Open Eyed Rifle Shooting

[Flyin'Hawaiian]

This question is geared towards the iron sight shooters in the bunch like Kurt Miller, Kelly Neal and Guy Hawkins. My question is on shooting a rifle with both eyes open. From zero to about fifty yards I can shoot proficiently with both eyes open unless it is a partial target or ocular shot. How important is it to learn to shoot targets with both eyes open at rages of 200 and 300 yards? Dose it really improve your transitions? If so what are some training tips? I’m tired of Kurtm and Kellyn kicking me around and I'm real close to pissing Steve Hendrick off!

[kellyn]

Sorry, only Haoles can shoot iron sighted rifles!

I usually use a piece of tape on the top half of the non-dominant eye side of my shooting glasses for shooting long range stages. Without tape I have trouble keeping both eyes open on precision shots but it's easy with the tape. But don't tape up so much that your non-dominant eye starts to dialate! Of course, tape blocks your vision and reduces your "field of view."

On short range stages, I don't tape up since I want to see all I can see. And I don't have trouble keeping both eyes open.

On combo stages, I will sometimes tape, sometimes not.

I think it is important to try to keep both eyes open since that is how you naturally use your eyes. I know the Russian Olympic Shooting Team did a study a ways back and found that shooting with one eye closed reduced performance by about 20%. I believe the theory is that you confuse your brain when you close one eye. But then your brain is already confused since you actually like spam!

[benny hill]

No wonder you're 20% faster than me. All this time useing only one eye.

[kellyn]

25%

[gl]

25%

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kelly is usually 34.452% faster than Bennie.

Listen to Kelly since he is more of a scholar on this subject. I am afraid I can be of no real help since I am blind in my left eye (and I am 34.451% faster than Bennie). I am joking about Bennie (which is way to easy to do by the way) but I am not joking about by eye, listen to Kelly.

Guy Hawkins

[Flyin'Hawaiian]

Kelly,

I assume you zero the same way. I like to zero at 300 meters so I can see exactly where I am at that distance. It takes time but you know how it is when your working for the government. You get paid to train!!!! One more thing! I would appreciate you referring to Spam as Hawaiian Steak from now on. I don't want people to look negatively at the can. It’s a good thing Costco sells it by the case.

Kellyb

[EricW]

Damn. I'm sure glad lunch was over by the time I read this thread. Hurl!

[paraman1]

I shoot with both eyes open rifle , shotgun , pistol and even scoped rifle . The only time it has ever bothered me is at Tactical rifle matches when I was set up in some brush and the wind was blowing . The weeds and brush swaying back and forth in the wind seemed to really cause me problems when I could see it with my non-shooting eye .

[dvc40jim]

I'm not sure how applicable this might be toward this subject; I shoot with both eyes open when I can, and I close my weak eye when I have to close it, I don't spend much time thinking about it.

However Rudy Project has a set of flip up glasses new this year called the Exception. In this frame, the RX insert and the flip up sunglass lenses are interchangelable. You can put the RX insert into the flip up portion, and install the sunglass lenses in the flip up mechanism.

I have a trap shooter in Florida who had the eye doctor make an opaque lens "RX" lens for her weak eye, she installed it in the flip up assembly. She is a cross dominant shooter and can't make the changeover, but her solution seems to be better than taping up.

Might be a workable solution in 3 gun matches where you have close and distant rifle targets where the shooter could have the option of blocking the weak eye for some targets and not for others?