Any suggestions on how to compensate for this problem? No matter how I adjust my grip or stance I still shoot a little left. The range master said it could be because my right arm is more to the middle of my chest instead of in line with my right shoulder but I have to compensate for my left eye. Any suggestions other than trying to shoot left handed. I'm 63 yrs old and never shot anything except long guns left handed.

My situation is similar to yours.
Shoot rifle with dominant, right, hand.
Been shooting pistol with left hand for 20 years.
With sufficient repetition, your left handed pistol presentation and accuracy will improve.

Lots of repetition of shooting with your strong side and weak eye. I got a pair of shooting glasses and blacked out the left lens.

It's probably more a matter of fundamentals than eye dominance. Pay attention to fundamentals such as grip and trigger press. Given the fact you are cross dominant, your hand, arm and stance have to accommodate that of course.

In our NRA courses we have had a number of students who were cross dominant. What we do is simply have them use the dominant eye and adjust the body accordingly. It is not some insurmountable issue. They do just fine.

The above is far easier than learning to shoot left handed or trying to use the non-dominant eye. I'm not giving you theory, it's what I've observed and taught over 25 years. Cross dominant shooters shoot just as well as "normies" in the courses using the above.

All I can suggest is that you practice dry-fire at home. Pay attention to the above referenced body parts. If you can have a good shooter observe, that may help too. Unfortunately, I can't give you much more over an Internet forum. It's very difficult to teach via remote control.

Wrapping up with the argument about shooting with one or both eyes open, here's a tip. Keep both eyes open until the trigger is pressed and then re-open it. It's a long blink. This is very important for defensive shooting, since you need your peripheral and depth perception. For bullseye shooters, one eye is fine.

Finally, if you haven't already, obtain some good instruction. It's cheaper than randomly burning up expensive ammo.

I'm cross-dominant. I'm right-handed and left-eye dominant. Very strongly, in fact. For an example, I used to shoot archery right-handed, with my sights regulated for aiming with my right, non-dominant eye. I was good, consistently hitting the bullseye at 20yds. Another archer, an employee/instructor at the range, asked to try my bow. He was right-handed and presumably right-eye dominant. He shot at the same distance. His arrows didn't even hit the paper target. That's how far off the sights were.

I only mention that to demonstrate just how far off my right and left eyes are, WRT aiming.

As for handgun shooting, I shoot with both eyes open. When shooting two-handed, I use an Isoceles "stance" ("stance" in quotation marks because I really only consider it Isoceles from the waist up) and turn my head to the right, which lines up my left eye with the sights. Most of the time my right cheek ends up touching my right bicep. When shooting one-handed, I cant the gun slightly to the left (not the extreme "gangster" style, but maybe 30-40 degrees from vertical) which lines up the sights with my left eye.

I'm also inclined to agree with Nipper, in that it may be that you need to focus on the fundamentals a little more. Shooting to the left is pretty common among shooters, with or without cross-dominance issues.

Applying front-to-back pressure on the grip plus focusing on pulling the trigger straight back in a smooth, uninterrupted motion helps me shoot straight. I like to think of my palm and three-finger grip as the jaws of a vise or clamp to help me maintain that front-to-back grip pressure. I find it also helps with pulling the trigger straight back.

Beyond that, it might help to get some one-on-one coaching with an instructor to make sure there isn't some other element of the equation missing.

I'm cross dominant as well and shoot a pistol right handed with my left eye and a rifle left handed with my left eye when shooting paper. Steel is with both eyes open.

Having a similar problem as you, I tried pointing the pistol at a white wall, aligning the sights, closing my eyes for about five seconds and then opening them. The pistol always seemed to have the front sight off to the left slightly after I opened my eyes.

Adjusting my grip slightly and moving my right foot back about six inches from my left and the sights stay aligned doing the same exercise.

I offer these two suggestions.

1. Use your dominant hand and your dominant eye. The shift to do this compared to using your non-dominant hand and your dominant eye is literally the thickness of your fingers. It shouldn't be enough that you can't adjust.

2. Close your dominant eye and shoot with your non-dominant eye.

Above all, try a few different things, and once you find what works for you, use it regardless of what some "expert" tells you is right and wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Nipper:
What we do is simply have them use the dominant eye and adjust the body accordingly.

That’s what I always do with cross-dominant handgun shooters, and I agree with the rest of Nipper’s comments.

If the arm/hand thing caused us to automatically shoot to one side or another, how would (those of use who do it) manage to hit the center of the target when shooting one-handed? When I use my left hand, I still use my right eye to aim with, and in demonstrations when I take my time and control the trigger properly, I don’t have any trouble hitting what I want to.

