# Left Eye Dominate



## 2litl2l8 (Jan 16, 2008)

So, I took my 3 older kids shooting today and quickly did a eye dominance test with them. Turns out two of the three are left eye dominate. Question is, to I teach those two how to shoot left handed (they are both right handed.)? They both want to instinctively shoot right handed, I decided to do an eye dominance test when my daughter was trying to shoot right handed but look though the scope with her left eye. I had her try to shoot left handed but she was not comfortable with it. Anyway, back to question. Do I just have them close their left eye and teach them to shoot right handed or buy a couple left handed guns and let them practice left handed?


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

When she shoulders the gun as a righty does she try to look over the gun with the left eye? Ignore the shooting lessons for the moment, how is she wanting to hold the gun? Spend some time with a BB gun letting them plink cans. Watch carefully how they are holding / shoting.

Speaking as a Lefty with a 11 year old lefty boy, its easier for him to shoot left handed. He originally held the gun as a righty as well, but was always wanting to use the left eye. Once he got used to shouldering it left handed, using his left eye was natural.

-DallanC


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## bdmillertime (Jan 7, 2008)

I myself am a right hander thats left eye dominate. It took awhile of feeling clumsy before i really got used to it but now i try and teach my boy to shoot and right handed is so akward it takes me minute to figure it out to show him.


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

I am also cross dominant. So my dad went to the drug store and bought me a cheap eye patch and made me wear it when I went out shooting targets. It honestly really helped me as I could not seem to sit comfortably holding the rifle as a left handed shooter.

Every once in a while I will find myself at the range with an eye patch to help with a lot of shooting.

One other solution that I discovered was the Magic Dot. Although I dont think it works as well as the eye patch, it does help
http://www.morganoptical.net/pageDisplay.jsp?pageid=7631


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## MarkM (Sep 7, 2007)

I am also right handed but left eye dominant. When I was a kid learning to shoot a BB gun I shouldered the gun right handed but wanted to lean across the gun and use my left eye. My Dad told me to just close my left eye and use my right. I made it work but it never felt natural. When I was a teen I got into Archery and really had a tough time there. I learned about eye dominance and found out I was cross eyed dominant. I decided to switch to lefty shooting a bow. It was weird at first but quickly felt natural. I have not made the switch to lefty shooting a rifle or shotgun but I should as it would improve my shooting. I have been getting involved with pistols/handguns latly and have been shooting them right handed but using my left eye with both eyes open. So far it is working pretty good. 

I would say for your kids follow waht eye they are and don't worry about right/left hand. If they are left eye dominnt then have them learn to shoot left handed, if the are right eyed then shoot right handed. I wish my Dad would have started me off left handed,m i would be a much better shooter because of it.

A simple test with kids is to hand them a empty TP tube and have them look at you though it. They will always bring it to there dominante eye.

Good Luck!!!

Mark


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## 2litl2l8 (Jan 16, 2008)

Thank you for all the input. I am thinking I will try to teach them to shoot left handed. I tried myself to close my right and and use my left eye to sight up, it is just weird to try to do that. Like my eye would not focus right. In the future for archery if they want to do that I think it will be easier to pick up with the coordination if they were rifle shooting left handed already. So any other thoughts would be great as well as some kid sized left handed .22 suggestions.


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## Dannyboy (Oct 27, 2010)

I shoot rifle and pistol left handed but am right eye dominate, i never notice much of a differance. I do shoot the bow right handed. I have always been a little differant that way. I always wondered if i should have changed my shooting habbits. Shooting right handed would defenatly give me more options on buying guns.


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## BPturkeys (Sep 13, 2007)

Just force the kid to shoot right handed. Tell him that's just the way life goes. He'll learn just fine! It's either that or face a lifetime of searching for left handed guns. Look at it this way, either you deny his right handedness or you deny his left eye dominance...can't have it both ways (unless you get cross-over stocks for all his guns)


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## Bo0YaA (Sep 29, 2008)

+1 for the eye patch. My 11 yr old daughter was also right handed left eye dominant and it only took a few trips to the range wearing the eye patch and it was solved. She does still need it from time to time but it worked great.


