Shooting a handgun right handed, sighting with left eye

1911 guy said:

What you're describing, JeffG, is what I once called "shoot your way to a sight picture". For some tasks, a highly refined sight picture is required. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a simply awareness of the direction the pistol is pointed, with no visual reference, is all you need and maybe all you can get. But those are not isolated from one another. The end goal, if shooting lasts long enough, is to get a sight picture. But you may be done shooting before that happens. It is not defined steps, it is a flowing continuum.

Mathew Temkin has written a great deal on the merits and proper technique of point shooting. Many new methods have come and gone, failing to deliver when it mattered or lacking in some point that overwhelmed their perceived strengths. But point shooting, first codified by Sykes, Fairbairn and Applegate (he came a bit later, in the 1940's) has evolved as more became understood and adapted for a century now.

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Excellent points.
I may have lost my way a bit in my post. My point overall, was that there is no reason to switch hands or forego defensive pistol shooting. Many of my fellow trainers disagree. I have heard trainers tell shooters to stop shooting handguns over eye dominance issues. Yes, time permitting, situations permitting, a correct sight picture is important. Placing rounds on a perp is also.

Vern Humphrey said:

You're doing what I do. As I aged, I became far-sighted in my right eye and near-sighted in my left eye. So I retrained myself to use the left eye for seeing the sights (they show up nice and sharp). I started out by tilting my head to the right, but eventually it beame automatic to use the left eye.

The bonus is, I can see BOTH the sights and the target sharply -- I see one in each eye, and the brain merges the images.

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A similar process to adapting to monovision contacts. Not everyone can do that, however, particularly if the eyes are several diopters off already. The resulting anisometropia can cause amblyopia, or "Lazy Eye" (a misnomer; the eye still functions, but the brain shuts out the signal input from one eye because it cannot resolve the disparate images it's receiving.)

tldr

turn head to align left eye

problem solved

I am right handed and left eyed.
I shoot both eyes open and things work out reasonably well.

A good way to train that left eye, IMO, is to shoot clays with a shotgun both eyes open.
Left eye finds the bead, tracks clay, bang. Repeat.

ETA: Shoot the shotgun left handed. Or else visit the sketch below for why shooting right handed with left eye will not work.

1. So far I only shoot a handgun. (Revolver).
2. I am right-handed and right eye dominant.
3. The first time I tried shooting WHO (left-handed) I thought it would be easier to use my left eye. Big mistake, my shot hit the furthest ring. Using my right eye I was much more accurate. (I posted photos of the targets at the time, I think the thread was titled something like "range report finally".)

A good way to train that left eye, IMO, is to shoot clays with a shotgun both eyes open.
Left eye finds the bead, tracks clay, bang. Repeat.

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Wait. I'm not sure I'm tracking. (HA! Pun intended.)

If you mount a long gun on you RIGHT shoulder, but sight the bead and clay with your LEFT eye, you'd be looking diagonally across the barrel, not down the barrel. There'd be no way you'd hit the bird.

Forgive the quick and dirty sketch, but to show what I'm saying:

On a left-to-right crossing shot you might get lucky and have your eye offset happen to be just right to match what should have been your lead. On a right-to-left crossing shot you'd be miles behind. Depending on which way the bird is going you'd have to lead half as much or twice as far!

On a straight away trap shot you'd have to change your compensating "anti-lead" more and more as the clay got farther away.

How could that work?


I've done this myself, accidentally. Shot a course-of-fire in a match that required slugs on paper, but left-handed around a barricade. I shouldered on the left, but habitually sighted with my right eye, and put a slug right through the target stand upright to the right of my target!

Sam1911 said:

Wait. I'm not sure I'm tracking. (HA! Pun intended.)

If you mount a long gun on you RIGHT shoulder, but sight the bead and clay with your LEFT eye, you'd be looking diagonally across the barrel, not down the barrel. There'd be no way you'd hit the bird.

Forgive the quick and dirty sketch, but to show what I'm saying:
View attachment 233594
On a left-to-right crossing shot you might get lucky and have your eye offset happen to be just right to match what should have been your lead. On a right-to-left crossing shot you'd be miles behind. Depending on which way the bird is going you'd have to lead half as much or twice as far!

On a straight away trap shot you'd have to change your compensating "anti-lead" more and more as the clay got farther away.

How could that work?


I've done this myself, accidentally. Shot a course-of-fire in a match that required slugs on paper, but left-handed around a barricade. I shouldered on the left, but habitually sighted with my right eye, and put a slug right through the target stand upright to the right of my target!

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Love the sketch and it would be exactly correct, but I was trying to suggest shooting the shotgun left handed, both eyes open, to train the eye to pick up the sights.

So move that line of sight to the other eye and Bob's your Uncle.

Corpral_Agarn said:

Love the sketch and it would be exactly correct, but I was trying to suggest shooting the shotgun left handed, both eyes open, to train the eye to pick up the sights.

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You gotta admit, from post#29 it looks like you meant right shoulder, left eye.

entropy said:

You gotta admit, from post#29 it looks like you meant right shoulder, left eye.

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Yeah, I see that now.

I will edit that post.

Still that sketch, though...

You have heard of YouTube's Hickok45? He shoots right handed, left eye. Like me. Just move your head over a bit. No biggie.

Shooting a handgun right-handed while being left-eye-dominant is not a thing that has ever bothered me. It has been a problem with long guns, though not all long guns; it depends upon the sight system. The big, bold, squared-off barrel-mounted rifle sights on my Benelli M2 Tactical barrel are decent for me, whether shooting righty or lefty. I did not like the ghost ring sight set-up that was on my Benelli M1 Super 90. Normally, aperture sights require me to shoot lefty, for best results. The same is true of an optic mounted anywhere near the rear of a long gun's receiver.

Isosceles stance. Move pistol over just a hair, turn your head a hair if you need to. This guy seems too do fine:


If anything it's an advantage. I have an easier time using my left and right eyes with a carbine. (shooting around the left side of cover, right handed, is stupid)

I've been working on this too. I'm a left handed shooter whose carpal tunnel got so bad I couldn't shoot left handed until after surgery. I'm also left eye dominant. I'm mostly ambidextrous, but I'd never tried shooting right handed before. Surprisingly, it works very well and my accuracy is quickly becoming as good as with my left hand. Work on it a bit, you might be surprised at the results .