TargetTalk

When sighting, what is the best thing to do with your eyes?

Close one eye?

Block off one eye of the glasses?

Special glasses?


What is best? Right now I have shooting glasses but just squint one eye...



John

General wisdom is to have both eyes open as you have to use mental energy to remember to close one eye, then those muscules will fatigue. You want all your mental energy for the shoot process like sight alignment.

There are size limits for the patch you use to block your vision, 30 millimeters wide max as I recall. Download a rule book and get familar with the rules.

Nothing fancy is needed, frosted tape will work well. Transulcent materials work better than opaque, black is considered the worst option.

Shooting glasses are intended to help those of us that need corrective lenses to see anything, see the front sight clearly. Often a slighty different prescription is required for shooting purposes versus general purposes.

But shooting glasses are not needed if you can get a good sight picture without correction, unless you want to look cool. YOu should wear eye protection whilst shooting as a safety precaution.

Yeah, my shooting glasses are really just safety glasses! ; )


So I can cover one lense with frosted masking tape...


Wonder why "frosted" masking tape is best?



John

Hi,
A very wothwhile link was just place in another thread. Your question will be discussed in depth at:

http://www.starreloaders.com/edhall/nwongarts.html

(a compilation of information provided by Dr. Wong an eye doctor and a very active bullseye shooter).

Cheers,
Bob

Opaque materials can change the amount of light reaching the non-shooting eye. Translucent materials should allow about equal amounts of light to both. this means the pupils are correctly dilated. If the eyes get a diferent amountof light, my impression is the eyes average the amount of light.

My cheap solution was to get some clip-on +.75D reading glasses, tape most of the left eye with opaque tape (Electrical is what I used), tape part of the right eye so I had vision only through the center area, and shoot with both eyes open.

I initially tried translucent tape, but found that gave me a low contrast image (in my mind, anyway).

Between rounds, I flip up the glasses. The lower open area allows for seeing pellets, breech, etc. during shooting.

Best,

Joe

As has been mentioned you want to keep both eyes open and block off the non shooting eye. You should use something that lets in the same amount of light as the shooting eye. If you don't then the pupil opens up in the shooting eye to compensate (try putting your hand over one eye whilst looking in a mirror and you'll see it happen).

Rob.

A comment to PETE S:
Yes, you are right.

One important part of the human ability to balance the body is connected to eye vision. By blocking off vision image from one eye, your body will sway more.
(Other part of balance ability is connected to an organ in the inner ear, by the way).

The senior outfitter

Even tho you dont need lenses YET , you might find an iris helps with your head positioning . It can also be used to forcibly blur the target so you concentrate on your front sight . Side blinders may help you avoid distractions .

Chris

Interesting question. How many of the top shooters on the world cup circuit or our own National team use iris?

cdf wrote:.....It can also be used to forcibly blur the target so you concentrate on your front sight .

I am not sure how you could use an iris to do this, other than by stopping using it.

As far as I know, closing an iris down increases the depth of field. This normally makes the target clearer when you are focusing on the front sight, not more blurred.

I have one of the translucent white flip-up blinders ($9.00 from http://www.champchoice.com/) on the bill of my shooting (baseball) cap. Note however, that I've trimmed it down considerably until the end is only about 1/4" by 1/4". With the cap and my head in the correct position, it blocks that eye's view of the sights (and target) but forces me to put my head in the same position for each shot. At first this took some getting used to especially in the more rapid shooting sequences but, now that I'm used to it, it helps me get and maintain my NPA and I believe I recover more quickly.

Before the flip-up blinder, I used a translucent piece of scotch tape and when shooting, it worked just as well (but was smaller because it was closer). But, of course, it wouldn't "flip up".

Oops, wasn't logged in. (The above note about the 1/4"x1/4" clipped-down flip-up was by me.)
--
Ed Skinner, ed@flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/ (shooting notes)
and http://conventionalpistol.blogspot.com/ (shooting blog)

I am surprised noone mentions the most obvious - or is it not state of the art any more? Anyway my trainer told me to just shoot with both eyes open. It takes about 2-3 sessions until you taught your weak eye to just step back.He said dont use any help /accessoires if you do not really need them, not the tape/card before the weak eye neither an iris until you really need it. Both eyes open means least preparation, no muscle fatigue. I saw a lot of top shooters do it that way.

Dear John,
Most of the points made by our distinguished friends can also be found in the comments by Norman Wong, which I have included below for your convenience.
Bob


To Occlude or not to Occlude
Greetings Shooters,

Some of our newer shooters (and perhaps experienced crusty shooters as well) may close the eyelids of one eye while sighting with the opposite shooting eye. Generally, this is not recommended. We know that the pupil enlarges under dim lighting but many of us may not realize that if we squint to close one eye, the other open eye will dilate. This is known as a sympathetic response. With an enlarged pupil, focus tends to be worse as we discussed several times in the past.

Shooters using black occluders over the non-shooting eye will also get a similar dilated pupillary response to the shooting eye. However, a white occluder will elicit very little pupillary response of the opposite eye. A better choice would be to use a small piece of frosted scotch tape or equivalent on the center of the lens in front of the non-shooting eye, which many of our shooters prefer. This appears to cause the least pupillary effect to the shooting eye.

