Which is your dominant eye/hand

[Matt_G]

Right handed and left eye dominant. Shoot everything right handed. Tried shooting left handed and just can't do it.
So I close or patch my left eye when shooting.

[KY_Camper]

I am right handed, right eye dominate. My wife is right handed, left eye dominate and does fine with pistols but has a lot of trouble with rifles. I was at the range Friday and a young lady was there as a new shooter and was having a lot of trouble before it was figured out she was left eye dominate. We showed her how to shoot left handed and she did real well. She very quickly went from very frustrated to very happy!

[KCSO]

I have been cross dominant for most of my life and so I shoot handgun right handed both eyes open and the gun toward the left side. I shoot shotgun both eyse open and simply look at the TARGET and rifle I shoot right handed with the left eye closed, but... After arecent trip to the eye doctor I find that my left eye is getting weaker and now I have almost NO dominance and can for the most part shoot everything with both eyes open. This would be a lot nicer if the eyes were stronger but 20-30 corrected is about the best the Doc can do.

[TCLouis]

My plan to experiment starting this year is to pull a pistol over in front of me enough to cross right handed with left eye dominance.
Just for experimental purposes for now.
Likely will start AFTER seasons.

[uncle joe]

I have always been a left handed (Rifle) shooter and left eye dominant.
UNTIL July.
I always shot left handed mostly because I could not 'wink' my left eye, so I just used it to shoot.
In April I had a work related accident and spent the next two months in ICU and having 13 surgeries for skin grafts. when I woke I had a funny looking blind spot in my left eye's center of vision. Dr says it is nerve damage from either low blood pressure or low oxygen from the ventilator.
SO now I'm right handed and my right eye is in the process of taking over the dominatrix role.
Should be an interesting hunting season, hope I don't screw up much meat.

[R.C. Hatter]

I am left handed and am left eye dominant. That said, I shoot handguns with my right hand, and long guns off my left shoulder.

[Moonie]

Right handed left eye here. I shoot pistols with right hand and left eye. Rifles I shoot right handed and close my left (dominant) eye. When I used to shoot long distance target I would use a blinder on the left side of my scope so I could keep the dominant eye open, you can see better with both eyes open, even when using just one.

[cbrick]

For several years it was shoot handgun right handed with left eye, clear sights, clear target. That was the good old days. Then came that pesky legally blind in both eyes thing. Really tough to hit anything when you can't see sights or target but I kept trying. Then eye surgery and it's a whole new world now.

Now it's not nearly as good as it once was but still a huge improvemnet. After the surgery and with 2 corrective lenses (a distance lens and a diopter to reduce distance and help with the sights) and fuzzy sights and fuzzy targets the right eye is a bit better for distance than the left so for now it's right/right.

The good old days, never knew how good I had it till I didn't have it. Shooting, casting, loading are still passions, just no longer score nearly as well as I once took for granted.

Rick

[mike in co]

your poll is incomplete....

i am right handed. left eye dominate...

i shoot pistols right handed, rifle and shot gun left hand.....


mike in co

[KYCaster]

your poll id incomplete....

i am right handed. left eye dominate...

i shoot pistols right handed, rifle and shot gun left hand.....


mike in co

OK, I have to agree. There are a couple of things I didn't anticipate. One of them is people like you who shoot long guns from the opposite side as handguns. What can I say Mikey....you're just weird!

Another mistake I admit to....option #5 should have been "I don't have a dominant eye", but I chose a feeble attempt at humor, so I just ASS-U-ME that those who chose #5 are screwed up like I am.

Anywhooooo........even though the poll doesn't reveal any big surprises, it does answer some questions I've pondered. There are still some questions unanswered....(more on that later).

There some interesting responses I want to address, but not yet having mastered the "multiple quote" thingy, I'll address them individually.

Thanks all for your participation.

