Switch Hand?

conradin · Post by **conradin** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 9:37 am

This is really a cross post, but since this is the forum I visit the most and made quite a few cyber friends, this is a good place to ask:

First of all I'd like yall know that I know next to nothing about long arms. The one time I did I got a black eye :(

My master eye is left, but as an AP and FP shooter I shoot right handed and spot using my right eye. I have better control with my hand, but in return I really need some prescription glasses. So far I am using 1.5+ on my Knobloch and frankly I would like to have at least 1.75+ to be comfortable which is not possible.

Since my experience in long arm is zero, is it possible to learn rifle left handed, as if I start anew? I am looking at something simple like 10M. One of the main reason is that someone offer me a left handed rifle, very nice, in a price that I can afford. It is a very rare model which I always wanted.

I have tried to simulate by shooting left handed on my AP by using my right hand to hold the cylinder, in fact when kneeling, I got better result. It is very strange...perhaps this is the effect of having a left master eye?

I cannot shoot left handed on a heavy AP like FWB65, but Morini and Toz is OK. A little bit of mental adjustment, not perfect, but no big deal. If I really want to shoot left handed I can re-calibrate.

My main competition is still AP and FP, I have no intention to do anything else. So any long arm activity is merely for entertainment. I have a 10M home range set up so why not maximize its usage by having some fun doing something else? Training is fun, but also boring; taking a break to shoot something else different during break is a good change of pace. My average training session is around 2 1/2 hours.

I'm a organist. While not ambidextrous, it is easy to switch hand without losing any finger, hand, forearm and wrist dexterity. It is the strength of my arm that is the problem.

Advice please.

PS. I put the cross post on the Olympic small bore and air forum WITH a poll, please fill that. Also since this is a forum for pistol shooter, and if you switch hand for long arm, please advice.

vdgert · Post by **vdgert** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 3:26 pm

Hi,

I don't have any advice to give, sorry. But, I have sort of the same question here. Are there any shooters out there who have experience with switching hand as an AP/FP shooter? I am a leftie but shoot with my right hand(the first time anyone gave me an AP I could use, it was righthanded so...
Now I am curious, would my shooting improve if I switch?
ps: master eye is right (Yeah!)

trinity · Post by **trinity** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 3:42 pm

I started out shooting pistol using right hand and left eye. However, after about 2-3 years, and attaining a good level of success, I realized if I wanted to take my shooting to the next level, I had to switch.

I tried switching arms first, so I got a left handed grip, and tried to shoot. I could maintain some level of stability for about 10-20 shots, but it was hard. This was precision, I didn't even try shooting anything rapid fire or sustained fire.

I then tried switching eyes. Since I have always used a blinder anyway, I just moved the blinder to the other eye. Although my right eye is not as good as my left, I found it surprisingly easy to switch eyes. In fact, after about a 2 hr session, I felt entirely at home using my right eye to aim. This made my position much more natural. No more tilted head causing neck strain.

So I've been shooting with my right eye ever since, even though it is not my dominant eye.

Now, I am sure with practice, I could've made the left arm work as well, but I am sure that would have taken much longer to retrain, since it was all those fine motor control muscles I'd been honing all the years of shooting.

-trinity

conradin · Post by **conradin** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:36 pm

trinity wrote:
I tried switching arms first, so I got a left handed grip, and tried to shoot. I could maintain some level of stability for about 10-20 shots, but it was hard. This was precision, I didn't even try shooting anything rapid fire or sustained fire.

The way to solve it for me was to strengthen the new shooting hand with 1. dumb bell exercises 2. Get a pistol that is a whole lot more heavier than what you have and use that. 3. Just keep firing, but ignore the precision. As long as you are good enough to hit the target, that is enough. Don't stop, just keep shooting like 100 rounds single shot non stop. It will be painful. You may even cramp. When you reach a point which you can be consistent with shooting within the 1 ring, you can slow down a bit but make sure you keep shooting within 1 ring, etc, until you reach a point which is around 5 ring. After that, pick up your normal pistol and shoot it normally, it should feel much easier.
If you do not have an extra heavier pistol, then make your current pistol heavier, such as adding lots of barrel weight, grip weight, etc.

