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Post subject: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:35 pm
Posts: 47 | I shot sporting clays today and was right at 50%. I have been in that area for the past year or so. I did get into the low 70's once with a borrowed gun. I bought a gun just like it, but can't duplicate it. I had cataract surgery a couple of years ago and went from thick glasses to no glasses and excellent vision for the first time in my life. I am shooting with both eyes open and can see the target well. I just don't know how to lead the bird using this method. Any suggestions?
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Fri Sep 20, 2013 11:00 am
Posts: 393
Location: West Texas | Have you checked to see if you are using your dominant eye? Or with your new vision maybe your dominance changed? Some shooters report dominance switching from left to right and back again during a shoot.
Just a thought.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2003 4:23 pm
Posts: 5556
Location: Brillion, WI-25 mls S of Green Bay | 'Wellshooter may have identified the problem. Your 'off' eye may be or have become dominant either constantly or periodically.
One way to check dominance is to hold up both arms and form a triangle with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands. Focus on an object across the room through the triangle.
Being the triangle back towards your race always focusing on the object. You may find that when the triangle gets to your face, it is at one eye or the other. This may be your dominant eye but in an attempt to be sure, repeat the exercise several times, changing objects focused on each time.
If the triangle comes to one eye consistently, that eye is probably dominant. If it comes to different eyes, it suggests that neither eye is dominant.
Another possibility is that your eye dominance changes periodically as fatigue, target direction, background or light conditions change.
If your dominance is periodic or you should try shooting with the off eye closed.
If your dominant eye is the off eye, you could shoot from the other shoulder or close the off eye. Shooting from the shoulder behind the dominant eye is the best thing if you can do it. It does take some time getting used to it and some shooters cannot do it at all.
As an aside, is your gun mount consistent? With the gun mounted, are your head and neck is a natural posture? With the gun mounted, do you feel comfortable? Is your head in a natural position with your eyes very near the vertical centers of their sockets?
Let us know what you find.
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Author of 'Stock Fitter's Bible, Second Edition,' which explains the interrelationships between shooting form, stock dimensions and a shooter's size and shape http://www.amazon.com/Stock-Fitters-Bible-Second-Edition/dp/1451570384
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:21 pm
Posts: 5045
Location: UK | You don't have to 'learn' to shoot using both eyes, it's perfectly natural, but you may have to learn or relearn how to set up your body to shoot and to mount the gun with the line of sight above the rib. This may not be easy or rapid to achieve and the commonly used alternative is to close or wink the 'spare' eye or use a work around like a spot or patch on the lens over your 'spare' eye.
You may be cross dominant. This is like handedness and is set in place before birth. Dominance itself doesn't switch from side to side but some people do suffer from 'off' eye takeover under certain situations. My personal opinion is that this is usually caused by mounting the gun incorrectly such that it sometimes occludes the dominant eye enough that the brain decides to rely on the 'off' eye until the occlusion is removed or reduced.
There's no pat internet answer to this because there are various things that could be frustrating your efforts and only someone on the spot could identify them.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Sun May 06, 2012 11:20 am
Posts: 432 | http://jfshooting.com/category/shooting/
Use this target. Google 3 bullet drill on you tube. Same instructions except use two clays.
Will have to use trial and error to find your lead at various distances. Start with 42 inches at 20 yards per Todd Bender cheat sheet. Once you find your 20 yard lead, double it for a starting point at forty yards. Adjust as necessary.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:35 pm
Posts: 3395
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada | I just don't know how to lead the bird using this method. Any suggestions?
Here is a suggestion for getting totally familar with both eyes open. Below here is one way to do it, get use to watching the target with both eyes open. Pretty soon your brain knows where the gun is pointed, just from doing this over and over. Get something like a Daisy BB gun, remove the sights. Shoot by focusing on the target, and make effort to watch the BB. Watch the BB go into the target. It is best to shoot against a dark background, and the bright shiny BB stands out and so is easy to see. Just watch the BB go into the target. Actually shooting at a leaf on a tree works good. The Tree is dark, and you can see the BB track right to the target. This gets you completely comfortable looking at the target with both eyes open and you have instant feed back as to whether you hit it or not as you can see the BB hit or miss. After you can do that consistent. Then start throwing a pretty large target and shooting at it in the air. When you hit that one all the time use a smaller target. You can keep making the target smaller as you become comfortable to shooting both eyes open and watching the target, and you always know right where you are shooting. Actually you can do it with either eye. If you do it cross dominant it takes a few hundred more tries, but eventually your brain figures it out, and you can shoot it cross dominant also. It may take about a 1000 times, but pretty soon you can shoot both eyes open, either hand, and it really makes no difference to you. The brain is amazing at adapting to vision. It just takes some time. The BB gun gives you time, and at a cheap price.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:21 pm
Posts: 5045
Location: UK | Actually you can do it with either eye. If you do it cross dominant
it takes a few hundred more tries, but eventually your brain
figures it out, and you can shoot it cross dominant also.