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

The eye patch is for ******** imho. It docent fix the problem it just covers it up.

Kids learn extremely fast how to shoot using dominate eye and non dominate hands. Its the parrents that are unwilling to put the effort time or money. Think about It. It cost more to retrofit a kid properly than it does to just put a patch over their eye.

I've coached plenty of kids with this problem including my own daughter. Get them the correct equipment and a few days and there shooting better then they ever did with a patch.


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## BPturkeys (Sep 13, 2007)

swbuckmaster said:


> The eye patch is for ******** imho. It docent fix the problem it just covers it up.
> 
> Kids learn extremely fast how to shoot using dominate eye and non dominate hands. Its the parrents that are unwilling to put the effort time or money. Think about It. It cost more to retrofit a kid properly than it does to just put a patch over their eye.
> 
> I've coached plenty of kids with this problem including my own daughter. Get them the correct equipment and a few days and there shooting better then they ever did with a patch.


I guess I am a little confused about what your exact recommendation is here SWBuck, are you suggesting choosing to use the dominate eye over the dominate hands?? If this is what you are recommending I must highly disagree with your approach. It is MUCH easier to over come the dominate eye...one organ..over training the less dominate muscles of the hand and arms and back and legs, etc that are used in shooting. Although yes, you can train the arms and hands, etc. pretty easily in young people, it is just as easy to train to use the less dominate eye, and in the end the child will shoot just as well ether way, but he/she will fit much better into a right handed world. I also highly agree with those suggesting using a patch as a LEARNING tool...if it works, use it. None have suggested it as a permanent item.


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## MKP (Mar 7, 2010)

My brother is left eye dominate, but right handed. He does fine shooting left handed, but he has problems with semi-auto actions since the spent shells and gas fly across his face. I guess that's something else to think about.


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

double post


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

BPturkeys said:


> I guess I am a little confused about what your exact recommendation is here SWBuck, are you suggesting choosing to use the dominate eye over the dominate hands??
> 
> Yup!
> 
> ...


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## crimson obsession (Sep 7, 2008)

Lots of people are cross dominate, sometimes they learn this from.sports. look at it this way, playing baseball when at the plate batting a right handed batter ALWAYS has his left eye forward seeing the complete field of view, while the right eye only sees about an 75 to 80 percent view. I myself grew up an avid baseball player and I think that helped into my cross dominance. I never tried to correct my eyes and I didn't ever notice a difference. I actually think this has helped me while wing shooting being able to locate and focus better on a moving target with my non-barrel eye. Just my opinion who knows maybe I'm way off?

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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

crimson obsession said:


> Lots of people are cross dominate, sometimes they learn this from.sports. look at it this way, playing baseball when at the plate batting a right handed batter ALWAYS has his left eye forward seeing the complete field of view, while the right eye only sees about an 75 to 80 percent view.
> 
> I don't for one minute think when I bat my left eye is taking over. If it were so I could just put a patch on my right eye and still hit'em out of the park. I can guarantee this wont happen. Not only is your right eye doing most of the work you also need both eyes to judge distance and speed.
> 
> ...


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

MKP said:


> My brother is left eye dominate, but right right handed. He does fine shooting left handed, but he has problems with semi-auto actions since the spent shells and gas fly across his face. I guess that's something else to think about.


This would suck, But they do make left handed semi-autos that would fix this problem.


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## BPturkeys (Sep 13, 2007)

Well, I am not going to argue about it but I'll tell you one thing, once you teach that kid to shoot left handed and go with the dominate eye, yeah, he'll learn to shoot just fine...BUT, next time you take him shopping for a new gun, I hope he likes the one or two that he gets to choose from. I am just sayin...he'll learn to shoot just fine either way, so why limit him for the rest of his life needlessly. SW's system worked good cause that's what he did, not cause it's any better.

So as not to confuse..I say teach him to shoot right handed and use his right eye.


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## stimmie78 (Dec 8, 2007)

I shoot left handed... too many bruised eyebrows.. I shoot a bow right handed though.


