Left or right eye dominace and shooting

wildmanh

wildmanh

Part time Leather Bender/Sheath maker
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In the First Squirrel thread Yvsa posted about left eye and right eye dominance being an issue when shooting. So we don't Hijack Toms thread I thought I'd start another one.

About a month ago my friend William and I went on a double date with two lovely girls from our apartment complex. We took them shooting. One was my friend Shanna who's been shooting with me a few times before and the other is a new girl named Karrie. We all had a great time at the range, after wards we stopped by a farmers market and got fresh fruit then ordered Pizzas and enjoyed them at Shanna's apartment.

While we were shooting Karrie noted that she was right handed but thought she was left eye dominate. She shot the rifles and pistols with her left hand and did pretty good for someone thats only done it once before. I thought it was really neat that she reconized that and compensated for it. :thumbup:

Some people think you are crazy they say that if you are right handed you shoot right handed or left handed for a left handed person and that all this stuff about which eye is dominate is hogwash. Personally I think those people are crazy. I was born blind in my right eye I think my condition is called Baby eye syndrom or something like that. It's where one eye never fully developes so it's always much smaller then the other one. Most if not all the time the person is also blind in that eye like I am. Anyways, I'm right handed but learned over the years to be ambidextris. So I've been shooting with my left eye for ever. Though I've found I can shoot a pistol relatively well with my right hand and for the most part I prefer doing it that way. I've even shot a shot gun right handed it was hard but was able to hit 2 out of 5 clay pigions. Missed the first 3 then hit the last 2.

Learning which is your dominate eye is a good thing. I hope others will share there stories in this thread so Tom's thread stays about Squirrels. Thanks,

Heber
 
Here's the quote from Yvsa's post in the other thread:

Yvsa said:
Too go off topic a bit but important to everyone's potential shooting skill and especially kids or new shooters....:o
Something to be aware of when a kid gets his/her first gun and can't seem to hit anything they aim at whether they are right or left handed, or right or left eyed. My son Sam is right handed....

My old man bought a BB gun for my son at a little too early age so he was only allowed to shoot with an adult's supervision which turned out to be a very good thing as well as me having eye problems at an even younger age! :eek:
In spite of everything I told Sam to do he couldn't hit the broadside of the proverbial red barn! It finally dawned on me that Sam might be having the same problem I once had and still have to some extent ---- so I had him act like he was shooting a pistol by putting his arm straight out with his finger pointing at what he wanted to shoot with his opposite eye closed and then opening the other eye so both were open and then tell me if his finger moved off the target.
Then to put his other arm out, close the opposite eye and do the same thing and again tell me if his finger moved off target.
Naturally Sam started by putting his right arm out and closing his left eye. When he opened his left eye his right finger moved, "Way off the target!!!!" his words. Then Sam put his left arm out, closed his right eye, and no surprise to me his left finger remained on target when he opened his right eye!!!!:thumbup:
Even though Sam was/is right handed he was/is Left Eyed! I then had Sam try shooting left handed and his aim improved remarkably and instantly, problem solved! :cool:
Sam has thanked me over and over and especially when he went into the Army and had to qualify with a rifle, he told me, "Dad if it wasn't for you teaching me to shoot left handed I would never have qualified with the AR-15 and I want you to know just how much I appreciate you taking the time to figure out what my problem was. I owe my career in the Army to you and I thank you for that!" Made me feel really good, still does.:D At least I was able to give him that.:thumbup:
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I am left eye dominant and somewhat ambidextrous. I seem to be able to shoot about the same with either hand with a pistol. With long guns I shoot right handed and don't seem to have much of an issue.

I fell onto lava rocks when I was on vacation in Hawaii and I smashed the right side of my face up pretty good. As I was falling I saw a large pointed rock rushing at my right eye and I remember thinking, "Oh, I'm going to lose my right eye, but that's OK as I focus my camera and shoot with my left eye." My orbital ridge did it's job and protected the eye, but it's funny how your mind works in a crisis.
 
I'm left handed but right-eye dominant. Bringing it to khukuris and swords, I'd point out that those of us who are goofy-eyed (or goofy-handed) have to be a little careful about how we chop, too.

I originally learned to shoot (not too well) left-handed, and one thing I'm going to have to do is learn to shoot right-handed.

F
 
When I was a marksmanship instructor for my unit in the Air Force, I ran across a few people who were cross-dominate. It isn't too hard to overcome as your girlfriend found out. Actually, if you are right hand dominate and left-eyed dominate, all you have to do is roll your head over just a little more while in the weaver stance and you'll be bang on.

My worse student (who happened to be my wife at the time also) took forever to realize that making that little adjustment would increase her accuracy (she thought it was too easy of a fix). Once the light bulb turned on, she was hitting 10 rings every shot. Being ambidextrous is handy too and I think everyone should learn how to shoot weak handed anyway. But it is easy to overcome.
 
ACStudios said:
When I was a marksmanship instructor for my unit in the Air Force, I ran across a few people who were cross-dominate. It isn't too hard to overcome as your girlfriend found out. Actually, if you are right hand dominate and left-eyed dominate, all you have to do is roll your head over just a little more while in the weaver stance and you'll be bang on.

My worse student (who happened to be my wife at the time also) took forever to realize that making that little adjustment would increase her accuracy (she thought it was too easy of a fix). Once the light bulb turned on, she was hitting 10 rings every shot. Being ambidextrous is handy too and I think everyone should learn how to shoot weak handed anyway. But it is easy to overcome.
Click to expand...