It may take about a 1000 times, but pretty soon you can
shoot both eyes open, either hand, and it really makes no
difference to you. The brain is amazing at adapting to vision.
It just takes some time. Absolutely right! Within the last generation science has shown that, contrary to earlier teaching, the brain is not hard-wired like a computer but is in fact able to change and adapt. It's obvious when you think about it because that's how we learn and develop manual skills. Leonardo may have been born with natural talent but he had to spend time mastering various skills and develop incedible dexterity in order to paint the Mona Lisa. What people call 'muscle memory' is actually neuroplasticity because the brain is where the changes take place. Muscles don't learn. Neuroplasticity as it's called, is based around the study of how neural networks in the brain - including those relating to vision - can be reprogrammed with structured training. Since vision takes place in the brain and is a neural process of decoding optical data transferred from the eyes, the way in which that data is presented and utilised can be altered by training. The technique DA describes above is typical of the work being done by scientists to understand and apply plasticity to neural functions. But not everyone with cross dominance has the requisite level of knowledge, determination, self discipline and commitment to retrain their vision, in fact it seems very few actually do, so there are various off the peg 'solutions' available to minimise the problem.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2004 12:21 am
Posts: 3504
Location: South Texas | nicholsmith..from your post it appears that you have been shooting at least a year..bought a few guns and are still at the 50% mark.
Take some lessons. Get a trained instructor behind you that can actually see what is happening. Learn some techniques, get some solid feedback, start building your game. While I think eye dominance is very important and not to be fluffed over, it can be much less of a problem when the eyes and gun are used correctly together.
It costs money. So does shells and target fees. So far it seem that you have wasted 50% of your shooting money. Spent your money wisely..in the long run, lessons are much cheaper than shells or targets..and the results show up faster. I wish someone had told me this during my first two years of shooting shotguns!
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2003 5:26 pm
Posts: 10428
Location: So Cal USA | When you play baseball, do you look at the bat or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you play golf, do you look at the club head or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you play tennis, do you look at the racket or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you merge onto the freeway, do you look at the hood of your car or where you want to go ? 1 eye or 2?
Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Look at your target and your brain will do the rest. Yes, I know, it’s not for everybody, but give it a try for a few months.
Now onto something else. After you hit the ball with the (bat, club, racket) do you stop dead in your tracks, or do you follow thru? You follow thru. Same thing in sporting clays, if you stop the gun, you probably shot behind the target.
Oh, I'm right handed and right eye dominant. Since we all have two eyes and they're next to each other you're going to see two images of the barrel. It's called parallax.
Look at the bird, not the barrel.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:28 am
Posts: 490 | | | Top |
Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:08 pm
Posts: 500
Location: Illinois | +2 for ysr
I shot one eye for years and calculated my lead. I was a decent shot while hunting but my SC shooting was always around 65%. One day a pheasant flushed in front of me giving me no time to setup (hunt over a pointer) and I dropped it at 30 yards. An hour later another one did the same thing and I dropped it at about 40. Both times the gun went off without me thinking about it
The following summer (5 years ago) I bought a sporting gun and shot many rounds at clays with both eyes open. My SC scores went to the upper 80's and low 90's on a good day and now I don't unload both barrels on every bird I shoot at. I recently noticed that I now shoot pistols with both eyes open and also my scoped rifles. I shoot clays with some buddies and I'm always asked how much lead I'm doing at some stations and I always reply 'I have no idea'
I'm teaching my kids to shoot the same
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:35 pm
Posts: 47 | I have been shooting with the gun already mounted. Should I mount the gun when the targets are released? Does this make a difference? Early in the summer I broke 50 birds in a row that were going straight away or right or left. I have trouble with other shots.
