shooting.......

6486 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by david, Jun 11, 2004

goon

Discussion Starter · May 17, 2004

would it be okay to shoot with my weak eye? I'm more comfortable left handed than right handed. in fact i can barely do anything using my right hand. I have trained my weak left eye to focus in at long distances. I mean if I put my hand up to my face and look with my weak eye it's blurry. but if I were to look at something say 5 yards away or more the vision just gets clearer. Or should I shoot with my dominant eye? I would really like to know cause it'll take a while to train myself to shoot right handed and I want to know if I really need to go through the trouble.

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DR308

· #2 · May 17, 2004

Goon: Yes, you can train to shoot with your NON-DOMINANT eye. [there is no "weak" anything on a true shooter] It can only strengthen your nondominant eye. I think the key is switching everything around to the other side when you are on the range doing your regular thing. That way you will develop muscle memory on both sides pretty close to the same time. But, do not forget to work your dominant eye with your non-dominant hand. Try to get a well rounded shooting ability as you train. Remember, TRAIN HARD - FIGHT EASY! :wink:

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badshot

· #3 · May 17, 2004

DR,

What would you do if your right handed and your left eye is dominant? I have learned to shoot left handed and have taken deer at 100 yards and less. I didnt get a shot off at the deer of a lifetime because it was 250 yards and I couldnt shoot right handed at the time (broken right collar bone) and I wasn't sure of my abilities left handed on a shot that far. The next day I took the 11 point the bigger deer ran off the day before left handed at about 100 yards. Should I go ahead and train myself to shoot both hands the same at distance?

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DR308

· #4 · May 17, 2004

Badshot: First off, let me say that you showed excellent judgement in NOT TAKING THE SHOT. Thank you! No sense in taking a chance wounding an animal just cause you wanted to not miss a shot. You are a true hunter and we are glad to have you in our ranks. Second off, mabey you had better change the name BADSHOT. You seem to do just fine. That eleven pointer should prove that.

OK: Yes, I practice using both eyes and both right and left handed shooting on my rifles and my pistols. I am much better with a pistol left handed than I am with a rifle left sided. Shooting a rifle othersided is very tough for some people, myself included. But I still try. I must say though that I always shoot rightsided when I am at a match, or when I get called out on a incident. Always go with your best effort when the chips are down. You can also try putting a patch over your left eye to force the right eye to get stronger. This will take awhile, and I would only do it around the house, watching TV, reading, things like that only! Don't go driving around town, or fly an airplane or some crap like that. Than after a while, you can try it at the range. Try it while your sitting at a bench. Take five rounds on your left side, than 5 on your right side. You will be amazed at the improvement in your accuracy. Hope this will help you out some.

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badshot

· #5 · May 17, 2004

To be honest I think buck fever had a little more to do with me not getting the shot off than good judgement. I do think that my lack of knowledge of my shooting abilities played into the buck fever a little also. It didn't help that I stopped counting points at 14 and had a 23-24 inch spread standing still there in front of me broad side looking at the little 11 point I got the next day. The story behind the 11 is a pretty good one. To make the long version short I had to watch him for 2 1/2 hours before he finally gave me a halfway decent shot at the base of his neck. He sure is pretty on my wall now though.

Buck fever..........gotta love the rush.

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david

· #6 · Jun 6, 2004

badshot, have you ever seen the 1990 film "wings of the apache"? i think it's called "fire birds" in the US.

one of the pilots has a dominant left eye, and a good section of the film is about him training his right aye by covering his left etc, he needed his right eye dominant to use the IHADSS of the aircraft.

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badshot

· #7 · Jun 7, 2004

Was that the movie with Clint Eastwood where he snuck into Russia and stole that top secret super-plane? If so yes. I didn't come to find out my left eye was as dominant as it is until I had been shooting archery tournaments for several years. I was helping out at our local club with a youth group and a couple of the kids would draw right handed and try to aim using their left eye. To find out which eye was their dominant eye my shooting coach told me to get a paper tube from a roll of paper towels and just tell the kids to look thru the tube at one of the targets. Whichever eye they just instinctively used was their dominant eye. Now imagine someone in their early 30's just learning that all those years of shooting deer right handed and with my right eye I wasn't using my dominant eye. I asked my dad why I shot right handed and he said that when I was a kid i tried shooting left handed. He made me shoot right handed since all we had were right handed guns. To this day I still shoot right handed and use my right eye and dont own a single left handed gun.

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david

· #8 · Jun 8, 2004

no no that was firefox, another old school classic.

i just ordered wings of the apache off ebay, at least 10 years since i've seen it. From what i remember, it's an amazing film.

on the topic of dexterity etc, i know a guy who's not only ambidextrous but completely symmetrical in dominance (eyes, arms, legs, hands) (not sure if there's a term for that). Talk about co-ordination. You can teach yourself to be ambidextrous, but also to switch over eye domination. It just takes time, like learning a piano piece until you don't need the music in front of you anymore.

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Archangelboy

· #9 · Jun 10, 2004

Fire Birds was great. I don't know if I'd recommend their method of adjusting eye dominance :shock:

I'm acutally left eye dominant, but to this point have shot pretty much right handed and right eyed. The patch would probably make the other eye adjust, but I like Dr. 308's suggestion even more. Practice ambidexterity, and if you ever reach it, kudos. If not, use what works when the chips are down.......

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mele

· #10 · Jun 10, 2004

DR308 makes some very good points, and is correct.

I am right handed, left eye dominant. BUT, you can train yourself to shoot right eyed pretty easy. The way I did it was everytime I brought the firearm up to aim, I would actually close my left eye. This would force me to aim and use my right eye. It took a while, but now I naturally make the adjustment (even without closing my left eye) and focus/aim with the right eye. All of the traditional tests still show me being left eye dominant, but I naturally use my right eye to aim now.

Now, everyone in a tactical position, should do as dr308 suggests and practice opposite hand shooting. Most the time, you don't have an ideal hide to shoot from and have to adapt. This might involve shooting weak handed in order to limit exposure or to get the best shot off. It will sure help if you already have some experience doing it before you have to do it in the real world!

MEL

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david

· #11 · Jun 11, 2004

just to reinforce this: it's better not to close your left eye if you are training your right to be dominant. Dominance only has an effect if both eyes are sending info to your brain. It applies when there are 2 very different images coming in, you find it easiest to focus on the image that your dominant eye is receiving. I'm not sure if just closing your strong eye will strengthen your weak in this sense, but if you cover the strong eye with a translucent patch and keep it open, like some people use in target shooting, that will definately help.

keeping both eyes open is a personal preference for long range shooting, but for pistol shooting especially in a tactical context it's much better to have both eyes open for a better awareness and avoiding tunnel vision down your line of sight. Obviously you should make sure you're able to do that before you try it when lives are at stake.

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