Dwight Stearns Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 So u can have direct sighting (sights move to your dominant eye)with a target focus (sights will be blurry but still able to line up) would this be a good way to practice with both eyes open This is the way I have shot for years and it works great for me. When shooting two eyed, target focus is natural because it is something we do thousands of times every day. We all started using target focus around the age of two when we started pointing at things. A big thing with target focus is even though our visual focus is on the target, our mental focus or concentration must be on seeing a proper sight picture and placing that picture onto the target. Then as long as we don't blink, we can see the sights lift in recoil and can call the shot. Dwight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Histate Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 Thanks Dwight for explaination. Having not been taught or explained on how to shoot with both eyes open,this was the way that came most natural to me. I'm glad or at lease don't think I need to break any bad habits Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfwmiket Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 For the vast majority of shooters, simply deciding to keep both eyes open will be the way to go. You'll have about 3 hours of visual confusion over 2-10 days depending on how much you practice. Then your brain will only show you what you need to see. Obviously there will be exceptions and I'm no Eye Doctor, but most shooters will experience the above as described. Many of the tricks like tape over the eye are unnecessary if you plow through the few hours of visual confusion and let the brain sort it out. I'm back to re-thinking this again, and I' m going to try this approach a bit. I started out closing an eye, then did the tape thing, worked but was a hassle, tried both open and gave up, back to closing one........ now I think Steve has a great idea. I'm just going to dryfire till I don't need to close an eye. Maybe a couple weeks, maybe till I qualify as super senior, but we'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kneelingatlas Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 For the vast majority of shooters, simply deciding to keep both eyes open will be the way to go. You'll have about 3 hours of visual confusion over 2-10 days depending on how much you practice. Then your brain will only show you what you need to see. Obviously there will be exceptions and I'm no Eye Doctor, but most shooters will experience the above as described. Many of the tricks like tape over the eye are unnecessary if you plow through the few hours of visual confusion and let the brain sort it out. I'm back to re-thinking this again, and I' m going to try this approach a bit. I started out closing an eye, then did the tape thing, worked but was a hassle, tried both open and gave up, back to closing one........ now I think Steve has a great idea. I'm just going to dryfire till I don't need to close an eye. Maybe a couple weeks, maybe till I qualify as super senior, but we'll see. I shot Olympic pistol as a junior with a white paddle over my left eye and now I'm having a hell of a time shooting without something over my left eye. I just switched from masking tape to scotch tape to let more light in, I think I'll just keep shrinking the piece of tape until it disappears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuildSF4 Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 I shoot with both eyes open, don't remember when I started doing that. I do it for USPSA and for precision shooting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfwmiket Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Last nite was the first time I tried practicing with just leaving both eyes open and seeing what happened........ lot of ghost images/double vision at first, but near the end it was to where I was "seeing" the correct picture. Only did about 15 minutes...... but will try it again today and see if I'm starting to see the benefit, no pun intended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vash_241987 Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 I'd say about 2 years ago I started shooting with both eyes open, I've learned to ignore the ghost and focus on the real from sight. Since then I've never really notice any ghost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackstone45 Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 When I shoot both eyes open, I think I focus on the target, because seeing double of the target is too confusing. However I focus my attention on the front sight and alignment. Can anyone comment on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 Front sight focus is more accurate than target focus but we are talking degrees here. Bullseye shooters have known for decades that for the utmost in accuracy, you have to focus on the front sight but bullseye shooters are worried about hitting a one inch X ring at 25 and 50 yards. However, bullseye has a way of "compensating out" the error induced by the fact that the target black dot will be grossly out of focus from focusing on the front sight. I have shot a few bullseye leagues, and you adjust the sight elevation to hit the X when the sights are aligned and the top of the front sight is just brushing up against wherever you see the bottom of the black center dot on the target. So you are choosing to set the target's black center out of focus, then use the sights to sompensate for whatever errors that causes in sighting due to vison change (perception) of where the target black area is.You can due exactly the same thing with the sights. If you are focused on target, the sight picture will still look like SOMETHING, it just won't look the same. And as you shoot and see the POI, you adjust to the different sight picture and center the shots or adjust the sights (if adjustable). The point is that sights in soft focus don't sudenly become unusable. I happen to use a Merritt sighter