I appreciate what you said about lead as I did not know what to do. After I had surgery on one eye, I was amazed at how my brain took images from both eyes and really put them together.
I appreciate all of the comments.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:05 am
Posts: 16
Location: Lancaster, Ohio | Have you checked to see if you are using your dominant eye? Or with your new vision maybe your dominance changed? Some shooters report dominance switching from left to right and back again during a shoot.
Just a thought. Have you been tested for eye dominance? Not everybody can shoot with 2 eyes, especially if you were a one eyed shooter, I am lucky I started with 2 eyes 50 years ago. I know a lady shooter with a blocker mounted on her trigger gaurd to block the Left eye Dr.longshot
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:25 pm
Posts: 1858
Location: Attica, Mi | Well, I'll take the opposite view. Because my dominate eye wants to shift I use a patch over my off eye. It's a piece of scotch tape just big enough to block out the end of the gun barrel for the off eye. Removable shooting patches can be bought from Shotgun Sports Magazine. With the patch I can see the relationship between the gun and bird, and if someone says I where I was off I know what to do to correct it. Both eyes open isn't for everyone. I have one friend who shoots SC's between 80 and 90% that shoots one eye. Everyone wants to say about using two eyes open for other sports - only problem with that is we're not playing those other sports. JMHO
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:08 pm
Posts: 3609
Location: mid west | When you play baseball, do you look at the bat or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you play golf, do you look at the club head or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you play tennis, do you look at the racket or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you merge onto the freeway, do you look at the hood of your car or where you want to go ? 1 eye or 2?
Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Look at your target and your brain will do the rest. Yes, I know, it’s not for everybody, but give it a try for a few months.
Now onto something else. After you hit the ball with the (bat, club, racket) do you stop dead in your tracks, or do you follow thru? You follow thru. Same thing in sporting clays, if you stop the gun, you probably shot behind the target.
Oh, I'm right handed and right eye dominant. Since we all have two eyes and they're next to each other you're going to see two images of the barrel. It's called parallax.
Look at the bird, not the barrel. I too would use two eyes ALL the tie if all I expected was an average below 69%!! I am a big fan of using that which allows me to score the best!
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:26 am
Posts: 1 | When you play baseball, do you look at the bat or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you play golf, do you look at the club head or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you play tennis, do you look at the racket or the ball? With 1 eye or 2?
When you merge onto the freeway, do you look at the hood of your car or where you want to go ? 1 eye or 2?
Are you starting to see a pattern here?
Look at your target and your brain will do the rest. Yes, I know, it’s not for everybody, but give it a try for a few months.
Now onto something else. After you hit the ball with the (bat, club, racket) do you stop dead in your tracks, or do you follow thru? You follow thru. Same thing in sporting clays, if you stop the gun, you probably shot behind the target.
Oh, I'm right handed and right eye dominant. Since we all have two eyes and they're next to each other you're going to see two images of the barrel. It's called parallax.
Look at the bird, not the barrel. I'm very new to all of this, but at this very early stage, I agree with this post a lot. The best I've ever done on sporting clays has been the past 2 times where I've had both eyes open and focusing on the birds. Maybe it's more related to increased experience or familiarity with the course but I definitely have more confidence shooting this way.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2009 8:20 am
Posts: 12446 | My experience might help (or not) :
1. focus on the bird, one eyed or two
2. only in shotgunning do you have a 3 ft piece of iron next to your face while still trying to look at the bird. So the analogy to baseball , golf etc is simply WRONG
3. eye issues abound when the nearest moving object is the gun bbl. We are hard-wired to see the moving thing (threat) nearest to us , and not the one 40 yds away. We have to train ourselves to NOT look at the bbl and look at the target
4. I started shooting 2 eyed. Did that for 2 yrs. I wasn't even good in D class.
5. I went to the Dot and advanced to M class in less than 2 yrs.
I still use the Dot. It blocks my left eye from acquiring the end of the bbls. That's it. Really simple. No muss , no fuss.
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Post subject: Re: Learning To Shoot With Both Eyes Open |
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Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:25 pm
Posts: 1858
Location: Attica, Mi |
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