Learning to shoot with non dominant hand

[Dennis]

Long story short, my aging body is forcing me to expand my horizons. I want to learn/teach myself to shoot correctly and efficiently with my left hand. Eye use seems like it would be a major part of this. I know I can't be the first person to cross this bridge. What helpful advice could you offer someone in my position? What's the best way to do this?

[beanz2]

This is what I learned from the more advanced classes at Front Sight:

First, trigger discipline does not automatically cross over to the support side. Watch that trigger finger.

Two, the support side hand has not learned any bad habits. Practice the correct ways from the start. Often, my left shoots more accurately than my right. But slower, for sure.

Third, when shooting rifles on the weak side, you have no choice but to shoot with the eye on the same side. Just close the strong side eye. Shooting regular pistols, you can shoot cross dominant. Shoot large frame pistols (PCC) like a rifle.

Teach your weak side dexterity skills. Brush your teeth, use hand tools, cut food, etc. with your non dominant side.

Some people are blessed with ambidextrousness. Lucky!

[brassburnz]

I'm a natural righty but left-eye dominant. When I started shooting bullseye I realized I couldn't find a natural stance shooting right-handed so I switched to my left hand. I haven't really kept count, but I'm fairly certain I've gone through 5 or 6 cases of .22 and about an equal number of center-fire rounds.

I now prefer shooting a handgun with my left hand but I can use either. Same with rifles and shotguns.

[IVC]

Rifle or pistol?

Pistol shooting is off of dominant eye, so you don't switch hands to change the eye with which you aim. With rifles, you have to switch hands because of the geometry of the shooting position.

[rodralig]

Long story short, my aging body is forcing me to expand my horizons. I want to learn/teach myself to shoot correctly and efficiently with my left hand. Eye use seems like it would be a major part of this. I know I can't be the first person to cross this bridge. What helpful advice could you offer someone in my position? What's the best way to do this?

Captains of Crush + Dry Practice + Slow Fire Live Practice


_

[newbutold]

Get some toy guns you can practice with in the house. Airsoft or similar. Good luck....

[M1NM]

Get yourself a 5 pound weight and start increasing the strength of your off side. Just walk around the house a couple hours a day with it held at arms length.

[FeuerFrei]

Long story short, my aging body is forcing me to expand my horizons. I want to learn/teach myself to shoot correctly and efficiently with my left hand. Eye use seems like it would be a major part of this. I know I can't be the first person to cross this bridge. What helpful advice could you offer someone in my position? What's the best way to do this?

Most all firearms are designed for righty so efficiency already jumped went out the window.

Due to an eye injury some years ago I am blind in my right eye. Guess which one was dominant? Closing one eye makes the other do all the lifting.
Trainers have good vision. Have never met one with one good eye and actually knows how to train for it. Lots of theory tho.

Guns take a whole new level of re-learning how to manipulate the mechanicals, good grip, reloads etc. I started slow and practiced live fire. Slow and deliberate practice. No magic solutions. Mirror righty/lefty movements as much as possible.

I'm good with hand guns, but long guns are slower now than I ever was as a righty.
Shooting righty/lefty with hand guns are now easy. Long guns are lefty only.

I don't know how helpful this info may be to you.

[71MUSTY]

This is what I learned from the more advanced classes at Front Sight:

First, trigger discipline does not automatically cross over to the support side. Watch that trigger finger.

Two, the support side hand has not learned any bad habits. Practice the correct ways from the start. Often, my left shoots more accurately than my right. But slower, for sure.

Third, when shooting rifles on the weak side, you have no choice but to shoot with the eye on the same side. Just close the strong side eye. Shooting regular pistols, you can shoot cross dominant. Shoot large frame pistols (PCC) like a rifle.

Teach your weak side dexterity skills. Brush your teeth, use hand tools, cut food, etc. with your non dominant side.

Some people are blessed with ambidextrousness. Lucky!

All good advice, plus practice practice practice. You spent you entire life training your dominant hand, don't expect to train your weak side in a day.

[hermosabeach]

Part of my process shooting support was after shooting courses.

It took a while to intellectually learn to load and unload support side.

I started with a cheap holster in left for me... $20 fobus

It was dry practice loading, unloading, mag changes, malfunction drills.

