Home Forums Hunting & Shooting The Lefty Forum eye dominance

I am crossed w/ a left eye dominance and a right hand pref.I am building a system to deliver 12 inch groups at 1000 yards.

I have often wondered if a very good set of glass will offset the eye problem and allow me to use my natural right handedness. I will be using a us optics 44x10 fixed 10 x with a 34mm tube.

I would be interested in finding out what you folks think. will the scope in question offset the eye cross?

I don't know if this will help but my wife is very left handed but right eye dominant. On advise of a shooting instructor, she is shooting right handed in order to take advantage of her dominant eye.

Does eye dominance even matter when using a scope?

Not being a smartass, genuinely curious. I know it matters a great deal with shotguns and handguns..

MPI stocks in Oregon makes stocks for right handers with a major cast on for a left hander, light weight for hunting. That's the only way you can use your left eye in a right handed stock, definitely not what you want.

To shoot the groups you are looking for. You will have to shoot 100% in a supported position, prone or on a bench period. From those positions, you can shoot an appropriate rifle for the task right handed with no problems.
Close your left eye until the right is in full focus in the scope, as long as you can maintain focus, otherwise wear a patch on your left.

If you were hunting, that's a different scenario. The last thing you need is to close one eye, cut your field of view in half. Lose depth perception/depth of field. Time to find and engage.... will also be hindered.

If I understood your optic choice a fixed 10x44mm with a 34mm tube. You can hit targets at 1,000 yds. but not consistently to your desired specs. Granted you have more adjustments with the 34mm.
10x at a thousand yds. is 1x at 100yds. Meaning can you shoot at a 100yds with a one power scope and get 1.2MOA consistently. Personally I would look at a top end of 18x-25x. Granted weather permitting with mirage and air currents.

Find a 1,000 yard range and watch what the shooters are using in equipment and they usually are friendly with advise. Maybe you can shoot one of their rifles for feel.

I am right handed left eye dominant and only shoot left hand rifles period. no matter the discipline. You will quickly adjust and thrive.

Best of luck to you.

My mother is very right-handed, and when my dad taught her how to shoot, she couldn't seem to hit the broad side of a barn from inside the barn. After he noticed she was holding the rifle right handed, but leaning way over to use her left eye in the scope he had her switch to shooting left handed, and she immediately shot very well. So like MLF above indicated, you could shoot lefty and do well, it'll just take some getting used to. I also know of other lefty shooters who use right handed rifles, they've just learned to work the bolt by reaching over the scope with their left hand, so I'm not sure you'd need to buy left handed rifles if you start shooting lefty.

As a cross eye/hand dominant shooter, but not a 1000 yd shooter, I'll add my 1 1/2 cents. I am naturally right handed however when trying to teach me to shoot at an early age, my father noticed I was trying to use my left eye while shouldering right handed, so he switched me to left side. (Both he and my older brother are left/left so I'm thinking that had something to do with it also). Everything was good and I shot rifle, shotgun and archery well left handed. We only had long guns growing up and I bought my first handgun at 18. Guess what? Shooting it with my non dominant hand felt awkward so I shoot handguns from my right side, right eyed and I feel I'm a decent shot. Somewhere along the way, after reading many eye dominant issues among shooters, I tested myself and found that I am actually right eye dominant. I tried switching to the right side but it never felt natural so I finally said screw it and go with what feels right. I can shoot from both sides but when hunting or trying to shoot the smallest groups I'll go with what feels natural, lefty.
Again I'm not a 1000 yd shooter, but information I've gleaned from those that are, suggest mechanics and consistency are very important. My opinion is that with high magnification scopes and distant targets the cross eyed/hand issue is mitigated, unlike say, trap or skeet shooting. I'd say go with what gives you the most comfortable and consistent trigger control and body/head position behind the rifle. Build your rifle and try it both ways and go with what works. Since this is deliberate shooting I don't think it really matters which side the bolt's on. From prone or off a bench, I'd rather have the opposite hand action to how I'm shooting. For hunting or where action manipulation from different positions may be necessary, matching action to hand is mo better.
JMO YMMV

I'm the odd man out. Left Handed, Right Eyed. Shoot long guns left handed. Close my right eye for rifle scopes. About a 50/50 shooter with shotguns. Shoot hand guns right handed reasonably accurately.

