Two Eyes Shooting

[exoninja]

I've just started shooting with 2 eyes about more than a month ago, and I have a question for you 2-eyes shooting veterans.

Do you focus on the target first, then focus on the sight picture, when transiting targets? If so, doesn't that makes you slower?

Right now I am able to just look at the target, bring my gun up, and the sights are already aligned unconsiously. Which means although I'm focusing on the target, my sights (which are blurred) are already aligned. Is it recommended to shoot in this way, where you cannot see your sight picture but most of the time you already know it's aligned?

[Flexmoney]

...but most of the time you already know it's aligned?

Most of the time?

Do you focus on the target first, then focus on the sight picture, when transiting targets?

With iron sights...yes. That is a big difference between shooting a red-dot, and having to pull the vision back to the front sight with irons.

If so, doesn't that makes you slower?

You would think...but, actually knowing the sights are on target...knowing where the bullet will impact, that is where you pick up time.

If you can hit (under match pressure) hard-cover targets at 15 yards with a target focus, then that may be all you need for that target. But, the key is knowing.

[Garfield]

Exoninja,

For this some explanation about the different sight types coudl be helpful.

Brian explains them in his book (buy it !) and maybe they have already been explained on this forum as well.

In short, they say that the more "difficult" the shot (read accurate) the better your sight picture needs to be. This is a very rough rewording of Brian's thought's on this, and by no means intended as being complete, but it should give you an idea.

For instance: If I am to hit a target at 3 meters, I go at warpspeed and more or less point the gun in the right direction without even really looking at my sights. But if I have to hit a PP at 40 meters, I make sure that my sight picture is perfect and have the best chance to hit it right away.

Does that make sense to you ?

[mcoliver]

What Flex said.

You can also establish the limits of your technique by shooting progressively longer targets. If you can consistently do that at 20 yrds and beyond then by gad I wanna know more about it.

[TriggerT]

I've been working on trying to shoot with both eyes open for about 6 months now, and would agree with everyone above. Like Garfield said, check out Brain's book, since it has some great insight on this topic.

Basically, I find that on open targets out to, or even past 20 yards, both eyes open are no problem. It is that occasional head shot at 20 or more yards that forces me to go back to one eye closed, for the clearer sight picture. Often, once I start closing one eye during a match, I will continue to do so without thinking about it. Two eyes is supposed to be faster, but I am still working on it. Good luck.

[bountyhunter]

There are two ways to shoot with both eyes open looking down iron sights, and I do both of them:

1) Target focus both eyes, normal glasses. You see the target sharp and clear with both eyes. You sight the gun along the sight line of the dominat eye. The sight picture is blurry and you will see a second gun image to the right which you ignore. If you use sight paint so that he front and rear sights are different colors, you can very accurately align the gun using this method which Plaxco refers to as "Indirect Sighting" in his book "Shooting from Within". Your brain just has to learn what the blurresd sight picture looks like and a ggod way to do it is to focus on the sights (left eye closed) align them on target and then open both eyes and allow the focus to go to the target. The blurred sight image you see is the "fuzzy on target" image. After a while, you don't need to refocus on the sights. The first time I tried this I shot smaller groups immediately. people think this is nuts, maybe I am wierd but both eyes open and locked on target feels 100% right to me and shooting any other way is always an "effort". This is also the way people should train for "defense" shooting so they can see 100% of the environment while sighting on the threat.

2) Target Focus, but glasses have a "near" prescription in the dom eye. I have this on my shooting glasses for iron sight guns. When I relax my eyes, I see a clear target left eye and a clear sight picture right eye floating on the target. It is hard for some people to take to this style, it actually is the ideal system for target shooting because it is the only way to see both the target and sights clearly at the same time.