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

A bit of a hijack here, but when I first decided to buy a left hand deer rifle I went to a local gun shop to order one. This was in the early 1980s, so there was no internet and no Gunbroker or Buds. I told the old guy what I wanted and he refused to order it because I wouldn't be able to sell it when I got tired of it. He said I needed to get a lever action or an autoloader. I just walked out and never went back.

Not long afterward my Mom's uncle moved back close by and opened a gun shop. One day I took Mom for a visit and while there I spotted a used Savage 110CL in .30-06 with sling, Redfield rings and bases and an extra mag at a nice price. I bought it and 35 years later it is still in my safe. It might have taken me 15 minutes to adjust to the left hand rifle and I was soon getting rid of my right hand rifles.

MPI stocks makes a curved stock to shoot off your right shoulder with your left eye I have been looking at this for a youth from a non-hunting family I have been teaching to hunt. We started him with a break action single shot but he's not shooting it well and I've been looking at this for another option.

I agree that he should be able to pick it up quickly at his age. I have a 16 yr. old boy in my church who broke his right collarbone playing football. He loves to duck hunt. In just a couple of evenings shooting skeet in his back yard, he picked it up and is killing ducks. If he can do that, no doubt your son can. My daddy was right-handed but left eye dominant. He always shot a right-handed pump rifle (Rem 760), but shot an Ithaca 37 shotgun as it ejects out the bottom for both right and left handers.

Yup, nothing funnier than watching a righty try and shoot a lefty bolt rifle. It brings up that saying about the monkey and a football! LOL

All three of my kids are left eye dominant, only 1 is left handed. They've shot left handed from the start using right handed rifles. At some point I'll get a left handed rifle for them to use but for now they are ok.

I'm left handed, and I've owned left handed rifles in the past. Went back to right handed rifles, as it's not a complicated system to figure out.

I agree with Gerry. Especially starting a new shooter from scratch. Lots of LH options available now. Maybe not all the coolest and latest offerings, like the Barret FC,etc., but still plenty to choose from to get a new shooter going.

I started wrong with archery shooting left handed with a dominant right eye. Folks simply handed me a bow as a kid with zilch in the way of coaching. At about age 30, and astute archer noticed my persistent accuracy issues, gave me the test, and suggested switching to the right hand. Talk about muscle memory issues etc. In about 3 long practice sessions, however, the strength and dexterity came around and accuracy improved substantially. No way could I go back.

I sincerely praise any parent that does a dominant eye test before their kid even touches a firearm.

And the thing is, it is as easy as pie to do. Ask them to point a pencil at your eye and see which of their eyes they line up on. Give them a paper towel tube and see which eye they hold it in front of. Have them hold a pencil at arms length that is aligned with an object far away, and then have them retract their arms without losing the alignment--see which eye the pencil ends up in front of. I was probably testing my boys by the age of three.

I'll second the paper towel tube idea! I also like to use a rangefinder. They will place it to their dominant eye regardless of the hand they use. These pics were taken during this past Septembers youth deer hunt in Indiana. Not staged, just me snapping pics as my 7yo used my rangefinder.
DSCN2173 by Tyler Staggs, on Flickr

DSCN2171 by Tyler Staggs, on Flickr

Both my boys are RH and left eye dominant. Both shoot lefthanded. Nerf guns and indoor practice make the transition easy and FAST!

Check to make sure he is left eye dominant, if so, get him a properly proportioned left hand rifle, there are tons of them out there from almost every manufacturer.

IMHO, .270 is a bit much for an 11 year old. Might want to back off a little.

My boy had the same issue at that age. I switched him to lefty. It's no big deal if you do it early. I did put tape over his right safety glasses lens to start, but soon that went away too. He won the youth BB gun league that year and for another 4 years running. It really paid off on the trap field and believe it or not, in the batter's box. He still hit right handed, but I had him open his stance so he could see the pitch with both eyes. Hit .588 that year.

As for a rifle, something that fits their LOP and doesn't hurt. I like a .308 with reduced loads until they get some meat on their bones. You can always add length too. That way the kid can grow into a gun. Having graduated over 3000 kids in 10 years from hunter safety, we see that poor fit (too big) and hard recoil are the two things that make the kids not want to do it anymore. If these two things are addressed early, they're all in.

I'm in the same boat, very right handed but also very left eye dominant.

1) With a scope, I prefer to shoot right handed. Much faster in getting on target and with followup shots shooting right handed than left handed. I'm also not limited to only left hand rifles, obviously there's a far greater choice out there for right-handed.
2) With open sights or a shotgun, if I want to hit anything I have to shoot left handed or with a patch over the left eye. I would never recommend bird hunting with a patch over your dominant eye, so learn to shotgun with left hand. But in the shotgun world anything except a bolt action shotgun is extremely easy to use even with your off hand.

In short.. If his right eye isn't a lot worse than his left, shooting the rifle right-handed might outweigh the gain in using the left eye if you use scopes.

Ideally you could get him access to both right and left handed rifles and let him choose after a while. Maybe get him a left handed one now and also get him to practice with your guns. But I would make sure that he does get practice in shooting rifles right-handed, if for no more reason than it opens up a lot of guns for him to be interested in.


PS: I never knew I was left eye dominant growing up, sucked being in a family of bird hunters and not being able to hit the broad side of a barn. Learned in Basic Training, could qualify expert either left handed with a shell deflector or right handed with a patch on the left eye. Couldn't qualify at all shooting right-handed without a patch.

Sweet Jesus!

A bolt action is the only option for an 11 year old kid?

Dunn........believable!

A buddy of mine WAS left eye dominant. He is right handed. He was able to correct this issue relatively easily. He likes to bow hunt, and he has to shoot right handed. Kind of hard to shoot a right hand bow while using his left eye to see the sights. He wore a patch and only put it over his left eye when he was getting ready to shoot. It eventually led to him getting more strength in the right eye. He used to shoot a right hand rifle left handed. He wasn't very good at it. The patch over the dominant eye was his saving grace. I don't know if the child in question has a medical condition or not, but for my buddy's sake, the patch corrected his issue, and he didn't have to be uncomfortable shooting a rifle left handed.


Clyde