I definitely have that phoria thing and significant shifts laterally when shooting an occluded optic.
I definitely have that phoria thing and significant shifts laterally when shooting an occluded optic.
I'll use occluded optics, both dry & live, to help with the transition to both eyes open and shifting the visual attention and focus from the front sight to the target, threat, etc. But this is in class and my own practice, not for a match.
You are focusing on the target rather than the dot? And working with both eyes open?
While you can buy covers for your optic (who knew), I do it with painter's tape.
In dry practice, you could do it while you work on the steps of the presentation. Courtesy of Scott J, I dry practice (and teach) the steps in reverse. Dot on target, both hands on the gun, bring it back to below the jaw line, then work your presentation to see the optic housing then the glass & finally the dot. Then work your presentation from where your hands meet to seeing the dot. Finally, from the holster through seeing the dot. Do the same thing from your preferred ready position as well.
You can run any drill with them. Generally, I will run a standard string of fire at charging distances - like Gunsite's 250 & 350 school drills - with the tape on. During a class, do it once in the AM and once in the PM every day. In the last class I taught at Gunsite, a couple weeks ago, had one student who wanted a lot more occluded optic work and one who wanted none.
The longer you have been front-sight focused, the more effort it can take to re-wire the visual attention.
I would suspect that changing eyes may be interfering with wiring this new thing in.
Thinking out loud & typing it too ... maybe not a good idea ... So I just taped over my optic. I worked presentations with both eyes open, dominant only & non-dominant only. While the non-dominant eye has issues & requires work, I have not "seeing" what you are describing. It re-affirms for me, not going back and forth between eyes. As well as not doing that to participants in matches.
I started using occluded optics (on carbines) when I worked for Aimpoint in the latter half of the 00s, based on input from Blish. Maybe earlier from Pat Rogers as well. The pistol-mounted optics classes at Gunsite have been using it since '20 with those it works for.
Let me know if I can be clearer, explain it better.
@Clusterfrack thanks for including me.
Bumping up this nugget of wisdom for emphasis. Good stuff.Originally Posted by Erick Gelhaus
I understand the occluded optic as a diagnostic tool, to help understand target focus. I am not sure how that morphed into live firing and expecting the point of impact to be exactly the same occluded as not, and using that technique in matches. If someone's point of impact is sometimes different occluded than not, does it mean they are not target focused?
The R3 Max is awesome in low sun angles, and I am pretty sure Sig didn't spec that beautiful glass to cover it up with tape!
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
@Q5shooter - First off I appreciate the detailed post describing your issues. I think your situation is complicated so anything I post may be a solution or may make things worse. Take it all with a grain of salt.
First, I understand that some competitive shooters occlude their optic to reduce/eliminate the effects of glare. I don’t understand the utility of doing it as an all-the-time thing and feel it’s counter-productive. I know lots of departments that include lots of occluded training, especially early, and while I think it can benefit people I think it’s unnecessary once it’s established that the shooter is using both eyes. In fact, I think it’s useless most of the time. It can hurt some shooters.
I’m a fan of knowing how to shoot occluded in case I have to. I’m a fan of knowing how to shoot with glare if I have to. I’m not a fan of inducing one handicap “in case” another occurs. Clear window... learn to deal with glare. If occluded learn to deal with that separately.
As for the cause, you described several things that could contribute to your issue. Since you haven’t done much/any live fire practice with the dot I think phoria is a strong possibility. Add to that the fact you may have been switching eyes and that’s another issue. I don’t advocate switching eyes and I’m a cross dominant (right handed/left eyed) shooter who has worse vision and a worse astigmatism in my dominant eye. Additionally, the stress of a match situation makes things even more complicated because small errors can become compounded, especially when you don’t know what is causing the error, so I don’t think any diagnoses by me is going to help. What i will do is offer some tests for you to help you diagnose things on the range in a non-match setting:
- With optic un-occluded shoot five shots at a small target - maybe a 2” circle at 4-5 yards. Go slow. Make sure you’re on target for two-three seconds per shot. This is your control group.
