Hi,
I'm new to this forum and new to taking my training seriously, been shooting all my life but never more than punching holes in paper at a static range.
Now that I have started to try and get some real training and run some of the drills found here. I find myself still closing my weak eye every time I try to find my front sight. Should I be trying to leave both eye's open when rund these drills or just training in general?
Thanks
Yes, keep both eyes open if possible. It allows you to see better. When you close one eye it puts pressure on the open eye which can cause minor changes to the shape of the eye and reduce your vision.
To help you transition to keeping both eyes open you can try wrapping a paper towel around the lense of your shooting glasses on the side you normally close and securing it with tape. It will be easier to shoot with both eyes open when your non dominant eye's vision is blocked. Once you get used to keeping both eyes open take off the paper towel.
Depends on where you are at and what you are doing. I am pretty much close one eye to get a good clear picture of the front sight for most of my shooting and training. I see shooting (with standard sights) with both eyes open as a close to ninja level skill.
If you are nailing everything out to 25 yards in a 8 inch circle under time pressure and got all your manipulations down to no thought muscle memory, then I can see taking the step to two eyes. I'm not there and probably won't/can't put the time in.
Lot of more experienced folks should answer, interested in the discussion.
Cookie Monster
I am nowhere near ninja level, but when my friend told me they taught him to use both eyes in the police acadamy, I just made sure to keep both eyes open. It is subconscious now.
From the reading I've done and instruction that I've received, I have the impression that the question of weak eye open or closed is a secondary issue at best. You can become a very proficient shooter either way and there are, from my understanding, many good shooters on both sides.
From a self defense perspective, shooting both eyes open may offer a marginal advantage for situational awareness purposes. Personally, I tend to get tunnel vision when I am concentrating on my sights anyway and so fail to see the benefit. If you are shooting weak eye closed (from a self defense perspective), you probably want to minimize the time that the weak eye is closed. You can train yourself to reduce that time to just barely a blink.
I'm another novice shooter chiming in on this. I may be completely off base, and if so hope that someone will correct me.
Twice as much vision seems more than a marginal advantage. Conversely, eliminating half of your most important sense on purpose doesn't seem like a good idea.Originally Posted by JollyGreen
I used to shoot with one eye closed. When I tried leaving both open, I only got to the point where I was squinting my left eye for a second. It was fine. But then I found out about OAK Vision (http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?t=10210) and nothing has been the same. It took some work, but now I shoot with both eyes open very naturally. More important, I'm able to track my sights, to see them settle during a press out or after recoil. I think having both eyes open really helps with that.
The answer, it seems to me, is wrath. The mind cannot foresee its own advance. --FA Hayek Specialization is for insects.
It is best to shoot with both eyes open..... if possible. As examples let me lay out several types of shooters. Take me for example, I am right handed and right eye dominant. My strength of dominance is high. (not sure how to define it on a scale) Meaning I get no ghosting from the input of my left eye in relation to sighting. My wife has what appears to be a slight favor to her right eye. If she temporarily closes her left eye in order to clean up the sight picture she shoots measurably better. If she does not do this, she states she sometimes has dual images of gun and sights. Obviously confusing and time consuming to sort out. I feel it is more important to put rounds on target accurately with speed than guess what sights to pick and send an errant shot. Now, this can be overcome with range time, but the occasional shooter may not want to invest that. Another type I have seen is the shooter who has near equal dominance. He descibed seeing crisp dual images. He is right handed, and would break several solid hits and then shift the gun to his left an inch or so and break several more solid hits. He said the image shifted and needed to realign. I had him do a dominance test multiple times and the results flip flopped. If he would start to close an eye as he was presenting the gun, he could rat out the bull on a B8 at 7yds. Without doing that he might hit the copy paper.
Taking a break from social media.
An eye dominance test is one of the first things I do with a new or remedial shooter. There are a few people who have both eyes dominant but it is very rare - I've only seen one out of a few thousand LE shooters.
I have also had a few officers come for remedial training and found they were closing their dominant eye .......
More later when I'm on a real computer.
True dual dominance? I bet that it is rare.
Cross dominance, where one eye is only slightly stronger than the other and both tend to fight each other? More common than it appears. I suffer from it and it is frstrating, particularly when dealing with long guns.
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