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I see this topic has bubbled up yet again on another thread. By now, I've read lots of articles on this topic (being visually cross-eye dominant myself)... but none of it really clicked all that well until I started watching videos on the topic. Because if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million!

FYI, the BEST video I've found on this topic so far is the one I'm attaching. Now, quite frankly, a lot of what it covers is still over my head, mainly because it covers types of scopes that I know nothing about (ACOGs, etc.). Some of you advanced shooters might get a lot more out of it. Nonetheless, what I liked about the video was the following:

  • It's well-filmed with high production value... unlike a lot of stuff on YouTube
  • It covers pistols, rifles and multiple types of scopes (shotguns is the only platform it doesn't address --- so once I find a great video on that, I'll share)
  • Multiple methods are covered: both eyes open, one closed, shifting the position of your head, etc.
  • It shows that one method might work better for you than others --- or you, in fact, might adopt multiple methods (for different situations)
  • You get to see this guy transitioning seamlessly from one method to another (at amazing speed!)
  • He even ends the video on an up note - "don't think of it as a disability - just find workarounds, train a lot", etc.

>>> You know, MODS... maybe there should be a forum devoted to: VISION  (Cross-eye Dominance, Presbyopia, Other). These are very common issues that affect LOTS of people, yet the threads are scattered all around the forums, making them more difficult to search/retrieve. And the topics don't always fit into the "Optics"  forum either - because that's about equipment, not the person. Anyway, just a suggestion. I guess others will weigh in.

Happy viewing!

 

 

 

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I hate that kid. Lucas Botkin is a bigoted asshole that has zero background in real world gunfighting. He manipulates his videos to appear faster than he is, and tries to pass himself of as a “trainer” of LEO and Special military units.

I award him no points and may God have mercy on his soul.

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1 minute ago, High Exposure said:

I hate that kid. Lucas Botkin is a bigoted asshole that has zero background in real world gunfighting. He manipulates his videos to appear faster than he is, and tries to pass himself of as a “trainer” of LEO and Special military units.

I award him no points and may God have mercy on his soul.

LMAO!! How do you really feel? :p

OK, fair enough. I have no idea who the guy is. But, in all seriousness, personal animus aside, what did you think of the actual recommendations? Yay or nay? You know I respect your opinion.

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Just now, High Exposure said:

I can’t even listen to that kid....

Oh, my! That bad, huh? It would be nice if you were to weigh in though... maybe you could force yourself to view it, (you know, you being a helper and all)... and reward yourself with a stiff drink thereafter for your misery? :rofl:

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I'd never heard of him either, so I got through the video without being weighed down with personal opinion.  And I'm cross-eye dominant too, so this has been an area of lifelong interest.  

In general, his pistol advice wasn't bad, though he did confuse dominance with acuity at one point--they're not the same.  It's perfectly possible for your non-dominant eye to have better visual acuity.  As he said, with a handgun, it's easy enough to line up your dominant eye when shooting with two hands, and that works pretty well for most folks.   Shooting weak hand only will line up the sights with the dominant eye, so that also works.   Strong hand only, you might have to close your dominant eye, or better still squint it a little bit, so that the eye behind the sights picks up the picture.   In the precision events, it's better still to use a blinder of some type on the non-shooting eye (tape or a translucent blinder that still transmits light is best...if you put your non-shooting eye in the dark, both eyes will dilate to compensate).  I don't think precision events aren't his area of interest, so he didn't talk blinders.

I don't really shoot the run-and-gun rifle events, so can't comment there.   For precision events, the translucent blinder is also the way to go.

Shotgun, which he didn't address, is the hardest for the cross dominant shooter.   Two eyes open helps a lot, and cross dominance will force the wrong eye to try and put the bead on the bird.   Most serious advice I've read on the topic says you're better off learning to shoot with the other hand, because you can't change your eye dominance.    Personally, I just finished a 4 year experiment trying to shoot trap left handed, and never got my scores up to where they were when I shot right handed with my left eye closed, so I just changed my stock setup back for right handed shooting, and I'll be doing that in 2018.

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34 minutes ago, High Exposure said:

I hate that kid. Lucas Botkin is a bigoted asshole that has zero background in real world gunfighting. He manipulates his videos to appear faster than he is, and tries to pass himself of as a “trainer” of LEO and Special military units.

I award him no points and may God have mercy on his soul.

a guy I took a Vickers class with last year said he knows him and isn't that great at shooting; takes him a while to warm up.

 

anyway -> I'm cross-eyed dominant (Left Eye, Right Hand) and I shoot long guns lefty and handguns righty.  I didn't know how I wanted to set myself up to run rifles/long guns, but I was watching youtube and learned that Larry Vickers is the same.  Much easier to have a dominant eye on the long gun with two eyes open plus makes support side manipulation "easier".  Just my two cents. 

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Everyone makes such a big deal about it like it’s voodoo or something.

Eye dominance issues are pretty easy -

• Shoot handguns with your dominant hand

• Shoot long guns with your dominant eye

Just know that it is OK to shoot handguns righty and long guns lefty and vice-versa.

