Cross Dominance

[GoatLD259]

Good Afternoon Hide

A problem that I have in shooting as the title implies, is that I am cross dominant. I am right handed but left eye dominant. Is switching to my left hand the best and only solution to this problem? I have tried practicing on my left shoulder but is awkward and does not seem right. I have read sources that you can change eye dominance by wearing a patch over your left eye for long periods, and dominance will naturally shift over to the other eye? But I have also read sources saying that you can not change your dominance, it is fixed. I have shot guns before with a patch over my left eye, and this does help, but is there a way to change dominance where I will not need the patch anymore and keep both eyes open?

Thank you.

Goat

 

[Josh1978]

I am right handed and left eye dominant as well. When I was at the eye dr last time, I asked her if there was a way to change eye dominance. She told me there was nothing that could be done. I have read articles about changing eye dominance but I have never attempted an eye patch or anything. I just deal with it as best I can.

 

[Spartan67]

I started off as a Left eye/ rt side dominate shooter.

I trained myself to shoot from the rt side by lots of rimfire shooting. My rt side/Eye is now my norm, but I can still shoulder the rifle on the left side to take a shot if needed while Im in the tree stand.
Hope this helps. Good luck, and welcome to the Hide

 

[SharpsNitro]

You should probably do some searching on clay shooting, using occluders to aid eye dominance issues is pretty common. You might find some useful information in this thread:

For those that wear a dot

How long did it take to get used to it? I have debated for the last 10 years if I need to dot my off eye. I tried it about 5 years back, but probably for only couple hundred shells. Long story short, I'm going to try it for 1k targets and see what the results are. I have been wearing the...

www.shotgunworld.com

 

[Screehopper]

I'm right-handed and left eye dominant too.

When shooting rifles I have no issues shooting with optics or iron sights. The long sight line helps me stay focussed with my right eye.

When shooting handguns, my head is slightly turned to the right to favor my left eye.

With archery you're supposed to choose the side of eye dominance, not handedness. So with archery I shoot left. Tried shooting right but my aim was way off.

 

[samb300]

You're going to get a lot of different opinions and different advice on this, so take everything with a grain of salt.

I am RH and left eye dominant. I decided a while back to shoot with my left eye, so for long guns I shoot LH and for pistol I still shoot RH but turn my head. I primarily shoot PRS style matches, and hold my own even though I'm shooting with my left hand and use a LH bolt gun. It feels so much more natural for me to use my left eye, that everything started to come together and now I shoot better than I ever could with closing my left eye.

So it depends a lot on what discipline you're shooting. F-Class or BR? PRS? 3-gun? You can much more easily wear a patch or tape your eye in a F-Class match than you can a 3-gun match.

I would personally advise against patching your eye and attempting to "re-train" your brain to be right eye dominant. If it was that easy you'd hear Olympic shooters talking about it and selling a method to do so. My recommendation would be to try shooting left handed, and REALLY give it a try. Not just shooting 5 rounds and saying it feels awkward - because it will at first. If you're willing to patch your eye for a year and give yourself headaches while you go crosseyed lol, you owe it to yourself to give it a real effort to shoot LH first.

And like I said, there will be other opinions and there are lots of guys that make it work shooting cross-eye dominant. The common theme is no matter what path you take it's going to take some trial and error and lots of practice.

 

[Flightmurse]

I am right handed and left-eye dominant. Rifles and shotguns are shot left handed, and pistols are right handed. When shooting handguns with iron sights I take a piece of scotch tape and cover the front sight on my right glasses lense which keeps my eyes from fighting over the sight picture. With a red dot this isn’t an issue, as the dot is in the same focal plane.
I was fortunate enough to learn to switch in my early teens and shooting lefty with long guns is natural now, and it helps with transition speed when going from rifle to pistol.

 

[candyx]

Offset scope mount so you can still use your right handed rifles.

 

[lte82]

Right Hand / Left Eye as well. My vote is shoot a left hand rifle. I know some guys have figured out how to shoot with their right eye, or even shoot a right hand rifle left handed, but it will never be as quick or natural. Learning to run the bolt and trigger with your left hand is WAY easier than trying to make your right eye as fast as your left at acquiring targets, getting squared up behind the scope, assisting with balance, quickly glancing at your bubble level, dope chart, or turrets, etc.

 

[skatz11]

I’m left handed and right eye dominant. I shoot handguns left handed and long guns right handed.

I’ve been doing it long enough that it feels natural.

The bonus to this cross dominance is ambidextrous trigger control. It makes support side shooting a lot easier once you get the eye issues squared away. I have no trouble with irons and RDS, but for magnified optics I struggle. Mostly due to lack of practice and familiarity with the body/head position on the support side eye.

 

[PJC]

I am cross dominant. Frankly it can be made an advantage in the sense it becomes easier to shoot from both sides of the rifle. Time spent training from both sides of the rifle is a good thing.