TargetTalk

First of, I should say that I shoot the sporting rifle division in Canada which doens't allow slings and trigger pull is min 2lbs. I've been shooting for a little while now and doing pretty good(Shooting 99s and 100s in the prone position) But I think I can improve on this.

#1. I've always shot with 1 eye close but during my last training session, tried to shoot with both eyes open with some mix results. Shot about 50 shots without scoring first then shot a scoring round and dropped 3 points. My question is how long should it take to get used to shooting with both eyes open? Since I already shoot pretty good with 1 eye closed, should I try to shoot with both eyes open?

#2. My second question is about aiming. When I get ready to fire a shot and I have my NPA set, I breath twice and check sight alignment and make sure my front apperture is on target when I exhale. When I exhale for the last time before actually firing the shot, what should I focus on? Do I keep my sight alignment in check or do I concentrate on the amount of light is around the target and my front aperture? The way I've been doing it before is to do a last second sight alignement alignment check and once I stop breathing just concentrate on the target and the amount of white around it while squeezing the trigger until the shot goes off. I don't really try to keep the front apperture or the target in focus I just concentrate on the white ring. Is that right or wrong?

Cheers,

If you wish to shoot with both eyes open, I would recommend a blinder of some sort. You dont want it to be too big and it should be somewhat translucent, an empty gallon milk jug is the perfect material.

You should focus on the front sight while shooting. The last thing you should be looking at is the sight picture with the front sight in focus. It doesnt matter that the target is blurry, it actually should be.
Matt

My 2 cents worth:

As Matt says,

#1 - most people I see would use a "blinder" over their non-sighting eye to block out the image of the target. Something like a piece of plastic tucked into a headband.
This allows you to shoot with both eyes open but it's not such a confusing sight picture - like with one eye closed but without the downsides.

#2 - is more difficult as it's pretty automatic for me now - I'm taking in the sight picture as a whole but I suppose I'm most aware of the white ring and whether it's even all round and if there's any perceptible movement.
I'm also checking that I'm looking through the center of the rearsight as well as monitoring the windflags in my peripheral vision.

K.