Right handed, left eye dominant

W

William Suter

Well-known member
At the club yesterday and a guy was shooting a 300 WM. He has an eye condition that makes him almost blind in his right eye so he has an adapter to move his scope a couple of inch's to the left and so he uses his left eye. Right handed rifle, shooting right handed but using his left eye. Anyway, he was having a horrible time sighting in his rifle going from 100yds to 200yds. He claims the scope and bullet cross paths somewhere between point bank and 200yds. If he on at 100 he's off at 200. I kinda understand what he was saying but not 100% sure I agree. I know he left upset and shot 2 full box's of factory ammo and said he would come back and try again. I also think he was getting some problems with barrel heat as well. I touched his barrel and it was HOT, REAL HOT!! I did ask him, If your left eye dominant why not just get a left handed rifle? He didn't have much of a reply.
 
Us old guys would probably have a hard time switching hands... I have shot lefty a few times just to say I can do it, in a pinch, real slow.

Turns out my youngest is right handed (well mostly, she's a little ambidextrous) but seriously left eye dominant. We identified this before getting her first rifle, so we decided she would just shoot lefty. She's doing well, though finding good rifle and shotgun options is a challenge.
 
Same guy learned to shoot his bow left handed. If it were me, I'd mount the scope where it belongs and learn to shoot left handed with a right handed rifle. Seems it would solve his issues or some of them. His rifle really looked strange to me with the scope hanging 2" off the left side of the action. It didn't really look that solid mounted to me but I guess it was. I know he sure was giving those turrents a work out. Every time he took a shot he twisted a knob. I try to mind my own business when there are other shooters. Some appreciate the help and some don't. He didn't seem to mind but I wasn't doing him any good. But 40 rounds through a 300WM....whew. End of the day I couldn't raise my arm. LOL
 
Shoot right handed and left eye dominate am I. Been doing that a lot of years and works fine. You would be surprised to find out the things you can do by working at them. Shoot right handed and simply close your left eye!
 
I am right handed, left eye dominant and shoot right handed. I also shoot archery right handed. I shoot both eyes open for archery and shotgun work, but rifle I do close left eye. I had to practice forever it seemed, to train my brain to use the right sight pin, as I saw 2. I would close left eye, line up pin on target, then open left eye. After a while it just became 2nd nature and it has been that way for 30 plus years now.

I would say this fellow has a bit more than a dominant eye issue from Bill’s description of the guy being almost blind in right eye. I think I would learn to shoot left handed in his situation.
 
My DIL was a right hand shooter but left eye dominant. She finally switched to shooting left handed and is becoming a strong wing shooter. She has no issue shooting left handed with a rifle now either. Turns out she shoots better this way rather than wearing a patch over her glasses shooting right handed.
 
This guy has Glaucoma in his right eye. I don't think he is blind but maybe very limited vision. The scope rig he has on his rifle looks like it causes more trouble than shooting left handed. Its a Browning X-bolt so switching sides should be an issue.
 
I am left eye dominant and shoot left handed, however I don't own a left handed rifle. It's really not a problem for me.

I do have issues shooting a right handed shotgun if the safety is back behind the trigger. If I shoot fast I often push the gun onto safe.
 
I am left handed and after many years have found that a right hand rifle works best for me if shooting from a tripod or bench. I am also right eye dominant.
 
I'm very much right-handed but left eye dominant.
You left eye dominant guys that shoot right-handed rifles are killing me. If most of the left eye dominant people demanded left-handed rifles, we'd all have a lot more options to choose from. -- I believe left eye dominance is estimated to be 30-40%, whereas left handed firearms are probably less than 10%. Aftermarket support (stocks, etc) is probably even lower.

As for the OP, the dude mentioned just needs a left-handed rifle. I grew up shooting right-handed rifles because that's all we had. Once I started buying my own stuff, I switched to left hand. Re-learning to shoot bow left-handed took a little more time, but switching guns was not difficult at all.

Don't fight your eye. After a short reset, you WILL shoot better with your dominant eye.
 
