I originally posted this topic on the Women's Forum because it applied to my wife, but am now seeking a more general audience. The question is this: What is the best way to train yourself to shoot a rifle if you are right handed but have a left master eye? Can you train yourself to instinctively force your left eye closed when shouldering the rifle so that you will instinctively always use your right eye, even though your right eye is not your master eye? Perhaps an opinion from a professional firearms instructor on this problem can be forthcoming. However, inputs from anyone familiar with this problem are welcome. Thanks in advance.  

You might try posting this in the competition forums as well. I have the same problem and those guys are the experts.

Tondog,

Thanks for the advice. I hate to keep jumping to different forums but maybe that's part of the process. I'll wait for some more inputs here (if any) and then try that forum.

I am in the exact same boat for 35 years. There is a big advantage to this. Your right arm is probably the stronger of the two, right?
That is the one that will hold the rifle up, work the loading gates on a lever rifle and single action revolver while you still hold on with the left hand. They make left handed safeties for just about any gun  now, plus a wide assortment of guns. Shoot left-handed, you will soon find the advantages of left eye dominance and right hand strength, trust me.

I'm currently doing this with my 9 year old son. With handguns, it's a matter of a cocked head and really concentrating with both eyes open (I don't believe in shooting iron sights with one eye closed).

With the rifle, he's shooting left handed. It is much simpler for him then fighting with the eye dominance issue, especially with optics.

well i cant use iron sights with 2 eyes.  can't make anything clear enough to shoot.

i have almost equal dominance, meaning my left eye can get a focus through iron sights with the right open but as soon as i blink or move i lose it and have to find it again. (i'm right handed)so i give up on that and now i use a red dot. it works very good

From inputs received so far, it seems the practical solution is to train her to shoot left handed. I just want her to have basic short range (probably no more than 10 yards maximum if that much) shooting capability if the need ever arises. I was surprised to read in the ammunition forum that the .223, even in FMJ, has less wall penetration than the 9mm. Almost bought her a Ruger PC-9 specifically for home defense but may as well let her use the MINI-14 I already have.  

I think it's better for a right handed person to shoot right handed because the manipulation of the rifle will be easier.  in a real combat situation if there is a problem you want her to solve it with her strong hand and not hold the rifle with her strong hand and manipulate magazines and run the bolt with her weak hand.  if you are going to learn CQB it's best to keep all movements the same for each weapon system.  look at foot placement.  if you are shooting right handed your right foot will be behind and to the right of you left foot.  the same is true for a right handed pistol stance.  if you train her to shoot a pistol right handed and a rifle left handed she will get confused on where to place her feet during a transition.  also the trigger hand will go from her left to her right.  it causes a lot of little ambidextrous nuances to occur.  I know that when I am shooting left handed or manipulating any weapon with my left hand there is a  major problem like being wounded.    

Here's what you do:
 
 get an off-road vehicle, the bigger the better;

 Put a pair of women's panties on your head;

 Go to Toys-R-Us and get a child's periscope;

 Affix periscope to head, over your right eye, using whatever materials are suitable (duct tape will work but you may regret using it later);

 Cover left eye with panties;

 Go tearing ass around town in off-road vehicle.

 Repeat as necessary.

wth are you on aggie?

308wood,

Thanks for your input. I agree that she should hold the rifle right handed since she shoots pistol right handed (with left eye) and she'll also need to load the clip and cycle the action right handed. From the other inputs, I also know that when shouldered right-handed in a high stress situation she'll try to revert to her left eye, regardless of training with the right eye. So what to do in this dilemma?

Here's my current solution, not ideal, but probably the best under the circumstances. I'll train her to hold the gun right handed and point and shoot without sighting. We're not talking about fun shooting here but rather a life or death situation in which you're cornered and have no escape path. I never expect this scenario to actually happen, but then I carry fire insurance and never expect my house to catch fire. For some uncanny reason, I feel more at ease with the fire insurance even though I know I'll never have a fire.

If anyone thinks my proposed solution is way, way off course, please provide an opinion. Thanks in advance.  

I don't think you want unaimed fire in a combat situation.  shooting an intruder calls for a precise and exacting measure of "force" (not fire) to end a situation.  someone needs to be able to make a snap decision about the character and physiology of a target and be able to apply tactics to a dynamic combat environment.  

imagine your sitting at home watching TV and you hear the sound of breaking glass.  you get your rifle and you see a guy in the hallway.  you have to make a snap decision.  he, is he on dope, where is he moving does he have a weapon?  the situation turns dynamic and he's coming at me!  you shot him in the chest.  he's still closing.  you are backing up and shooing him twice more in the chest.  oh shit. he's still coming at you so you fire twice at his head both misses.  he's still closing.  shit he's really close!  you fire twice at his pelvis.  he falls to the ground with a broken pelvis.  you step to the far corner of the room and keep him covered while calling the cops.

can you imagine the grand juries reaction to her saying "I didn't aim, I just kind of pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger".  or if she point's the gun at him and pulls the trigger twice and he does not fall down?  what will she do when that happens?  will she freeze wondering whey the gun did not kill him or will she continue the fight?  weapons are not magic wands.  they are precision tools designed to enforce your will on others.

to answer your question here are some options:

lot's of practice.  50 rounds a month for several months and a lot of dry fire practice to force her to keep both eyes open and ignore what here her left eye is telling her. this also let's her practice multiple shots and dynamic environments.

a laser or red dot scope that may fail when she need's it the most.  

send her to a shooting school like gunsite or thunder ranch or better yet go with her!

