Switching from single eye to both eyes open.

[VegasOPM]

I have been shooting for 26 years and have never mastered keeping both eyes open- even when shooting skeet and trap. When I went to the eye doctor and mentioned it, she had me do the dominance test 10 times. 7 times I went to the right eye, 3 times to the left. Basically, I don't have a truly dominant eye. That being said, I can open and close one eye very quickly. For the few tenths that I am actively engaging a target only one eye is open... when I am looking for another target the other one pops right back open.

It must be what is keeping me from GM status.... or maybe it is the fact that I shoot too many "C's" and "D's" too slowly.... oh yeah and the standing reloads can't help... then there is my habit of forgetting to move when I am done with an array....

[lugnut]

I'm right handed, left eye dominant. I used to get all wrapped up in this too. I still do on occasion. But mostly I realize now that I have a crap load of other more important things to work on. I let my mind/subconscious determine what my eyes do now. It seems like when I'm in low light or long distance shooting I tend to squint/close my right eye. I'm not too obsessed about this as I don't think this is limiting me today.

[45Fundi]

For those that think one's time is better spent on something else for improvement than the both eyes open or eye dominance issue thats great, but for some of us this can not be discussed enough. WE STRUGGLE AND ARE BOTHERED BY IT and need to find the option/s that help us and make us better or atleast more "confident" in how we use our eyes. I have studied this for decades and am still learning and have learned good new things to try just from this thread. Thanks All.

I am right hand and left eye dominant. In my youth I had the best eyes of anyone I ever met. It was one of those great gifts. I won a national sporting clays tournament beating an entire Olympic Team of that country shooting right handed and closing my left eye. Not bragging, just making a point. You can shoot well with one eye closed, especially if you have great eyes. With combat arms back then I could out shoot all mates in accuracy, but in snap shooting I got schooled with my one eye closed. It would seem it would have worked similar in combat shooting as sporting clays, but it didn't. This frustrated me and made me lose confidence in the shooting that I really needed confidence in at the time.

A study was done on the best US college baseball hitters one year and they were found to be mostly cross dominant which allowed them to pickup and follow the ball to bat better than normal dominanced batters.

I many years after needing it and not really needing it now, broke down and got an Aimpoint for my service rifle. I am now both eyes open and it has changed my rifle shooting life! Its wonderful! As a young pup I would get squint twitch and if I shot long enough the twitch in my squinting eye would actually move to both eyes. Battle rifles were quite miserable to shoot because of this.

You are usually dominant in an eye because the other side of your brain is dominant and needs to gather information thru that eye. This means that your brain actually sees and processes info "faster and better" thru your dominant eye. For some reason at middle age the dominant eye is usually the optically weaker eye. (God has a sense of humor ;-) For simple target shooting using your non-dominant eye may be fine, but in complex or problem solving situations you will be at a disadvantage using your non-dominant eye. Forcing your brain to change dominance can affect how you think and process info in more than just shooting and also does not mean that the other hemisphere of your brain has suddenly learned to process for the other side of your brain.

Also like some one in this thread pointed out if you put a dark lens over one eye and even squinting/closing one eye both can cause pupil dilation issues. If you even just wear VERY dark sunglasses like many US serviceman do it dilates your pupils and cause you to lose optical "depth of field" in both eyes which reduces your ability to see near and far in focus over a longer distance simultaneously. I wear the lightest lensed sunglasses my eyes can stand for this reason.

I have studied this at nauseum and the problem still is that the answers change. Due to bad reaction to a prescribed drug my short range muscles in my eyes no longer work. I am now VERY far sighted. My dominant left eye is dramatically more affected than my right eye. So, I shoot right hand left eye, but my optically weak dominant left eye will not act dominant to my non-dominant optically much stronger right eye when I try and keep both eyes open now. So, I'm working on a solution and am enjoying this thread and think CURSE-EYE DOMINANCE SHOOTERS SHOULD NEVER GIVE UP searching for solutions!

Edited September 23, 2008 by 45Fundi

[Steven Cline]

In the 2-eye v. 1-eye debate, can any one isolate the improvement going to 2 eyes makes from the improvement made from practicing?

The change from 1 to 2 eyes may simply focus the shooter onto his shooting more and the improvement is less or not all associated with the eyes but instead the focused conscious practice.

Seems we'd need two random samples of shooters one being a control group which practiced the same with the one-eye method and compare the improvement to the two-eye method so as to determine if the method changes the improvement at all.