Help with Right handed / left eye dominant teen shooter

Hi all.
My eldest daughter is old enough to get her minors permit and shoot handgun at the range. All good till the point where she starts to shoot and only manages a few hits .
Its her first visit to the range and i'm standing behind her , so I cant see that she has both eyes open, trying to shoot right eye.
Later at home we were talking and I just asked her to close her left eye, as it turns out she cant but she can close here right .
back to the range and would you know it , Right eye closed and she has improved remarkably.

So is this OK.

I have no experience with this and would appreciate some guidance .

Good catch!
Pistols: get her an airsoft & LH holster and have practice/practice/practice solely LH handling around the house. Muzzle discipline and all safety rules still apply.
If you belong to a club with shooting disciplines, have her do action rifle or 3-gun.
Rifle: shoot everything LH now.

While her eye already is natural at it, takes a while for agility to catch up and develop muscle memory.

My son is the same way, right handed but left eye dominant. He couldn't shoot a barn from the inside. He's teaching himself to shoot left handed and is slowly improving.

The whole fam damily is left eye right handed. The old timers have workt through it one way or another but all the youngsters are taught to shot pistols off side and rifles left handed.
Its a lot easier to shoot left handed from the start, a real pain to reteach/relearn

Teach her to shoot left handed. Both of my boys are right handed and left eye dominate. I taught them to shoot left handed at an early age. It's the only real solution.

Me and my wife are lefties shooting RH guns and my friend is exactly like your daughter and also shoots RH guns. Just go with it and she'll do just fine as he did.

Cross eye dominance is very common. You can still shoot a handgun right handed using left eye. Just have her point it and let it fall to the left until sight picture falls in front of her left eye. The pistol will be canted to the left no more then 30 or 40 degrees.
Long guns are a different story. They must be shot left handed unless the stock is redone to allow the left eye to be used right handed and its a pita.
One thing is for sure it is good to shoot from either side no matter what!

This seems to be somewhat of a trait in my wife's family. My wife, left handed ( though somewhat ambidextrous) is right eye dominant and shoots rifles right handed. She had to work on her hand gun shooting ,as when she first started shooting handguns, she would often switch left or right. She finally trained herself to shoot the handguns right handed!

She can be easily taught.....if she has the desire. We occasionally shoot our firearms from the "weak side".....just to be somewhat proficient, if the need should arise. In fact, many years ago, I shot a Whitetail with a left shoulder hold. I was seated, the deer came in to my right side. I could not have moved around to make a right hand shot without getting "busted". So.....I made the shot from the left! This helped make up for a deer that got away several years prior, because I didn't think to attempt the left shoulder hold. After losing that deer, I learned to shoot with a weak-side hold! memtb

I am left eye dominant and totally right handed. I shoot everything right handed starting with a pellet gun with open sights at age 10. I didn't see a left handed rifle until I was in my 20's or 30's. With handguns, I can shoot either with both eyes open using my left eye or with my right eye closed. I learned to adapt and so have my kids who are cross dominant. We are all good shooters. People can adapt. Google how to determine your dominant eye to learrn more.

Hunter67wa nailed it. My primary job is teaching firearms. You can learn to do anything in any way but it is easier to shoot a handgun with your dominant hand still using your dominant eye and a long gun with your dominant eye. We have severl deputies that shoot a handgun right handed and a long gun left handed.

To teach, I shoot both my handgun and long gun with both hands. That way, the lefties can't say I don't understand what they are going through.

My daugther has the same problem but she is working through it fine.

I am RH but I can shoot with both eyes open or one or the other closed, so no eye dominance. Anyways I broke my right arm on junior high and learned to shoot a handgun and rifle left handed in a couple of weeks. Practiced daily with airguns and it was no big deal.

I have a left eye dominant friend and a family member that learned to shoot LH and it wasn't hard at all.

Like @P7M13 mentioned use an Airsoft gun for practice and go from there.

Hope this helps and stay safe.

Many thanks ,

Appreciate every ones feed back.

That gives us both a solid starting point to build up her skill set.

Its great to see so many family units enjoying shooting and working out the bugs to get every one scoring consistently. Its something we love as a family , inter family matches with long gun or handgun.

Roo78 said:

Hi all.
My eldest daughter is old enough to get her minors permit and shoot handgun at the range. All good till the point where she starts to shoot and only manages a few hits .
Its her first visit to the range and i'm standing behind her , so I cant see that she has both eyes open, trying to shoot right eye.
Later at home we were talking and I just asked her to close her left eye, as it turns out she cant but she can close here right .
back to the range and would you know it , Right eye closed and she has improved remarkably.

So is this OK.

I have no experience with this and would appreciate some guidance .

Click to expand...

I lost my right eye (dominant) nearly 30 years ago. Learning to shoot left handed took about 2 months. Anyone can do it. I did.

I am cross eye dominant and eventually learned to shoot scoped rifles with both eyes open. It took a long time to do. Long ago we found that my daughter is the same. When it came time to teach her to shoot I taught her as a lefty. Her first centerfire rifle is a Remington 700 youth in .243 Winchester. She shoots it very well.

I think I would be much further along if 30 years ago I had learned to shoot as a lefty and equipped myself accordingly.