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No clear dominant eye or only slightly dominant?


Esquire

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When I was younger, my right eye was unquestionably my dominant eye and I could and did shoot both eyes open regardless of what I was shooting, bow, rifle, shotgun, pistol.  I had no problems seeing the sights and a good sight picture with my right eye even though my left was open, too.  It seems as I've gotten a little older, my right eye isn't as dominant as it used to be and now is only slightly more dominant than my left. I only bring this up because it is giving me some problems with trying to really be front-sight focused and trying to watch the front sight lift as a shot breaks.  If I focus the front sight that hard, it does strange things to my total sight picture.  Has anyone else experienced that?

 

Oddly enough, I've noticed that if I'm looking at an object to the left of center of my body, that as long as it's not so far left that it's obstructed by the bridge of my nose, I'll see it mainly with my right eye.  If I then look at something to the right of the centerline of my body, I'll see it mainly with my left eye.  Am I weird or does anybody else experience this, as well?

Edited by Esquire
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I also am not strongly dominant-eyed. Occasionally my left eye would take over at inconvenient times, and I could never get the prominent ghost images to go away when shooting iron sights with both eyes open. So i put a small square of scotch tape on my left lens to block my view of the sights, and started getting better pretty quickly after that.

 

Having said that, I'm not sure you really need to focus that strongly on the front sight to see it lift. It might even be easier to see if you soften your focus a little and see the front sight without focusing intently on it, so you are also aware of everything else in the picture.

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I do as @motosapiens does, but I now smear a light coat of chapstick on the lens rather than use tape. I can see well enough with that eye to do more than I could with scotch tape, but not enough for my mind to mix up the sights.

 

A bonus is that it wipes off in an instant if you need both eyes for any reason.

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...Having said that, I'm not sure you really need to focus that strongly on the front sight to see it lift. It might even be easier to see if you soften your focus a little and see the front sight without focusing intently on it, so you are also aware of everything else in the picture.


Even shooting groups I now use a soft focus and aim with blurry sights. Aside from the fact that my eyes are aging, I've found that my transitions are faster and my scores have improved. I believe a hard front sight focus is not beneficial for the majority of the shots we take in a match. People confuse "not focused on the sights" with "not looking at the sights".

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am right handed, left eye dominant.  I have learned how to shoot with both eyes open.  It was weird at the beginning but i have learned through practice to see the target with blurry sights.

Rifle: I shoot it left handed.

It works for me.

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