Dry practice came after
Just like a new shooter
Sight alignment
Sight picture
Train eyes to Focus on front sight
Trigger press
Keep trigger trapped
Use support hand to reset slide
Get 2 hand grip back
Reset trigger
Hard focus on front sight - press


Then onto presentations from holster
Learn to find the stock on count 1, find the front sight from 3-4, push out to target while taking up slack so you are close to wall as pistol is extended.


Make it fun.

Set a timer

Do 10 minutes practice once or twice a day

[boattail]

I am right handed and left eye dominant. Always shot pistol and rifle right handed with no issues. Earlier in the year I started drawing and shooting from my left (I won't get into the why here)

I have done a bunch of dry fire/ drawing from holster practice. Making the left hand into the strong hand was not that difficult for me. It was getting the support hand to take on the support grip that took the longest to get. Once I was getting good I strapped on a right side gun with one on the left and would switch back and forth until some muscle memory kicked in. After tons of dry fire practice (I'm shooting a single action revolver on the left side) I took it to the range and just went really slow drawing and firing.

I never in a million years thought I could train my left hand to shoot but I have done it. I have only done it with one gun so far. I am trying to get muscle memory built up strong with that one firearm. Training with the one gun will cross over with two more of my guns with no modifications to my grip or draw.

I am confident enough with that gun in my left hand that I can qualify with it. I only wished I would have started doing this years ago. I am also using a very unconventional draw on the left to facilitate carrying the gun on the left with a right side holster. I'm using the calvary draw on the left and have that draw down pat. I never muzzle myself or anyone beside me and the hammer gets cocked once the barrel is pointed forward. I can cock as I draw and anywhere in-between if I want but I chose to cock the hammer once the barrel is presented forward for maximum safety.

One other thing....my wedding band was the first thing that felt weird and I took it off when practicing then realized I had better put it back on and get used to it. A wedding band could get chewed up if the gun is checkered on the front strap and could mar the finish on the gun as well. I'm sure lefties will back me up on that....I quickly stopped worrying about it.

[Robert1234]

You're going to suck for a while, and you'll never have the quickness in the trigger finger if your non-dominant hand you do in your naturally dominant hand, your splits will be lacking if that matters to you.

Reloads are easier, you now have your strong hand doing them.

One thing to think about, if you carry AIWB, the extra length if belt that typically goes to the left gets in the way of holster clips, and some holster makers don't do left handed. Not a huge deal, there's more than enough companies making holsters for left handed shooters, but some won't.

And unless you practice with your now non-dominant hand, any skill it had goes away fast. You become a left handed shooter, not ambidextrous

Mag catches can be used with the left hand middle or trigger finger, I find the middle finger allows super quick mag changes,, and gets back on target fast, I like it better than the thumb,, and never switch reversible mag catches.. So no need to search for an ambi mag catch.

Slide stops, not so much. Glocks suck (Gen 5 guns address this), 1911s not bad. Some are better than others, and ambi slide stops are common enough on modern guns that it's not really an issue.

[boattail]

I was at the range today and practiced my left hand shooting again with my Blackhawk 45. Yesterday I ran my weed eater for an hour and did a bunch of yard work. Both of my bad shoulders were aching today. I shot like crap lefty today as my hands shook. Kept them on paper but no groups formed. Right handed I was knocking the bullseyes out of the targets. Good news was my support hand was doing its job and getting the right grip on the first try. The loss of strength in the left hand after doing the yard work really effected things today. I could definitely feel the strength loss with the impinged nerves in my shoulder acting up. I need more practice!!!!

edit..something that I did notice today was my wedding band really bugged me and felt out of place. I need to work through that.

[Rob454]

Long story short, my aging body is forcing me to expand my horizons. I want to learn/teach myself to shoot correctly and efficiently with my left hand. Eye use seems like it would be a major part of this. I know I can't be the first person to cross this bridge. What helpful advice could you offer someone in my position? What's the best way to do this?

[deerdeerdeer]

I shoot billiards left handed, toss hoop right handed, didn't know I was about to use both hands pretty good, last GF was left handed, so I did a lot of left handed training with her, was useful for me tremendously.