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jetfire
03-08-2012, 05:35 PM
I have been struggling for a while now with shooting with two eyes open. I have an astigmatism in my left, non-dominant eye that has always made focusing on the front sight difficult with two eyes open. The other day I started working on this again, and instead of looking at the front sight, I just look at the target and interrupted my focal plane with the sights. This resulting in less defined sight picture, but still a sight picture which allowed me to get hits on an A-zone all the way back to 25 yards. It was a good enough sight picture to hit the A-zone in the head of a USPSA metric target at 7 yards as well, and a 3x5 card at 7 yards.

The issue that I'm running into with this is that because I'm not focusing on the front sight, I lose it in transitions, much like shooting a gun with a slide mounted RDS. I know that a couple of guys have messed around with focal plane stuff, any thoughts on how to track the front sight in this situation?

One of the interesting side effects of shooting with both eyes open is that despite running a much higher round count that I normally do when shooting a .45, I felt much less fatigue at the end of the session. Normally the act of closing and opening one eye repeatedly during a practice session will lead to a minor headache, I had none of that the last two times.

JeffJ
03-08-2012, 05:56 PM
Hmm - so a "soft" front sight focus. As an astigmatism sufferer, both eyes for me (mostly corrected by toric contacts) and cross dominant to boot - I wonder if you're just letting your eyes focus how they want to, which would leave things a little blurry. I know that you can practice and get very fast at switching your focal plane focus distance, which may help you in transistions.

I can't imagine a high round count practice session with one eye squinted closed, that sounds horrible. I think a saw somewhere that you have small bore experience so I wonder if you've tried the whole occlude the non-dominant eye thing and how that's worked for you. I spent a decent amount of time patching, stickering, chapstick on the lensesing my dominant eye when shooting a lot of sporting clays and skeet - I ended up just learning to shoot with both eyes open cross shouldered but I went back to some of that when really focusing on shooting pistol both eyes open.

In other words, I don't have much to add - but I'm always interested in how people see the sights and different tricks/techniques that work for them.

Mr_White
03-08-2012, 06:17 PM
Until I learned the at-will visual focus shift, or took extra time, that’s how I tended to shoot (target focused), especially for the first shot or two in a string of fire. When I did it that way, I think I had an easier time being faster because I wasn’t getting the gun high enough to be in my true eye-target line until the end of the presentation. I was also relying on a fast draw that amounted to an extend-stop-press kind of presentation. It used to work very well for me in quickly shooting a 3x5 at 7 yards. Except the hits rarely got above 90% at best, though that probably had more to do with the push for speed and lack of a thorough commitment to hitting, than the type of visual focus I was using.

A couple of things that might help tracking the front sight (sounds like you mean tracking the front sight in transitions, rather than during a rapid string of shots on one target?)

Index needs to be strong.

It might help for the front sight to be a bright, high visibility type, rather than a dark, low-visibility black front sight. I know you like plain black sights and I do too, but this is one area where I think a high visibility front sight really does well – in target-focused shooting. I’m sure there are some target/background colors and lighting situations where a plain black front can be used with target-focused shooting, but I think a high-visibility front sight will be more visible more often when target-focused.

I also think that target-focused shooting is important for situations where the target is particularly difficult to see, to the point that it can’t be seen or visually tracked without focusing directly on it. Or, if during an unexpected emergency, a person just can’t get him or herself to actually focus on the front sight, it would be nice if target-focused shooting were old hat and did not carry a bunch of doubt about the results.

Not sure if any of that helps but I hope it does.

John Ralston
03-08-2012, 06:21 PM
Have you tried putting scotch tape over the left lens of your shooting glasses?

Badfish25
03-08-2012, 06:43 PM
The way I transition between targets is to lead with my eyes and then bring my sights to the target, I do not focus on the front sight the whole time. It takes a while to get use to but I have found I shoot much faster this way.

jetfire
03-08-2012, 11:17 PM
Have you tried putting scotch tape over the left lens of your shooting glasses?

I thought about that, but there's a part of me that rebels against using a training aid I won't have any sort of access to if I ever need to shoot in a self defense encounter.

At OragamiAK, I like the idea about switching to a fiber, and I think with a soft front sight focus it kind of makes sense. I'll order a new front for my gun.

Lomshek
03-08-2012, 11:29 PM
I thought about that, but there's a part of me that rebels against using a training aid I won't have any sort of access to if I ever need to shoot in a self defense encounter.

At OragamiAK, I like the idea about switching to a fiber, and I think with a soft front sight focus it kind of makes sense. I'll order a new front for my gun.

