Occluded shooting with Opticgard

[theJanitor]

Nobody is saying don't use occluded-eye sighting if some freak occurrence happens that blocks the view through the sight, but magically doesn't interfere with the operation of the dot. But "keeping your sight occluded at all times, even on duty" is ridiculous.

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I'm only in it for the vision/brain training, not for regular use. The "what if" scenarios are still possible, but that's not my priority

[Molon]

I think people make red dot shooting way more complicated than it is sometimes.

This.
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[Molon]

I'm only in it for the vision/brain training, not for regular use. The "what if" scenarios are still possible, but that's not my priority

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[Serpico1985]

For what it’s worth I’m not advocating carrying a duty weapon occluded. I don’t have anywhere near enough experience with a dot to weigh in on that. This is purely a training gun for me, not a duty gun.

So far I have it has been very helpful for me in forcing me to keep both eyes open and target focused and nothing else. I train with it occluded most of the time and I’ll sometimes take off the optic guard and run practice quals non-occluded. I’ve noticed getting “sucked into the dot” when shooting non occluded. My groups open up and I get fixated on watching the dot.

Are y’all suggesting I stop practicing occluded?

[GJM]

For what it’s worth I’m not advocating carrying a duty weapon occluded. I don’t have anywhere near enough experience with a dot to weigh in on that. This is purely a training gun for me, not a duty gun.

So far I have it has been very helpful for me in forcing me to keep both eyes open and target focused and nothing else. I train with it occluded most of the time and I’ll sometimes take off the optic guard and run practice quals non-occluded. I’ve noticed getting “sucked into the dot” when shooting non occluded. My groups open up and I get fixated on watching the dot.

Are y’all suggesting I stop practicing occluded?

Not sure if you were kidding or asking, but if you have problems target focusing when not occluded, practicing more occluded might not make sense. I slap some tape on the front lens of my optic periodically dry firing, but don't shoot live rounds occluded.

[Clusterfrack]

@Molon, I found your post on Phoria very interesting. I've notice while shooting occluded, my groups move consistently left as I move further in distance (25yds+). If I remove the tape on my optic, my group centers which left me questioning why that was happening. I just thought I was loosing focus on the target and becoming too dot focused.

Vision is complicated, and each person is unique. For example, some people (including me) are nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other. I'm right eye dominant, so if I shoot with a PVS-14 night vision tube on my left eye and look through my carbine optic with my right, my lazy right eye won't converge on the target, causing POI to be well off the target. Sound similar to the problems you described?

[MD7305]

Vision is complicated, and each person is unique. For example, some people (including me) are nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other. I'm right eye dominant, so if I shoot with a PVS-14 night vision tube on my left eye and look through my carbine optic with my right, my lazy right eye won't converge on the target, causing POI to be well off the target. Sound similar to the problems you described?

It does sound similar. This year my corrective lenses changed from being the same for both eyes. My right, dominant eye, is now slightly stronger. With my new prescription I've noticed my eyes seem to focus at distance differently. That's with contacts, oddly enough I notice it less with glasses but I rarely wear glasses. I've also fully commited to optics due to my department finally adopting it. So I may be noticing it more due to the frequency I've been using optics lately along with the change in prescription my eyes together are adjusting to.

In reference to occluded shooting, I only use it during some of my dryfire and occasionally live fire to reinforce I'm shooting target focused. I'm probably over thinking it but I feel like at 25 yards and further I'm focusing too much on the dot so I've been occluding my optic to help with that. I may be barking up the wrong tree!

[rdtompki]

I've mentioned elsewhere that I don't have binocular, no occluded dot shooting for me. A recent interesting observation:

Wife and I shoot steel challenge with eight predefined 5-target stages that can be shot in any order provided the "stop plate" is hit last. Higher speed stages I definitely shoot faster left to right, even symmetrical stages. Being right eye dominant shooting right to left my brain will try to switch to my left eye, favored with its unobstructed view of the target, but useless as the gun and dot come up to the target.

The real world and action pistol sports don't provide this much control over target engagement sequence, but there may be a lesson in terms of closing/squinting the non-dominant eye.

[Erick Gelhaus]

Nobody is saying don't use occluded-eye sighting if some freak occurrence happens that blocks the view through the sight, but magically doesn't interfere with the operation of the dot. But "keeping your sight occluded at all times, even on duty" is ridiculous.

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Yes! and thank you.

[Caballoflaco]

Speaking of “freak occurances” with optical sights and occlusions. I took this screen shot from a video of Ukrainians raiding a trench this December. While his optic isn’t completely covered it’s easy to see how it could be. (everybody over there still runs optics if they can get them)