Learn › Track 03 · Fundamentals
Eye dominance & focus
Point at a light switch across the room, quickly, with both eyes open. Now close one eye, then the other. Your finger stayed on the switch for one of them and jumped off for the other. Both eyes were open, but only one was aiming.
Which eye is in charge?
Most people have a dominant eye: the one the brain trusts for aiming. You aim the pistol with that eye. The quickest test is the porthole.
- Hold both arms out and overlap your hands to make a small gap between them.
- With both eyes open, frame a distant object in the gap.
- Close your left eye. Then open it and close your right eye.
- The eye that keeps the object in the gap is your dominant eye. Repeat a few times to be sure.
Think first: You frame the target in the gap. With your left eye closed, it stays in the gap. With your right eye closed, it jumps out. Which eye is dominant?
- Left eye
- Right eye
- Neither: the test failed
Both eyes open
Most shooters keep both eyes open and cover the non-aiming eye with a translucent blinder or a strip of frosted tape on that lens. Translucent matters: both eyes still get about the same amount of light.
One front blinder up to 30 mm wide is allowed over the non-aiming eye. Side blinders were removed for pistol in 2016. No rule says your eyes must be open or closed.
When the dominant eye is on the wrong side
If you are right-handed with a left dominant eye (or the other way round), you are cross-dominant. There are three common answers:
- Switch hands — Shoot with the hand on the dominant-eye side · Often suggested for beginners
- Cover the dominant eye — Blinder over the dominant eye · The other eye takes over the aiming
- Bring the pistol over — Shooting hand stays the same · Pistol moves toward the dominant eye with a slight head tilt
Front sight sharp, target blurred
Your eye can focus sharply at one distance at a time. The front sight is about a metre away. The target is ten. You can't have both crisp.
Shooters choose the front sight. Alignment errors at the sights are magnified roughly thirty times on the way to the target. A slightly blurred bull costs almost nothing. So the blade is sharp, with clean light gaps on each side, and the bull is a soft grey disc.
Think first: Halfway through a hold, you notice the black bull looks crisp and perfectly round. What does that tell you?
- Good: a sharp bull means a good sight picture
- Your focus has slid to the target, so the front sight is blurred
- Your glasses are too strong
Older eyes find it harder to focus at a metre. Glasses with a lens set for front-sight distance, or an adjustable iris (a small aperture clipped to the shooting glasses), can bring the blade back into focus.
Many shooters use a lens about +0.5 to +0.75 dioptres stronger than their distance prescription on the aiming eye. Have an optometrist measure your real eye-to-blade distance before you buy. See Glasses, iris & blinders.
The clock in your eye
While you aim, you are holding a breath. The body runs short of oxygen faster than you might expect, and the eyes feel it first.
Think first: After how many seconds of breath-held aiming does it become sensible to lower the pistol and start again?
The rule that follows is simple. If the shot hasn't gone in about 8–10 seconds, lower the pistol, breathe, and start again. Time a few holds with a stopwatch. Most shooters find they have more time than they thought, and stop rushing the first seconds.
Between shots, blink and let your eyes rest on something distant. Don't stare at the sights while the pistol is down.
- Find your dominant eye with the porthole test and aim with it.
- Shoot with both eyes open and a translucent blinder (≤ 30 mm) over the other eye.
- Cross-dominant? Switch hands, cover the dominant eye, or bring the pistol toward it.
- Front sight sharp, bull blurred. A crisp bull means your focus has slipped.
- Vision fades first as oxygen drops. No shot in about 8–10 s: lower, breathe, restart.