SupressYourself said:
I'm very much right-handed but left eye dominant.
You left eye dominant guys that shoot right-handed rifles are killing me. If most of the left eye dominant people demanded left-handed rifles, we'd all have a lot more options to choose from. -- I believe left eye dominance is estimated to be 30-40%, whereas left handed firearms are probably less than 10%. Aftermarket support (stocks, etc) is probably even lower.

As for the OP, the dude mentioned just needs a left-handed rifle. I grew up shooting right-handed rifles because that's all we had. Once I started buying my own stuff, I switched to left hand. Re-learning to shoot bow left-handed took a little more time, but switching guns was not difficult at all.

Don't fight your eye. After a short reset, you WILL shoot better with your dominant eye.
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When i started bow hunting I started off with a LH. no way i was going to try to shoot a RH bow with my left eye.

The only thing I do RH is write. I should do that LH too, but when I was a kid all my teaches taught me that being LH was wrong.
 
IMHO eye dominance is a learned response. Stronger eye muscular use does the training, eyes are lazy just like us. As a kid I had a major vertical focus problem. Couple yrs use of prizms and problem went away. I trained and strenthened the eye muscles. Same with near/far focus.
 
hunt0168 said:
I am right handed, left eye dominant and shoot right handed. I also shoot archery right handed. I shoot both eyes open for archery and shotgun work, but rifle I do close left eye. I had to practice forever it seemed, to train my brain to use the right sight pin, as I saw 2. I would close left eye, line up pin on target, then open left eye. After a while it just became 2nd nature and it has been that way for 30 plus years now.

I would say this fellow has a bit more than a dominant eye issue from Bill’s description of the guy being almost blind in right eye. I think I would learn to shoot left handed in his situation.
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Ya know what, now and then I do shoot left handed just for the heck of it. Amazing what you can teach yourself to do! haven't done shotguns left handed though.
 
I read on another site that a right handed shooter should really shoot left handed rifles. When working the action your right hand never leave the trigger and makes it possibly faster. Kinda makes sense.
 
William Suter said:
I read on another site that a right handed shooter should really shoot left handed rifles. When working the action your right hand never leave the trigger and makes it possibly faster. Kinda makes sense.
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As long as you could hold the rifle up I guess it would work. Think I could still cycle faster than anyone doing it your way though.
 
William Suter said:
I read on another site that a right handed shooter should really shoot left handed rifles. When working the action your right hand never leave the trigger and makes it possibly faster. Kinda makes sense.
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Benchrest maybe, but not as a field rifle. I always like that little Savage Striker pistol. Right hand grip with a left hand bolt. Shoulda bought one.
 
William Suter said:
If it were me, I'd mount the scope where it belongs and learn to shoot left handed with a right handed rifle. Seems it would solve his issues or some of them.
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It doesn't take much practice to do this. ^

I shoot with both eyes open which relieves eye strain for me. Practice off the bench until he gets the hang of it and then switch over to how he would normally shoot.
 
You can train yourself to shoot righty or lefty, if you want. I did, I trained myself to shoot pistol with my weak left hand because I was left eye dominant. Ended up winning a lot of medals as a lefty in international bullseye: free pistol, standard pistol, and air pistol.
 
William Suter said:
At the club yesterday and a guy was shooting a 300 WM. He has an eye condition that makes him almost blind in his right eye so he has an adapter to move his scope a couple of inch's to the left and so he uses his left eye. Right handed rifle, shooting right handed but using his left eye. Anyway, he was having a horrible time sighting in his rifle going from 100yds to 200yds. He claims the scope and bullet cross paths somewhere between point bank and 200yds. If he on at 100 he's off at 200. I kinda understand what he was saying but not 100% sure I agree. I know he left upset and shot 2 full box's of factory ammo and said he would come back and try again. I also think he was getting some problems with barrel heat as well. I touched his barrel and it was HOT, REAL HOT!! I did ask him, If your left eye dominant why not just get a left handed rifle? He didn't have much of a reply.
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Im right handed, left eye dominate. All my bolt rifles are right handed, its not really an issue.
 
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