Advice needed: crossdominant shooters

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98tib

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My boy is showing a lot of interest in shooting, he's about to turn 8 here in a few months.we've been "practicing" safe handling and the basic rules of a firearm for months and months with his nerf guns in hopes this day would come. He's already shot a bb gun and has done quite well. So, As any normal gun guy would do, I do a ton of research on what the best youth starter rifle would be. I decided on a savage rascal. Find the best price to pick one up and get ready to go with him to the store and I fall sick with the flu. Turns out we can practice indoors some more. No big deal.
I've been working with him on stance and aim religiously and I keep seeing him almost leaning over the stock when aiming. I try correcting him but he keeps doing it. Mind you he is aiming and hitting his target with the bb gun but I can tell it's just not 100% comfortable. And I don't want upgrading to a .22 to be a bad experience do i keep questioning him.
Long story short, it turns out he's cross dominant, right handed but left eye dominant.
I have not the first clue how to go about helping him be his best with this. I've seen that people like that can deal with it and learn to use their right eye to aim or shoot left handed. I've seen one time where someone had a scope mount that was actually offset to the left of the rifle.
Any tips from anyone who is in the same situation? How did y'all overcome or cope with this "setback" for lack of a better word? I'm just reluctant to go buy a rifle for him without being confident in myself in how to teach him. I'm really not sure how he's managing to shoot a bb gun accurately unless I am just over thinking this whole thing?

Thank you in advance
 
See if he will shoot left handed. The dominate eye will be easier to aim with. My daughter is left eye dominant and we didn't know until she started shooting. Wish I had know and tried to get her to shoot left handed. Shotgun is not bad, we have a cross fire reducer that blocks the front sight from her left eye. But 22 rifle and archery she would probably be better aiming with her dominant eye. She's just too stubborn to change now and too old to make her.
 
98tib;n60563 said:
How did y'all overcome or cope with this "setback" for lack of a better word? I'm just reluctant to go buy a rifle for him without being confident in myself in how to teach him. I'm really not sure how he's managing to shoot a bb gun accurately unless I am just over thinking this whole thing?

Thank you in advance
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  1. It's good the dominate eye has been identified
  2. Start shooting pistol Left Handed , or shooting pistol RH using Left eye can be mastered but for some is uncomfortable.
  3. Long Guns, just start shooting Left Handed.

    At times there is a stigma attached to shooting Left with a Right Handed rig, but it can be done.

IMHO, if he can shoot both Right & Left , properly, he will be a better Marksman.
 
I've been cross eye dominate since an unfortunate incident when I was 5 that caused my left eye to take over the dominate role. I've shot pistols right handed and rifles left handed since I was 12.

It's easy to make the switch when you're young.

I get a lot of quizzical looks from friends who I've never shot with before who KNOW I'm right handed. I usually tell them that after watching them shoot I switched hands so I wouldn't make them feel bad.
 
Its not a "setback", its not like he is handicapped here.

Go left hand with the rifle. Since you are talking about a rifle, bench and right handed bolt single shot will be ok. As he gets older I would advise you to buy a Tikka, Rem 700 in left hand and keep it fro the rest of his life.

Its not a big deal, I shoot lefty all the time,
 
Good advice from the guys above.. Actually, it's good to shoot with either hand/eye anyhow. I'm right eye dominant, but can use either eye. physically I'm more awkward shooting southpaw, but the eyes work either way.. Just a thought.
 
I'm cross eye dominate, I've shot long guns left handed since I was able to shoot. Handguns I've shot right handed but keep both eyes open. It helped that my dad is a lefty.
 
Another cross dominant here. I shoot long guns left handed and hand guns right or left.
 
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Help the kid become amphibious... so he can shoot with either hand or eye.
I'm so strongly left eye dominant, I have to close the left to shoot rifles right handed.
Normally, I shoot rifles lefty and pistols righty, however, if I shoot pistols lefty, they come up with the sight aqcuired much faster than righty.
It helps that I am far sighted, and your young'un might have that advantage as well.

BTW, when I finally found a left handed long bow, my archery shooting improved dramatically.

Also, teach him how to shoot a RH bolt gun lefty... gotta get that left thumb off the stock before you run the bolt.
I don't have any trouble shooting any rifle, and don't have any LH rifles.
 
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I'm in the same boat,,I shoot rifles left handed, me personally I would just let him shot right handed and just get use to it. He will be fine and will adjust to it. He will do better shooting with what ever feels natural too him. People laugh at me because of the way I swing s golf club,,, but it works pretty dang good for me
 
I can still shoot right handed, but the accident left the vision in my right eye so bad that anything more than close range center mass is an exercise in futility..
 
I guess I'm in the minority. I simply did it enough to train my right eye to focus best when using sights. Took a bit of doing, but it worked out alright, I think. That being said, I'm no sniper.
 
