On Becoming a Lefty

[twomoons]

My right eye has been going bad for some time and is now about worthless for shooting iron sights. My dominant left eye is still good and I can stil get a sharp sight picture with the left side so I am switching to shooting iron sighted rifles lefty. I know what to do and how to do it but it's difficult making the left side DO it! I wobble and then I want to jerk the trigger or I am just thrown off trying to get my offhand position. So I was particulary gratified the other day when I was able for the first time to shoot a few decent groups lefty. From a est wasn't bad and I got the M92 to shoot into less than 3" on a regular basis but then I was finally able to whack the 100 yard gong offhand I almost wanted to cheer. My grandson who shoots lefty all the time was not so impressed though. At least I had a start as I always practiced strong and weak hand with the revolver.

[jimh]

as i get older and more rigid i find myself struggling to do what i use to do with ease and shooting is definatly one of them. some of you may recall i had 4 disc fused in my neck 5 yrs ago, who would have though that you need that much flexability in your neck to get comfortable behind a scope or set of sites. length of pull and scope placement on all my guns have gotten very critical to me now days.

[Jack]

Congratulations, Twomoons.
I watched my father try to switch from right shoulder to left shoulder shooting, and it wasn't easy. He never did conquer it to the point he could shoot a shotgun well. Not an easy thing to retrain the brain and muscles after a lifetime of shooting right handed.

[twomoons]

Yes and my wie said i have a left brain anyway... and I need to find where I left it!

[twomoons]

What really helps is the BB gun. I have a pump up Crossman and I try and shoot it off hand 10 shots every day at lunch. With the crude sights and horrible trigger to fight it makes you concentrate a LOT.

[jmarriott]

Might be time to look at scout scoping a couple of rifles.



Right handed shooting and both eyes open or left eye and you are good to go. I call it advanced Iron sights as it is not much magnification and seems to be great for me on fast target aquirement. As i have aged over the last 10 to 15 years i have become left eye dominate. When i bought my last compond bow back in 1995 or 1996 i was right eyed. Now i seem to be left eye dominate. The eye doctor has semi confirmed this with tests as my right eye is worse vision than my left. Brain must have switched over time without me noticing.

I would think a marlin pappy with a barrel mounted scout scope would be ideal. Personally i would mount the scout a bit higher than normal and thread the barrel for a supressor. A huntertown arms can is on my wish list. Gives that little extra pouch in the pappy's takedown bag a nice little item to put into it. It also has that cool factor of it all coming apart and packed up like you see in the movies. Thebad thing about the pappy scoped on the reciever is that the barrel never seems to go back on the exeact way it came off each time. You have to resight it a bit each time you take the barrrel off. with the scope attached to the barrel that should solve that problem completely. Thhe older wood stocked pappy are getting hard to find.

I shoot pistols fine open sighted or scoped. Shotguns without a middle bead not so much. Add the middel bead on the vent rib barrel i do much better.

Then again if you can get the body to do this on it's own it might just be a waist of money. Then again a new rifle/scope/can and time to get all set up and working like a champ is never really waisted time or money.

[twomoons]

When I have to put a scope on my muzzleloader I will just quit. I have 2 scoped hunting rifles with the scopes adjusted so i can use the right anded but they get shot very little, sight in and a deer a year. Most of my shooting is handgun and muzzleloader.