Left hand shooting, right eye dominant trainwreck.

[fnq22]

So i have been shooting a few club IPSC and service pistol matchs, or one of each every month this year..the club allows .22 to be used for both and quite a few guys use these.

IPSC is going to take me more time to get to where I feel competant but overall in the Service Pistol matchs even as the new guy i have been placing around 5th out of 12-15 other much more experienced handgun shooters so I'm pretty happy with progress except for the weak handed caper which is dragging my scores down(last shoot I even totally missed the target with 2 shots at 50m left handed..)

aside from having right handed target grips on the Volquartsen makes it a bit more challenging as well as never actually having used for my left hand for shooting either..

So the issue is highlighted in the 2nd photo (orange dots)where freestanding at 15metres my right hand is generally grouping close to on target by my left hand generally groups to the right..

In the photo of the black target the patched shots were at 25m shooting off the post or barricade left handed..Actually thought i was overcoming my weakness so patched them and then shot another 5 rounds which went back to hitting on the right again...

I have had to practise my grip and also playing with stabilising better with the right hand on the post at 25 and 50m but cant quite figure out where I am going wrong....

My right eye is dominant and i have tried a couple of time in practise using the left..its hard and would take some practise...

Is it worth practising more with the left eye or can anyone suggest what i may be doing wrong ....its really frustrating me..

[jezzab]

I feel your pain. I'm right handed but I'm left eye dominant because I have extremely poor vision in my right eye, so there is no hope of learning to use it and I've been forcing myself to shoot left handed.
I have right handed rifles because I just can't bring myself to get a left handed one. It is handy I guess on the bench or over a fence at least because I can cycle the bolt without removing my hand off the trigger but the whole thing feels just 'weird'. I'm getting better and more accurate shooting left handed but if I was to pick up a rifle as a reflex, I still automatically pick it up right handed

[bladeracer]

I'm right-handed with zero left-side dexterity. The damage to my right shoulder and arm makes ISSF-style shooting very painful, and I mean, very.
The damage to my right hand means I can use the Single-Action Army revolvers more easily left-handed, but for now I'm shooting Cowboy right-handed using my left hand to run the hammer, as most shooters do. Eight weeks ago we were waiting on air pistols one night so Rose decided to have a go with the club's left-handed pistol as it rarely gets used. She shot atrociously, which wasn't unexpected. At the end of the match though it occurred to me that I should have her shoot a right-handed card just to see if it's definitely the pistol, she may have just been having a really bad night. So we swapped and I shot a card with the left-handed pistol...and I shot a very nice group, measurably better than the six cards I'd just shot right-handed. I was literally stunned, I just couldn't make sense of it. I was struggling so badly trying to make it work left-handed that I was sure most wouldn't even be on the card (I can't see the .177" holes at 10m, especially if they're in the black). What blew my mind though is that I wasn't even trying, I just did it for a laugh. The following week I shot a match left-handed, and shot my highest score, by six points, and again, I put no effort into it at all as I didn't expect a result. For six weeks I shot all my ISSF matches left-handed (air-pistol, Standard Pistol, 50m, Rapid Fire and Centrefire). I never scored any of the Rimfire or Centrefire matches with the club guns as they all have issues so it's rare to shoot a full match, I just considered it practicing. But my air-pistol scores stayed at that level and have improved as I've practiced left handed. I've shot eight air-pistol matches now, all have scored higher than my best right-handed score, and I'm finally starting to think about putting some effort into it. My left hand holds more steady than my right, and it adds a few inches more distance from my right eye so with the pistol I'm using I can actually see the front sight. It can take a few seconds for the front sight to become visible so it means I'm having to hold the pistol up for a long while, but it's definitely easier than my messed up right side. I don't try to make sense of it now, it's working so I'm just going with the flow

The more dynamic shooting (Cowboy and IPSC) I'm still doing right-handed as I have a lot more dexterity, but I am doing more practice with the left hand, drawing, holstering, reloads and remediation drills left-handed are still difficult and clumsy, but the actual shooting is coming along very well. I still don't have the stability of a right-dominant shooting stance, and recoil still kicks the pistol around more, but I think I'll get there with time. I'm certainly finding it interesting.

I have also tried shooting with the left eye. It has no cataract so I can see the sights, but it's very over-powered by the dominant right-eye so it's _very_ difficult to shoot both eyes open as my right-eye's view is blatantly obvious - it takes great concentration to pull the left-eye's view to the forefront. If anything distracts me (distracts my concentration, not my sight) I instantly lose it and have to bring it back again.

When I shot IPSC years ago we did a fair bit of "weak side" shooting and I was sufficiently competent that it was never an issue. The matches I've been seeing recently still do a degree of weak side but it doesn't seem as common, some matches haven't had any weak side at all. Cowboy I'm shooting right-handed with left support so I'm drawing with both hands but transferring the left pistol to my right hand to shoot. This is partly required due to the difficulty of cocking the hammer with my right thumb, so it's working okay for me. I'd like to shoot Gunfighter (both revolvers drawn together but fired alternately), and Duelist (draw and fire your right pistol with only your right hand, draw and fire your left pistol with only your left hand) but I'm struggling to cock them one-handed on my right side. I can manage it but I don't consider myself competent yet.