The tape is a temporary training aid that lets your brain gradually get used to the dual eye input and learn which eye to use the most. It's not a permanent crutch that will create a training scar.

A few ways to maximize the training effect and minimize the "scar"...

Start with a fairly large piece of tape or paster and work your way smaller in each range session until you're using a paster the size of a paper punch hole.

Always be sure you are centering the tape/paster in your field of vision when sighting in on the gun. Ideally you are just blocking the gun/front sight while retaining peripheral vision.

As you train with it over a few sessions/dry fires keep shrinking the tape/patch. You are training your brain to accept the peripheral input from that eye while discarding the center input so you won't see two front sights.

Benefits - Reduce the strain that comes from scrunching up half your face with one eye shut. Better SA by improving your peripheral vision. Faster sight acquisition (for me at least).

jetfire
03-08-2012, 11:32 PM
Thanks for explaining that; I had never understood the point of the tape, since I just figured it was like what I did in bullseye, where I wore a patch over my non-dominant eye.

Johnkard
03-09-2012, 05:55 AM
What I like to do to increase my sight picture acquisition is switch back and forth between my right and left eye. I always shoot with both eyes open, and I usually focus on the target rather than the sights. I just like to line things up in front of my right eye, fire a shot, switch to the left picture, take a shot, etc...(for the most part reference points like the bands of light on either side of the front sight or the 3 fiber-optic dots on my sights are easy to track and equalize even when not in focus.)

I really like to mix this drill with strong hand/weak hand alternations and press outs. (which makes it a reasonable dry-fire drill)

Mr_White
03-09-2012, 12:22 PM
I thought about that, but there's a part of me that rebels against using a training aid I won't have any sort of access to if I ever need to shoot in a self defense encounter.

At OragamiAK, I like the idea about switching to a fiber, and I think with a soft front sight focus it kind of makes sense. I'll order a new front for my gun.

Good luck! I'll be curious to hear how the fiber works out for you.

Mr_White
03-09-2012, 05:05 PM
Inspired by this thread, I did a limited and informal test today of sight focused vs. target focused shooting, in combination with a high visibility front sight vs. a low visibility front sight.

The results are in this journal entry: http://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?2751-OrigamiAK-s-Training-Journal-Mind-Driving-the-Vision-Vision-Driving-the-Gun&p=58355&viewfull=1#post58355

MikeO
03-24-2012, 11:08 AM
This doesn't help you, but it explains some things to me... and why the tape works as a temporary aid that you eventually won't need.


I'm left handed for most things and right eyed. I learned to shoot a bow and arrow "bare bow" (no sights) w both eyes open. I do archery right handed, which means I hold the bow in the left, draw w the right, which anchors the near end of the arrow under my right/dominant eye.

So... later, when I learned to shoot (which I do mostly right handed too) keeping both eyes open was not a problem, even when I switched hands. With long guns, the near end of the stock is under my right/dominant eye and I use it. If I shoot left, the near end of the stock is under my left eye and I use it. Pistols, I must be considering my left/right arm like I do the arrow/stock, and use the appropriate eye, even w both open.

Clear as mud? Has worked well enough for me. ;)

jetfire
03-24-2012, 04:07 PM
I switched my front sight to a narrow post with a fiber insert, haven't yet had a chance to shoot it since I've been on the road for a week. Last match I shot 2 weeks ago I shot mostly with both eyes open except for some low percentage shots on steel at 15 yards or so. I'll see if the fiber makes a difference.

DonovanM
03-24-2012, 08:47 PM
What I like to do to increase my sight picture acquisition is switch back and forth between my right and left eye. I always shoot with both eyes open, and I usually focus on the target rather than the sights. I just like to line things up in front of my right eye, fire a shot, switch to the left picture, take a shot, etc...(for the most part reference points like the bands of light on either side of the front sight or the 3 fiber-optic dots on my sights are easy to track and equalize even when not in focus.)

I really like to mix this drill with strong hand/weak hand alternations and press outs. (which makes it a reasonable dry-fire drill)

What is the point of this? Why would you want to confuse your body regarding which eye to default to under stress? This seems like it would be counterproductive and not a good idea in the least.

Caleb... lots of people have tried target focus/soft front sight focus before... As a person who seems interested in reaching the absolute peak of handgun mastery I think you will be disappointed with the lack of accuracy inherent to it. You could definitely make GM with it by not shooting targets past 10yds in classifiers but I doubt you would ever place within 15% of a real GM at a major match with it.

The answer to your question is index, as OAK said... practice seeing a sight picture, closing your eyes, moving the gun somewhere, and open them, the goal being to have the sights aligned.

Why wouldn't you just get prescription inserts for your shooting glasses/wear contacts?