Greetings all. My son is cross eyed dominant; so says his ophthalmologist, as well as experiences. This, simply, is not debatable so please don't focus on "are we sure." He's longed to shoot "average", but I can't seem to figure out how to make adjustments to my methods to facilitate his accuracy.

So, how do you all teach a right gander with a left eye dominance?

Some people have had (limited?) success with wearing an eye patch over the dominant eye. It works to a limited degree for me, but my "off eye" dominance is't severe. It's mild enough that I can overcome it with concentration. The eye patch trick works for a while, then I have to do it again.

Best way is to shoot from the dominant eye side. It's weird at first, especially if they've been shooting the other way.

Next best way is to tape (clear scotch tape) the lens of his shooting glasses over the dominant eye. Just a dot the size of a dime is fine if placed in the right spot so that it blocks the dominant eye from seeing the front sight (or shotgun rib). That way he keeps his peripheral.

You can tape your own glasses and shoot the opposite side some to know what it will feel like for him to have to learn to shoot from the opposite side. That way you know what it feels like for him to help him through it.

Are you saying he's a righty, but is left eye dominant?...or the reverse. (Not sure what cross eye dominant means) I have that situation with my son. He's a lefty, but right eye dominant. I am teaching him to shoot as if he was a righty. He's still young, 8, so I think it's working out OK.

You can see example in this PDF of taping glasses.

http://www.rhstrap.com/RhsTrap...0Sally%20Stevens.pdf

It still would be best thought to learn to shoot from the dominant eye side regardless.

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
Are you saying he's a righty, but is left eye dominant?...or the reverse. (Not sure what cross eye dominant means) I have that situation with my son. He's a lefty, but right eye dominant. I am teaching him to shoot as if he was a righty. He's still young, 8, so I think it's working out OK.

Righty, but left eye dominant.

Move the gun slightly off center behind the dominate eye.

I am left-handed but right-eye dominant. I just learned to shoot right-handed as a boy and that was that.

Since he is left-eye dominant, get him into baseball!!!

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Move the gun slightly off center behind the dominate eye.

Simple: that's it for handguns.

How old is your son?

Not sure of the applicability in firearms but as an archery coach, I've run across this several times. My daughter used be cross eye dominant.

Solution number one is to shoot opposite hand. Tried this with my daughter, it was an absolute failure.

Solution number two is to train to shoot with the non-dominant eye. Eye patches work in the beginning stages. That may evolve to to closing one eye while sighting the bow. Eventually the brain learns and if effect eye dominance changes. My daughter is no longer cross eye dominant, shoots her bow as well as firearms right handed and with her right eye.

All that said, it was a lot of practice and training to get to that stage. If a youth athlete isn't constantly practicing at it, 3 times/week minimum, I'm not sure how effective it would be.

I'm cross dominant (right hand, left eye), and didn't know it until Basic Training. I learned to shoot left handed. It's not very difficult to adapt.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Move the gun slightly off center behind the dominate eye.

This is how we address cross eye dominance for handgun shooting. For long gun, they shoot with the side that correspond with the dominant eye. The learning curve for this seems to be tolerable.

I’m left-handed (but somewhat ambidextrous, switch-hitter) but right eye dominant. When I learned to shoot properly, I found it to be an advantage: my strong (left) hand has the stronger grip on the pistol, the trigger hand doesn’t hold as firmly so the trigger finger is not held as rigidly. Reinforced this with Jerry Jones at recent OpSpec Training class.

The youngest DF Jr is cross eye dominant. He has always struggled to shoot. I put a holographic sight on his AR and taught him to shoot left handed. Now he's an ace and loves shooting.

Pistols: Turn the head slightly to get the dominant eye to line up with the sights.

Long guns with iron sights: I learned to shoot left handed

Anything with a red dot/holographic sight: I've found it doesn't really matter which hand I use - with these kinds of sights, you focus on the target and your brain superimposes the dot over the target.

Right handed, left eye dominant. Long guns I close left eye. Handgun I shift gun for left eye. Sometimes I close left eye. Have no issues doing this. I am 76years next month. Too late to learn how to shoot lefty.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Move the gun slightly off center behind the dominate eye.

if he puts it behind his eye he'll shoot it out

Right handed, left eye dominate here. Pistol I shoot with my left eye, really not an issue. Scoped rifle I shoot with my right eye, no problem, RDS both eyes open, it's zeroed that way so no issues there either. If it is a new young shooter then they are going to be malleable. If habits are already made, then training with what they are used to should be no problem.

Speaking from double experience, I say it's no biggie unless we're talking long firearms.

Your head should always stand tall and straight, that the way we operate under normal circumstances. Tucking, tilting one way or another just change the regular picture for your eyes and brain calculations, all but good.
On the other hand (pun intended), with both arms being at the sides of the body, it doesn't
matter which one you align with your dominant eye. It's a temporary muscular effort, no biggie. Most common shotting error is to bring the head to the sights instead of positioning the arm in line with your eyes. Then you get shooters that get Al twisted, contracted and don't perform as well as they could. The arm moved the gun all the way from the holster, you can not seriously say it can't move an extra inch or two. The sights go to the eyes, not the other way around.
This, based on my personal experience. I'm originally a lefty with left eye dominance but who trained himself to shoot as a right handed because it was and still is almost impossible to get good holsters and left handed conversions for lefties where I live.
Eventually, it became natural. The issue was a non issue.
Still, at a later stage, I was able to buy a P7 and learned to shoot it from the left side. Besides the incredible accuracy and the hair trigger of the P7, there is no telling the difference.
Other than when shooting competition and having a stage shot from the non dominant hand, where you could tell there was something going on from my BIG smile.

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For a pistol, as others said in the thread, you can move the gun slightly off center. For carbines or precision long guns, it may make sense to run them left-handed if he's left-eye dominant.

I'm left-handed, but naturally shoot right-handed as that's how I learned. Realizing that I think I'm cross-eye dominant, it actually makes it easier for me to run a left-side exposure from a barricade. I seem to shoot equally with a carbine from either side, so while I usually run RH, I can run LH when needed. If I were learning to run a carbine from scratch, I"d run it LH from the get go.