In 1990's Fire Birds, Tommy Lee Jones blindfolded Nic Cage with panties and made him drive a jeep around with a periscope taped to his right eye to change eye dominance, and that seemed to work...

right handed, left eye dominant here. No issues. Just turn your head to the right a little to line up the sights. And dry fire until the front sight doesn't move AT ALL.

Stand facing a target. Draw the gun. If it comes up in front of the wrong eye move it over 2 inches till it's in front of the dominant eye. Learn to draw to this point.

Do not tilt gun.
Do not tilt head.
Do not tilt both.

If you are shooting left it's your finger or your gun.

Same here and never noticed any problems with pistols. I mean the pistol is only 2 inches to the left of where it would be, and only 1 inch off your centerline (same as it would be to the right).

Sight alignment is sight alignment. If you are pushing shots off left / right / up / down, its your finger IMO, not your eyes.

Now rifle it used to be an issue because I would shoot righty and use my left eye - NBD with a 22, but with larger calibers it kind sucked. So I just use my right eye and it's fine. Actually easier to shoot both eyes open as the dominant eye isn't looking through the sight.

quote:

Originally posted by lmacrichter:
Any suggestions on how to compensate for this problem? No matter how I adjust my grip or stance I still shoot a little left. The range master said it could be because my right arm is more to the middle of my chest instead of in line with my right shoulder but I have to compensate for my left eye. Any suggestions other than trying to shoot left handed. I'm 63 yrs old and never shot anything except long guns left handed.

Move your rear sight slightly to the right. Why fight it? If someone else shoots my gun, I just tell them it might shoot slightly to the right for them. No big deal.

Like many others have stated, I too am L eye dominant. Long guns lefty, handguns righty.
Closing my L eye and shooting R eyed isn't going to happen since I CAN'T close my left eye and keep the right open....never have been able to. I shoot *all* my guns with both eyes open unless I deliberately close the right.
Putting tape, vaseline, etc. on glasses is a bandaid that you can't do in real life carry.

Need to borrow a sight pusher? Got one for Sig and one for Glock.

I'm right hand, right eye dominant.

But in 2016 I finally admitted the distance vision in my right eye had deteriorated enough that I was struggling. Went to my trainer and said, What now. He said, switch eyes.

I laughed and said, "Ive shot with my right eye my whole life. I can't just start shooting with my left. When things get rough Ill revert."

He convinced me, I switched and I swear, within three weeks the most natural thing in the world for me was to pull the gun up and shift my head to the right a little and sight with the left eye. Been doing it now for 18 months and it's like I was born that way. But seriously, it didn't take a month of dry fire (actually I use a laser trainer at home) to make it the new normal for me.

I'm the same way, after a lot of bullets down range, I can shoot with either eye or either hand or both. It takes s Lot of ammo and practice.

Don't over-complicate things. Doesn't matter which eye you use, which hand you hold your pistol in... sight picture is the same. Just control your sight picture, hold your aim and don't move the pistol as you pull the trigger. It will all work out.


I am left eye dominant, right handed. It's no problem. I can shoot right handed, left handed, right eyed or left eyed. But when shooting trap for score I always shoot left handed. Otherwise it doesn't matter.

Hell you can even hold the pistol upside down or over your shoulder (a trick done at our state police academy by the range officer). Shouldn't matter. Sight picture is the same, basics are the same, principles are the same. Get a good sight picture, don't move the pistol as you pull the trigger. Nothing else matters.

I am the same,I trained about fifty years ago to shift eye and right hand a couple inches.
I never dry fired any gun for training my hand or eye.
I also shoot pistols either hand but rifles get shot left hand.
I would suggest going to range or woods [hunt camp]in my case and shoot every pistol you have all day long.
It is a learned skill and you can do it

quote:

Originally posted by crash:
Get a good sight picture, don't move the pistol as you pull the trigger. Nothing else matters.

Or as the legendary George Harris put it during the first SIG factory armorer course I attended, “There are only two things we have to do to hit the target: point the gun [aim] at the target, and keep the gun pointed at the target until the bullet leaves the barrel.”

Aiming is the easy part; keeping it aimed at the target until the bullet leaves the barrel is what’s difficult, and failing that is almost always the reason for gross misses. And adjusting sights to correct fundamental technique errors is very unlikely to bring long term joy.

Best option is to try shooting left handed. It will feel odd but since you shoot rifles that the learning time might be short.

The other option is to turn your head. Without changing the level of your eyes, rotate your head so your chin is above your right shoulder. Your left eye is now lined up with the sights.

Works fine if you shoot stationary but gets interesting if you're trying to do action pistol events where you move.