Now that we have the CM22M I'm back to shooting the Rimfire matches right-handed (it has ortho grips on it), which is very painful, but the pistol is excellent. I may decide to get a lefty grip at some point just to see what I might be capable of with it, but I'm happy for now. The Browning Hi-Power I've been shooting left and right handed trying to suss out which works best, I haven't decided yet. If I decide to shoot left handed I think I'm still going to be carrying on the right side anyway, so it adds the transfer to the draw.

So, my answer to your question, is practice it all until you can determine what works best for you. One point about semi-auto pistols particularly is ejection does add some lateral recoil impulse to them so try not to hold them tightly against a barrier. I would think having the pistol shoot to a different point with each hand is going to be down to your grip or your finger position on the trigger. Can you set up a camera just in front of you so you can compare how you're holding and firing with each hand?

So i have been shooting a few club IPSC and service pistol matchs, or one of each every month this year..the club allows .22 to be used for both and quite a few guys use these.

IPSC is going to take me more time to get to where I feel competent but overall in the Service Pistol matches even as the new guy i have been placing around 5th out of 12-15 other much more experienced handgun shooters so I'm pretty happy with progress except for the weak handed caper which is dragging my scores down(last shoot I even totally missed the target with 2 shots at 50m left handed..)

aside from having right handed target grips on the Volquartsen makes it a bit more challenging as well as never actually having used for my left hand for shooting either..

So the issue is highlighted in the 2nd photo (orange dots)where freestanding at 15metres my right hand is generally grouping close to on target by my left hand generally groups to the right..

In the photo of the black target the patched shots were at 25m shooting off the post or barricade left handed..Actually thought i was overcoming my weakness so patched them and then shot another 5 rounds which went back to hitting on the right again...

I have had to practise my grip and also playing with stabilising better with the right hand on the post at 25 and 50m but cant quite figure out where I am going wrong....

My right eye is dominant and i have tried a couple of time in practise using the left..its hard and would take some practise...

Is it worth practising more with the left eye or can anyone suggest what i may be doing wrong ....its really frustraing me..

[bladeracer]

I feel your pain. I'm right handed but I'm left eye dominant because I have extremely poor vision in my right eye, so there is no hope of learning to use it and I've been forcing myself to shoot left handed.
I have right handed rifles because I just can't bring myself to get a left handed one. It is handy I guess on the bench or over a fence at least because I can cycle the bolt without removing my hand off the trigger but the whole thing feels just 'weird'. I'm getting better and more accurate shooting left handed but if I was to pick up a rifle as a reflex, I still automatically pick it up right handed

I don't have the same eye issue but I'm the same with dexterity. The right side just functions instinctively, the left side requires a lot of concentration to function at all, and still feels totally alien. Simply firing a rifle from a supported position left-handed works fine, but trying to bring a rifle or gun to the shoulder and take a sight picture is mentally exhausting. I've tried running the lever-actions from the left shoulder and I can do it, but it's not pleasant

[wrenchman]

most places make you wear safty glasses bleer the right eye it will make you use the left more after a while it will be second nature

[fnq22]

Well that sux Jezzab..at least i have the option of using both eyes and wrenchman I wear glasses normally due to being short sighted but i just got a new prescription and glasses for the first time in 14 years and with them I can see finally see the target clearly but not the front sights so thats a disaster...

so currently i use my old pair which i can see the front sights with but just a blurry black mass for the target...so I just aim for the middle and hope....I need to go back and see if the optometrist can sort something out for me..it makes shooting at 50m pretty difficult..

Cheers Larry for the input, after you mentioning about your left handed shooting, i was hoping you would chip in..very interesting that you find it so awkward left handed but can still shoot so accurately with it...I guess in the end it all just comes down to consistently squeezing the trigger at the right moment when the sights wobble onto the bullseye..

So I had a bit of a go at left eye and left handed and it feels even more retarded then with the right eye and yeah i also suffer from the unnatural left handed dexterity issus where i need to also use my right hand to seat the gun in the left hand before shooting..we did one detail in IPSC the other day where it was pick up the gun from on top of a barrel weak handed and shoot....boy that was a disaster..much more practise required there for sure..

I also have right handed target grips on the Mamba which is further awkward and the mag release button feels in the way as well..I may get some standard type grips to use for matchs that require left/right hand shooting..current grip in photo below.

Regardless i'm still happy with improvements and will work on the left handed caper and feel that will come along with practise...I think I'll try and get better using the right eye but maybe just adjust my sight aquisition slightly left and also work on stability to hold it steadier...

Yesterday I got the scores through for the Service pistol match and didnt do as bad as I thought despite the 3-4 left handed total misses.......I was 5th first time I tried with the new Mamba a month back and this time i actually won the shoot (the clubs gun shooter was also away though.. )....so thats encouraging at least...plenty of work still to do though..

Being a new shooter with a new gun I had a couple of the guys come up afterwards to check out the gun and have a few shots to try it out..the lightness and great trigger was the main impression as well as the tactical look ....I'm happy with it.

cheers Scott