Eye VS. Hand Dominance

[jride200]

So I'm right handed but left eye dominant. Shooting 22s at scout camp (my only experience with rifles) and shooting handguns at an indoor range, I believe I have more difficulty with marksmanship that what can be attributed to a lack of practice. I currently try to shoot right handed and right eyed.

I've searched, but I cannot seem to find any answers: How does the military train a mutt like me to use rifles? How does the military train a person like me to use handguns? Going into the Navy, I will likely never be trained to use a rifle, but I'd like to know, for myself, before I develop bad habits or form.

BTW do you think this mismatch of eye and hand dominance affect my chances of getting jets? Totally kidding.

JR

 

[scoober78]

My father-in-law is left handed and right eye dominant. He is a pretty damn good Trap and Skeet competitor and he forced himself to shoot right handed. In shotgun shooting, because it is effectively natural point of aim at its most pure, you have to obey the eyes and shoot with the dominant one.

From what I have heard, this carries over to open sighted weapons as well. Since your eye is effectively part of the sighting apparatus you must use the dominant eye, vice the preferred hand or you will have sight alignment issues. Again, I can't say this with 100% certainty...but it makes sense, and your experience seems to support it as well.

Scoped rifles may be a different beast since your eye is much less important in the overall sighting system/target alignment equation, although on this I am guessing.

Lastly, as for how the military would teach you...I have no idea. I didn't learn to shoot (really, they taught me how to operate some weapons...240G etc...) in the military. One of the Marines may be able to help you here.

My advice? Teach yourself to operate the weapon based on your dominant eye. It will make life easier.

 

[FLY_USMC]

I wouldn't worry about it at all. I'm right handed and left eye dominant. Whether you can change your eye dominance or not, I don't care, no one has a problem with you shooting a rifle left handed in the field or during rifle/pistol qual. I do, however, still shoot a pistol in right-handed weaver stance. You will never be a heavy machine-gunner for real, because for instance, the 240G is only shot right handed, because of the way the Marine Corps trains A-Gunners to assist in rifle stability and loading, they can't/don't do it from the other side. E Dog gunners can call me out, but this is what I was told at TBS, though I lugged the 240G and SAW around a lot. You immediate action items for the M-16 as well as reloading will be a bit weird as well. You're taught to reload with your non-pistol grip hand, but I always kept my mags on my left side for one reason or another, so I always loaded with my grip hand, probably not tactically sound. I seem to remember a couple other gotchas shooting left handed, like shells pelting you in the head during qual, but OTT, no big deal. BTW, you will get some nasty bruises on your inner right arm shooting the SAW left handed from the shells ejecting into it if you're manipulating/traversing it extreme rights and lefts IOT lay some mofo's down.

 

[xmid]

Just learn to shoot with the other hand. I'm right handed left eye dominant and never really had a problem with rifles, because your eye is kinda forced to align itself off your cheekweld. Handguns on the other hand used to give me fits because the left eye would take over. I wore a patch over my left eye for about 3 months and became right eye dominant before plebe summer. But about 6 months in to school I found out I went back to being left eye dominant while trying to qualify for the combat arms team. I learned to shoot left handed (really not that hard) and later trained to use both hands interchangeably (I thought this was considerably harder to do). So shoot with the other hand and you'll probably notice some improvement pretty quick.

 

[WishICouldFly]

I wore a patch over my left eye

Did you use rifles like this for marksmanship?

 

[WishICouldFly]

To the OP:
I am also left eye dominant, right handed. When firing the M-16, I was told to fire left-handed...it may be helpful to train that way, too, especially if you are anticipating having to switch from your long arm to your sidearm.
I am comfortable firing a sidearm right handed, and crossing my face over to aim out of my left eye, if that makes sense.
This way, you can switch quickly from a left handed grip on your rifle to draw your sidearm with your right hand and transition into a right handed grip.

 

[FSF17]

Good question. I'm right-handed, left-eye dominant, too... I shoot rifles left handed, but hate left-handed rifles. Handguns, on the other hand, are harder for me to shoot. A lefty stance is uncomfortable, but I'm gonna try to get used to it.

 

[FLY_USMC]

There's no need for a lefty stance when firing hand guns, the front facing stance, or semi-front semi-weaver, or whatever the technical term is, works absolutely fine.

 

[gaijin6423]

My wife is cross-eye dominant (left eye dominant; right handed), and had all kinds of problems with target acquisition, sight alignment/picture, etc. She didn't know enough at first to even express what she was having trouble with, but as she got more exposure to pistol shooting, she started to ask better questions. A marksmanship instructor friend of mine was giving her a quick shooting lesson one day, and we figured out what was wrong. Our first idea was to get her to shoot left handed, but that turned out to not be so good. In the end, we gave her a blinder patch to wear over her left eye, switched to a lighter background target, and gave her a pistol with some 'faster' combat style sights to shoot. She may not win any IDPA matches (yet), but she can definitely draw, sight, and shoot fast and reliably enough to defend herself, which is what she and I both wanted. And since she's getting better at shooting, she enjoys it more, which translates into much more range time for me.

 

[xmid]

So does she put on the patch before shooting the attacker or does she just wear it all the time?...

 

[A4sForever]

And then there's another little factor that some of you will shortly be encountering: aging eyes.

Here's a good (short) article written by a shooting optometrist that goes into hand/eye dominance and the ol' bug-a-boo that's going to bite us all: AGE.

The Rx For Better Shooting: Aging Eyes, Eye Dominance

(made big for those ocularly challenged .... )

I write right handed, my strong shooting hand is right, my dominant eye is right, yet I play and played all sports left handed. I also preferred to roll in on a target to the left -- I drink with both hands.

Go figure.

 

[gaijin6423]

She's well beyond needing the patch now. Show up to the house unannounced, and you'll find out. ...And I can't promise that she won't resort to her PR ways and just cut joo mang.

 

[theduke]

-right eye dominant

-write left handed

-eat left handed (usually)

-shoot and play all sports right handed


also, i can write with both hands at the same time...and can write forwards with one and backwards with the other...haha

 

[WishICouldFly]

Yes, but can you shoot two guns and see through both sights clearly at the same time?

 

[theduke]

hmm, never tried!