Was watching this TV show and someone on the show said something that made me empty my gun and give it a try. What was said is you should shoot with you dominant eye but keep both eyes open. Let me say right off the bat that if this is the norm then I'm sorry I didn't know. Cause I tried it and that **** is hard to do. My head is hurting right now. What is the benefit in doing this and how many of you use it?
It's like using a single-ocluar microscope: you focus on the subject with one eye but keep both eyes open. Your brain does the rest. Have you ever done the dominant-eye check? This trains the brain to process an image from the dominant eye, while preventing extraneous movement of muscles (by closing the non-dominant eye). It also helps, with practice, to expand the visual processing of the scene (the so-called tunnel vision)....movement in the periphery can be caught by the non-dominant eye, and helps to keep situational awareness. Tunnel vision is as natural as it is unavoidable. I shoot pistols and scoped rifles with both eyes open, and iron-sighted rifles with non-dominant eye closed. There is no black and white set in concrete declaration that it must be done this way. You work with whatever method works best for you! Cheers!
I want to try to do it. Its just hard for me to focus. Its like I see the front sight and when i blink I don't anymore. Not easy to do, at least for me it isn't.
Yah. Keep your eyes focused on the front sight as you move the gun around. Not where Elmo is looking! LOL
I am cross eye dominant, meaning that my left eye is dominant but I am right handed. I learned to shoot right handed before I heard of eye dominance. As a younger kid, as I am only 18, I have shot countless long guns. I can shoot them left or right eye/handed. I was an expert marksman in JROTC on the Pellet Rifle Team. Now that I am getting into pistol shooting, it's a whole new game. The distance between by eye and the rear sight is much further, and the distance between the front and rear sights are much closer. It will take some range time to figure out my exact shooting style, but I think I'll be able to tackle it just fine. Training with my bb gun in the backyard in between range visits will help me acquire sight picture, and muscle memory. I plan to get an Umarex SA177, a blowback glock styled bb gun, to aid in at home training. Find a training buddy, cause you can't always see your own errors.
I hear you on that. I was playing around with it earlier and Im starting to get it. True test is going to be this saturday. Going to break in the brand new gun and work this technique.
I'm able to do it quite well I believe naturally, it always seemed more logical to do than close my left eye.
I have the same issue. Sucks sometimes but I am more accurate on the left side but more comfortable on my right. I agree that it takes tiem with being comfortable with your shooting style. Happysniper1 is right about the frontsight. In the Front Sight training course in NV, the first thing they teach you is to look at *Drum roll*........ yep... the Front Sight. I went to a 2day course and it really helped me with my pistol skills as I am a rifle shooter.
Since I've been shooting i've been on the front sight. I just had one eye closed and the other open. Doing it with both eyes open is new to me. But I think im getting the hang of it.
It takes a little getting used to, especially if you've been shooting with the other eye closed. Absolutely no question about that. Once you get it down, though, you get to where you can't really tell the difference. There's none of the ghost images or bluriness. The one I have trouble with is not blinking. It's a natural reflex, so it's hard to keep from blinking when the gun goes boom.
I've always shot pistols with both eyes open, but eventually I also trained myself to shoot scoped rifles with both eyes open to. Now it feels completely unnatural to try and close an eye. Both open is definitely the way to go.
The best way to train yourself to shoot with both eyes open is put a peace of scotch tape on your shooting glasses over your weak eye. To find out why you should shoot with both eyes open take your gun and aim with one eye closed, then open your weak eye and pretend there's a bad guy pointing a gun at you right in that blind spot. Always keep both eyes open in a combat or self defense situation.
You might look at Center Axis Relock (google it, youtube it) as it has a rather interesting method of dealing with dual sight picture and it might make it easier to train your eyes to deal with it in more traditional stances. Caveat: I've never been trained in CAR, I've just seen it described and demonstrated. YMMV. I noticed that blink/flinch reflex with pistols as well, and I remember when I was younger and shooting skeet at summer camp, the instructor CONSTANTLY berated me for it, (even though I ended up winning third prize in the skeet competition that year). I didn't think I could do anything about it. I discovered something interesting when I started reloading. I was testing out a problematic batch, and was watching the cases as they came out of the gun. The batch was loaded a little light, and the shells were mostly just "dribbling" out of the gun instead of ejecting with any real authority. I wasn't focused on any particular target, just firing into the side of a hill and paying attention to how well the gun was handling the reloaded shells. It wasn't until later that I realized that if I was watching them as they ejected, I couldn't have been blinking as it happened. My suggestion to you is to try point-shooting. Don't sight the gun, just point at a silhouette target at 10 to 15 feet and pull the trigger. Try doing as I did, and focus on the shell ejecting instead of the gun going bang, and you should be able to overcome that flinch pretty quickly. You might try some quick double taps, see if you can observe both cartridges as they eject. If you can observe the shells as they eject and begin their arc out to the right, you can't be flinching, and you should be able to get from there to flinchless sighted fire pretty easily.
I started shooting with both eyes about 20 years ago. I was shooting archery competitions and at the end of the day I had a terrible headaches. One day a senior shooter told me that it was from eye fatigue from squinting with one eye. From that day on I have shot everything with both eyes open. No more headaches. You can change your dominate eye by wearing a patch over what is your dominant eye now. Then after some time the weaker eye will become the dominate eye. Read and know a few people who have done it.
I had the same problem as blackwolfcf, right handed but left eye dominant. It took some training and practice but, I can now shoot equally well with either eye and always shoot with both eyes open which is especially handy when doing off hand shooting. What I learned to do is look through the scope (or sights) with my right eye while looking down range at the target with my left eye. It sounds weird and will indeed give you a headache at first but with practice, your eyes will begin to relax and focus the way you need them to.
it was hard for me at first to learn to keep both open. but i was always taught from early years from my grandpa, that keeping both eyes open helps you see the big picture, which he meant, movement from all angles,etc. plus it keeps from having a blind side. you can locate your target faster," not saying you will shot more accurate,but more defensive". but its what ever your more comfortable with.
