I am right handed but left eye dominant.  I shoot everything right handed.  With pistols this is not a problem at all.  With rifles I end up closing my left eye and therefore I am using my weaker eye to aim.

For those of you with cross-dominance; how do you shoot your rifles?  Do you stick with your dominant hand and weaker eye or do you use your weaker hand and stronger eye?


I thought I would ask you guys because you seem to be excellent shots and I wanted to pick your brain on the subject.  I have only been shooting rifles for about a year now and I have discovered that I am mediocre at best. 

I'm going to the range tomorrow and I'm going to put some rounds downrange left handed and see what happens.

Colin


P.S.  I just did a search after posting this thread (yeah I know, wrong order...) and I did find an interesting thread on this topic but I would still love to hear more opinions.

Having coached jr shooters for many years (27) we have this issue a lot. It has always been my practice to check eye dominance and then teach to match it. Kids have little to no problem adapting. The advantages to me out weigh the hand dominance. If you look at a few of the other posts on this forum they talk about iron sights and eyes going bad, why use a weak eye when you have a choice. One thing I have noticed in the last 5 years we have had more kids that are left eye  dominate (both left and right handed). Must be global warming! The one down side is that there is more right handed used equipment out there then true left handed stuff.

Same here. Right handed, left eye dominant. Just close my left eye, and aim.

I never knew I was a left eye dominate right-hander until I got into college and took an archery class and was required to use a "pin-sight"  (though I had been shooting "bare-bow" with both-eyes open just fine since I was a little kid. 
Over the years I guess I have learned a split-vision technique.  When shooting I shoot with both eyes open and mentally integrate the two slightly divergent images  (thats how the brain naturally triangulates for distance). 
When shooting from the bench with both eyes open (I've never shot much with iron sights) I am watching the wind-dicators with my dominate left eye and the crosshairs with my right.    I'm not sure how the brain actually processes both of the visual inputs. perhaps it is doing it simultaneously--or just flickering back and forth rapidly and automatically.  I have a book on archery theory by a neurophysiologist I probably ought to reread.    Of course based on my typical scores its NOT a technique to be advised    
When shooting offhand there is too much other stuff going on just trying to hold and control the rifle to figure out how my vision is being processed.       I do find that shooting, whether with firearms of bows is much more relaxing for me if I do it with both eyes open.

As a long time match shooter I know several top shooters that are cross eye dominate.  They all shoot with the dominate eye.  Several all say this lets them hold the weight of the rifle with the Strong arm offhand.  This list includes Lee Shaver former World Champion Long range Muzzle loader.   
When I started teaching my grand daughter to shoot I found that she is cross eye dominate so she is right handed and shoots left handed,

Det

bnice wrote on May 18^th, 2015 at 8:10am:


I used to shoot a lot of trap, and also bird hunting too. I honestly can say the first time I picked up a shotgun I had huge problems, but didn't know what the problem was. A friend pulled 100 clay pigeons, and I missed 98 of them! Very frustrating, and I blamed my shotgun, and everything I could think of. 
I gave up on shotgunning for a couple years, and then tried it again when another friend said he'd help me. Not sure what I did differently, but once I started breaking clays, I suddenly got very consistent, and reversed my 98/2 ratio. 
I rarely pick up a shotgun in recent years, but did so at our church's men's picnic, and it came right back with no issues. Hit almost everything  thrown, but still can't say why. It just works for me.

Thanks to everyone for your useful and interesting replies.  I went to the range today and shot my new-to-me low wall left handed and I discovered a few things.

1)  Left handed will not be a problem.  I will eventually be able to adjust and it will feel perfectly natural.  Whether or not it will improve my shooting is an entirely different question but I will keep at it.

2)  For precision shooting buckhorn sights are only one or two  steps above useless.  There is absolutely no comparison between them and a nice tang sight or scope.

3)  I had a four or five light strikes with my 118 year old rifle.  Not bad but something needs fixing/tweaking.


When it comes to shotgun I have probably only shot at about 100-200 clays and I feel like I do okay.  Better than most people who have only shot that much but much worse than guys who actually know what they are doing.

Colin