Shooting lessons for my son

I have a 7 year old boy that wants to shoot a turkey this spring. So i want to start working with him with a 20 gauge this winter.
he loves shooting his bb gun. The problem i have is he does everything right handed and he is left eye dominant. I have tried having him shoot both left and right hand. normally he wants to pull the gun up right hand but when he does this he looks way over and looks with his left eye. i have had him shoot left handed and he says that it doesn’t feel to bad. but most of the time he wants to pull up righthanded. should i keep trying to have him shoot left handed or just let him to what he wants to do?

also is there anyone in southern minnesota that teaches shooting lessons in the southern Minnesota area?

Same situation here and I taught my six year old to shoot left handed. That’s what I’d urge you to do based on my experience and that of a friend who did the same thing with his daughter. My son shot his first clays with a 28 gauge this summer and I couldn’t have been more proud!

BTW, I highly recommend a shoulder pad (just turn it inside out for a lefty): vomvomp Shoot Shoulder Pad Field Shield Recoil Reducer Shooting Shirt Vest for Shotgun Rifle (Rectangular) (Rectangular) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FDSVJVT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_IGc2FbGYBHK90?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Attachments:

1. 

   F60CA67E-DCBB-4728-ABF8-DEE950127AFA.png
   

2. 

   87CF7D1D-1D8B-498B-A341-F4B8BA6E0203.jpeg
   

Try putting a patch over his left eye and practice shouldering the gun. Im also left eye dom and shoot right handed.

Had the same issue with our youngest this past summer. Started him on clays and couldn’t figure why he was struggling so much. Never considered eye dominance. He naturally pulled the gun up right handed, likely because that’s what he saw me and his brother do. Checked his eyes. Switched him to left handed and it helped, but now I need to invest in a gun that fits him. I’m no expert, but I think you’ll need to accommodate the lefty!

I’d go with the dominant eye vs. what “handed” he is.

moondog wrote:

The problem i have is he does everything right handed and he is left eye dominant. I have tried having him shoot both left and right hand. normally he wants to pull the gun up right hand but when he does this he looks way over and looks with his left eye. i have had him shoot left handed and he says that it doesn’t feel to bad. but most of the time he wants to pull up righthanded. should i keep trying to have him shoot left handed or just let him to what he wants to do?

X3

LOVES hunting and fishing but he has a hill to climb in the shooting dept.

Why anyone would consider shooting other than with their dominant eye is beyond me. Checking eye dominance is the first step in teaching someone to shoot for a reason.

Get him a gun that fits and has a left handed safety or a tang safety. The gun itself doesn’t have to be left handed-I personally prefer to shoot a right handed gun. I would strongly recommend a .410 over a 20 gauge for a 7 year old. One of the best ways to ruin a shooter for life is expose them to unnecessary recoil.

Completely agree Joel. As a lifetime left eye dominant/right hand person I’ve shot a right handed gun my whole life, with the greater majority of them being with a Remington 1100 semi auto. Never, ever had an issue, or felt the need to seek out a left handed gun, or a left handed rifle. Like you, I preferred the safety setup of my right handed 1100 when hunting or shooting clays.

Definitely go with the dominant eye. My son went through this and now its normal for him. There is an adjustment, but its the only way to go especially for the shotgun. same for the bow.

Definitely go the dominant eye and patch route.

What every shotgun shooting instructor will tell you is to go with the dominant eye and have the boy learn to shoot left-handed. It’s actually about more than the dominant eye, it’s about how the brain is wired, so trying to train someone to shoot with their non-dominate eye is a fool’s errand.

My youngest son has the opposite dominant eye as well. It’s taken a while for him to figure it out, but he’s much better shooting left handed and that can be clearly seen.

Kids pick up on shooting with their off hand so quickly that by the third or fourth time out it will be automatic. It’s incredibly annoying to any adult who has tried to switch, it takes kids a few hours, it takes adults a few years. My dad’s youngest brother was the worst wingshot in the civilized world and this was in a family of 5 boys who learned to shoot by shooting hundreds upon hundreds of every gamebird that flew, so he was the butt of family jokes for decades. FINALLY when he was in his 40s, somebody brought up this dominate eye thing and what do you know. He was left-handed and right dominant eye. He retrained himself over a period of about 3 years and now is a very good shot, but it was hard, hard work. Do it right when they’re young.