Like everyone has said, since he's young, teach him to shoot lefthanded.
I'm right handed, left eye dominant and don't want to shoot left.
I just move the gun a little more to the left to see the front sight with left eye.
Rifles, I have no issue shooting using right eye...
 
I'm cross eye dominant. (right handed, left eye) Rifles and shotguns I shoot as if left handed. My father was left handed, so once we figured out that's how I shoot, it was easy for him to coach me. Most bolt action rifles are right handed, so they present a little difficulty, but levers and semi-autos are easy. AR's, I've found, are actually more ergonomic for shooting lefty than right.

Handguns I hold with my right hand, and simply lean my had over to the right. It looks odd, but its worked for me for a long time.

I can shoot right handed to a degree. I've recently been putting some thought into trying to transition over back to right handed shooting. I don't really have a good reason to do so though.
 
RedneckFur;n60770 said:
I'm cross eye dominant. (right handed, left eye) Rifles and shotguns I shoot as if left handed. My father was left handed, so once we figured out that's how I shoot, it was easy for him to coach me. Most bolt action rifles are right handed, so they present a little difficulty, but levers and semi-autos are easy. AR's, I've found, are actually more ergonomic for shooting lefty than right.

Handguns I hold with my right hand, and simply lean my had over to the right. It looks odd, but its worked for me for a long time.

I can shoot right handed to a degree. I've recently been putting some thought into trying to transition over back to right handed shooting. I don't really have a good reason to do so though.
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we would look like twins shooting,, I do the excact same thing.
 
Thank you so much for all the info. The savage rascal I was going to get him is a right handed single shot bolt actin. I thought about getting him to shoot lefty but really needed info first to make sure I was doing the right thing.

Seems like the cross dominant thing is common and I'm glad to see that everyone has found a way to compensate.

Very grateful for the info!

Up next, range time for the boy!
 
Brian K;n60616 said:
I've been cross eye dominate since an unfortunate incident when I was 5 that caused my left eye to take over the dominate role. I've shot pistols right handed and rifles left handed since I was 12.

It's easy to make the switch when you're young.

I get a lot of quizzical looks from friends who I've never shot with before who KNOW I'm right handed. I usually tell them that after watching them shoot I switched hands so I wouldn't make them feel bad.
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Oddly enough, he fell off a dirt bike @5 and broke the right side of his face, I always wondered if that potentially had some effect.
 
Have him try the pellet gun on his left shoulder for a few rounds.

I can shoot rifles on either shoulder using the appropriate eye, no big deal, seems to be something about the near object straight sighting plane catches the focus
.
Pistol, sometimes I have to squint or close one shooting left, I don't naturally line up on my right eye.

Shotgun is hell, I'm right eye dominant, but see better in my left, left-right birds get picked up and focus flips back and forth and it's a jerky mess.
 
He's young, change his training regime to include left handed shooting as well as right hand. After a few weeks he'll adapt and overcome.
When I was a kid I was in an orphanage and they could give a crap less which hand you used for anything so I used whichever was most handy. If something was on the left, I used my left hand, on the right, same thing. Over time I came to realize that I could do anything with either hand equally as well.
Give him a chance to try..... And don't give up.....
 
Teach him to shoot left

Speaking as a left handed shooter the rascal will be fine working the bolt if he shoots it left handed.
 
Interesting thread. I only started shooting as an adult and the first time I shot a scoped rifle, acquiring a good sight picture was virtually impossible. I only discovered that eye dominance was the issue sometime later. With both eyes open, I see two images because the dominant left eye presents its own image. To make matters worse, I couldn't close my left eye while keeping my right eye open (the reverse was easy), so getting rid of that second image was very difficult.

I've worked on practicing closing just the left eye and the muscle control to do that has gotten quite a bit better, though still not as good as the reverse.

Seeing from this thread how many people in my position shoot rifles lefty, I'll have to give it a shot (have only ever shot righty).
 
drypowder;64705 said:
Interesting thread. I only started shooting as an adult and the first time I shot a scoped rifle, acquiring a good sight picture was virtually impossible. I only discovered that eye dominance was the issue sometime later. With both eyes open, I see two images because the dominant left eye presents its own image. To make matters worse, I couldn't close my left eye while keeping my right eye open (the reverse was easy), so getting rid of that second image was very difficult.

I've worked on practicing closing just the left eye and the muscle control to do that has gotten quite a bit better, though still not as good as the reverse.

Seeing from this thread how many people in my position shoot rifles lefty, I'll have to give it a shot (have only ever shot righty).
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He mentioned seeing double as well.

I'm glad everyone was able to help you out as well!
 
