Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire offset gun stock - is this a real thing?

I'm taking it that shooting with one eye closed is now somehow considered outdated and ineffective?

Apparently! I usually keep both eyes open until I get on target then close one before I squeeze one off with the rifle. Handgun it depends and shotgun I keep both open.

The pics posted are interesting, personally I haven't any experience with them but have seen similar before with shotguns. Didn't think it was as common as apparently it is here. The rifle is a first.

I noticed my daughter is right handed but left eye dominant at an early age so we just started her shooting left handed. She's very much ambidextrous now and has no issues with a pistol, bow or rifle. She hasn't shown much interest in shotguns yet, the same as my boy. Probably because they are used to shooting with suppressors would be my guess. That and we don't do much bird hunting despite living in the greatest upland bird hunting area of the state with grouse, chickens and pheasants aplenty.

Always use your dominate eye to shoot. Lots of kids forced to do thing wrong handed go thru life clumsy as hell

Beat me to it.

My wife shoots one-eyed, because she has no dominant eye. It helps.

My left handed, right-dominant-eyed brother shoots right handed, both eyes open, like most of us.

Grandad had an A-5 Browning like that . Factory.

"at 1:33 they show her shooting with her left eye closed."

Yeah, I saw that. Always "assumed" a radical stock offset was to shoot with a left eye from right shoulder, or vise versa. But she seems to be doing something way different. It works though, as she's won about everything there is in trapshooting, multiple times. She had stocks like it at as a teenager.

When KWFA showed that rifle, this lady was the first & most successful cross dominate shooter that I thought of.

Saw one 35 years ago on the rack at Shapel's Gun Shop in Boise, Idaho.

I know a bloke who lost his right eye, and he modifies his stocks to allow him to shoot right handed but aim with his left eye. No doubt he's not the only one, and I have see these cross-eyed stocks before.

As for closing one eye to shoot (for those who have two of them), this is not without disadvantages. It takes away from peripheral vision of course. It also takes away depth perception and is thought to slow your processing speed, which are disadvantages for shotgun sports (except perhaps trap) and shooting running game with a rifle. As well, in the context mainly of rifle shooting, holding one eye closed increases eye strain and also tends to cause your open eye's pupil to dilate more, decreasing depth of field/sharpness.

Instead of closing the off eye, you can simply put a very small spot of clear tape or even a greasy fingerprint on the off-eye lens of your shooting glasses, right at the spot where it will block that eye's view of the front bead/foresight when the gun's mounted. That way the offside eye can remain open, but is prevented from taking over at the moment of the shot.

I was NRA Expert in High Power Rifle shooting right handed but left eye dominant. I just closed my left eye and it worked out just fine.

I damaged my right eye. Tried altering stocks but it wasn't very good.
Eventually taught myself to shoot left handed. Thats rifle not shotgun.

Saw an E.J. Churchill double like that at Mid-South Guns a year or so ago. Wonder how long it took to find a buyer....

Shoot PPC. Part of the course of fire is left hand barricade and right hand barricade. Left hand shot first, you have to use the left eye and it's best to leave the right eye open.The brain adapts to using the left eye, if the RO catches you using the right eye while shooting from the left they'll deduct sixty points.

Yes, if you pause the video in the right spots it is clear that she is shooting with her left eye closed. An odd gun mount with her face into the stock and looking out of the corner of her right eye. Can't argue with success though. It apparently works well for her. Most shooting coaches will try to get you to shoot with both eyes open and have the gun on the side of the dominant eye.

Jerry

Outdated and ineffective, no.

Slower, less-safe, and less effective, absolutely.

What good can come from giving away 1/2 your FOV and a goodly percentage of your depth perception?

I can still "day-trip" into reasonably good pheasant or ruffed-grouse country. The vast majority of folks I hunt with are painfully slow upon the flush. Some of that is experience and muscle-memory, but, I attribute a lot of being fast or slow with a shotgun to leaving both eyes open, or not. A 2-eye'd shooter will have the gun in position and lead established as the stock is hitting his/her cheek because they have their entire FOV and exponentially better depth perception giving them the ability to be establishing lead while the gun is on its way to the shoulder. Feet, legs, core, arms, hands all work in better harmony when you're also using both of your eyes.

FWIW, I shoot scoped rifles, open sighted rifles or handguns, and use a spotting scope w/both eyes open as well.

I have seen 2 shotguns so equipped. Both owners were right handed shooters but had lost sight in their right eye. Built this way they could still shoot right handed but using their only good eye. Neither were simply one eye dominate over the other.

My wife is left eye dominant but shoots right handed (rifles only). Can't force her into switching. Pyramids can decay, and deer, elk, and pronghorn can die of old age while she's settling in for a shot. Rarely misses though.

I've seen a few High Power match rifle shooters using offset sights, little or no vision in the affected eye.