I know a number of people who are cross-eye dominant. Meaning they are right-handed and use their left eye to shoot or vice-versa. Here are some tips to help someone who is cross-eye dominant shoot better:
Every time I am on the range I will put some rounds down range with both eyes open. I do this with both hands and all I am trying to do is hit center mass. If I really need accuracy (shooting bullseyes) its a whole different story (one eye closed). I just don’t get to the range enough to be competition good at both eyes open. When I do shoot for accuracy with my off hand (for me left) I also use my left eye with the right one closed.
I’m right-handed but left eye dominant. When I first started shooting, I just trained to shoot left-handed with both hanguns and long guns. I wanted consistency in my gun handling, even though cross-eye dominance is not as critical with handguns.
Right handed, left eye dominant. I use a modified Weaver stance with both eyes open. I turn my head slightly to the right, so my left eye has more of the sight picture, but, I still have my peripheral vision from my right eye.
weeeell… I used to be Right Eye Right Hand. But my vision is changing as I get older and now I need readers. The last couple of years I’ve been trying to figure out why I can’t get clear sight pictures anymore and what I can do to fix that. I was starting to think that I had shifted to left eye dominant because my right eye had shifted further out of focus than the left. but that didn’t solve it either. FINALLY figured it out like two days ago. Ordered one of these thinking it would help me improve my focus and it just got here: https://chrissajnog.com/front-sight-focus-string-directions/
well GUESS WHAT? I’m freakin’ alternating eyes … flipping back and forth between left and right until one of them grabs.
REALLY annoying. Now I have to figure out how to make this work for me… seeing as I’m apparently alternating BOTH.
An interesting side bit… when I took my NRA pistol instructor course 10 years ago the instructor said - don’t worry a lot about cross-dominance, you won’t see much of it. and then 9 of my first 10 students were… guess what … cross dominant.
just lucky I guess
I’m cross eye dominant with left eye, right hand but I had to learn to be like that on purpose due to having monovision. Near sighted in one eye and far sighted in the other. I still catch myself using right eye occasionally. I can always tell when I’m off target, totally screws me up!
Recent issue with dominant hand(right) is forcing me to be left hand/right dominant. This is because I got cellulitus infection in my hand and screwed up tendons in thumb and major hand causing droop and loss of strength.
Relearning non side holds and sightings is the pits but useful. Found out I can throw knives better left hand then I ever could right handed. Don’t ask me to throw a ball Lefty it ain’t pretty.
WOW! I am surprised how many people here are dealing with/have dealt with cross-eye dominance issues! I know I struggled a bit with it when my eye doctor played with my contact prescription once (switched eye doctors at that point).
Sounds like you all definitely figured it out and are finding adaptations that work for you!
Great topic Dawn! I am with @Nathan and trained myself to shoot left-handed. Handguns, shotguns, and rifles. This solution eliminates the need for all the other adjustments. One of the best consequences of this is you have your dominant hand available to you for handgun manipulations and defense if necessary. I also find that I have my left hand free to get to my gun when carrying a shopping bag or something similar.
I’m still working on this… but it is MUCH tougher than I thought. I figure I could wear the eye patch a couple minutes a day for a week or two. Nope. Still cross-dominant. Go figure. I’ll keep trying.
To answer your question in the video, I don’t think it’ll work. I think once that eye is uncovered you will revert right back to using it.
My reasoning is, I have a deer camp by Lake Superior and one of the camps near us is owned by a Green Beret who got his eye shot out in Vietnam. The guy automatically switched dominant eyes, but depth perception had to develop over time. Or that’s how he kind of explained it. I didn’t really quiz him about what he meant, that didn’t seem appropriate. Maybe it’ll work out for you, because you didn’t get shot in the head, you’re using safety glasses, the bullet could’ve messed other stuff up for our family friend.
Never really had a “eye dominant” issue since when I was a kid (around 10 years old) and had my right arm in a cast for over 9 months I learned to shoot with both eyes open and using either hand once I got the use of my right arm again.
A friend of mine, who is an avid gun owner, suggested something similar to convert my son from a lefty shooter to right handed. He suggest putting scotch tape over the left lense of his shooting glasses, and having my son shoot right handed. I didn’t try it, since the guns I would look at for my kid, come in lefty versions.