Jerry

[KYCaster]

I am right eye and right handed. However I was always taught in the cases of cross dominance on handguns have the shooter hold the gun in his/her dominant hand and aim using the dominant eye by simply cocking your head a bit. However when using rifles or shotguns use whichever side is the dominant eye, and if the shooter just can’t get the hang of it simply shoot with your dominant hand and close or dot your dominant eye…

That seems to be the consensus, and the one BIG thing this poll tells me is that no matter which eye or hand is dominant, almost everyone is able to compensate for their individual situation.....THE MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING!!



My wife is left eye and right handed. She shoots handguns righty and rifles and shotguns lefty, and she shoots good enough for me to not want to make her angry.

It seems your wife shares that trait with Mike in CO. That's one of the things I didn't anticipate, so without the input we won't know how often that occurs.

Thanks for your reply.

Jerry

Edit to add....I just reviewed the thread and find I should have done it before I posted this message.

It looks like, along with 2ndAmendmentNut's wife and Mike in CO, there are several others who share the handgun-right, long gun-left affliction. RayinNH, Starbits, Doc Highwall, and Fire Bricker all report the same thing, with lwknight, troy mcclure and Johnch being ambidextrous with long guns.

Factor that into the poll and it becomes the third largest answer, with nine responses...that is a bit surprising.

[AZ-Stew]

I usually read all the other posts before I respond, but for this one, I'll wing it, then go back and see what everyone else has to say.

For the first 50 years or so of my life, I was left eye dominant. I'm right handed. There's no way I could shoot left handed and keep both eyes open, since I had little fine motor control over left handed activities, nor could I keep both eyes open while shooting right handed, since I couldn't see the sights. The left eye took over, leaving me looking at the left side of the front sight and not seeing the rear sight at all. I compensated for this by closing my left eye while shooting. For the life of me, I can't figure out why "knowledgeable" shooters DEMAND that shooters work with both eyes open. Closing my left eye while shooting is as natural to me as squeezing the trigger with my right index finger.

Then I had Lasik done on both eyes about 10 years ago. The work was perfect on my right eye (20-15), and not so good on the left (don't know the numbers, but it sucks). The human brain is an amazing thing. Upon healing, I immediately became right eye dominant. Even so, I still shoot with my left eye closed. It helps me concentrate on the sights. With both eyes open, even though my right eye is now able to see both sights with both eyes open, the additional information from my left eye is a big distraction. I just don't want to see it.

All the above has always applied for all types of firearms.

That's my take on it.

Regards,

Stew

[KevMT]

My son is right handed and left eye dominant. I have been unable to persuade him to try left handed shooting. He does pretty good with a scoped rifles but was having trouble with shotguns. I got him an easy hit sight for his shotgun which seems to help quite a bit but if he is having a bad day he begins closing his left eye when shooting clays.

I am right handed right eye dominant but not strongly so. I put an easy hit on my shotgun and it seems to have helped somewhat for me too.

The easy hit sight is made so that you only see it with the aiming eye and cant see it with the other eye allowing you to leave both eyes open.

The new Burris "speed bead" would seem to be the ideal solution to this problem but it is pretty expensive.

[KYCaster]

I'd have to say I shoot right and am left eye dominant. I found out many years ago that I was left eye dominant. When shooting right handed, I am able to aim using my right eye. I have been doing this so long it feels natural. If I shoot left handed and using my left eye, it takes me longer but my groups tend to be smaller.

This is one of the things that I have always been curious about. I have known three people who changed from shooting right handed to left handed for a short period of time to give their tennis elbow a chance to heal. It's a very common affliction among action pistol shooters, usually caused by dry fire practice. Snatching a two pound gun out of a holster for hours on end takes its toll. Rather than stop participating, they chose to change their style. All of them suffered a set back on their initial change, but were able to improve substantially before they switched back to right hand shooting. I didn't notice (and didn't ask) at the time if they chose to aim with the same eye.

So this leads to the question, "How easy (or hard) is it to force yourself to overcome your eye/hand dominance?"

Jerry

Edit to add....After reading SR Custom's post about switch-hitting, I want to address that....

When baseball players make it to the big leagues and find that their skills don't quite measure up to what's required to participate at that level, it's not unusual for the batting coach to make them switch to the other side of the plate. It forces them to learn the fundamentals from square one without having to deal with the bad habits they developed earlier.