My two firing pins,

conradin · Post by **conradin** » Mon Jun 24, 2013 7:43 pm

trinity wrote:I started out shooting pistol using right hand and left eye. However, after about 2-3 years, and attaining a good level of success, I realized if I wanted to take my shooting to the next level, I had to switch.

When I was first taught how to shoot, the person told me it was OK to be cross sight, a lot o people do it. It worked for me for exactly...one week, and I cannot aim correctly anymore (plus other factors).

Since I am stuck with a right grip pistol, I know I have to either shoot right handed and aim with right eye, or somehow find a left hand grip. I then look at ISSF's website and I cannot find a SINGLE shooter shoot cross sighted. At that point I decide to stick with shooting right handed and use my weaker right eye. Later on I use shooting glasses or blinders to help me.
Nowadays I simply squint my left eye. Works fine for me.

I am sure if I have a left grip pistol shooting with my master left eye I probably an achieve a better score. But I think the time it takes to retrain and recalibrate etc etc is a waste of time and the tiny amount of advantage is not worth enough for a lot of changes in muscle memory. A typical example will be I have to learn a new set feet positions. This is doubly complex since my AP an FP foot positions are different.

RobStubbs · Post by **RobStubbs** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 1:49 am

Cross sighting is the worst option and very few shooters shoot that way. Far better to use the non dominant eye or switch handedness. For most people with normal eyes, shooting with either eye works equally well, especially when shooting with a blinder. Like everything though it is a personal thing and you may well have to investigate the alternatives.

If you do shoot cross sighted then will need to modify the grip to get it to sit in the right place for optimal sight picture and you will need to adjust the stance slightly to accomodate that change.

Rob.

Joakim · Post by **Joakim** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 2:27 am

While it's certainly possible to cross sight at a very high level—as I recall, Torsten Ullman was one of them—and while I wouldn't agree with RobStubbs that "very few" do it, I have experienced the problems he mentions first-hand. My main reason for cross sighting was not eye dominance, but simply strength of vision. While I had almost perfect eye-sight on my left eye but very poor on the right, I never got myself any prescription glasses, and I have terrible ambidexterity, so I pretty much had no alternative to cross sighting. This was actually one of the main reasons I got a Steyr AP when it was the first(?) to offer horizontal grip angle adjustments. During this cross sighting stage, I didn't attain Ullman's level (of course), but I did reach the national junior team, and achieved a PB (in competition) of 568/600 AP. And although my level now, shooting with glasses and right-eye sighting, is a bit higher, none of that improvement came directly after the switch; rather, all of it can be attributed to an increase in the amount of training. So I can't really say whether the switch has been good to my scores.

Anyway, to (somewhat) answer the OP: during my cross-sight period, I also dabbled in AR. And since I obviously couldn't sight it with my blurry right eye, I had to shoot left-handed (with a borrowed left-handed rifle). I averaged around 480/600, which is of course a terrible score, but then I only shot once or maybe twice a year, so those are really to be judged as beginner scores. And although, as I said, I have terrible ambidexterity, I never found that to be an issue while shooting AR. So I would say yes, you can do this. But then, I Am Not A Rifle Shooter, and Your Mileage May Vary.

conradin · Post by **conradin** » Tue Jun 25, 2013 3:01 am

Joakim wrote:While it's certainly possible to cross sight at a very high level—as I recall, Torsten Ullman was one of them

From all the photos that I have seen or possess, he shot with both eyes open, just like everyone back in the day. It was hard to tell whether he crossed sight or not. And if he aimed with both eyes, I simply cannot imagine how he can do it. I know no matter how hard I try, I cannot aim with both eyes open.