Will have my 60th birthday in a few weeks. No interest in relearning the muscle memory to shoot long guns right handed. If I were to lose vision in my left eye and HAVE to start shooting long guns right handed, I would probably go broke buying up all of the beautiful rifles I have avoided purchasing over the years because their were not Left Handed !

Greetings,
I am currently building a 7mm Rem Mag for use out to and beyond 1000 yards.
The basic system is runs a Shlein barrel ( from a 32” unturned select match grade stainless Heavy Palma blank) with a Defiant long action , a pacific Tool and Gauge single stack 5 rnd mag. and a 2 stage Huber Concepts trigger set to 2 lbs. I am using a McMillan A3-5 stock w/ a 3 way adj. butt piece , a Good bi-pod (prob. a Harris) It will have a one piece steal Pic. rail w/ a 20MOA steal down ramp.
And like I stated earlier a U.S. Optics fixed 10x optics with a 34mm steal tube. The scope rings are also steal in a wide heavy duty extra extra high configuration by Trijicon.
Note I am having the fore-end on the stock milled out and am glass bedding in 4 mercury recoil suppression tubes and the Bio-pod support post. To ensure sufficient strength the fore-end will be strengthened with 3 ¼” steal rods. The stock will look normal but recoil will be much reduced.
The Idea is to run the recoil straight back to my shoulder to reduce muzzle climb as the barrel won’t have a break – just an 11deg. Cut.
I plan on feeding it 180gr Berger match hybrid target or ALCO 180 gr hybrid bullets on top of Hogdon H4831SC and Fed. 215 mag match primers. I also find Norma cases to be the best. They are drilled and annealed and then polished. The case weights are almost all within 1% which is ready low.
As you can see am sticking a lot of time and money into this project. With all said and done I will have a 1000 yard tack driver ( I hope) in any case the weak link will be ME and not the rifle.
I have most of the bits and pieces but will be ordering the receiver and bolt assembly nest week.
I really do not want to go lefty on this one and value experienced opinions as to the advisability of going right side with a left eye dominant.

Haha, you and me both!! Especially yesterday when I was having optical intercourse with a Mannlicher stocked, case colored Dakota 76 in 6.5x55 at my LGS.

know what you mean. I will have plenty of eye relief. And the barrel will line up directly with my schoulder. thats the reason for the high scope rings. I tried a rig like this in a .338 Lapua (not my own) and at first it felt sort of weird with a high cheek spotweld, but that rifle fired 1/2 MOA groups. So I am going to try it on this new build. I really hope this works because I'll prob. have a hard time selling it if it does not print really well.

Well I'm left eyed dominate and shoot a rifle left handed, so I got lucky there, however shooting a bow seemed much more easy for me to shoot right handed since I throw right handed, and my right arm is my strong arm.
The guy at the bow shop told me, you need to shoot a bow with your dominate eye, just learn to shoot a bow left handed, it won't take long. He was right, I took his advice and bought a left handed Bowtech, by about arrow 100, it now seems completely natural to me. I say go with your eye, your muscle coordination will come, but your right eye will never get stronger than it is now.

most , but not all of the folks who have responded seem to think that it is going to be fairly straight forward to learn to shoot left handed. I continue to remain unsure.
Since this may make a big difference in the results I get with my new system I have to think about it. I will most likely be benched and more often than not be firing prone with a bi-pod and a sandbag under the butt plate. I think I will have to try a friends lefty .223 at 100 yds and then from the right to see just how well I can really do.

Bottom line ... so far... is you folks have almost convinced me to go with my dom. eye and against my right handedness.

I am cross dominant, RH/LE. I can shoot well from either shoulder, but shoot right handed by default.

i am RH and LE and shoot bow and long arms right handed and shoot handguns completely wrong (right hand but with left eye) but it works somehow. cant shoot a handgun left handed to save my life