Eye Dominance and Shooting with both eyes open

Posted by – November 15, 2008

My right eye
Eye Dominance and Shooting

By closing one eye, you make the other eye dominant. I run into a lot of shooters that are cross-eye dominant (right handed and left-eyed) and they really flail on this one a bunch. It doesn’t matter too much for handguns, but shooting iron sighted long guns it can be an issue. Some suggest shooting handguns with one hand, and long arms with the other, but this makes for awkward transitions between the different weapon systems. I recommend picking an eye, shooting from that side, and closing the other one.

One more myth is that shooting with both eyes open allows you to see threats in your peripheral vision. This sounds good, but it is irrelevant. If you are actually shooting then you already have an identified threat that you need to deal with. Focusing on your front sight causes you to exclude what is being seen in your peripheral vision any way. Nobody says that you need to scan for threats with one eye closed, or that peripheral vision doesn’t matter. I am saying that at the point I am focusing on my front sight and pressing my trigger threats in my peripheral vision are just going to have to wait.

  • Jeff

    Thank god someone finally said it. I never understood this insistence that to be really "advanced" you had to shoot with both eyes open, and no one has ever given me an explanation that made sense.

    Jeff

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