I am just starting out and I am doing great ok ok good with one eye open but if I try two eyes overing I am not doing to good… having a hard time finding the signts
It will come naturally if you practice. Give yourself 2 - 3 weeks with 10 - 15 minutes daily practice.
Start with one eye, find the front sight focus, then open other eye keeping focus still on front sight.
This way you teach your brain to see double target, but eventually you will find it very simple to aim at proper one.
After 2 or 3 days aim with your dominant eye and squint the other one (do not close it). Once you find the target and have focus - open both eyes.
Practice and you will be good! Don’t make it easy for you and stop aiming with one eye. Remember - everything can be achieved, you just need to be patient.
There is a simple trick to teach your brain focusing on one thing with both eyes:
Pick any target at your room, then extend your dominant arm with thumb up. With both eyes opened move the focus between the target and your thumb. Do it several times.
Welcome to the community @AZJustMe2021!
It takes some practice, as Jerzy says. I will add that I generally use the two eyes open on closer targets, where I am shooting faster. Say out to 10 yards. Further out than that I will switch to one eye focus. Once you get it figured out, you can do it and not even think about what you are doing.
First you need to find out which eye is your dominant eye. This can be done several ways but I like to use all of them to verify it is your dominant eye and how dominant is it? Hold your arm out in front of you than hold your thumb up and have an object lined up behind it. Close one eye, if the thumb does not move this will be your dominant eye. If it moves than close that eye and open the other.
Once you figure out which eye is dominant you can start working at using this to focus on your front sights. I use a white piece of paper and I use a training gun because all I am going to do is focus on the front sight into a piece of white paper. When you get this down change the colors of the paper or just use post ems, the smaller the better. You can practice going from one target,(Post em) to the other. Your front post should be in focus and the target should be slightly out of focus. Hopefully I did not go too far with this but it all is practice, take your time to do it right every time. It is all about building the basics in solid to achieve the same effect every time. Focus training and sight picture training together as one.
With practice your brain will get used to the idea. Maintain the mantra of “front site, front site, front site”!
Two eyes open saves live! Especially yours. That peripheral vision works like a charm when both eyes are open.
Three days a week on the range and in six months it was normal. Soon you’ll find squinting with one eye actually effects your aim. Your face is in a more relaxed position when both eyes are open🥴 My 2 sense!
It definitely takes practice. At first I had to close my left eye but after 6 months I have to slightly squint my left eye but I still have good vision. With a red dot on a rifle I don’t have to squint unless I’m going for a more distant precision shot. But when I got to my LPVO I’m finding that I have to squint a tad but I’m guessing that’s related to the 1x not being a true 1x.
After you get it, keep practicing. I finally figured this out. When both of my eyes are open, I have two back sights, one front sight, and two targets. Both sight pictures are equally compelling, but I have to remind myself that I am lining up the sights on my right eye, and so which ever sight picture has the back and front sight aligned is right.
In short, put some optics on your gun. You’ll save yourself a lot of stress.
Ditto on optics. Hands down, they’re better. Can be expensive with optic, slide cut and holster but worth every penny.
As everyone here says practice is key but as @Todd30 stated you need to figure out which eye is dominant and make sure you are lining the sights up with that dominant eye when both eyes are open. You can even just use your thumb as a “sight” to help train your eyes faster.
I have to admit I need to check myself. Never had issues hitting my target but it would be best to be accustomed to both eyes open. I may do it without thinking now.
This will be an unpopular opinion. If you need to use your sights then close an eye. Doing this will take away the parallax that can occur while using both eyes open. This will cause you to see two of something like your sights or thumb. Use intuitive unsighted fire with both eyes open and a threat focus and when you need to take a precise shot then close your eye and focus on the front sight.
I appreciate tips for training. I am left eye dominant but do everything right handed.
as long as you punch the gun into and parallel to your line of sight you should be ok. The gun will naturally fall in line with your dominant eye.
Definitely unpopular opinion.
Every opinion is valued, we just need to find out what is best for us.
Absolutely find what works best for you because everything is individual and subjective.
I don’t think I would call that opinion, it’s more science. (Not getting into the “science” political discussion here.)
There’s a balance between when you might point and shoot (unsighted fire) to when you’ll need to use your sights (sighted fire). Speed vs. precision.
When should you use sighted fire vs unsighted fire? That all depends on the circumstances and your confidence in your abilities.
This has been a tough nut for me to crack. After working on this skill for more than a year, I still squint both eyes to lock in with my dominant eye with iron sights. It is no problem with an undignified red dot, but I still revert to one eye if using a magnified optic.
Hi @Rita4 , I am cross eye dominant as well. My left eye is heavily dominant. Honestly, I believe it is probably best to shoot with the same hand as the dominant eye, but I have shot cross eye dominant my whole life. What has worked for me for a very long time is simply bringing the gun up to my left eye when I present to a target. Its a very slight adjustment that has kept my cross eye dominance from being an issue while I shoot. *This is for pistol only, long guns are another animal.
You can also do a quick google search for cross eye dominance shooting and find several great articles on the topic.
My wife and I are both cross eye dominant. I started learning to shoot before understanding the importance of eye dominance so continue to shoot handguns “cross eyed” with both eyes open with no issues.
We determined my wife was cross eye dominant before her first trip to the range so started her off shooting with her non dominant hand. She picked that up really easily and although she does not shoot much she shots very well.
I would recommend trying to use the hand that matches your dominant eye for awhile to see if you can make it work. This is even more vital with a rifle. I am a left handed pistol shooter with right eye dominance but shoot rifles right handed.
My right eye and hand is the dominant, should I try to keep the gun more in front of the right eye abs I also learned to Focus on the front sight more then anything else. I was focusing on the target