which "cheats" some and helps focus vison both onsight and target, but it's not mandatory. bountyhunter, are you saying that you shoot Bullseye with a sharp target focus, call your shots and get good scores? I used to go back and forth. One eyed squint for a couple of weeks then both eyes open for a couple, shot the same scores so I always went back to both eyes open. I have very little loss or "resolution" on my sight focus with both eyes open since the right lense of my shooting glasses focuses my eye at sight distance with eyes relaxed (target distance). So with both eyes open, I see a clear target in my left eye and a "reasonably" clear sight image in my right eye superimposed over the left eye target image. The amount of accuracy I gain with the one eyed squint offsets the aiming accuracy I lose by giving away a sharp target image by closing my left eye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. I can and do call my shots having good feedback on sight picture and trigger while focusing on the target. I do it at speed and my results speak for themselves. Again, if it works for you, whatever "it" is, do it. Even if you are told it won't work. good shooting Dwight Me too. Been doing it for about 20 years now.The biggest advantage to learning eyes open method is that in a life defense situation you can maintain sight over the entire world, not just the tiny tunnel you see over the top of the sights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 To me indirect sighting means the sights are not aligned with your shooting eye. My understanding was that indirect sighting is when your eyes are focused on the target and you raise the sights along the dom eye sightline so you see a fuzzy sight picture but you still adjust the aim using the sights. Ergo, it's not point-shoot it is sighting in a slightly different way. I take the "indirect" to mean you are not directly focused on the sights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 So u can have direct sighting (sights move to your dominant eye)with a target focus (sights will be blurry but still able to line up) would this be a good way to practice with both eyes open YES. If you shoot better with it, use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 Shot a small indoor match today. Only 4 stages, did 1 with one eye closed and 3 with both eyes opened. The first stage was both eyes open and target focus with the blurry but able to tell aligned sights. Had mostly A hits with good speed. On the second stage there was just a row of targets left to right touching each other with no shoots, fearing double vision I closed one eye, almost no A's (head shots for almost all of them). 3rd stage was leaning left and right of a barricade while seated, started with both open, as soon as I leaned over and was basically at a 45 degree angle, I started seeing double and closed an eye. 4th, with El Presidente, tried it with both eyes Open and focusing on my sights, spun around and brought the gun up, two targets and two rear sights. I shot at a target that wasn't there... Target focused on the next two and following 3 after the reload and had mostly A's and C's. It's going to take a lot of work, but I definitely prefer both open Target Focus with a somewhat blurry sight picture (I do shot call, I can't do it with sight focus since I see doubles) I was shooting target slow fire the first time I tried using "blurry sight" target focus. My groups immediately went down to about 1/2 what I had been shooting. Turns out you can still accurately aim the gun if the sights are not perfectly focused as soon as you learn what the sight picture should be.Later I got new shooting glasses so the dom eye focus point was moved in so both eyes open/relaxed puts the left eye on target and right eye near sight focus so the sight picture is pretty good. That works even better if you are nearsighted it's easy to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfwmiket Posted February 22, 2013 Share Posted February 22, 2013 I did dryfire practice again and left both eyes open......... similar result as before....some ghosting and some double images, but it does appear that my brain is "trying" to get it figured out. I need to actually do some live fire to be able to fully confirm how it is working, but so far, at least in dryfire practice, it is slowly improving. I do still have to fight the urge to naturally close an eye after doing it for so long. We shall see, no pun intended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bunsen Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 I did dryfire practice again and left both eyes open......... similar result as before....some ghosting and some double images, but it does appear that my brain is "trying" to get it figured out. I need to actually do some live fire to be able to fully confirm how it is working, but so far, at least in dryfire practice, it is slowly improving. I do still have to fight the urge to naturally close an eye after doing it for so long. We shall see, no pun intended. This is where i seemed to stall out for months and still fall back to squinting every once in awhile when I am trying to make precision shots but it took me a lot more than 10 hours of dry fire to get it all figured out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kita Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 If your sights are not perfectly aligned, slowly adjust your hold (WITHOUT breaking your grip) and remember how it feels. Why not adjust the equipment to point better with your grip? This is why they make Adjustable Sights. How does one know for sure whether the sights are the problem or the shooter is the problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 If your sights are not perfectly aligned, slowly adjust your hold (WITHOUT breaking your grip) and remember how it feels. Why not adjust the equipment to point better with your grip? This is why they make Adjustable Sights. How does one know for sure whether the sights are the problem or the shooter is the problem? Ask a range officer to shoot