Come on, don't tell me I'm the only one who thought of that turd of a movie Firebirds when I read this.  Remember?  Nicholas (I can't act worth a shit) Cage?  That chick with a better mustache than me?  

that was a bad movie.

valleypine -

If you're going to make her shoot right-handed and not going to spend many hours drilling her, throw a cheap red dot on the rifle. It'll save your relationship [;)]

I'm left eye dominant but a right handed shooter.  The only time it has come into play is when I shoot handguns.  I started shooting before I even heard the term "dominat eye."  Maybe you should just let her rip at the range and handle any problems after you determine there is one.  I've learned to shoot 2 eye opened with rifle and handgun.

I'm left eye dominant but a right handed shooter too(Shoot long guns Lefty). I have been all My life, Not a choice as My eye sight in My right eye isn't the greatest. Just show Her the Isosceles stance(For handguns.) and let her shoot rifle lefty. I've tried [b]EVERYTHING[/b] else, but it is something I revert back to every time. I didn't want to be sitting in one of the above situations and be trying to decide "How" I should be shooting!
Practice!, Practice!, Practice!

Tall Shadow

I am legally blind in my right eye and right-handed.  The first time I ever shot a rifle they had me do it left handed and that is what I have done ever since.  Works just fine, but it is a bitch for archery.

GunLvr

Thanks again for all the inputs. The one time I took her to the range she instinctively held the rifle right handed but tried to sight with the left eye. I believe we'll have to go back to the range and experiment with different things. On the subject of master eyes, I am right handed and have a right master eye. I will shoot rifle right handed using the right eye. However, when pistol shooting I will shoot right handed but sight with the left eye because my vision is much better with the left eye.

I do have one question. How will a red dot scope make any difference in this matter? Won't she still try and align her left eye with the center of the scope even though both eyes may be open? I don't see the inherent advantage of the scope over iron sights as far as cheek alignment on the rifle stock. What am I missing here?

when you look thru a traditional "tube type" red dot and most holographic red dots only one eye can see thru the "tube" and see the red dot.  so you see a true composite image.  if your right handed the right eye sees the opaque red dot, the target area, and the surrounding area partially obscured by the outline of the tube.  the left eye sees the target area with no red dot, the surrounding area that is more obscured by the back and side of the tube.  put them together and you get a stereoscopic view of the target, translucent red dot, almost completely translucent tube and clear surrounding area.  because your eyes work together they can "see around the tube".  remember to look at the target not the dot!

with irons you get a perfect "spot weld" but must align your eye to the rifle's sights and then put the "aligned sights" on the target.  the red dot makes you hold your head in more of an upright position but gives you one point (the red dot) to align with the target.  most red dots will stay centered on the target as you move your eye from center to the edge of the focal plane.  it the dot moves or shifts it is worthless.  plan on spending 100.00 plus.  a cheap red dot will break, not hold zero and the red dot will shift.  

308wood,

I understand the principle involved here, but can you say with absolute certainty that she will still not instinctively try to sight down the tube with her master left eye, thus negating the effect of the red dot scope over open sights? Right now with iron sights, she'll shoulder the rifle right handed and try to sight with the left eye. I'm attempting to find a solution to the problem which involves no alteration of present instinctive habit. Any help here would be appreciated.

Valleypine,
I shot right handed while growing up.  Then my vision went to total crap in my right eye and I gave up on shooting.  A few years ago I started again and trained myself to shoot lefty.  Like me and many others here proove every time we go to the range, it's possible.  It took me LOTS of 22 ammo and a good deal of anything large bore with a metal butt plate.  (Pain is an amazing thing, helps you remember where to put the stock when shouldering.)  I also never close my off eye.  Like aything else you get used to it.  One other added benefit from shooting pistol right and rifle left is the ability to shoot with either hand.  If whe is learning to shoot for protection, what happens when an BG breaks/shoots/stabs her right arm/hand?  How about her left arm/hand?  It's usually funny to watch most people try to shoulder a rifle off-handed.  They just about stab themselves in the eye with the barrel.  You don't want that to happen to her when she needs it most.  Hope this helps.

if she was born with a rifle in her hands she may have an "instinct".  this is a problem in her form and there is no instinct to it.  i don't know how small she is but it is almost imposible for me to put my right cheek "properly" on the rifle and twist my head around to look thru the a scope with my left eye.  go to a gun shop and look at the red dot scopes and you will see what i am talking about.

Thanks again to all for the inputs. I don't want this thread to go on forever so I'll close it here. What I will do is some further research into red dot scopes and then some form of experimentation on the range. If she achieves any measureable degree of success, I'll let you all know what the final solution was.

Same issue here...Never could catch a ball as a kid (Not many guns in Brooklyn at that time).

Now I squint my left eye while using iron sights on long guns BUT, I just bought an EoTech HoloSight and it changed everything for me.  The Circle and Center Dot just seem to float out there.  Expensive yup, Effective YUP.

Now I'm going to sell my Loupy that I never could master.

Stevan,

Thanks for the input. It looks like the solution (hopefully) is going to be a red dot or holographic sight. If this is the case, I'll need to pick up another MINI-14 for her. This time I'll get the ranch model exclusively designed for scope mounting. Don't want to add a scope to my pre-ban MINI-14 with folding stock. This is my TEOTWAWKI gun (with the AR coming in a close second to it) and don't want it scoped.