For some things, I’m left handed, and for others, I’m right handed. I’m clearly more comfortable with a handgun in my right hand though.
Lately, I’ve been making a concerted effort to drop an old habit I have of closing my left eye when shooting a handgun. Now, when I level a pistol on a target, right handed, with both eyes open, I find myself reflexively lining up on target using my left eye.
My shooting has improved dramatically since I’ve been practicing with both eyes open and sighting with my left eye. I can sight using my right eye, but I have to consciously shift sighting from left to right. I don’t shoot as well that way either. My dominant eye seems to be my left.
Am I better off just yielding to the reflex and using the dominant eye, or should I try to develop right hand/right eye sighting?
Well, …… I think the crux of your vision dilemma harkens back to the original premise behind Paris Theodore’s ‘
Quell Method’ of Shooting. Here are a few thoughts on, ‘
dominant eye shooting’, which hand to use, and keeping both eyes open:
First, the right-side of the human brain controls the left-side of the body; and, the left-side of the brain controls the right-side of the human body. (Got it!) It is, now, recognized that the right-side of the human brain is more, ‘
target orientated’ and has greater control over the body’s reflexes than the left-side of the human brain has over the body’s right-hand side.
Second, for those who may be interested, this curious human phenomenon is actually thousands of years old, and is clearly referenced in the Holy Bible: i.e.,
‘They were armed with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow, even of Saul’s brethren of Benjamin.’ (I Chronicles 12:2)
‘Among all this people there were seven hundred chosen men left-handed; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss.’ (Judges 20:16)
So whether you prefer the recent discoveries of modern science, or the ancient revelations of Sacred Scripture, this means that ANYONE should be able to shoot better by using his left-hand and/or left eye.
Third, I do have some personal experience with this problem. As a boy I was dyslexic, and had a lot of trouble learning how to read. Then, twice, during my youth, I was badly injured and forced to use only my left-hand for extended periods of time.
The end result is that, today, I’m perfectly ambidextrous with all hand-held tools and weapons. I do have a dominant right eye; but, because nobody ever told me it could be a problem, I learned how to switch my brain over with nothing more than a quick squint of either one eye or the other. Depending on which hand I’m holding the pistol in, I simply squint the opposite eye in order to switch back and forth between my right and left eyes.
I do, however, always shoot long arms with both eyes open and only from my right shoulder. Probably because of weapon design limitations, I never bothered to teach myself to shoot long arms from the left-hand side.
Fourth, some of the remarks in this thread sound very much like mechanical descriptions of Paris Theodore's, 1970’s ‘
Quell Sighting Method’. Little known and seldom used today, the Quell Method works and, when properly employed, works well - especially with sighted fire and at long range. The CIA used to teach the Quell Sighting Method as a technique for shooting either a pistol or a rifle with considerably greater accuracy while operating under either extreme physical stress or, over long range.
Conventional Quell Method training did NOT differentiate between right, and left-handed shooters. In practice the Quell Method was primarily applied to right-handed shooters and simply taught them to aim a pistol by using their right-hand and left eye. Unfortunately human visual aiming processes remained ambiguous; and, in practice, the Quell Sighting Method was incorrectly applied to BOTH right and left-handed shooters. Consequently it fell out of favor before ever being clearly understood.
There is an advantage to aiming with your left eye. Properly applied Quell training taught a right-handed shooter to aim with his left eye AND the right side of his brain. The big advantage, here, resides in the fact that the right-side of the brain processes visual data more easily than the left-side; and, correct Quell training should have been designed to take exclusive advantage of this phenomenon.
Finally how do I switch, both, my brain and my hands around in order to aim easily with either hand? I momentarily squint with the eye that I do NOT intend to use. (It really is that simple!) The straightforward fact is that you will become whatever you train yourself to be. I’d like you to consider that there are, also, distinct advantages to becoming accustomed to aiming with your visually superior left eye and, thereby, employ the visually superior right-side of your brain in order to make important (i.e. '
instinctive') aiming decisions.