Yes, you absolutely can train your other eye to take over - but it takes a lot of time. That time translates into a lot of ammo and, bottom line, that is expensive.

It is faster and more efficient to train your weak hand to match the proficiency of your strong hand than it is to get your non dominant eye to take over for your dominant eye 100%.

It is a much faster solution, and more cost effective, to work the repetitions on your weak hand than your weak eye. 

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1 hour ago, High Exposure said:

Everyone makes such a big deal about it like it’s voodoo or something.

Eye dominance issues are pretty easy -

• Shoot handguns with your dominant hand

• Shoot long guns with your dominant eye

Just know that it is OK to shoot handguns righty and long guns lefty and vice-versa.

Yes, you absolutely can train your other eye to take over - but it takes a lot of time. That time translates into a lot of ammo and, bottom line, that is expensive.

It is faster and more efficient to train your weak hand to match the proficiency of your strong hand than it is to get your non dominant eye to take over for your dominant eye 100%.

It is a much faster solution, and more cost effective, to work the repetitions on your weak hand than your weak eye. 

I already settled on shooting a pistol righty (dominant hand). I either put a dab of chapstick on my left eyeglass lens (a poor man's "blinder" of the type 10x described) or I close my left eye. That seems to work. I tried it both ways, shoot pretty equally actually... but I settled on that because when I shot lefty, it was sending the hot brass right into my face. Soooo miserable! 

For long guns, I've only shot a shotgun on 3 occasions (totally suck leading with the right, so what the heck, I'll try the left) and I really have NOT gotten into rifles yet. I don't mind trying lefty for both. Might as well try things now before I develop patterns.

But here's a question... since most rifles are designed for right-handed people and eject on the right side, if I shoot left, won't I run into that same problem --- hot brass getting thrown directly at me instead of to the side of me? 

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2 minutes ago, Mrs. Peel said:

I already settled on shooting a pistol righty (dominant hand). I either put a dab of chapstick on my left eyeglass lens (a poor man's "blinder" of the type 10x described) or I close my left eye. That seems to work. I tried it both ways, shoot pretty equally actually... but I settled on that because when I shot lefty, it was sending the hot brass right into my face. Soooo miserable! 

For long guns, I've only shot a shotgun on 3 occasions (totally suck leading with the right, so what the heck, I'll try the left) and I really have NOT gotten into rifles yet. I don't mind trying lefty for both. Might as well try things now before I develop patterns.

But here's a question... since most rifles are designed for right-handed people and eject on the right side, if I shoot left, won't I run into that same problem --- hot brass getting thrown directly at me instead of to the side of me? 

Need lefty guns. 

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Just now, Zeke said:

Need lefty guns. 

Oh! Duh. Ok. I'll look into that. Like, is everything reversed? The safety and all that jazz? Or just the ejection port?

Sorry, that's probably the dumbest question EVAH!! What the hell do I know? I've never seen a southpaw rifle. :facepalm: Don't even answer, I'll get online and read up on this. LOL.

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15 minutes ago, Mrs. Peel said:

Oh! Duh. Ok. I'll look into that. Like, is everything reversed? The safety and all that jazz? Or just the ejection port?

Sorry, that's probably the dumbest question EVAH!! What the hell do I know? I've never seen a southpaw rifle. :facepalm: Don't even answer, I'll get online and read up on this. LOL.

I don’t think bolt action would be a brass issue. @Ray Rayis lefty.  I know south paws prefer safety location of mossberg shotguns.  Over under, etc.

you can get ambi safety on ar uppers.

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43 minutes ago, Mrs. Peel said:

I already settled on shooting a pistol righty (dominant hand). I either put a dab of chapstick on my left eyeglass lens (a poor man's "blinder" of the type 10x described) or I close my left eye. That seems to work. I tried it both ways, shoot pretty equally actually... but I settled on that because when I shot lefty, it was sending the hot brass right into my face. Soooo miserable! 

For long guns, I've only shot a shotgun on 3 occasions (totally suck leading with the right, so what the heck, I'll try the left) and I really have NOT gotten into rifles yet. I don't mind trying lefty for both. Might as well try things now before I develop patterns.

But here's a question... since most rifles are designed for right-handed people and eject on the right side, if I shoot left, won't I run into that same problem --- hot brass getting thrown directly at me instead of to the side of me? 

I run my AR-15's lefty and haven't had trouble with brass in my face; I've ran a 3 day course and no problems with that either. 

FWIW, I run stock lower controls (no ambi) so I can theoretically run any AR-15 lower set up for a righty; or at least start that way so you learn how to run one. 

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I am also cross eye dominant. Both eyes open. Hand guns right handed, long guns left handed. If the rifle has a high mounted scope i can shoot it right handed. The extra height gives lets me focus out of my dominant eye while using my strong hand 

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19 minutes ago, High Exposure said:

Concerning AR type rifles - 

No Lefty Models!

You’ll be fine with a standard AR.

You don’t even need Ambi controls.

easier to maintain and find parts/upgrade for regular AR's anyway.  No need to get a lefty AR, IMO.  I honestly haven't run a bolt gun so I can't say for that however. 

