So long as we are talking about eyes: has anyone here switched eyes/dominance?

[breakingtime91]

I have worse vision than you do. My dominant eye is significantly worse than my other eye. I used my non dominant eye for many years, with no issue at all. I taught myself to shoot rifles left handed as well, but decided that was just silly, and went back to using my right hand for both guns. Left eye for pistol, right eye for rifle. No issues at all.

A few years ago I decided to switch back to shooting pistols with my dominant eye. It took a little work, but I now use my weaker but dominant eye for pistols as well. I found that if I zeroed a gun with my better, left eye, the group would shift when using my weaker, right eye. Now I zero and shoot exclusively with my right, dominant eye.

I do not wear correction and never have for normal life, but I have a few pairs of corrected range glasses. It doesn't seem to matter much if I wear them or not, so I'm still experimenting a bit. They help with red dots, but not much else. Its one reason I prefer scopes for my primary.

As we age, I'm sure that range sessions will be more and more experimental.

This is exactly what I do. Pistol goes to my left eye and rifle to my right eye..

[Erick Gelhaus]

I used to do what SLG and breakingtime91 do - rifle & belt-fed & crew served to one eye (non-dominant) and pistol to the other (dominant eye) - courtesy of my drill sergeants. 20 years later I switched to working everything with my dominant eye, unless I was posted up on an off-side barricade or corner and then I'd go back to the non-dominant eye.

[LSP972]

As we age, I'm sure that range sessions will be more and more experimental.

You can take that to the bank.

.

[Matt O]

I now use my left eye for everything. This was obviously easy to adjust with a pistol, but required some extra effort for rifles and bows. At this point it actually feels weird to try to shoot things right handed though.


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[LearnedHat]

I'm right handed and left eye dominant but when I started shooting last April, bringing the gun over to my left eye just didn't seem like it was going to work well. So I started just bringing up on my slightly on my right side which forced my right eye to locate sight. Part of it is due to the fact that my left eye is my less corrected eye but is not as strong for reading - so at pistol distance, my right eye sees the sight more clearly and naturally takes over at that distance.

Shotgunning . . . I'm screwed since it's target focused.

[Rex G]

I am wondering if my eye dominance is shifting. Long guns with iron sights are starting to give me trouble, with both-eyes-open shooting not working so well anymore. Optics are becoming more important, and because my chief does not allow optics on shotguns, I may start leaving my shotgun at home, or relegating it to extreme close-range and for emergency breaching. (I may well retire within a year or so, anyway.)

My left eye's prescription is now stronger than that of my right eye, which may be playing a part in this shift.

With handguns, especially, well, SLG is absolutely correct about range and dry-fire sessions becoming more and more experimental. Everything I have tried has strengths and weaknesses, with no solution working for all lighting conditions. The prospect of an extended-range gunfight, in widely-varying light, with any iron sights, is quite daunting.

[dgg9]

Just a quick follow up to my OP from months ago: At this point, it's pretty much second nature to just align pistol/revolver with my (formerly) non-dominant offside eye. I can see enough better out of my left eye that it didn't take very long to just acquire the habit of aligning straight to that eye, instead of defaulting to my old right side dominance.

I'm by nature cross eye dominant. It's really important for me to tilt my head so that the dominant eye is more centered. I can bring the gun over to the off side without moving my head but then the body mechanics and index are subpar, and accuracy suffers anyway.

However, for a strong hand only shot, my thinking is that this will be 99+% of the time a quick, reflexive, CQ kind of shot, so I got out of the habit of dragging a SHO shot all the way over to my left (dom eye) side. THAT body contortion is untenable, I think. When I shoot one handed, I've been training myself to shoot with the same eye as the hand: right hand, right eye; left hand, left eye. My non-dom near vision is crap, but I can get a decent hit out to 10 yds, and in a fraction of the time it would take to cross the gun over. The trick to this drill is turn the shooting hand's shoulder into the shot and turn your head into the same alignment. IOW, each side looks the same, just mirror image. Doing that, it becomes natural to get used to the other eye's dominance. It's unclear if that helps you with two handed shooting, though.