My daughter is a new shooter still young. she has been shooting for about 2 years my problem is she is right handed and left eye dominant. i am not sure how to handle this should i force the right eye for dominance or should i start her shooting left handed?

I'd say let her shoot the way that she is most comfortable. I have three daughters and one is left eye dominant and shoots left handed.

My now not so young youngest son has the problem. Took us forever to deal with it. For pistols he learned to ignore his left eye. He shot IPSC and became proficient enough with a handgun that he taught pistol craft for the Navy.

Did not work for rifle.

What did work is the Eotech Holosight! He can keep both eyes open and paralax doesn't seem to matter. He's able to just pound a 100 yard target with an M4.

Patience and good luck to you and the young Lady!

I'm right handed/left eye dominant and therefore shoot lefty. I'd probably have her shoot lefty. She'd really be handicapped shooting a shotgun for bird shooting, if you forced her to shoulder right-handed. I think a rifle could probably be shot opposite hand (sighting with the right eye only, one eye closed, which isn't really what you want). I shoot a pistol right handed, but I'm able to adjust my grip to sight with my left eye.

Just have her get accomplished at shooting right-handed bolt rifles, lefty. Her shotgun can be a O/U or for a field shotgun, I shoot a Browning BPS because it's bottom load, bottom eject.

Thank you guys for all the input I think i will try everything and see what is most comfortable for her as long as she has consistant shooting.

I did not realize I had the right-handed/left-eye dominance issue until about three or four years ago. I still shoot pistols right-handed with my left eye closed - no problems. I didn't think I liked shooting rifles until I started shooting left-handed. A year later and I have a .300WinMag and .375H&H and love shooting and hunting very much.

My vote is for long guns (rifles or shotguns) go left-handed, but it may depend on the level of eye dominance. My shots will jump about six inches if I try to shoot with my right eye.

Is it easier to train the muscle memory in your arms/body or your eyes? I think the arms/body is the way to go and can be handy for other things because you become better at doing other things left-handed.

Let us know how it goes!

I do a youthshooting program i have come across
this twice in 20+ years i had the best sucess
with teaching the kid to shoot southpaw but
maybe thats what I shoot. I think if you let
them shoot right handed with the left eye,and
they come to shoot a good sized rifle it will
wack them in the eye

Dan
Us lefties think everyone should shoot lefthanded
If that doesn't work for your daughter she may have to force her right eye to take over.
One technique that has worked well over the years is to simply place a strip of scotch tape over the center of the left lens of her shooting glasses. The tape will make the image fuzzy enough that her right eye should take over. You use semi transparent tape to let enough light and image in to allow her to keep her glasses on when she is not sighting.
Good luck
Guy

you will always do most things better with the same side leading. if your daughter is left eye dominant i'd try to get her to everything possible as a lefty. she will be able to do more with both hands .

I would be very carefull shooting RH rifles LH,
too much exposure to the RH side of your face.
A bad primer almost cost me my Right Eye on a factory round. Esp. with younger shooter not aware of the dangers. Most RH rifles relieve gas out of the RH side.

I wonder if you could use the Williams side mount with off centrescope rings?

I read in Nick Strobel's book, titled something like old scopes and mounts, that Williams make a side mount with two types of rings. One set positions the scopecentrally over the bore axis. The other set positions the scope offset, with the scope optical axis closer to the side of the action.

The Williams literature quoted in Strobel's book states the off centre set up is for those who have lost the sight in their 'shooting' eye and still want to shoot off the same shoulder.

When I read this, I thought it was a neat solution. However, I do not know how practical it is in real life. Nor how good these Williams side mounts are, compared to the Griffen & Howe (much?!) and the now unavailable Jaeger sidemounts.

When Lora got interested in wanting to hunt with me, we ran into the same problem and it took us a few sessions to nail down the problem. She now shoots lefty, both rifle and shotgun and does not have any problem, except with scopes. She is very near sighted, not quite "Pop-Bottle Bottom" glasses, but close. With her 257 we are constantly having to adjust the eye relief and power so that she can see. It is better in my opinion to let the person go with the dominant eye and then after they have gotten proficient that way, work with them so that they can be ambidexterous with their shooting.

