Re: Both eyes open
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: JimGnitecki</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think the key is whether or not there is magnificaiton involved.
I find it easy to keep both eyes open when shooting a handgun or when using a red dot type sight, but do better with one eye open when using a scope, especially a high power scope.
Even with the handgun though, my "non-dominant" eye does still produce an "offset" image in my case, significantly to the left), but with practice I was able to get to the point where I can ignore that false offset image under most conditions.
I say "false" only because that image is naturally gonig to be at a different apparent location, since the non-dominant eye is not proeprly aligned with the sights. The dominant eye is.
I think the presence of magnification makes the "composite" view of magnified small field of view image plus unmagnified lagre field of virew image a little too complex and time consuming for my mind to process quickly enough to keep the scope reticle on the target reliably.
Jim G </div></div>
I'll generally agree with you on your first statement. However. I feel it is different for each individual shooter. Although perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
The only issue I ever have is with iron sights on a rifle about 75 yards or closer. It's taken some real practice to adjust to irons on a rifle. Scoped rifle, handgun and shotgun are both eyes open all the time, with magnified optics or not I actually find it much easier.
Whether my scoped rifles have scopes set to 1x or 25x it makes no difference for me to keep both eyes open. It took about 3 range sessions for me to get used to it, an now it feels odd if I try to close my off eye. Then again I shoot all firearms both eyes open.
I started with shotgun and noticed that my hit ratio on clays or dove/quail skyrocketed when I switched to both eyes open. Some of that may be attributed to a fuller field of view, a better swing and follow through and not trying to actually aim with the shotgun. With a shotgun the only thing I actually see is the target, I can't even tell you that I see part of the barrel in the sight picture, because focusing on that starts to lean back toward aiming- shotgun is a different game unless turkey hunting or using slugs for deer.