Shooting With One Eye Opened Or Both Eyes Opened? |
Posted: October 23, 2017 |
Do you close one eye while shooting? Or do you shoot with both eyes open? Many people do close one eye while shooting. Well, I know that's how they were trained to shoot. As a matter of fact, they claim that closing one eye while shooting comes by instinct. Closing the less dominant eye while shooting has been the tradition for a long time. I guess that's why most people claim that the closing comes naturally. Most shooters learn to shoot with one eye closed, they get used to it, unfortunately, it is a habit that has proven to be difficult to overcome. Shooting With One Eye Closed This is a habit of majority of shooters. Shooting with one eye reduces the focus of the shooter. Although most shooters claim that closing the less dominant eye helps the focus accurately, the claim does not have any proof to be true. Shooting with one eye closed has many disadvantages. I will explain the disadvantages below, with hope to convince you to quit the habit. Get the best rimfire scope to compliment your gun, have both your eyes open, and voila! You will be in for the most accurate shots. Disadvantages Of Shooting With One Eye Closed Closing one eye reduces the efficiency of your visual system, decreases visual perception, visual acuity, and spatial orientation. You do not get the full picture with one eye closed. You will most probably miss out on the situations that are surrounding you, which might be threatening. With your visual system affected, your chance of hitting your target accurately is reduced. Closing one eye while shooting affects the speed at which your brain processes information. Shooting should be done at a high speed, it should not take you ages to just focus the target. One eye closed will increase the time taken to focus because the brain processing speed has been reduced. With the disadvantages I just listed, I know you will try and quit the tradition of closing one eye. It definitely requires practice because it is not easy but it is certainly worth the effort and time. Now, let's go through shooting with both eyes open. Contrary to many people's beliefs, shooting with both eyes open comes with many advantages. Many people have a difficult time to shot with both eyes open, I will explain to you why you should embrace the habit of shooting with both eyes open below. Advantages Of Shooting With Both Eyes Open With both eyes open, your focus is large and your ability to see objects in three dimensions is higher than when one eye is closed. You will miss less with both eyes open. An accurate field of vision occurs when the rays from the object converge, a situation that can only happen with both eyes open. Your chance of hitting your target is even higher with both eyes open. Shooting with two eyes allows enough light from the target to enter the eye. This enhances your vision of the details. Rods and cones are responsible for detecting and regulating light in the eyes. The rods are dominant in more light whereas the cones are dominant in less light. Closing one eye decreases the amount of light entering the eyes, making the cones more dominant. This disables you from focusing clearly and missing out on some details. The additional light that comes with both eyes being open during the shooting process is what is responsible for the finer details of the target. Many shooting situations that may be threatening occur in low light, you, therefore, have no otherwise but to practice shooting with both eyes. Shooting objects that are far from you have proven to be a little stressful. If the object is more than three feet away from you, focusing and shooting at it accurately requires a little more keenness. You have to concentrate while shooting at further objects. Having one eye closed reduces your focus and you will most probably miss the target. Have both your eyes open and increase your chance of hitting the object. To increase the coordination of your hand and eye while shooting, both your eyes open. You will not have trouble trying to shift from the less dominant eye to the most dominant eye and from the most dominant hand to the less dominant hand You are not subjected to quick fatigue if you leave both eyes open while shooting. You know the stretching and pulling of the facial muscles that comes while trying to close one eye? Closing one eye leads to unnecessary stretching of your face muscles. This will see you getting tired quickly as compared to when your face muscles do less exercise when there is no stretching of the muscle face. You need to be balanced while shooting. Closing one eye might make you lose balance especially when you are moving while shooting. Conclusion I know most of you were taught to shoot with your less dominant eye closed. It is in fact, the tradition of most shooters. But clearly, it comes with little to no advantages. In fact, it comes with many disadvantages; this is why you should embrace the habit of shooting with both eyes open. It may be an uphill task to shoot with both eyes open if you are used to shooting with the less dominant eye closed. It requires practice, slowly but surely you will adapt. You can start by moving from completely closing your less dominant eye to squinting it. By this, you will be shooting with ‘one and a half eyes' Continue with the process of reducing the intensity of the squint. In no time, you will realize you are shooting with both eyes open. For accurate shots, try shooting with both eyes open, it will obviously be worth the change!
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