My point is...given a reasonable amount of manual dexterity and desire, anything is possible.

[AZ-Stew]

So this leads to the question, "How easy (or hard) is it to force yourself to overcome your eye/hand dominance?" Jerry

My comments on this issue are in Post #32.

Regards,

Stew

[KYCaster]

I was left/left until Pars Planitis started affecting left eye vision with vitreous floaters/anterior cells/epiretinal membrane, now dominance is shifting to the right very gradually. Didn't notice how much until I got to where I couldn't hit anything with a shotgun. Put dots on the central-vision are of the right shooting lense and forced dominance shift back to left. Works ok for shooting clays if I put the glasses on when I get up on a shooting day and wear them until I'm finished, it takes a while for the brain to tune back to the left with all the garbage/glare/haze in the left eye. Have to make it choose between the less of two bad vision inputs, and some days I have to increase the density of the dots on the right lens to exceed the floaters in the other eye.

Anyway, I checked shoot with both eyes closed because that's what it seems like sometimes, especially with open-sighted rifles.

Gear

I can certainly relate to the floaters...it's frustrating when you have that perfect sight picture on the X ring and a squid goes swimmin' across your sights. I sometimes have to lay the gun down for a while till the floater finds another location.

What really intrigues me is the "forced dominance shift" you mention. One HUGE thing I see from the responses here is how adaptable we can be. More about this later.

Jerry

[OutHuntn84]

As a kid I was right eye and right hand dominate. Then just one day it changed and I was left eye dominate, no idea what happened. For pistol I just pull the gun over to line up with my right eye and can keep both eyes open and can shoot quite well that way. For long gun I have to close my left eye to shoot. If given time to concentrate I can shift my focus over to right but it's hard and even harder to keep the focus. I have tried many things to try and get my eyes to change back to right eye dominate, but to no avail.
Any one have any ideas or links? Is it even possible to force change your eye dominance, not just cope with it?

[DIRT Farmer]

Right/ Right When I started in law enforcement we had a hard case instructor. At right barricade he required you to shoot R/R, and at left barricade L/L. It drove me nuts for a while but because I had to learn I did. I got to where I could shoot L/L both eyes open at 80-85% as I could R/R, it took practice and in theroy(his) in combat shooting you need both eyes open all the time. Not so good with my left as I don't pratice it mutch. My oldest son was tought to shoot a M16 from both sides as you never know where the threat isgoing to be. Makes sence.

[Tom-ADC]

Mainly bothers me when I shoot skeet, trap etc but I put a strip of scotch tape on the left lense of my shooting glasses and that seems to have cured it, I can still shoot a 25 straight now and then. No problem with the rifles or hand guns I close the left eye but shotguns I shoot both eyes open.

[KYCaster]

Interesting! I am right eye dominant and shoot right handed but when using a camera I use my left eye. I also have tried to keep both eyes open when shooting but I can't do it. Oh well! my wife just says I am weird and she may be right. In fact she is never wrong.

I just couldn't pass this one up....I thought I married Ms. Right...found out too late her first name was Always!

Anywhoooo......I gained some insight into this eye/hand/coordination/dominance thing when my kids were playing little league sports. This was back when we were debating VHS vs. BETA (I lost). You youngsters don't even know what I'm talking about, but a cam-corder cost four months salary and it didn't come with that flip out viewing screen, you had to stick the eye-piece right up against your eye (hence the name). You didn't get a choice, it was right eye or nothing.

So yer lookin through this view-finder with yer left eye closed and by the third inning your vision is blurred and you have a pounding headache. So you finally open your left eye just to get a little relief from the pain and you realize that you can actually aim the camera with both eyes open. Not only that, but when you zoom in to 10X to see your kid shag that line drive and make a perfect throw to second base for the third out, you can keep up with the rest of the action on the field with your left eye.

That was nothing short of an epiphany...your mind actually processes the input from both eyes independently. Maybe that's old news to you guys, but it kinda blew me away at the time. It gave me a whole different perspective on sight picture/sight alignment (scope or irons).

Jerry