One Eye to Two Eyed Shooting

How long did it take you to get shooting well after switching from being a one-eyed shooter to a two-eyed shooter?

 

My question is this an eye dominate issue? If it is the following will help by using what I'm suggesting.
I shoot right handed and left eye dominate. I first put a meadows industry site blinder on the end of my barrel. I still had some issues so I put a magic dot ( 3/4") on my left lens. With both of them on it made a difference. You do need to put the site blinder about 1" behind the front bead. The magic dot needs to be high enough on the lens to cover the tip of the barrel ( cover front bead) and centered on bead/ barrel. This needs to be done to have the dominate eye be obscured so the non dominate takes over. if this is your issue then Meadow Industry sells site blinder and magic dots.

Some folks have a hard time using the dots but you will get use to it with practice. You can practice at home with site blinder attached to barrel and or magic dot on dominate eye lens, using an empty gun, mount it, hold about 2-3' from a corner, high following line where ceiling and wall meet or a couple of feet below ceiling line, with out moving hold point, turn eyes to the corner of room, then swing barrel to corner of room, eyes still focused on corner, when barrel reaches corner with some lead pull the trigger while swing through.

If you want to see how the dot would work, which ever eye is dominate take you index finger of the dominate side and put it up to your dominate eye about eye lash away while looking you should be able to see through the index finger. This is how the magic dot works. Site blinder helps block out the front bead.
It will take some time if this is your issue. The more you practice at home or on the trap field you will improve.

It's easier to explain in person than it is to describe. Any questions please PM. Shoot well shoot straight.

 

I don't know the answer to your question Van Zammillo. I suspect the answer is the same as those who switch to a release trigger. Not knowing any better I started out shooting with both eyes open. I think you'll get responses of different lengths of time regarding getting used to something. As well as some people never get comfortable shooting both eyes just like release triggers and they go back to their old ways. I went to a release trigger after shooting for about 10 years. I just could not pull the trigger. I felt comfortable within the first few shots, eventually going to double-release (never shot release-pull) and don't give any thought about the triggers during singles, handicap or doubles. Friends have asked me how I shoot 2 targets so fast in sporting clays. I just don't know. It feels natural to me.

Some of my friends could not master the release trigger while others use one but are always conscious of the process.

I do think you are doing the right thing going to two eyes and I truly hope you master it. Here's a short article from my history files. I hope you find encouragement from it.

HB

ONE EYE OR TWO

PLAIN DIRECTIONS
FOR ACQUIRING THE ART OF
SHOOTING ON THE WING

By “An Old Gamekeeper”

1873

Pages 62-63​

An animated discussion has been carried on for years in regard to the propriety of shutting one eye or keeping both open. Unquestionably the plan of keeping both eyes open is the best, and leads most quickly to efficiency, though there are some very excellent shots who invariably close one eye. The following extract from Watt’s “Remarks on Shooting” are pointed and accurate: –

“Follow it not along the sky,
To take a formal aim, but try
To draw the trigger just as you
At you gun’s end the object view.
Nine time in ten the gun is right
At first, obeying well the sight;
But if you look, and look again,
And doubt and waver, it is plain
Your hand has every chance to be
Betrayed by such uncertainty.
Proceed then, as I just have taught,
The pleasing knack will soon be caught;
But let me re-advise, for this
Prevents, I’m certain, many a miss,
Close neither eye; some good shots say
Shut up your left: that’s not my way;
But still a man may take his oath,
He’d better shut one eye than both.
I’ve heard of men (it may amaze)
Who never care their guns to raise,
But fire them from the hip as true
As we can from the shoulder do;
I mention this that you may see
How motion doth with sight agree;
If you’re collected, I believe
Your eye will ne’er your hand deceive."​

The truth is that the great secret of success lies in this perfect sympathy between the eye and the hand. The archer does not shut one eye and look along the arrow when he wishes to strike a mark, and yet many savage nations are so expert with the bow that they kill small animals when running, and even bring down little birds on the wing with this weapon. Vaillant informs us that the boors in the neighborhood of the Cape of Good Hope, when following the plow, are frequently accompanied by numbers of small birds that pick up the worms and grubs thus exposed to view and so dexterous are these men with their long whips, that any of the little fluttering objects to which their attention is directed, will be struck by them with the greatest nicety possible. In doing this, they never shut one eye. Neither does the carpenter when he drives a nail, or the blacksmith as he swings the ponderous hammer. The fly-fisher when he casts his fly lightly to the very spot where a trout lies, does it with both eyes open; and those who, at base-ball, try to catch or strike a ball, never shut one eye. All these instances are cases of sympathy between eye, hand and finger. That this may exist in very great perfection when only one eye is used is undoubtedly true, but those who have to learn from the beginning had better learn with both eyes open.