Clay Target Nation, April 2019

APRIL 2019 CLAY TARGET NATION 43 that eye dominance is rarely 100 percent right or left Depending upon the ratio of neural connections between the two eyes a person may experience an eye dominance shift for targets in the outer ranges of their peripheral vision In addition a persons eye dominance may affect the way they align their mostly dominant eye with the barrels This can result in a gun fit issue and missed targets if not correctly diagnosed and corrected This is tricky stuff we are dealing with and some time spent with an instructor who truly understands this topic may explain some of your misses So how should we shooters handle an eye dominance issue Obviously if our barrels do not align with our dominant eye we are going to miss targets And since certain presentations can invoke an eye dominance shift we must understand when and how to deal with this phenomenon There are three rules that we should always follow The first is to identify the most dominant eye and place our gun on the corresponding shoulder For beginning shooters under the age of 30 this is not even a discussion point For older shooters I allow some debate on the point and will accommodate them by forcing the eyes to behave as we wish but that is a lessthan optimal solution The second rule we must follow is to always shoot with both eyes open We have had that discussion The third rule is to invoke corrective measures only when required and always at the least intrusive level For example if a righteye dominant shooter only has issues with targets that originate from the far left then he can eliminate this problem by simply turning his head far enough to the left to ensure his right eye engages the target as soon as it is visible Given the above there are some people who need to turn down the nondominant eye for every shot You notice I did not say turn off the non dominant eye as we want it to contribute as much as possible and we do not want to put our eyes into conflict If a shooter can keep both eyes open until the target is acquired and then wink down the non dominant eye just as a hard focus is being obtained then that is an acceptable method Another common solution is to place a very small visual interrupter that slightly blurs the nondominant eyes vision for an area corresponding to and no larger than the end of the barrel only a small piece of scotch tape works great The less obtrusive the better The bottom line is that our eyes are a team and the team is much more powerful than either of the individuals If you wish to play the role of a predator and kill a target then dont tie one hand behind your back You need both eyes contributing at their highest level And remember Always protect them as they are fragile tools that do not get along well with shotgun pellets or broken target pieces p Some shooters do need to turn down the non dominant eye by winking just as they obtain hard focus on the target This is not as ideal as shooting with both eyes open but it is an acceptable way of dealing with a dominance problem q Remember Anything you do to one eye will affect the other