Rolling your head is exactly what I do so I can shoot right handed. Thanks for the story. :)

Heber
 
Eye dominance is important to establish, but is far more important in long gun shooting than handgun shooting.

Stances used to fire long guns require far more asymmetric dedication. What that means is that the stock must contact your body on one side of your head or the other (d'oh!). And, most long gun shooting is done with the non-dominant eye closed. Not so with pistol shooting.

As AC Studios said, when shooting a pistol, the fix is as easy as simply turning your head slightly, no other adjustment is necessary.

Andy
 
When a rifle and shotgun instructor I encountered many people who were "wrong-eyed" (or "wrong-handed") and came up with two common situations:

Right-handed people with left-eye dominance were actually left-handed too, but were 'trained' to be right handed at an early age.

People with glasses were often mixed up. A result of corrective prescription lenses? I didn't keep statistics and I don't know what % of the population wears glasses, but 4-eyed shooters seemed to be more likely to be backwards.

I would encourage new shooters to try to shoot wrong-handed to match their eye dominance. Sometimes it worked, but students with previous shooting experience often found it too awkward. Simply closing the dominant eye and forcing the non-dominant eye to aim is not the best long-term solution IMO, but the quickest workaround for a one-hour class.
 
My little brother is left-handed and right-eyed. (Describing him as "cross-dominant" sounds too much like he wears leather dresses or something)

He shoots long guns right-handed and handguns left-handed- mostly- but he does a fair job either way.

I have had a number of minor injuries to my right eye, and I believe my left has begun to compensate. I don't shoot nearly as much as I used to, and have effectively given up archery because I couldn't see squat anymore. I've been thinking about getting back into it, and trying to adjust, or maybe even get a left-handed bow.
 
Great thread, Heber:) It sort of ties into a question i was going to ask about pump action shotguns and the shell ejection. I'll probably just start another thread about it later:)

I'm all kinds of goofed up when it comes to eye/hand dominance. I haven't shot a lot of handguns, but the few times that I have I find that I am more comfortable shooting with my right...just slightly. Actually, I would say that I am less uncomfortable shooting with my right than my left. Neither feels extremely natural, but a lot of that probably has to do with form and minimal training. However, shooting long arms, drawing a bow, and even bowling, I am much more comfortable with my left hand. I would say that I am probably left eye dominate.

To be honest, I haven't shot in a good long time to see if any of this holds water. My father-in-law just bought my mother-in-law a 12 gauge "door greeter" for the RV for protection after he is gone. She is 100% clueless about firearms, and will have a lot of work to do to be able to hit the broadside of a barn with her shoulder still in socket. Heck, they brought ME along for advice, and about the only things that I am qualified to tell them is which end of the weapon is the business end. Please note, that I did parrot quite a bit of info that I have learned from your guys over the years...and yes you did get your credit:p:o
At any rate, we are due to go to the gun range the next time they either stop back by or the next time the wife and I are in Louisville. We'll see how much worse I've gotten then:
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I'm all kinds of goofed up when it comes to eye/hand dominance. I haven't shot a lot of handguns, but the few times that I have I find that I am more comfortable shooting with my right...just slightly. Actually, I would say that I am less uncomfortable shooting with my right than my left. Neither feels extremely natural, but a lot of that probably has to do with form and minimal training. However, shooting long arms, drawing a bow, and even bowling, I am much more comfortable with my left hand. I would say that I am probably left eye dominate.
Click to expand...

Steely, when you refer to "left" or "right", are you talking about eyes or hands?

Andy
 
Bob W said:
When a rifle and shotgun instructor I encountered many people who were "wrong-eyed" (or "wrong-handed") and came up with common situations:

Right-handed people with left-eye dominance were actually left-handed too, but were 'trained' to be right handed at an early age.
Click to expand...


I'm in sort of the same boat... I'm left-eyed and left-handed, but in the process of attempting to convert me to right-handedness, my parents only succeeded in making me right-armed... so the right is for strength-based tasks, and the left is for control-based ones... weird, huh...
 
dumdeedum said:
I'm in sort of the same boat... I'm left-eyed and left-handed, but in the process of attempting to convert me to right-handedness, my parents only succeeded in making me right-armed... so the right is for strength-based tasks, and the left is for control-based ones... weird, huh...
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting!! :) I was the same as you till I accidentally severed 4 tendons in my left wrist. Having to teach a hand how to do stuff again after after almost 22 years is intersting. I'm glad my mom let me use which ever I was most comfortable with while growning up. :)

So the question is, which had do you shoot a rifle with and do you shoot a pistol with the same one?

Heber
 
shooting a pistol: right hand... left side isn't as steady with objects heavier than a pencil/fork as the right... though I found out about my left-eye tendency my freshman year (UNC!!!) when I was playing duck-hunt (one of the guys in my dorm a few years ago had an original NES!!...yes, I'm not even close to Doc-C's age... hope he doesn't hang around the cantina) and found that I was shutting my right eye while shooting with my right hand... I closed my left eye and started shooting right-eyed, and became significantly better, then shot left-handed and left-eyed, and the results were similarly improved over the original configuration... though with a real handgun I'd have to use the right since both arm and shoulder are steadier on that side... so yes, I am a weirdo... haha :)
 
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