If possible, the best of all choices would be to keep both eyes open. I would encourage those who have not tried this, to do so. Have some fun as you experiment and be patient. As I was dry firing the night before the CMP EIC ball match and the Distinguished Revolver match, I made some important observations. I shoot dot sights with both eyes open but like many of you, I occlude my non-shooting eye for iron sights.

Seeing with two eyes is natural, seeing with one eye is not. Seeing with only the non-dominant eye requires more effort but many of you can shoot just fine this way. As I was dry firing, I looked at my homemade black bull which was placed across the room. I lined up my front and rear sights with a 6 0'clock hold while using different occluders. Vision was decent through my adjusted shooting Rx (you must have your best focus for the front sight). I must use these prescription shooting glasses for the iron sights because I am presbyopic like so many of you.

I then used both eyes without an occluder and as I aligned the sights to the bull, I saw two sets of sight images. This is called "Physiological Diplopia" and is normal. The left eye saw the right set of sight images. The right eye saw the left set of sight images. This is very important to remember. I'm left eye dominant and use my left eye as my shooting eye, so I need to align the RIGHT rear sight image along with the RIGHT front sight image and ignore the LEFT sight images. I was amazed with the clarity and stability of my sight alignment components while having both eyes opened. At this point, I thought I would try this way of seeing during the matches.

Many shooters have mentioned that the bull seems too blurry when focusing onto the front iron sight. The biggest advantage with keeping both eyes open is the improved overall vision as compared to single-eye vision. Quite often, eyes which are capable of seeing 20/20 will see 20/15 when both eyes are open. The second advantage would be to lessen the eyestrain whenever only one eye is used which leads to instability. "Sight Fading" due to the Troxler Effect is less pronounced when both eyes are open (during my own experimentation).

A rule of thumb we eye doctors use is that vision is reduced one line on the Snellen eyechart with every +0.25 diopter of power. Shooters who use a +0.75 diopter lens will see approximately 20/40 which is considered the minimum to pass the California Department of Motor Vehicle driver's license requirement. Therefore, the black bull does appear blurred and we may have a difficult time aligning the sights as well as we would like. With binocular vision, the two eyes not only see better, perhaps 20/30 or even 20/25 with the same shooting Rx, but also the vision is stable which is crucial in "exact sight alignment." I agree with those who have stated that proper sight alignment is the most important factor for obtaining a good shot. All else is secondary with iron sights. There could be a strong argument that proper trigger control would be right up there with sight alignment. Somehow with iron sights, I have found that the trigger pull comes naturally with proper sight alignment (Not so with dot sights).

I had put my dry firing experiment to the test the next day during the Hawaii State Championship. At 50 yards during slow fire, I had all the time in the world to work with my preferred sight images and ignored the second set of unwanted sight images. The trick was not to force my eyes to bring the doubled set of sight images together but to let them remain doubled and then concentrate only with the chosen set. Those who use the right eye to shoot, look only at the left sight images and those who use the left eye to shoot, look only at the right sight images. Occasionally, "Suppression" would occur and the unwanted second sight images would disappear.

With this way of seeing, I was hitting the black consistently at 50 yards. This gave me the edge for the leg points. I also tried shooting 50 yards while occluding the non-shooting eye during the matches which resulted in more hits on the white as vision tended to fluctuate a bit because my brain did not like the monocular vision. Again, binocular vision is more natural and results in clearer and more stable vision. The rest is up to you.

For the short line, I found that quick sight reacquisition was more important and found the occluder helpful, and at 25 yards, that big black bull was easier to see. I did not discuss the use of apertures with this article. Good luck with your quest whether it be the President's 100 or more leg points.

For more information on binocular vision for shooters, please refer to the "U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, Pistol Marksmanship Training Guide, under Supplemental Information, Annex II. I went into more details and provided instructions. I have always maintained that advancing age was not a disadvantage, but rather, an advantage with irons.

Good Vision and Good Shooting To All,

Norman H. Wong, O.D.

I am glad to see this thread.

I used to shoot red dot with both eyes open and just focus through the strong eye. I would see only one image. But sometimes (infrequently) in a match I would "lose" the dot. I suspected my vision might be shifting over to the weak eye. So I tried an occluder mostly so I could stop worrying about it.

This seamed to help a bit. (now I find I should not be using a black one, oh well)

Now here is something I would like you knowledgeable folks to comment upon. I am 20/20 for distance in my dominent eye but for some reason, I shoot better if I squint. I would prefer not to do this because of the muscle arguement. Why does this make me shoot better?

xeye wrote:.......I shoot better if I squint. I would prefer not to do this because of the muscle arguement. Why does this make me shoot better?

I have always found it easier to concentrate on detail, at any distance under about 6ft, if I shut my non-dominant eye. Just using a blinder is not good enough.

For this reason I have always shot with one eye shut although I used to try to hide that fact from my late coach by using a blinder. I must have been mad to think that the old b*gger didn't know exactly what I was doing.

I'm glad to find that I'm not the only one with strange eyes. I started out target shooting with one eye closed since that 's the way we hunted with iron sights. I tried occluders because it was supposed to be better. Both black and translucent ones do not provide the same clarity of front and rear sight that closing one eye gives me. The sights appear blacker and better defined with the off eye closed. The open eye does indeed dilate some, but the additional light is an improvement for my retina. I talked to a pistol coach about it and he said that it was supposed to be the other way around, but if closing the eye made seeing the front sight easier, do what works.

Larry