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## Bo0YaA (Sep 29, 2008)

+1 my daughter shoots just fine without her patch now. She made need it every now and then at the range but that's only because we don't go enough and when we do go she may shoot 40+ rounds. I decided to go with the patch because she felt more comfortable holding it right handed then left and I didn't want her to have to deal with finding lefty guns the rest of her life. You can call it what you want but I did what I thought was best and after seeing how quickly she adapted to it I'm even more convinced I did the right thing.



BPturkeys said:


> Well, I am not going to argue about it but I'll tell you one thing, once you teach that kid to shoot left handed and go with the dominate eye, yeah, he'll learn to shoot just fine...BUT, next time you take him shopping for a new gun, I hope he likes the one or two that he gets to choose from. I am just sayin...he'll learn to shoot just fine either way, so why limit him for the rest of his life needlessly. SW's system worked good cause that's what he did, not cause it's any better.
> 
> So as not to confuse..I say teach him to shoot right handed and use his right eye.


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## 400BULL (Nov 16, 2007)

When My oldest boy was young I noticed that he was leaning across his BB to shot. After doing an eye dominate test in him I found out that he was left eyed dominate. I had him switch over to his left hand and he instantly started shooting better even though it was a little awkward for him at first. He quickly got use to the awkwardness and really started shooting good along with that came confidence. 

A poster earlier mentioned about the lack of left handed rifles for the shooter to choose from. Left hand shooters have nearly as many rifles to choose from as right handed shooters. The only ones that left handed shooters may not be able to shoot are the ones with Monte-Carlo style of stocks. A competition shooter at a local sporting good store informed me that he would purchase a right handed rifle before he would a left handed one because of the lack of movement when shooting competition style and he is a left handed shooter. I ended up purchasing my boy a right handed rifle this past fall, he has had not problem shooting it left handed.

400bull


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

Can you explain lack of movement 400Bull?


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## 400BULL (Nov 16, 2007)

SW,

The lack off movement that he was talking about was in cycling the action. The way he shoots was to have his right arm folded under neath the rifle so after each shoot all that he need to do was to slightly raise his right hand and cycle the action. His left hand always remained in contact with the trigger and the rifle stock always remained in his left shoulder pocket. Where if he was shooting a left handed rifle he would need to release his trigger gripe, cycle the action and then regain his trigger grip. To me that does not seem like a whole lot of difference but to him that small difference made all the difference in the world and would never purchase a left handed rifle.

400bull


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

I see

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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

400BULL said:


> SW,
> 
> The lack off movement that he was talking about was in cycling the action. The way he shoots was to have his right arm folded under neath the rifle so after each shoot all that he need to do was to slightly raise his right hand and cycle the action. His left hand always remained in contact with the trigger and the rifle stock always remained in his left shoulder pocket. Where if he was shooting a left handed rifle he would need to release his trigger gripe, cycle the action and then regain his trigger grip. To me that does not seem like a whole lot of difference but to him that small difference made all the difference in the world and would never purchase a left handed rifle.
> 
> 400bull


From a trivia standpoint, this is how Lee Harvey Oswald was able to fire 3 shots so fast in a bolt action... he was a lefty keeping his left hand on the trigger and cycling the rifle with his right hand. He had the barrel wedged against the corner of the window with his knee.

The FBI for a while thought there had to be two shooters to shoot so quick as none of their "right handed shooters" could replicate it. Then a Lefty tried and wala, bangbangbang in rapid succession.

As for rifle availability, unless you are going for obscure calibers you can indeed find nice lefty rifles in most calibers. There are a few exceptions if you are looking for specific configurations like my Rem LH M700BDL in .243, made only 2 years and rare as hens teeth. I have a pristine one that I may give to my boy eventually.

I have .17HMR, .22, .22-250, .243, .270, 7STW all in LH calibers. I hope to add a Lefty Stag 6L AR-15 in .223 this summer as well. I noticed that Blaser has a huge amount of lefty chamberings lately as does Savage.

-DallanC


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## Dannyboy (Oct 27, 2010)

You can find left handed rifles.....but a lot of times they don't have them in stock, they are more money, and the sales deals sometimes don't apply to them because they need to order them in or what not.