I believe that shooting with the dominant eye is the best way to go. You can tape off your dominant eye and use specual shooting glasses, or gimmicks, but in the end, when shooting a shotgun, pistol, or rifle in an emergency (when the gimmicks aren't available) you will shoot more naturally and better with the dominant eye looking down the barrel and the other eye open.

My son, who is now 14, is left eye dominant and right handed. We found this out while he was shooting an air rifle at about 5 yo. I made him start shooting left handed. He has never fired a firearm right handed as far as I know. He held a rifle right handed the other day and it felt foreign to him. He wouldn't even shoot it. He shoots rifles, shotguns, and handguns left handed and does very good except on flying shots to his right. I haven't figured that one out yet. I have a brother that is left eye dominant and he shoots right handed. He does not shoot very accurately, and I strongly suspect that his problems are caused by shooting right handed and being left eye dominant.

Mark

Sorry I haven't been around to clarify about the tape technique (work keeps interfering).
What makes this technique useful is that it teaches the uncovered eye to take over when shooting. You don't need to tape your glasses for life,only until the brain learns to use that eye.
Guy

quote:

Originally posted by Dan50:
Thank you guys for all the input I think i will try everything and see what is most comfortable for her as long as she has consistent shooting.

gotogirl3

I have trained a lot people who were "cross-eyed dominant". My suggestion is to allow her to shoot from the dominant side and just squint the dominant eye, the non-dominant eye then takes over due to its clear field of view and she should have no problems. For instance is she is right-handed but left-eye dominant she should shoot with the rifle in the right shoulder and just squint her left eye and the right eye will automatically take over.

With the pistol it doesn't matter as one can turn their head just a fraction and allow the dominant eye to focus on the sight but this isn't possible with a rifle due to the stock being in the way.

Hope this helps.

Tom

Addendum

The tape method works very well, accomplishing the same thing as slightly squinting the dominant eye. The advantage of the tape is that the shooter doesn't have to think about it as they do squinting. Whatever one does diligently in training they will normally do in an urgent situation.

One advantage to training a lefty to shoot off the right shoulder if they are right-eyed dominant is they then have all these wonderful old right-handed rifles to shoot. We lefties have more great rifles than ever before but everytime I pick up an old military Mauser or Springfield I would love to run it like it was designed to be run but alas I am too much a lefty.

Having said all that, I don't normally switch a shooter to their non-dominant shoulder, I just help them strengthen the non-dominant eye.

Tom

Determine Eye dominance should be done before handling a weapon.

I am left eye dominant and right handed. 5 years in to a 20 year AF career in the Security Forces (SP) I switched from shooting the M-16 right handed to left handed an my scores skyrocketed.
Over the years I found that in troops who had difficulty qualifying, eye dominance was often at a part of the problem. Sight picture is everything and wear an eye patch while on patrol is not a good solution.
Most troops did better shooting of the dominant eyes shoulder. Though it sometimes took a few rounds to get them use to the idea shoot off the “wrong sideâ€.

Left eye dominance in right and left handed made shooting the M60 and M203 a bear!

I am left handed, well as most left handed people I am ambidextrous. I believe that happens to a lot of lefties, growing up in right handed world. I am also right eye dominant. I was able to learn to shoot a pistol right handed pretty easily. I can shoot a rifle right handed but I prefer left handed. The same with a shotgun. If she is young & has the desire she can learn to shoot left handed. If not she will have to learn to deal with eye dominance problem another way.

mpi makes a stock that solves this problem but it is ugly as hell

well this happened to me at about 7 or 8 yrs old i got stung in right eye by bee and had to start shooting leftie it is better to just make her shoot left handed and get them started in there adjustment.but go to the eye doctor if not too serious they may be able to help the right eye.if you force her to shoot right handed the eye domince will not change the eye doctor might make her wear a patch over the eye to help if she absolutely has to shoot right eye