the gun or any experienced shooter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mushot Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 I used to watch Pocahontas a lot when I was a kid, and at one point John Smith tells Tom to shoot with both eyes open. So, I grew up with the idea that shooting with both eyes open is the way to go. Now, when I try to close an eye it just does not work out for me. hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psynapse Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 Unfortunately I'm one of those people who doesn't have one strong eye. All those tests about closing your hands around an object in the distance and then seeing which eye is looking at it... pointing at an object and then seeing which eye is looking at it... etc... don't work for me. Sometimes it's my left eye. Sometimes my right. I'm right handed and trying to be right eye dominant but I haven't been able to set that in stone in a year of trying. I can kinda-sorta do it if I concentrate really hard and don't move around much but it all goes to heck in an IPSC match. Too much going on to get it to work. So I am sticking with a bit of tape on my glasses(no pun intended). Squinting one eye was too much of a strain on my face and caused me to partially squint the open eye anyways. The tape is a bit of a pain to get used to but I can still see fine for reloads and moving. One thing I have noticed is that my left eye has a hair better vision than the right. So I'm going to save that as my redundant/backup eye Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toothguy Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 If your sights are not perfectly aligned, slowly adjust your hold (WITHOUT breaking your grip) and remember how it feels. Why not adjust the equipment to point better with your grip? This is why they make Adjustable Sights. How does one know for sure whether the sights are the problem or the shooter is the problem? Make sure your gun's sight is adjusted correctly for the load your shooting. A good way to find out is using sand bags and shooting from a bench, resting the gun on the bags for support, removing human error as much as possible. Adjust the rear sight in the direction you want the bullet to go. Now with gun sights set to hit point of aim, any errors are the shooter. When shooting for accuracy, pick an area on the target, shift sharp focus to the front sight with a slightly blurry rear sight and blurry target area. Keep sharp focus on the front sight with constant pressure on the trigger until the gun goes off, mentally record the position of the front sight in relation to the rear. That's shot calling. If your guns sight is adjusted correctly, you watch the front sight through the shot, the sight picture remains on target as the gun goes off, you will hit the target exactly where you have aimed it. I made some sandbags from a tire tube that I cut into about 2 foot sections, filled with play sand, folded the ends over and secured with duct tape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kita Posted March 1, 2013 Share Posted March 1, 2013 If your sights are not perfectly aligned, slowly adjust your hold (WITHOUT breaking your grip) and remember how it feels. Why not adjust the equipment to point better with your grip? This is why they make Adjustable Sights. How does one know for sure whether the sights are the problem or the shooter is the problem? Make sure your gun's sight is adjusted correctly for the load your shooting. A good way to find out is using sand bags and shooting from a bench, resting the gun on the bags for support, removing human error as much as possible. Adjust the rear sight in the direction you want the bullet to go. Now with gun sights set to hit point of aim, any errors are the shooter. When shooting for accuracy, pick an area on the target, shift sharp focus to the front sight with a slightly blurry rear sight and blurry target area. Keep sharp focus on the front sight with constant pressure on the trigger until the gun goes off, mentally record the position of the front sight in relation to the rear. That's shot calling. If your guns sight is adjusted correctly, you watch the front sight through the shot, the sight picture remains on target as the gun goes off, you will hit the target exactly where you have aimed it. I made some sandbags from a tire tube that I cut into about 2 foot sections, filled with play sand, folded the ends over and secured with duct tape. Duct tape. Got it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bountyhunter Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 One thing I have noticed is that my left eye has a hair better vision than the right. So I'm going to save that as my redundant/backup eye Having a strongly dominant eye is a mixed blessing. For a while I could not see as well with my dominant right eye and I tried to cross train to left eyed sighting. I absolutely could not no matter what I did. Finally gave up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waterfowl-widowmaker Posted March 2, 2013 Share Posted March 2, 2013 I've always shot with both eyes open. It's a little hard sometimes to keep focused on the front sight when shooting fast and on the move. The way it was explained to me was, "Have you ever saw a baseball player up to bat with one eye closed". He shot on the Army pistol team for 30 years, so I'm gonna say he knew what he was talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BDD Posted March 3, 2013 Share Posted March 3, 2013 I have been shooting with both eyes open for a couple years now. Takes some getting use to, but seems to be a little easier for me to acquire targets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnH556 Posted March 3, 2013 Share Posted March 3, 2013 I am left eye dominant and shoot right handed and have not been able to shoot accurately with both eyes open, anyone else have this problem or suggestions on how to work around this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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