Grouse

reddog wrote:

Never, ever had an issue, or felt the need to seek out a left handed gun, or a left handed rifle

My Father is left handed and shoots both a right handed bolt action rifle and a right handed pump shotgun. His wife and the rest of his family including myself have harped on him to get left handed firearms for years but he’s too stubborn and cheap to do it. Its painful to watch him try to operate a right handed bolt action rifle left handed. He has to bring the gun down every time, switch hands, reload, switch hands again, and then bring the gun back up. By that time the deer is gone.

I’m a right handed, lefty shooter for guns. I’ve shot right handed guns my whole life and other than shells ejecting across your face it’s nbd. Bolt action is a little more clunky, but I’ve never needed a second shot with the aught 6 anyway . As far as shooting lessons I would think a local gun club or game farm would be a good starting point for finding one in your area.

FWIW I always shot Bow right handed, so not sure if that’s bc I’m slightly both eye dominant or bc I grew up always shooting bows right handed…

thanks for all the reply’s.

Joel W Taylor wrote:

Why anyone would consider shooting other than with their dominant eye is beyond me. Checking eye dominance is the first step in teaching someone to shoot for a reason.

Because they are right handed! It comes natural.

After reading this though, I will definitely start forcing my son to shoot left handed. Great thread! Thanks guys.

Being so much of the world does things wrong (right handed) it can be hard to learn to do things the right way for us few who who are born to do it right (left). My dad is hard left side dominant yet when he started teaching me since I had been taught so much right handed at school and such it did feel more comfortable right handed (and at the time the vision prescription i was was given was under correcting my left eye vision making it less ‘dominant’). So I learned right handed. After 25 some years of shooting a bow right handed I don’t think I will ever change that (though every time a buck gets by being on the ‘wrong’ side I think about it) and still prefer to shoot shotgun (and a rifle off hand) right handed, but after my current eye doctor (who pulls double punishment as my wife) changed my prescription so that I have 20/20 out of each eye individually I re-taught myself to shoot left handed(late 20’s). It was actually pretty easy since that is how I should shoot, the only real advice I can give is practice practice practice until it feels normal (probably why I still wing shoot righty as I don’t do it very often).
Once he’s mastered it lefty I would suggest shooting righty too, it comes in really handy in the deer stand. Ambedextrious stocks are the way to go when/if he gets to that point. One of the biggest reasons I hunt almost exclusively with my cva muzzleloader now in any gun season as it’s the only rifle I have with one (I would note I primarily re-taught myself shooting a right handed rem. 700 bdl).

If you have a place (like basement or similar) where you could practice just holding/aiming left handed (obviously unloaded, I did with the bolt removed also (mostly just for show to make the Mrs. comfortable with it)) on top of actual shooting practice, you want to build that muscle memory so it just feels natural.
Side note, next eye appointment he has, make sure they are checking/correcting to have 20/20 vision in both eyes individually (not just 20/20 using both eyes), as much as practice that also made a huge help as before I got that fixed I could always see better out ofmy right eye which made it feel that much more uncomfortable as I couldn’t see the target as well.

A potential positive outcome of being a certain-handed while being the opposite eye-dominant is having some dexterity in your non-shooting hand.

I hadn’t shot much prior to enlisting in the army and they had us identify our dominant eye prior to any range time. I’m left-handed so I didn’t initially like the thought of shooting right-handed.

However, at least from a tactical point of view, it helps that I shoot right-handed but I can re-load, charge/clear malfunctions, operate a flashlight, draw something else, etc. from my true “dominant” side that has some dexterity. I’ve actually had others I’ve trained with say that this situation sounds ideal because in a way you get the best of both worlds. So with the right amount of practice, as well as using what God gave you, it could be advantageous.

Definitely train the dominate eye. I’m left handed but am right eye dominant. Eat right handed too caused less problems at the school lunch table