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I've been shooting firearms on and off throughout the years. About 2 years ago, I decided to take a basic pistol course because I wanted to get my FL CCW license. Within 15 mins into the course, I was told to be cross eye dominant. This did not help as I have an astigmatism in my left.

The following is what has changed in my shooting technique after having found to be cross eye dominant.

Shooting pistols:

*Shooting with both eyes open while favoring my left side.

Shooting rifles:

*Purchased prescription shooting glasses, Oakley FLAK 2.0. This helps when using a RDS on my AR and AK. The red dot used to looked like an ink blot to me before.

*Not much changed when shooting with iron sights and still shoot right handed.

Shooting shotguns:

*Have not shot a lot of other shotguns than the one I currently own, a Benelli M3 with ghost ring sights.

*Still shoot my shotgun right handed.

Videos links below that I've watched to help compensate for being cross eye dominant . . . .

Link - Cross eye dominant shooters

Link - Eye dominance and how to shoot with both eyes open

Link - How to shoot with both eyes open

 

Regards,

TokenEntry

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1 hour ago, GramGun79 said:

I am also cross eye dominant. Both eyes open. Hand guns right handed, long guns left handed. If the rifle has a high mounted scope i can shoot it right handed. The extra height gives lets me focus out of my dominant eye while using my strong hand 

You shoot bling shoty LH?

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1 minute ago, GramGun79 said:

Yes sir.. 

I did not notice. But it was cold as shit that day...

Im sitting her trying  empathize with my @Mrs. Peel about a scoped rifle. Non dom eye, dom hand... I can’t make it work with my jazz hand air guns. This is very intriguing. 

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I am cross eye dominant and right handed. I shoot pistols right handed with both eyes and rifle right handed with my right eye. Took awhile to get used to it, but the rifles I shoot weren't exactly designed for lefties.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

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Shooting pistols hasn't been a problem at all for me cross-eye dominance-wise. I shoot right-handed and squint my right eye. However, I did have some difficulty readjusting after I had my cataract surgery and my astigmatism corrected.

Anyway, I've only shot a rifle twice---I mean two rounds! I went with my right hand, but it just felt very clumsy.

I know that only two shots aren't any kind of test. It's also possible that the rifle was too long for me; I'm only around 5'2" and I have short arms.

I'll have to check those videos. I'd like to shoot a long gun, but I think my very brief clumsy experience with it has put a blockade in my head! Maybe I'm making too much of this cross-dominance issue?

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25 minutes ago, Zeke said:

I did not notice. But it was cold as shit that day...

Im sitting her trying  empathize with my @Mrs. Peel about a scoped rifle. Non dom eye, dom hand... I can’t make it work with my jazz hand air guns. This is very intriguing. 

I was born with a lazy eye so my left eye compensated for my poor vision on the right side making me C.E.D

It never affected me before i picked up a rifle and tried to shoot RH..at first i was disappointed but i forced myself to shoot left handed and the rest is history. Remind me how many clays did i miss that day? 

You can shoot anything if you work at it. I own NO  LH firearms. I shoot bolt rifles no problem. never had an issue running the bolt from the wrong side. 

if you want to shoot RH with a scope it has to be high enough and far enough forward that the left eye is able to look down the scope. 

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48 minutes ago, Gunsrlegal said:

Shooting pistols hasn't been a problem at all for me cross-eye dominance-wise. I shoot right-handed and squint my right eye. However, I did have some difficulty readjusting after I had my cataract surgery and my astigmatism corrected.

Anyway, I've only shot a rifle twice---I mean two rounds! I went with my right hand, but it just felt very clumsy.

I know that only two shots aren't any kind of test. It's also possible that the rifle was too long for me; I'm only around 5'2" and I have short arms.

I'll have to check those videos. I'd like to shoot a long gun, but I think my very brief clumsy experience with it has put a blockade in my head! Maybe I'm making too much of this cross-dominance issue?

2 shots does not an experience make!!!

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What I did is just shoot both right handed and left handed every time i went to the range.  Eventually it became more and more clear which side I was most comfortable and effective with, and I ended up shooting with the other hand less and less.  So though I started shooting lefty because left eye dominant and thought that was the best way, i eventually figured out right hand was better.  It depends on the relative strength and dominance of each eye and each hand, so if you are nearly ambidextrous but your eye is strongly cross dominant, you probably should just train your weak side hand.  If your eyes are nearly equal, then it might make sense to just go with your dominant hand and train your eyes.  The only way to figure out which way works is to try both for an extended period and see which way feels best for you.

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8 minutes ago, Zeke said:

2 shots does not an experience make!!!

I know. I think I'll try renting a simple rifle at my range (Gun for Hire) and just shoot it as @kman described.

I have a feeling that ultimately I'll shoot right-handed. As a teenager I practiced archery and was pretty darn good shooting with my right hand. That was way before this cross-eye dominance thing implanted itself in my brain!

I may not be a teenager anymore, but I WILL work through this...just because!

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