unhappy, specifically related to shooting. That differs from the "non-shooting" folks I know wha have had it done. Not offering a pro or con, just be cautious. For me, I decided to try other options.

[carlosa]

Darthmuffin

Reread the last paragraph of my post.

If you have any questions hit me up.

[Mrdwayne0405]

This drill also helps you with trigger freeze because it teaches you proper trigger control at speed. This drill also develops your grip which is the most fundamental aspect of having the sights return to the same place between shots.

There is a lot you can learn from this drill, you just have to open your self up to it.

By "trigger freeze", do you mean completely stopping shooting? Sorry to ask a dumb question, I'm just a little new to the language...

[carlosa]

This drill also helps you with trigger freeze because it teaches you proper trigger control at speed. This drill also develops your grip which is the most fundamental aspect of having the sights return to the same place between shots.

There is a lot you can learn from this drill, you just have to open your self up to it.

By "trigger freeze", do you mean completely stopping shooting? Sorry to ask a dumb question, I'm just a little new to the language...

Correct

[Grunt]

Justin,

I have a drill that might help you.

Hit me up at Norco.

It's simple you need about 2oo rounds..

Load up all your mags stand 7 yards away from a berm

Hold the gun in front of you and pull the trigger as fast as you can.

This are the goals..

1)get through a hole mag without trigger freeze

2)get through a hole mag without adjusting your grip

A few shots into each mag you will know if you blink..

Becuse you will stop blinking, Matt Burket said once you can move your finger faster than you can blink...

The thing with blinking is that sometimes you don't know if your blinking until you stop becuse the difference in what you see is that much more complete than what you were used too

Anyway,

Do 200 rounds straight of this drill..

Once you accomplish goal 1 and 2, then continue doing the drill but shift your focus to the front sight and just watch it bounce..

It's a simple drill that most shooters are to timid to try..

But it's an incredible way to learn to observe at speed

Hit me up at the range if you have any questions .

Cheers!

+1

I used to offer the same advice to folks who were having problems with sight tracking, or with shooting fast in general. As carlosa said, most were just too timid to try, or maybe they just felt it was a waste of ammo. Hard to say. But it is amazing what you can learn with this drill. No target. Just the berm, and focus on seeing the sight.

Grunt

[co-exprs]

I am cross dominate as well. Unfortunately, you are faced with a difficult choice and the sooner you make it the better off you will be in the long run. If you're going to shoot right handed you need to shoot with your right eye and retrain your brain to use your right eye sight picture. If you are going to shoot your dominant eye, start shooting left handed. As long as you attempt to shoot cross dominant your shooting will always be handicapped in some way. Either your recoil management will suffer or your front sight tracking will suffer.

Sight tracking is a long term skill... sort of a marathon. Certainly not a sprint of a learning curve. I struggled with it for two years before I sorted it out. Front sight tracking is two main parts. First, the sight needs to move a small enough amoount that it stays within your brains center of attention. This means recoil management. Get with one of your very skilled shooting buddies and learn which muscles to turn on. Most people don't know what to turn on in thier arms for proper wrist tention. It doesn't mean squeeze the pistol harder. Second, you need to train your brain in regards to what to look for. Get your hands on a 22 or an airsoft. In parallel with working on your recoil management with your preferred caliber, you can also work on training your brain by shooting a low recoil platform. I still shoot as many rounds through my buckmark as any of my other pistols. Train your brain with the 22. Train your muscles with the full power pistol. As your brain gets better and better at spotting the pattern of front sight movement and you also get better at managing recoil, the front sight will become easier and easier to see.

You will reach a point at which you simply won't be able to see things any better. You'll max out your brain's ability to see and process the visual signals. That's when soft and hard focus begin to become more important. As you get better at shooting and speed up, your brain will begin to function better and better with soft focus. If you ask around, most of the guys shooting really fast, really don't see the sights in hard focus all the time. They have to slow down a little to let thier eyes catch up and acquire a hard focus. You use that for precision shots. Once you actually start to track the sight in soft focus (slightly blurry front sight), you will only be able to hit well with that soft focus at close distances, but it's a start. As you get more experienced you will be able to run soft focus further out and still get good hits. I can run fast and resonably accurate out to about 20 yds with soft focus. However if a closer target is crowded or tight, taking the extra quarter second to establish hard focus is appropriate.

If your quest is to some day make GM, choosing to shoot non dominant will ultimately be the cause of you hitting a very large wall. This sport is hugely visual in nature. Unfortunately, the visual aspect is also one of the most difficult to improve upon. Shooting non dominant eye is ultimately a greater handicap than learning to shoot with your weak hand. Now that I'm many years into this and am in the hunt for GM, I understand this much better and now wish I had chosen to simply shoot left handed from the very start. It would have been difficult to progress in the first year, but I would be much better off now.