Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Left eye dominant shooter help

My 11 year old is right handed but has a problem with his right eye and developed left eye dominance. He has been shooting a little with right handed bb guns at game and fish events and with my right handed .22 bolt action. I let him fire my .270 mauser once just so he could get the feel and he actually did good. He wants to go hunting next year, so I have to start saving for another rifle and I have to decide what to get. Good entry level rifles are not a problem anymore, but I am not sure if I should get a left handed model or a right handed model. I really trust the campfire for this kind of help, anyone have advice on how best to help my son have the best shoot experience?

@ his age, it's no big deal to develop/re-learn the muscle-memory needed to shoot left-handed. With a scoped rifle, honestly as long as he can see through the scope, it probably doesn't matter if he shoots right or left. However, if he ever gets into any open sight shooting or for sure shooting a shotgun, he'll appreciate his dominant eye being in line with the barrel/sights. It will allow him to shoot w/both eyes open greatly helping his perception of distance necessary for proper lead of moving targets.

Long story short, if it were my kiddo, he'd be learning to shoot left-handed.

Absolutely agree.

Awesome post.. My exact sentiments.

Thank you! I have been thinking along the same lines but was reluctant to buy a left handed gun. My experience has been that they are more expensive and harder to resell if he decided to not pursue shooting. Sounds like I will continue looking for used left handed guns for some of the entry level rifles like ruger or savage. Walmart has some for $305 new.

Not a gun writer but:

I'd buy him a left hand Ruger American and not look back.

He'll probably develops a surprising degree of ambidexterity.

Love the Ruger American. I reload for the .270 win, 30-06, 8x57, and 308. If I got a good enough deal I could easily add 6.5 cm :}

You beat me to it. Ruger American or Savage 11/110 in left hand and don't look back. I am a lefty and teach Hunter Ed., so I see a lot of kids who should be shooting left hand, but their dad says no and tries to force him to shoot right handed. The results are typically bad. I know a retired cop who is right handed and left eye dominant who has trouble shooting semiautomatic handguns. He bends his right elbow and shoots with his left eye. He gets jams from not keeping a firm right arm.

Yep he will never be as good with his less dominant eye so shooting left is the best. Then there is the potential issue of blowing a primer with a right hand gun which is designed for a RH shooter not a lefty. There never have been as many LH rifles as they are today and yes the 6.5 Creedmoor is a great choice for a kid and will work when he is an adult too, my wife and I have a 260 and 6.5x55 and love them, the Creed fits right into that mould as well. A 7mm-08 would be a good alternate choice.

This. My uncle was a top notch shot having grown up in the counrty shooting squirrels, ducks and deer. His right eye was injured in the Korean War and he made the switch and became equally deadly as a left hander often killing running deer in the East Texas woods with his 94 30-30.

Let him shoot left-handed.

No real need for a left-handed gun, he can reach back with his right arm or reach over with his left to control the bolt. When done properly it's about as quick as anything.

Nope, a left hand gun is much better in all ways for a left hand shooter.

This.

I am in the same boat. I am right handed but left eye dominant. At first I always shot left handed but kept seeing rifles i really liked that were only available in right handed configuration so I started shooting right handed.
Over time I started favoring my left eye more as I got older especially when shooting iron sighted guns. My point is let the youngster get into the habit of shooting lefty now and go with a left handed rifle. This has been my experience.
As a side note I shoot a handgun right handed but use my left eye.
Best of luck to your son.

I'd encourage shifting him to the left side. In the mean time, there are any number of arms that can be ac/dc. Pumps, levers, semi autos, break actions, etc.

Plenty left handed guns

Same exact situation with my son.
Keep an eye out for left handed used guns even before he needs them.

Also if you have a few gun shops you frequent, ask them to keep an eye
put for left handed guns for you. You can keep the cost down till you feel
safe that he is going stay with shooting.

My son is right handed for everything, except shooting which he does
very well left handed.
He will get all my ambidexterous guns such as single
shots, O/U and S/S shotguns. Everything else he has is left handed except
for a Ruger 10/22.

Tell you what--going on the assumption that you are right handed, find somebody from whom you can borrow a left handed gun and you shoot and operate it from the right side. See if that is a "good enough for a lifetime" approach.

LH guns are safer for LH shooters and plenty easy to buy, sell, build, etc. There is no reason to settle for a "get by" solution, particularly if you are trying to get someone hooked on shooting and hunting for a lifetime. I have two sons, and set one up with left eyed guns and the other with right eyed guns.

My brother's two youngest are left-eye dominant, and one turned out left-handed (he broke his right wrist three times between ages 5 and 8) and the other turned out right-handed. He has had this same internal debate. I watched him try to teach the kids to shoot, and they struggled until he figured out that they both needed to shoot left-handed. It is nearly impossibly rare that a person won't have a dominant eye, and it is the dominant eye that determines how one lines up the rest of one's body.

As a lefty who grew up shooting right-handed bolt guns, I learned how to shoot them fast (hint: reaching over the top to work the bolt isn't it, and forces one to remove one's head from the cheek-weld, not conducive to speed or effective follow-up shots). I am much faster with a LH bolt gun, as I don't have to use my arms in non-intuitive ways to keep the gun in position while working the action, and I now prefer LH bolt guns.

Don't short-change your own child. Get them the firearms that match them, instead of forcing them to conform to the firearms. And there is the safety issue as well: a RH rifle fired in a LH configuration opens up the shooter to gas and metal, should the case let go. Are your kids worth the hassle of chasing down a LH rifle? The answer is pretty simple, huh? Particularly given that there are far more LH bolt guns now than there have ever been before. I always resented that my parents were too lazy or cheap or whatever to find the correct guns for me.

Well said Utah708, it's mind boggling to think in this day and age with so many great LH guns to purposely choose an inferior option. Thankfully the OP is looking a a LH gun.........