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## MKP (Mar 7, 2010)

As I said before, my brother is right-handed but left eye dominate, so he shoot left handed. He owns several gun and not one of them is left handed. Bolts, pumps, and single shots, are all fine (if the stock is right, of course, like Monte Carlos, or thumb hole style) but autos that eject to the right spray him in the face.


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## 2litl2l8 (Jan 16, 2008)

Thank you for all the input. I think I am more confused as to what route to take than I was before. I have looked and there are no shortage of left handed rifles, they just have to be ordered as most places do not have them in stock. I think I will tech them to shoot left handed...let them work on it untill they are comfortable then let them decide. I also think I will work on teaching myself how to shoot a rifle left handed as it might come in handy some day.


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## MadHunter (Nov 17, 2009)

2litl2l8 said:


> Thank you for all the input. I think I am more confused as to what route to take than I was before. I have looked and there are no shortage of left handed rifles, they just have to be ordered as most places do not have them in stock. *I think I will tech them to shoot left handed...let them work on it until they are comfortable then let them decide. I also think I will work on teaching myself how to shoot a rifle left handed as it might come in handy some day.*


I think this is the best approach you can take. My kid brother is a lefty and was right eye dominant. He started shooting right handed and this took some getting used to. As a teenager he had an accident that damaged his right eye and had to start shooting left handed with a patch on his right eye. When he was 20 he had eye surgery and his right eye is for all intents and purposes perfect now.

After surgery he applied to sniper school, got admitted and graduated 4th in his class. The guy can now shoot with either hand and with either eye out over the 1K yard mark. He is also now an amazing teacher to me and to our nephew who has the same problem of being a lefty with right eye dominance.


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## stimmie78 (Dec 8, 2007)

I love my pump .270... Easy to shoot left handed. Pump 12ga... same thing, love the tang safety of my Mossberg 535. I don't have any problem shooting my semi-auto .22 lefty.. Some day I will purchase an actually lefty rifle... Stag Arms 2L... oh, and shooting my M44 Mosin or my Yugo SKS isn't a problem either. I had to tell myself I needed to shoot left handed. Dad just said I needed to switch eyes. It wasn't working for my so shooting lefty was much easier..... yes... I ramble on...


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## MarkM (Sep 7, 2007)

2litl2l8 said:


> Thank you for all the input. I think I am more confused as to what route to take than I was before. I have looked and there are no shortage of left handed rifles, they just have to be ordered as most places do not have them in stock. I think I will tech them to shoot left handed...let them work on it untill they are comfortable then let them decide. I also think I will work on teaching myself how to shoot a rifle left handed as it might come in handy some day.


I think you are on the right path with your son and having him learn lefty. I love my old man but his telling me to just "close your left eye" was probley the worst thing he could have told me when i was learning to shoot. I am still paying for it 30 years later.

Mark


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## BigMac (Feb 12, 2012)

You have been given lots of good ideas. I am also a right handed but shoot lefty due to eye dominance. I consider my self an great shotgun shooter but only a ok rifle shot. There is a big difference in the two. Like others have said they are kids & do learn fast. Now is the time to change them to the left side. I help many young shooters as a volunteer at my local shotgun range & they do adapt to this situation well. If it just won't work out to switch sides of the shoulder I have seen the eye patch/tape on the glasses be successful on the trap/skeet field.
I do know the problems with finding left handed guns too. It can be a real challenge at times depending on action type. I will admit I do shoot some right handed guns lefty & it's a pain. If you can get them set up with the proper gun. Gun fit is so important!


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## DeadI (Sep 12, 2007)

+1 on the eye patch. If there young then teach em right handed now and save your self money and headaches of finding left handed guns in the future.


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## BigMac (Feb 12, 2012)

DeadI said:


> +1 on the eye patch. If there young then teach em right handed now and save your self money and headaches of finding left handed guns in the future.


I am sorry but I couldn't disagree more. If they are young then get them shooting on the right shoulder to be in sink with the dominate eye or they will fight it always. Like I said before if it just won't work out to switch them over use clear tape on their shooting glasses this will help blur the vision of the dominate eye but not totally block it out. Much better than a straight eye patch or closing an eye.


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