doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Master eye dominance shooting a hammer gun

I'm one of those folks blessed with a left master eye. I'm right handed and I shoot off of the right shoulder. I now use a circular dot mounted on my left shooting glass lense to shift my master eye focus to the right eye.

I've just acquired a nice used SXS hammer gun. My first outing last week at 5 Stand resulted in a straight with the new gun - yes, the gun fits. Now here comes my observation, today I was mounting the gun and noted that without my shooting glasses on that the left rear hammer was shifting my left master eye dominence over to the right eye. We know that some British shooters were having hammer guns built for them well into the 1920's. Could it be that many of these gentlemen also were left eyed dominant. I may have rediscovered something that was common knowledge by hammer gun shooters years ago.

George, indeed you may have.
It is a very good idea if you know you have an eye dominance issue to allow your thumb of your forehand to stand up alongside the barrels.H A Thorn AKA Charles Lancaster and Cogswell and Harrison marketed a barrel attachment similar to Mickey Mouse's ear to block the vision of the offside eye.

I've seen some slip on leather hand protectors that had an eye blocker built in also.

I'm lefthanded, but right eyed. Glad I learned to shoot right shouldered at an early age. Early on I was shooting left shouldered and looking almost sideways down the barrel as I had to throw my head over the stock. Worked with a thin stocked .22 rifle, but not with shotguns as you might expect.

Considering that some of the shooters from the 1800s were having hammer guns made in the 1900s...I'll bet you are right in your theory. Somewhat later in life than women shooters, men will tend to have cross-dominance or less right-eye dominance develop.

My own experience suggests this is not so simple. I have been shooting both external hammer doubles and internal hammer doubles and O/U for decades and notice no difference.

I started life with right eye dominant and shoot from right shoulder. For last decade or so my right eye has deteriorated so much, in ways that cannot be corrected for with lenses, that I now can only use it to assure that I have mounted gun correctly. I now rely on left eye for everything else and still wing shoot from right shoulder, although all other shooting has switched to left shoulder and left eye. My wingshooting success in field and at trap and sporting clays has remained rather unchanged. I attribute this ability to adapt to failing master eye to having always shot with both eyes open, even with hunting scope sights.

Back to external hammer guns. I have always found that I have to cock both hammers to keep uncocked hammer from interferring with my "sight picture". This means that when trap shooting, I always cock both hammers. All my external hammer doubles have hammers that are well below sighting plane when cocked. The view down barrels is really same as with internal hammered doubles.

Niklas

I'm left handed right eyed...I shoot guns with tall hammers better.

George

I think that is a very good theory and probably true. I have nearly equal dominance and shoot right handed. With an o/u I use an occluder. With the SXS I cannot see the bead with my left eye due to my hand. I have large hands that envelope a 12 ga and do not have to hold my thumb up are anything. I did not know why this worked for a while as I only recently started using an occluder but realized that I did not have to close an eye with a SXS. I have virtually no experience with hammer guns.

NP, my SXS hammer gun is a S.I.A.C.E. mfg'd in 1998. With the hammers back, I definitely see the hammers. Another interesting point is that my new gun (new to me) also has 27" barrels - I'm 6'4" and pushing 70 years old. Several targets did get the best of me at SC's this past weekend; however, overall I was told by one of my friends that with this gun it appeared that I became possessed breaking clays. I definitely feel more confident shooting this hammer gun than my 16bore Model 21.

George,

I have not shot a shotgun with such short barrels in decades, only one kombi gun. Barrels on mine are in 30-34 inch range and guns weigh 6,15 to 6,5 lbs. I am slowly getting more and more hammer doubles that I shoot better than any of my modern doubles. Actually, I only have one modern double left.

Niklas