I was lucky that from the first time I picked up a stick as a toy rifle, I held it left handed despite being right handed, and I held a toy pistol right handed. When I actually started shooting, I'm fortunate that shooting pistols right handed in front of my left eye with both eyes open, and shooting long guns left handed both eyes open, just felt "natural' and normal to me.
I write lefty, throw righty, am left-eye-dominant, and totally screwed the pooch when attempting racquet/bat sports. I chose to carry “primary” at 0300, not only because the draw felt most natural when done right-handed, with my throwing arm, but because the right hip was most accessible when driving most motor vehicles, and I knew that I would mostly be patrolling alone, while wearing the light-blue-over-dark-blue costume on the mean streets of mid-Nineteen-Eighties, oil-boom-town-sliding-into-recession Houston, Texas. (Private citizens could not, generally, carry handguns, in Texas, from ~1877 to ~1995, and I did not grow up among handgun owners, so, choosing a position for toting a handgun was not a thing, for me, until I was training to be a sworn LEO.)Originally Posted by paul-mf
So, well, first and foremost, I would advise to train to shoot with each hand being the “primary” hand, as a foundation. During my academy time, I trained with the then-mandated S&W L-Frame, 80% right-handed, and 20% left-handed. During my personal time, for “homework,” I trained using each hand 50/50. Starting about the time I graduated, I shifted to emphasizing the left hand mostly with the more-difficult-to-shoot J-Frame. I was “one of the better shooters” in my academy class, according to the instructors, but it was not natural ability; I had to work at it. (See the words “kinesthetic doofus” in my signature lines.)
I do not claim to be any kind of firearms instructor, so, this is a personal “testimony,” not instruction.
I will echo those who recommend using long guns on the same side as one’s dominant eye, BUT, I would say there are outliers. Plus, I have heard of “incomplete” eye dominance. Having said that, a shotgun with a bead sight works about as well, for me, from either shoulder, and some barrel-mounted open “rifle” iron sights are decently usable, for me, when the weapon is fired from either shoulder. It is when using aperture sights, and optics, that I perform noticeably faster and more accurately if I fire from the left shoulder, aiming with my dominant left eye.
Edited to add: I have wondered whether I have “incomplete” eye dominance?
Last edited by Rex G; 02-18-2024 at 11:26 AM.
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
Just a quick update to say thank you yet again to everyone who's responded. I've been quiet for a bit between travel and family responsibilities and don't want anyone to think I'm ignoring or not appreciating your responses. I've been reading every post, and also going deep on other content here and in the shotgun subforum. My quietness is not about disengagement but moreso about the fact that I've learned just enough to use more of the right search terms and realize that pretty much everything I've thought of to ask about has already been discussed in depth here. I've turned into more of a lurker who is getting huge value from this community but doesn't contribute anything useful. Please take this as both my apologies and my thanks.
@Rex G Your advice resonates strongly with me even though I've never been an LEO or even adjacent. In particular, the note that a right-side carry is much more compatible with driver vehicular carry, and your note about training with both hands and one-handed firing. Thank you to you and so many of the other posters for your service in LE and military. I know I don't belong here as a hobbyist and am in awe of your patience with an outsider stepping in to the community.
Have you taken a course yet?
Currently scheduled for next week. My first appointment a few weeks back had to be rescheduled due to work travel.
Good to hear; best of luck with the training.
Let us know how it goes...
I don't have enough experience to contradict the cross dominant shooters up thread, but if I remember correctly, Bill Rogers wrote that you want to avoid a cross dominant situation and that you should should train based on eye dominance. To that point, when I was in college I had a broken dominant right hand and doing right handed things with my left hand got easier pretty quickly. However, in some IDPA matches I remember switching eyes without much trouble when I was making left-handed shots.
A few years ago I was a student in one of Dave Spaulding's classes that had a lot of support hand shooting in it. I asked him about right-eyed dominance while shooting left hand, and he told me that there is a secret trick to dealing with it. He then looked me straight in the face and closed his right eye. My take away is that it's not a big deal either way. Play with it a bit and you'll find what works for you.
My wife is left eye dominant, but right handed (to the point she has said her left hand is pretty useless). Her father (an avid silhouette shooter back in the day) taught her from a young age to shoot both eyes open both a pistol and long gun. When we were younger we used to shoot Trap together quite a bit and she never had an issue shoulder the gun right handed.
So with irons it matters very little and with an optic it matters even less. Just use your dominant hand and keep both eyes open.
After another week of delay due to personal travel I finally got my first training course done yesterday, a 90 minute private instruction session that was intended to: a) replace the 3-hour group course for new gun owners; b) help correct any bad habits I may have been forming with my solo practice sessions; c) possibly also add some level of LTC preparation. Thank you @SouthNarc and others who recommended The Range At Austin. I couldn't be more pleased with my instructor, and the facility itself is also quite impressive.
Bottom line, I did better than I'd hoped on the back of my reading, youtubing, and limited IR laser dry fire practice sessions. With 75 rounds fired at a mix of 5, 10, and 15 yards, I managed 60 alphas, 12 charlies, and 3 deltas, with all of the deltas and most of the charlies occurring when the instructor pushed me to 1-second shot intervals at 10 and 15 yards. I can't remember the term the instructor used for repeated hits to the same spot, but when firing at slower intervals I had enough consistency to put 7 shots through prior in-stage shots. The instructor thought I could probably pass LTC even now, but I will definitely want to practice quite a bit more first.
Key takeaways from the session for me were:
- I have a tendency to let my primary hand thumb go loose, and when firing longer multi-shot sequences my support hand also starts to loosen up.
- My trigger smoothness is apparently unusually good for a newbie, perhaps due to all the hours of piano practice and coding as an IT nerd
- I'm incredibly slow getting from table start or holster start to a site picture eligible for moving my trigger finger into position
- I start moving my head or turning my wrists rather than using my elbows/arms when under time pressure
- Reading, youtube, and dryfire practice has been helpful in net and not (yet) introduced any egregiously bad habits
- Overthinking is the enemy -- I did better on my 2-second shot groupings than on my unlimited-time groupings.
- My handling is pathetic, particularly on reloads and in recognizing malfunction or empty mag situations. I won't worry about this for now, with higher priority on getting from draw to sight picture and on consecutive shot speed with consistency.
The plan from here is to do daily handling and dry fire practice, and bi weekly ranch live fire practice for 6 or 8 weeks, then return to the range for a group LTC course.
Thank you again to everyone here for all of the advice and guidance. I am starting to feel like I may be on the right path.
@paul-mf , sounds like a great start! You'll find a LTC class "test" isn't exactly a challenge. I think there's people on YouTube passing them with guns with no sights and even blindfolded.
Loosening grip over time is a common problem. Continue to build and improve your grip so it stays put for long strings of fire!
If your prior skills help you pull the trigger cleanly with your index finger without also moving your other fingers, that will really help you out!
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