TargetTalk

I’m a beginner but I can shoot with both eyes open just fine without a blinder, the sights are a little bit transparent (I think that’s the best way to describe it) but i’m not seeing two of them as some other people say they do. Is it still beneficial to wear a blinder or will I be fine without it?

I use a blinder to prevent eye fatigue and give my brain an easier time. Air pistol matches are pretty short, but it’s still a long time to force your eyes to focus at a short distance (front sight) and mentally tune out the image from your non-dominant eye.

You aren’t seeing the second ghosted sight image because your brain is ignoring it. Whether you’re doing that intuitively or with a little effort, it’s happening. But, that image is definitely being perceived. Close your dominant eye, and you’ll see what that off-axis ghosted image should look like.

An easy blinder experiment is covering a lens with a translucent tape, like a couple layers of scotch tape or a single piece of beige masking tape. That will allow ambient light into both eyes but “turns off” the image from your non-dominant eye. Since there’s no ghosted image, you should be able to shoot with less eye fatigue and mental energy. If you find it easier, a flip-up translucent blinder is a pretty cheap addition to your shooting bag.

I swear by blinders and irises, but I shoot 270-shot outdoor bullseye matches as well. Those can run 5-6 hours… the more I can relax my eye muscles and see a clear sight picture, the better.

You want the image of the sights to be nice & black (not "transparent"). You can certainly shoot with both eyes open, but most people find it easier to concentrate on their sights with a blinder. You want the same amount of light going into both eyes. A piece of translucent tape on your shooting glasses works well, and is easy to remove if you decide it isn't helping. Fold the last 5 or 6 mm over to make a "handle" for easy removal. The rules require that it be no more than 30 mm wide. A small blinder allows more of your peripheral vision to aid in stability.

This is just my personal experience.

I started shooting with an eye patch/occluded over my non-dominant eye. But over time, my hubris said that is not “mucho” enough, so I switched to two eye open shooting.

It takes a bit of conscious suppression of non-dominant eye, ignoring double vision, making dominant eye very dominant.

Score wise, I could not say whether there is a change in scores. But with no occluder, my body balance is better, and I shoot a tad quicker. There was an article written by Dr Wong, the retired navy optometrist, about his no occluder shooting experience.

But this shooting with dominant eye with non-dominant eye suppression carried over to my daily life. I did not thought too much of it, thinking I was “training” my dominant eye for shooting, using my dominant eye predominantly.

This habit, over time, caused profound esotropia and exotropia. When I look at a light dot, and cover my eye with my hand, going back and forth between two eyes, dot jumps. When I do that looking at a horizontal line, the line jumps up and down.

So, there is some non-dominant eye muscle weakness worsened by my conscious dominant eye predominance.

It started to bother me a bit, but I can not “untrained” it.

Recently, I had to add prism to my non-dominant eye to realigned the images. I feels much better with the prism realignment.

If I were a beginner, I would shoot with an occluder. But I would shoot with BOTH eyes looking at the front sight. Not letting dominant eye dominating non dominant eye too much.

So yes, use occluder, but use BOTH eyes looking on front sight. Don’t let occluded eye becomes the weaker eye.

For me, I am right handed, left eye dominate, and I had been closing my left eye and aiming with my non-dominate right eye. This felt fine, but closing my eye was annoying, and I did feel a bit fatigued doing this.

Tried a blinder last week that just clips on to the top of my glasses frame on my left eye, and the next AP match I shot a personal best 14 points above my previous best. So, for me it's worked really well having the blinder, but my situation was a bit different.

it did take me a while to adjust to the blinder, and I was seeing a double image of the sights for a while, but it went away after half an hour.

I also find I have to flip it up when I take a rest during a match, and look around, reset my binocular vision focus as I kinda feel like I make myself crosseyed. I think part of the adjustment.

Certainly worth a try. Make sure you give it time for your brain to adjust before you judge whether it works for you.

If you're not experiencing double vision or having trouble focusing on your sights, then you may not need a blinder. In fact, being able to shoot with both eyes open can give you a better field of view and situational awareness, which can be advantageous in certain situations.

However, if you find that your vision starts to fatigue or you start experiencing double vision over time, then a blinder might be a good option to consider. Remember, shooting should be comfortable and if you start noticing any strain or discomfort, it's always a good idea to make adjustments.
For now, if everything is working well for you without a blinder, then keep doing what you're doing. After all, every shooter is different, and it's all about finding what works best for you.

"Food for thought:" a number of years ago in Louisville, KY, a young girl was shooting the smallbore tournament. She wore an eye protector metal patch over one eye. She came in second as I recall. Makes one wonder if "one eye" is the answer... you wouldn't be concerned about the balance of light between the two eyes and all the other stuff that is usually discussed.. ?? !!

There are a million things that people do that are not considered "optimum" according to all sorts of experience and research.

This does not mean you can't shoot exceeding well despite that. It mostly means that you have to work harder to shoot well. I'm lazy, and I try very hard not to make life more difficult than it already is.

Maybe if she didn't use an opaque blinder, she would have come in first...

I’m cross eye dominant and found out that I tend to shoot better with a blinder on my dominant eye. I haven’t noticed any huge leap in scores but my eyes feel less stressed after a shooting session with the blinder on vs. without.