Shooting with non-dominant eye

[Blutarski]

is it wise to try to shoot using my non-dominant eye?

My right eye is my dominant eye. However I am also slightly farsighted with my right eye. Not enough to need corrective lenses for most activities. But enough so that I cannot focus clearly on the front sight of my handgun.

My left eye is slightly nearsighted. I can focus clearly on my front sight with that eye.

I am wondering if I should try to learn to shoot with my non-dominant eye. Or is that just going down a path doomed to fail and teach me bad habits I am going to have to unlearn in the future.

[TTS]

If you are having serious accuracy issues, you may be able to gain some value from shooting with your non-dominant eye.

One thing to take into consideration is, your brain literally processes information from your dominant eye better. If you have ever tired to throw a ball with your non-dominant hand you have a good idea of how hard it is for your brain to make a non-dominant body part perform a complex action.

[yukonjasper]

Maybe glasses or contact lenses would solve the problem?

[Pat Cannon]

With a handgun, I'd say use the eye that give you the sharper sight picture. I'm right handed and left eye dominant, but I could still get a sharp focus on the front sight with my right eye so I used my right eye for years just fine.

A few years ago, though, I became too farsighted in my right eye and had to switch to my left. It took me a little while to automatically remember to line up that way but it's working fine now -- usually. Once in a while if I'm looking around the right side of a barricade or something I forget.

[OldmanFCSA]

Recently I performed a test of my eyes while shooting +P 38Special loads in my GP100 6"Heavy 357 at 10 yards.
I had Lasik surgery years ago with left eye set for distance, right eye set for reading distance.
As a pistol shooter, I SUCK !!!
Results, my right eye shot smaller groups but not by much, my left eye groups were definitely further off target to left. All groups shot right-handed with left hand support, arms extended, one eye shut in both tests. (Did not try with both eyes open or shut.)

[Tronster]

I am very right handed and left eye dominate. When shooting pistol the sights just naturally line up with my left eye, so I shoot right handed while aiming with left eye and keep both eyes open.

However, with long guns I have to either close or block my left eye, otherwise the image of the left dominates my brain and I loose the sight picture. In quick shooting like clays it becomes glaringly obvious when I accidently shoot far left cause my left eye is trying to line up the bead on the target. I've tried shooting left handed; might as well ask me to wear a dress because it seems so unnatural.

[farmerj]

yes, you should practice shooting with the non-dominant eye AND hand.

What happens if you are involved in a shooting and your strong-hand is shot and disabled? You take shrapnel to the forehead blinding your dominant eye with blood or worse....


when I was in the army, I could shoot and qualify my M16 and M9 with either side. I always challenged my guys to do the same thing.

[Blutarski]

Thanks for the insight. Hopefully I can get to the range sometime this weekend and give it a try.

[2in2out]

I try to alternate and practice with both eyes.

I've seen people out-shoot me left-handed, even though they were right handed and right eye dominant.

Blutarski, try it, you might like it….

[642rUS]

I shoot handguns right-handed with the sights in front of my left eye.

I shoot long-guns left-handed. I even have left-handed bolt guns.

No problems.

[sgruenhagen44]

Depends what you're shooting. Archery and shotguns I shoot with two eyes open so with those I think it would really hurt your accuracy.

Faster gettin on birds and with archery you can shoot later into dusk with two eyes (lets in more light to see).

[smokintone]

Not sure if your talking about this in the context of just target shooting, or a defense one. But maybe this could help a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Q-vliqEls

[Blutarski]

Well I finally got to the range a couple of days ago to give this a try and it worked pretty well. I still need to work on my accuracy though - I have a tendency to miss down and to the left. Next trip to the range I am working on a firmer grip and smoother trigger pull.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

[BigDog58]

I discovered something while teaching my wife to shoot that might help.

My wife is right handed but left eye dominant. I found that if she takes her normal firing stance and slightly rolls the gun inward (about 15-20 degree inward cant) she picks up her sight alignment much better. It greatly improved her handgun shooting.

[jshuberg]

First off, the term "dominant" eye isn't correct unless you actually have a seeing impairment in one of your eyes. A person who is right handed is right hand dominant because they use that hand more often, resulting in more synapses developed in the motor cortex of the brain for controlling that hand. A persons "weak" hand doesn't have the same dexterity or fine control as their dominant hand because fewer synapses are dedicated to controlling it.

However, you can feel sensory input from both hands equally. Your dominant hand is not more sensitive to touch than your weak hand. The same is true of your eyes. The brain prefers to favor one eye, and then stitch the image from the other eye with it to provide depth of vision. Just how both hands are able to feel the same level of touch (again, presuming no other impairments), your brain is perfectly capable of favoring either eye. One is not "dominant" in the same way as when using your hand to perform something that requires dexterity. Don't confuse sensory input from motor control.

This is evidenced when using the Bindon Aiming Concept, where a person can switch between magnification and no magnification when using an ACOG by switching between which eye the brain is favoring. It takes a little time to master but it's a very cool and powerful technique. If you are right handed, right eye far sighted, and left eye near sighted, this is actually a very cool thing for you, and you should leverage it in your shooting.

The ideal sight picture for greatest accuracy is when you are shooting with both eyes open, the point of binocular convergence is on the target, and the point of optical focus is on the front sight. If I understand you, when looking at something close, your left eye can focus on it properly, but it is still fuzzy with your right eye. This indicates that the point of optical focus for each eye is different. One is one the sight, the other somewhere forward of the front sight, closer to the target. This should result in the target being in sharper focus than when both eyes are focused on the front sight. You're going to want to develop one or more drills to train yourself to leverage this condition Try the following and see if it helps:

Run a plain white target with a 1/2" green dot on it out to 5 yards or so. Using a .22 pistol, adjust the sights so that point of impact is directly behind the center of the front sight. Use a rest if necessary. What you want to do is with both eyes open, use your left eye to focus on the sight. Use your right eye to see the target. Your brain will stitch the images together so that what you perceive will be a partially transparent front sight, with the 1/2" green dot directly behind it. Because the green dot is completely obscured by your front sight, you must use both eyes correctly in order to get a sight picture and hit the dot. You should see one target slightly out of focus, and two transparent front sights. The one in focus should be the one that is properly aligned with the rear, and the other one should be off to the side and can be ignored.

Play with this sight picture. You will discover that you can eventually shift between eyes, from seeing a solid sight that completely obscures the dot, to fading away to where you see the dot perfectly, and the sight all but disappears. With the different focal points of your eyes, you should be able to see the dot with greater clarity than most of us, which is a definite advantage. This will be especially true the further away the target is from the front sight. Many competitive shooters have glasses made with two different natural focal points for just this reason, so nature has given you an advantage that other people have to lean on specialized equipment to achieve.

Anyways, I hope this makes sense, and helps you out. If you want to hit the range some time and try out some different sight picture training techniques, hit me up.