- With optic un-occluded start from a low-ready or other ready position and Brian the gun on target to fire a single shot relatively quickly (though still under control enough to hit the circle with each shot) This is another control group.
- Occlude the optic and fire five rounds with both eyes open. Go slow. Make sure you’re on target for two-three seconds per shot.
- Repeat as before with single shots starting from a (barely) low ready. These shots should be pretty quick... you should have the pistol in view while you look at the target with both eyes, but the dot should be visible in your peripheral vision. Focus on the target, prep your trigger, and bring the dot to the target. As soon as the dot is there press the shot. There should be maybe 1 second or less that the occluded dot is on target.
If the five occluded shots are off and the five rapid shots are off you may have a problem OTHER than phoria. This can include a “dot” focus for people who are used to front-sight focus (successful occluded aiming needs a target focus), or issues with presentation and potentially switching eyes.
If the five occluded shots are off and the rapid shots are on then you likely have phoria.
If all shots are on then maybe you’re getting more used to shooting with a target focus which is a good thing.
You can repeat the five rounds slow and then five single rounds fast with each eye to try to isolate that as well. I find that if I’m shooting without corrective vision, I’ll actually close my left (dominant) eye occasionally to force my right eye to pick up the dot for some purely marksmanship stuff (zeroing, Pat Mac 500 Agggregate and similar courses of fire). I certainly don’t advocate that and one day I’ll suck it up and buy a couple sets of corrective shooting glasses.
Last edited by Clusterfrack; 11-28-2022 at 04:30 PM.
As always, thanks for the great stuff! I believe I can see the head move before the gun around 14 seconds when you transition to the "classic" target, but on the smaller transitions I am not sure I'm seeing it. Am I missing it, or are the motions of the eyes before the gun just too small to pick up on the video?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.
I am not sure that phoria is binary as in yes/no. I experience it at times that I associate with tired (eyes). So occluded mostly works until it doesn't. Googling phoria, it can come on when tired.
So depending on your state at the time you do your test, you might have an answer that differs. That is the insidious part of occluded shooting for me, do you encounter something about your physiology, the target arrangement, or something about your body position (hard lean) that introduces a change in POI at that moment.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Very true. The “tests” I described will pick up the clear cases but I’m glad you pointed that out .
You’re missing it and it’s subtle for the smaller movements from the camera point of view.
Play the video at 1/4 speed and you can see the head start moving before the gun does for each transition. If I were fancy and had a second camera pointed at my face you could appreciate it better, but when I played it in slow motion just now it was subtle but noticeable.
EDIT: the other hallmark of good target focus is that there isn’t overtransitioning.
When people gun focus or dot focus they tend to over or undertransition at full speed because they’re not seeing and calculating the stable full approach.
Last edited by JCN; 11-28-2022 at 08:12 PM.
Wow, I can't thank you all enough for your quick and insightful responses! I am definitely impressed with the transitions in the aimcam video... I am definitely finding that I have to give myself cues before I shoot/dry fire to lead with my eyes from target to target, otherwise I inevitably find myself tracking the dot during the transition. It works as it should even I give myself the cue, but it's not completely automatic yet.
I also really appreciate the live fire drills to test the effects of the occluded dot on my performance. This seems like a good way to isolate the variables and truly diagnose the problem. I have a range session coming up next Monday and will give them a shot then report back on what I find. In the meantime, I'm going to do some dry fire with the dot occluded and not occluded just to explore the differences. However, you've all convinced me that it's not so cut and dry to just Always run the dot occluded as a way to ensure target focus. It may serve that purpose, but if it comes at the expense of my shots not hitting where the dot is, then that's a very big problem.
Again, thank you all for your many nuggets of wisdom. I'll keep up with this thread and will post more next week after my range trip.
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