98tib;n65844 said:
He mentioned seeing double as well.
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Yep, if he's using a magnified optic, he's seeing a magnified target in his right eye and a non-magnified target in his left eye and both images are competing for dominance in his mind. Confusing as heck! I'm guessing closing his left eye while keeping the right eye fully open isn't very easy for him, or else he'd probably already be doing it as it would eliminate that pesky second image. He could learn to close his left eye and while that would work fine for single stationary targets, it's definitely suboptimal for fast shooting of multiple targets.

With time, practice and mental focus, I've learned to ignore the image my left eye presents - sort of a temporary right eye dominance. But it's an extra processing step I have to do every time I look down the rifle, and in between shots as well (as soon as I blink, I'm back to natural left eye dominance). From seeing the other responses, it seems like training the non-dominant arm and hand and trigger finger might be easier than trying to achieve temporary eye dominance of the non-dominant eye, so I'm going to try out southpaw shooting.
 
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as he is just learning , just teach him as a lefty. or teach him both and let him find what is comfortable for him ..........as both is how I shoot, although I do use the same eye as the hand I am shooting each time. surprisingly I am fairly competent at both, but still feel a bit awkward when shooting rifle lefty. a blinder attached to the scope may help as well
 
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drypowder;n64705 said:
...the first time I shot a scoped rifle, acquiring a good sight picture was virtually impossible...
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Ha that's funny I remember that, and wondering what was so difficult for you. I'm glad you got it figured out, and sorry I didn't pick up on it.
 
Cape Fear;n66204 said:
Ha that's funny I remember that, and wondering what was so difficult for you. I'm glad you got it figured out, and sorry I didn't pick up on it.
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Heh. I was thinking you were thinking I was retarded!

The odd thing is there appears to be different levels of eye dominance, and mine is more subtle, which is why it took me so long to figure out. What I mean by that is that while I am left eye dominant, with focus, I can make the image from my right eye override the image from my left eye.

With some people, the eye dominance is too strong for this. For example, I took a cousin shooting for his first time, and he's right handed, but he kept leaning his face way over the stock so he could see through the scope with his left eye. Using his right eye and ignoring the image coming from his left eye was simply not an option for him. The issue is way more obvious with someone like him (and even then I didn't understand what was happening b/c I didn't know about eye dominance at the time) and considerably more subtle with someone like me. Had I leaned my face way over the stock, I'm sure you'd have recognized the problem.

Even after I figured out his problem was left eye dominance, I still didn't realize that was my issue as well - again, b/c it was subtle enough that I was subconsciously overriding it.
 
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I don't recall who first taught me to shoot a BB gun but I spent many summers at the BB range at camp and I've always shot long guns LH dominant. I'm right handed and shoot a pistol with my RH but if you hand me a rifle and ask me to shoot something I'll do it left handed. From time to time I will shoot a rifle RH. I've killed deer shooting RH out of a tree stand but I'm more comfortable shooting LH. Let him shoot how he's most comfortable but just make sure he shoots with both eyes open so he can have the best field of view.
 
I was born left handed and left eye dominant. The buddy that took me shooting for the first time suggested I try to learn shooting right handed and close my left eye. The reason was most guns back then were not available in left handed versions. It worked out very well for me and after a couple of years I adapted to the point where I can instantly aim with either eye while keeping both eyes open but I do shoot better right handed. My right hand has done much more shooting.

Hickok45 (who is a very fast and accurate shooter) on youtube stated in one of his videos that he shoots handguns right handed but tilts his head to the right so that he can aim with his left eye. Apparently his left eye is stronger. He shoots rifles right handed and aims with right eye while closing his left eye. A very unusual shooting method but it works well for him.
 
I'm cross dominant. (right handed, left eye) I shoot rifles and shotguns left handed, and pistols I hold in my right hand, and tilt my head over to shoot with my left eye. Its worked well for me for years.

See if that works for your son.

A benefit of being cross dominant is that you can usually switch a gun to the other side and shoot it a little easier than someone who's dominant hand and eye are both on the same side.
 
Im sure someone has already said it but if he is just starting let him shoot left handed. I really just got into shooting a couple if years ago and found out i am in the same boat as your boy. I had some old guys at the range get on me for shooting right handed and being left eye dominant. I took there advice and just started shooting left handed, best thing i could have done. It not so bad shooting a pistol right handed but when shooting a rifle it really messed me up. Sorry for rambling but i think he would be best off just going left handed. Good luck and good shooting.
 
Partsfreak said:
I am right handed and let eye dom. It is not a handicap for me. If he is hitting the target, leave him alone and let him hot the target however he is comfortable.
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Sometimes my eyes battle for dominance[emoji38] [emoji12]
This is more apparent when I'm shooting at a target with 5 targets on it. Aiming at the right side target, sometimes my right eye will try to take over setting the left target.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
Right handed here, found out I was left eye Dom in basic. Trained myself to be ambidextrous. After several years now I'm right eye dominant. Try teaching him to shoot lefty.
 
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