Right handed but left eyed shooter

[Caz]

So i played airsoft when i was very young and i never managed to actually use the iron sites on the weapon i was using, i just shot where the barrel was pointing and did ok. I soon found out it's because i am right handed but i am also left eye dominant. So to really use my eyes to aim i must hold the rifle with my left hand. However this is awkward and feels unnatural for me. I am fine using pistols, i recently purchased my first airsoft gun, a ISSC M22 c02 blow-back and i can shoot it fine with great accuracy. However with rifles it's a different story. Has anyone had the same problem or does anyone know some way to fix it? 

I am asking because i am buying a rifle soon with all the bells and whistles attached and i was looking at ACOG optics, or something with a 3x or 4x.

[proffrink]

Shoot more is the way to fix it. I'm left handed and prefer my left eye but just got used to shooting right handed because a lot of rifles (especially sniper rifles) are built for a right handed shooter. A lot of it is knowing where to put your eye for the correct eye relief than it is actually 'aiming', but a couple of hours of doing it awkwardly and you'll be fine.

 

Also, be sure keep both eyes open as you should be (even with an ACOG) as this helps a lot.

[Caz]

Thanks for the tips, i would shoot lots more however i don't own a rifle yet, i still have to get my UKARA and i don't want to splash out the cash on a green gun if you know what i mean.

So you shoot right handed which is not your dominant hand but can you shoot using a optic with your right eye. Lots of people say they see two sights when they try this, or 2 targets.

[proffrink]

Those people need to relax their eyes. It's when you start trying to jump focus between target, reticule, gun, outer rim of optic etc. that you see double - this can happen unconsciously too if you're not use to it. Just focus on what you're aiming at and let the reticule overlay it.

 

Again, it's practice but I think it's a lot quicker to pick up than most thing. It is really shit for the first couple of hours though.

[Caz]

Ok thanks for the help and fast replies.

[proffrink]

No worries. Good luck!

[Jedi_Master]

A few topics that cover some of the same issues

 

[Samurai]

^^That.

I was going to say red dot too. You are using both eyes with that.

[warlord]

Was going to say this is relevant to me subject to eye surgery on Weds. But the hospital just called and cancelled  Kind of a yay, booooh moment. Yay I can play fine on Sunday! Boooh" I want my eye sorted.

[SeniorSpaz87]

OK. This is something that has come up many times at the Shooting School that I work at. If you want to shoot correctly, and you are using irons, USE YOUR DOMINATE EYE. You can easily overcome this by using something like a red dot sight. If you use irons your vision will not line up correctly if you try to use your non-dominate eye, but a sight only overlays a dot on your vision which your eye wont focus on, meaning your non-dominate eye can view it just fine. I am the same as you, and as such I shoot both real and airsoft pistols with my left hand and left eye, and my rifles (always with a sight) right handed and eyed. So, in short, use a red dot of some sort and it doesnt matter.

[proffrink]

But who uses just one eye in airsoft? Leaning around trees and all that.

[Sacarathe]

On 11/07/2017 at 8:59 AM, proffrink said:

But who uses just one eye in airsoft? Leaning around trees and all that.

 

/raises hand.

[proffrink]

Can't be understated just how much smaller of a target you'll be if you can use both eyes reasonably well.

[Sacarathe]

Just a self depreciating joke from me. I have Exotropia linked to Astigmatism and cannot control it if looking at something which my left eye cannot see:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplopia

 

 

In lay terms, I see an image from my left eye, and my right eye, (like a normal person - when and if concentrating), and when not concentrating the image from the right eye appears in my visual feed as being to the left of the image from the dominant left eye.

 

So basically I see the image from each eye separately and the image from the right eye appears to the LEFT of the image from the left eye.

 

Making things somewhat confusing. This is made worse because I can switch eye dominance - sometimes without knowing I have done so.

 

Overall its just perception - the visual data is no compromised although one eye is colourblind and has poor focus.

 

For airsoft I solve it by only wearing one contact lens, and holding my gun in the non dominant hand.

 

 

Still its funky when driving as I see two roads neither of which is visually infront of me one at 5 degrees and the other at 355 degrees. The visual data itself is not actually compromised, just how I experience it.

[Samurai]

WTF!

[proffrink]

Ah.

[Sacarathe]

13 hours ago, Samurai said:

WTF!

 

 

Another way to think of it is this, I look at something I see it (and everything else twice) but when I close my right eye, the image which appears to "disappear" is the one on the left. It happens least when I am wearing no focusing correction (lenses of some sort) - but you know, focusing is important for airsoft and other activities.

 

When wearing no lenses, it only happens when I'm tired or not concentrating, but I am very short sighted (for reading) - I need lenses to function.

 

Samurai, imagine how this makes websites like the daily mail almost impossible for me to read. As - while the object of my focus from the right eye is projected to the left of my good (left) eye's identical focus - anything to the right hand side of the object of my focus is dragged over the top and simultaneous underneath the image of primary focus for the left eye.

 

Just drag any image on windows so you get a ghost and that's what I experience except neither image has behind/infront priority.

 

It also means at the cinema I must sit as far to the left as possible so that the angle at which fire exit signs on the right side of the theatre is small - if I sit on the right the sign can migrate up to 10 metres on a big screen vs less than 2 if I am sat to the left side. Signs on the left side have no effect on me.

 

 

 

It's a really sh*tty problem and I haven't even told you guys about the really obvious bigger problem since what I have elucidated here is about 'perception' never mind dominance (I can consciously reverse it so that instead of everything being from the perspective of the left eye it switched so it's all reversed - when I lose control of this.... I have no choice but to close my right eye).

 

I'm soapboxing a bit here, sorry, it's not as bad as it sounds because its a perception malfunction not a so much one of vision - that is the issue is neurological/muscular, however since my vision is so much better in one eye than the other its difficult to explain the whole situation other than to say:

 

In airsoft it is impossible for me to ADS with both eyes open if the cheekweld is from/for the right eye - but my learned left eye dominance means that I have no issue with the reverse.

 

Here's the crux (edited in):

 

The reason for this is that I have instinctively learned to live from the feed at the left eye, so if I ADS with a right side cheekweld, I will be attempting to shoot things which are around 5-10 degrees to the left of the barrel because while my right eye is correctly looking at the red dot there will be a second red dot in my vision which is over to the left a bit, but it will be superimposed over where my left eye is looking an the left eye is dominant.

 

So while general advice is "learn to use the other eye, or other hand, I am simply not capable of using the other eye without closing the stronger one.

 

When I was aged 4-6 I used to wear an eyepatch over the dominant eye.

 

EDIT:

 

I just experimented with my AEG, and you can experience what I see. Get a gun with just iron sights, focus on the front sight (ignore the back), now alternate closing each eye and you can see that there are two different images, from slightly different angles which merge when both eyes are open:

 

When I have corrective lenses I don't experience that merging, I just see the feed from both eyes separately, and it just happens that because my right eye is lazy (to the right) my brain pulls the image across further than necessary so not only do I see two images but they overlap.

 

If you with the gun staring at the sight quickly alternate winking you will experience what I experience to a lesser extent.

 

I'm sorry I lack the vocabulary to better explain this, my opticians always tell me its quite unusually for persons with this problem to have the level of conscious control I possess. H onestly the best example is taking an image in windows from a browser and dragging it for the c&p ghost.

 

But here's a real spanner for you if you've read this far - the image which moves from the right eye across my left also moves vertically... (about 3 degrees up)

[Sacarathe]

Also, I can't watch 3d movies while wearing my own glasses. Because they're designed for normal eye function - I can watch them without focusing lenses though. But I chose not to.