TargetTalk

In days gone by I was right eye dominant and was able to shoot archery with both eyes open. As I have aged I have found that I am now flipping between left and right eye dominant - changes day to day. If I try to shoot with both eyes open I sometimes have one clear sight picture but on other days I get 2 pictures and no amount of trying (even half closing the left eye) changes this - so I shoot with a blinder.

Cheers

David

Just my two cents worth.The concepts are what I based my shooting techniqes on and based on the proposition that the shooter has reasonably normal eye sight. Worst is both eyes closed [ relating to a well developed flinch] Next is one eye closed. followed by a black blinder,a step up is the translute as small as possible and best is both eyes open using mental supression of the image produced by the non shooting eye.Fortunately all the reasons for shooting with both eyes open have already been mentioned in previous posts, and being some what lazy I won't attempt to repeat them here. The best thing about this wonderful forum is that we are all free to evaluate and discard that which we disagree and accept what seems to be " Right On " Good Shooting Bill Horton

I shoot right handed left eye. Knobloch glasses right eye orange tint with black patch in line of sight. left eye normal iris. i find it very comfortable both eyes open 60-80 shots non stop. Thruxton.

In the past this has been a topic and I have talked to an optomatrist in Boston that has knowlage of shooting sports and the reasoning behind a blinder is this: both eyes should be open for light gathering to dialate the pupils correctly. Your eyes dialate together not indipendently so if you close one eye the other will dialate open more and the same goes for an eye patch or too dark of a blinder.
This is why a simple translucent blinder ususally works best.
You can shoot without one but why would you want to put the extra strain on your mind to block out images that could easily be blocked by a blinder.

From some recent reading on the subject...could have been Dr. Wong. ...a comment was made suggesting there is a benefit to the shooter to use both eyes in the aiming process. no blinder.

For those of us who have used a blinder for 20 years it is hard to switch. I tried to make the switch a few months ago. It worked for AP and I was able in training to get back up to shooting 50% 10's. I found on my Std pistol the rear sight is so wide that it blocks my front site. For some reason this messed me up and some other personal issues caused me to have to reduce the # of days I was training per week. So I decided to go back to the blinder. I will try it again because I think there are some advantages to not using a blinder.

There were several people in the final not using blinders. It was not limited to China.

This is one of those it might work for you it might not. But you have to give it a really good try to see if it will. If you do try. You need to give it several months of consistent training and shooting matches. You also have to accept your score will drop at first or could go up. You need to wait it out until they come to a stable point before you decide. Also try to make only once change at a time so you know what is working or not working.

I've always used a blinder since I started shooting when I was 15. I switched to a glasses blinder when I got serious about ten years ago, but now that I've started again I'm thinking of switching back to a sight blinder.

My problem is that I'm horribly near-sighted (-9.75R, -9.25L) and I'm having to flip the blinder up and down to look through my spotting scope. I've been moving the scope around trying to find a "non-flip" position but no dice yet.

I'm thinking of having a left lens made for looking through the scope and a larger right lens so I can see the wind flags -- but I'm not sure if this won't just be more of a distraction.

Jason

Jason wrote:I've always used a blinder since I started shooting when I was 15. I switched to a glasses blinder when I got serious about ten years ago, but now that I've started again I'm thinking of switching back to a sight blinder.

My problem is that I'm horribly near-sighted (-9.75R, -9.25L) and I'm having to flip the blinder up and down to look through my spotting scope. I've been moving the scope around trying to find a "non-flip" position but no dice yet.

I'm thinking of having a left lens made for looking through the scope and a larger right lens so I can see the wind flags -- but I'm not sure if this won't just be more of a distraction.

Jason

Can you not just place your blinder on the rearsight (I'm assuming we're talking rifle here) ? That'll leave the non shooting eye clear of a blinder - and you should just be able to refocus the scope so as to avoid the extra lens requirement.

Rob.

That depends on one's eye sight. In rifle, we have to focus at a few inches for the rear sight and scope, about 30in for the front sight, 10-40m for the wind flags, and 50m for the target. Not everyone can focus at those distances well enough to see what needs to be seen. That's what the additional lenses are for.

Soupy44 wrote:That depends on one's eye sight. In rifle, we have to focus at a few inches for the rear sight and scope, about 30in for the front sight, 10-40m for the wind flags, and 50m for the target. Not everyone can focus at those distances well enough to see what needs to be seen. That's what the additional lenses are for.

I appreciate that but Jason was talking about having to raise / lower a blinder to look through the scope. You can't see anything through a blinder anyway so it doesn't matter where it is attached. And actually you shouldn't be focussing on the rearsight at all, you look through it to focus on the foresight, the target should therefore be out of focus, and ditto to some extent the wind flags.

When I shoot prone, I can see the wind flags around the edge of the foresight, i.e. still through the rearsight with my shooting eye.

Rob.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote:I appreciate that but Jason was talking about having to raise / lower a blinder to look through the scope. You can't see anything through a blinder anyway so it doesn't matter where it is attached. And actually you shouldn't be focussing on the rearsight at all, you look through it to focus on the foresight, the target should therefore be out of focus, and ditto to some extent the wind flags.

When I shoot prone, I can see the wind flags around the edge of the foresight, i.e. still through the rearsight with my shooting eye.

That's exactly what I'm mulling over -- putting the blinder back on the rear sight. But not having a left lens means that I still have to lift my head to look through the eyepiece. Now, if I had a lens on the left side that was angled to match the eyepiece -- like my right lens matches the rear sight -- I might be able to get away with not lifting my head.

But that still leaves me the trouble of seeing the wind flags through my right lens, as I do have to shift my head to see them -- I don't have any peripheral vision with the small diameter lens. What I did in the past was get lined up, go through my breathing routine while watching the flags, and then shift focus back to the sights for my last up-and-down.

Until we lose the last two feet of snow around here and I can shoot outdoors this is a bit of a moot point, but it is something I'm wondering about.

Jason

Jason wrote:That's exactly what I'm mulling over -- putting the blinder back on the rear sight. But not having a left lens means that I still have to lift my head to look through the eyepiece. Now, if I had a lens on the left side that was angled to match the eyepiece -- like my right lens matches the rear sight -- I might be able to get away with not lifting my head.

Can't you just focus the scope to suit your uncorrected left eye?

David Levene wrote:Can't you just focus the scope to suit your uncorrected left eye?

I do, but I still need to put my eye right on top of the eyepiece because without a corrective lens I have no usable peripheral vision.

This discussion is starting to make me think of trying out contact lenses -- LASIK (or similar) is off the table right now.

Jason