While a dominant left eye is an annoyance
to any right-handed shooter, the curse falls especially hard
on the birdhunter. A pistol shooter just has to use a two-hand
hold -- the dominant left eye takes over -- and he's in the black
without any fuss or bother. The same with a scoped rifle, which
can be shot effectively with either eye since the opposite eye
is excluded in the sighting process. But with wing shooting there
is no way around the fact that a shooter with a dominant left
eye is going to shoot three feet to the left of the bird. Or
is there?
A dominant eye is easy to diagnose on the skeet field because
a guy with this problem will break all the birds from the low
house because they go from right to left -- because he has a
three foot lead built into every shot. He misses all the high
house birds going from left to right because he's shooting three
feet behind these guys. The problem is identified. However, lots
of folks have given up on birdhunting because they think they
just "poor shots" -- when in point of fact they have
a dominant or master left eye. There are special rewards for |
birdhunters who help children, spouses
and friends to overcome this handicap. Here's how you can earn
yours . . .
The crossover stock
A doglegged affair that is mounted on the right-hand shoulder
but sighted with the left eye. It's probably as old as shotgun
shooting.
They are costly, hard to fit and not commonly available -- but
they allow the right-handed shooter to cope with a dominant left
eye situation.
Older English gun catalogs occasionally mention the availability
of crossover stocks for made-to-order shotguns. When the legendary
John Amber -- longtime editor of GUN DIGEST fame -- lost the
eyesight of his dominant right eye, he had a gun fitted with
a crossover stock to make use of his left eye.
Don't fight, just switch
Two immediate solutions suggest themselves when faced with a
dominant left eye. The first and obvious one is to move the whole
shooting operation to the left side. This seems to work okay
in some |
target shooting situations, where you have
time in advance to place your feet correctly, mount the gun and
adjust the brain to the changed stance. However in hunting situations
where instinctive moves are a major part of the game, this doesn't
always work out well.
Or, Obstruct the left eye and force the right eye to work harder
Yes, you can don a pirate patch or insert a piece of cardboard
in your shooting glasses to over the left lens. This works --
but your depth perception is shot. Okay for going-away pheasants
maybe, but a bummer trying to guess the distance and lead when
pass-shooting doves. Experienced target shooters use a small
"dot" of electrian's or translucent tape to blur the
left eye's view of the front sight but still get some feedback
for distance and lead judgments. |
