Thread: Lefty shooting right

Originally Posted by May BE

For shotgunning it will depend on your eye dominance. I am a left shooter, but right eye dominant. If I have both eyes open I tend to shoot behind the target. If I close my right eye, I mostly hit the target. After that the only difference is that some guns have a cast in the stock.

@kellyraz - have you checked your eye dominance yet? No amount of practice will overcome being cross-dominant. I'm in the same situation as May BE above. I tried to get to grips with shotguns as a slightly built youngster shooting left-handed but just couldn't get it sorted. After I'd lost the love for the shotty my optometrist told me to invest the time to learn to shoot right-handed as it eliminates the problem of having to shut an eye, and back in the late 80s there were sod all left-handed riffles about so it was a win-win. Thousands of air rifle pellets later I did learn to shoot right-handed so it feels totally natural now.

Relatively recently I got to have a go at a few shots at clays down the line - shot right-handed as is normal for me now and what a difference. I could actually see myself getting back into shotguns and clays again.

Forgive us if we're teaching you to suck eggs here - it's good to bring it up as I've seen quite a few inexperienced shooters doing weird things trying to get a sight picture through a scope. When I get them to do an eye dominance test it often explains it - they're just trying to look with the dominant eye, even if it's not the same side they've shouldered the rifle on.