Shooting with both eyes open - Tips

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Shooting with both eyes open - Tips

Posted: 7/25/2017 11:34:14 PM EDT

So I am looking to start practicing shooting with both eyes open. I have tried dry firing and focusing on the front sight with both eyes open but I tend to find that I am seeing 2 blurry targets. Any tips on how to practice? I have heard that a piece of tape on the shooting glasses over the non-dominant eye helps.

Posted: 7/26/2017 1:21:30 AM EDT

[#1]

If the issue is cross dominance, the nice thing about handguns is you just tilt or turn you head slightly to align the correct eye with the sights. It takes some repetition to get the muscle memory so you move your head and not the gun, which will mess up your natural point of aim, but it works fine.

Posted: 7/26/2017 2:25:18 AM EDT

[#2]

the tape thing helps, or squinting the offhand eye.

if you don't have a strong, or dominant eye, sometimes it is just easier and more accurate to close one eye. It's not as black and white as left or right eyed only.

Posted: 7/26/2017 4:17:50 AM EDT

[#3]

Quote History

Quoted:
the tape thing helps, or squinting the offhand eye.

if you don't have a strong, or dominant eye, sometimes it is just easier and more accurate to close one eye. It's not as black and white as left or right eyed only.

View Quote

Agreed if there's no functionally clear dominance. Or if it's minimal and needs help I'd still use the dominant eye and aid it by squinting. I'm cross dominant and sometimes squint my off eye to speed up initial acquisition.

Posted: 7/26/2017 4:32:27 AM EDT

[#4]

Yeah it takes lots of practice. You have to train your brain. Best method I've found is to raise your gun up and look for that front sight. At first you'll see two sets of front sights. Close one eye and then you'll see the correct sight. Then slowly open that eye and maintain focus on the correct front sight. Repeat for as long as needed. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can bring your gun up and you'll just find the one correct front sight.

Posted: 7/26/2017 9:07:42 AM EDT

[#5]

Quote History

Quoted:
Yeah it takes lots of practice. You have to train your brain. Best method I've found is to raise your gun up and look for that front sight. At first you'll see two sets of front sights. Close one eye and then you'll see the correct sight. Then slowly open that eye and maintain focus on the correct front sight. Repeat for as long as needed. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can bring your gun up and you'll just find the one correct front sight.

View Quote

Exactly this.... I shoot both eyes open unless I am doing pinpoint precision shooting. If you find your eyes cannot focus squint, slightly obstruct, or close the none dominate eyes for a second allow to focus and proceed. With practice you can also train your eyes to be ambi dominate I can do it with longer rifle length sight radius and 80-90% of the time with a pistol but somedays it does not want to cooperate when I practice shooting left handed. Those days it does not want to cooperate is usually a day I am not doing that great at shooting anyways maybe to much caffeine or I am just tired from a long week.

Posted: 7/26/2017 9:12:37 AM EDT

[#6]

Squint off hand eye or put a piece of tape on the glasses to blur it.

It is possible to switch eye dominance if you keep at it long enough.

Posted: 7/26/2017 9:15:44 AM EDT

[#7]

This training is more realistic for functional survival anyway, under a full adrenaline dump (sympathetic nervous system activation for the purists), you'd have to staple your non-dominant eye closed to keep it closed.

I've used the empty pistol in the house to identify an aiming point on a target pasted to one of my walls. I'll draw and hunt the front sight while thinking center mass.

I've used the laser aim gadget in the past to work on this also. I'm probably going to get an SIRT pistol to work more on this, but have found that training with aiming and dryfiring saves range time.

If you've been shooting bullseye or one eye closed for a while, it's going to take some time to reprogram. I don't think you'll be able to hurry.

Posted: 7/26/2017 7:04:19 PM EDT

[#8]

Through all my years of shooting I was never able to shoot with both eyes open and un-obscured. The piece of tape solved that problem.

Posted: 7/26/2017 9:17:37 PM EDT

[#9]

This thread is spooky timely because just yesterday, for the first time I fired 300 rounds out of 4 different guns with both eyes open.
It was weird; everything just sort of clicked.
After a while I was able to fire rapidly while being crazy accurate. I also saw one target instead of two but it took a few minutes. What seemed to help me was if your vision gets scrambled (you see multiple targets mixed with multiple front sights) simply close your usual eye, get back on target and then open it again. Worked like a charm.
I'm a pretty good shot and found shooting with both eyes open actually tightened up my groups. I think it forces you to really focus on the front sight which lets face it-is one of the fundamentals of accurate shooting.

Posted: 7/26/2017 9:25:32 PM EDT

[#10]

Quote History

Quoted:
If the issue is cross dominance, the nice thing about handguns is you just tilt or turn you head slightly to align the correct eye with the sights. It takes some repetition to get the muscle memory so you move your head and not the gun, which will mess up your natural point of aim, but it works fine.

View Quote

For many people it's easier to reposition the weapon slightly. Tilting the head sometimes leaves people searching for the front sight. I'm cross dominant myself and the slight deviation in stance makes no difference.

Posted: 7/27/2017 12:44:09 AM EDT

[#11]

Thanks for the advice guys. Headed to the range tomorrow we'll see how the initial attempts go.

Posted: 7/27/2017 7:34:38 AM EDT

[#12]

One eye pistol shooter here, but never tried both eyes before.

With one eye I have a hard front sight focus, target slightly blurry

With 2 eyes open are you still keeping a front sight focus? If so don't you end up with 2 targets?

Posted: 7/27/2017 11:23:53 PM EDT

[#13]

So back from the range and i tried the tape over my non dominant eye. Loved the way i shot with both eyes open. My groups at 10 yards tightened up. Hopefully i can really train my eyes and have similar results when i remove the tape.

Posted: 7/28/2017 11:52:17 AM EDT

[#14]

Quote History

Quoted:
One eye pistol shooter here, but never tried both eyes before.

With one eye I have a hard front sight focus, target slightly blurry

With 2 eyes open are you still keeping a front sight focus? If so don't you end up with 2 targets?

View Quote

Yes, perhaps even more so.
Yes, you end up with two targets but your brain will seperate them the more you practice.

Posted: 7/28/2017 4:47:19 PM EDT

[#15]

It took me around 15 minutes to learn how to shoot with both eyes open for pistol. Much shorter for rifle. You need a point of reference like the tip of a pen and focus it with your dominant eye. Blinking help a lot.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Shooting with both eyes open - Tips

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