[Phil Kiner]

It seems that a lot of shooters start having cross-firing problems when they reach 50-60 years of age. It has to be something in the internal "wiring" of humans. Does anyone have any theories as to what the "wiring problem" is???

 

[Tron]

Yes, I do have a theory. As you age, your eye sight naturally becomes less and less keen, often to the point where you domenent eye becomes so lazy that it forces your non-domenent eye to take over, sometimes even on an intermitent basis.

I could be wrong, but that seems to be what's happened in my case.

 

[trapshootin hippie]

Darn, hope I never get old.---------but, on second thought, it beats the alternative.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Vision, or difficulty in seeing targets as clearly as you used to most certainly becomes more difficult with age. At least that's my excuse to myself for my lackluster shooting performance. Oh, and what about Kaye?? It must be in the genes, but not my jeans. Have fun and shoot well. Bob

 

[ric3677]

Joe, are you saying your getting old? Heck I thought you were just a pup.

Rickyd

 

[Hap MecTweaks]

Might it possibly be learning "how" to see the target with intensity just prior to shooting it, rather than a "wiring" problem? Casually observing a target leave the house as one would standing behind the line may be the same way some also learn to shoot them. Seeing a clay leave the house or line it takes should lead one's eye/eye's to locking on the leading edge rather than the clay as a whole.

Inserting a guns barrel/rib/beads under the master eye interrupts that casual look see a lot of shooters get used to. Possibly a reason for an extremely "hot" day today and pure novice performance the next is all about seeing it with intensity? I know from my own "hot" versus "novice" performances the speed of the targets seem drastically different. On my seldom hot days the targets look big and slow, novice days they look like psychedelic orange aspirins doing about 900 MPH! My eyes didn't change, the way I saw the targets did. I feel it's all about learning to see the clay with intensity after locking onto that initial casual look as it climbs up and out. Looking/seeing casually is far different than looking intensely at a moving target in my opinion. Hap

 

[hmb]

Tron is right. For example right hand shooter, right eye dominant, distance perscription for right eye is +2.00 diopters and left is +.50 diopters, the left eye will want to take over the distance vision job. This can hopefully be prevented by having shooting glasses that correct the problem. One technique that seems to work is to have the right eye corrected with a +2.00 diopter lens and have a plano (non perscription) lens for the left eye. The right eye will have better distance vision than the left eye and do the work. HMB

 

[phirel]

Phil- When nerve cells die, they are not replaced as are many other types of cells in your body. You and I are losing something like 1,000,000 brain cells each day. Eventually, this reduces our ability to do many things. I think the loss of brain cells has had a greater affect on me than on you.

Pat Ireland

 

[JBrooks]

Some people start with more.

 

[Tron]

Well, I'm 44 years old and have only developed that problem for the last couple of years. My solution was simply to install a sight blinder on my Trap gun to not allow my left eye to take over so easily (it can still happen, even with a blinder). What's really weird is when I'm shooting Skeet or Sporting clays (gun without a blinder yet) and get a right to left crosser. I will sometimes see 2 birds, one behind the other.....I have learned to shoot the one in the rear!

 

[miketmx]

Phil, you and I chatted at the Grand and the tape patch would work on my left lens but floaters in my right eye make one eyed shooting very awkward. On your video and on a recent thread you said that the problem is not that the left eye sees the bead but the problem is that the left eye locks on the target. Does this result in a different kind of Miss (like slightly high and to the left) than the Miss where the shooter is using his/her off shoulder eye to notice the bead in peripheral vision ??

 

[Trap2]

Phil.......... I, too, think Tron is on the right track. It seems the older we get, the lazier our eyes get, especially if we don't do some form of excercise with them. I spent a good deal of time studying your first video, and even more time on your lastest video, especially the part about cross firing. I'm 63 and noticed about a year or so ago, I would make a shot, usually, almost always on a right angled target from post 4 or 5, that looked exactley as it should, yet I would miss the target cleanly. This usually happpened to me late in a tournament, or late in the day as I was tiring out. After a few times of this happening, I started to notice that, immediately after missing the shot, for some reason, my right eye would see just a fraction of the front of the right side of the barrel. I'm a left handed shooter, with a strong dominent left eye. I put a crossfire eliminator on the barrels, both the single and the O/U, and the problem wasn't as bad, but, still, once in a while, it reared its ugly head and another target got lost. I went in and had my eyes examined, and spoke with the doctor about the problem I was having. She advised me to decrease the RX in the right lense of my shooting glasses a little to force my donminate left eye to keep me from letting the right eye have as clear a picture of the target as the left lense does. These changes, as well as regular practice (Daily) with my Hendrickson Lifesaver Card, seems to have cured the problem. My scores are where they should be, and I have not noticed a crossfiring problem over my last 3-4000 targets. I can't swear this is the answer, but it has worked for me..... Dan Thome (Trap2)

 

[dickgtax]

I am a new Senior Vet. I am right handed and right eyed, but the vision in my right eye is terrible. I have vitreous detachment with floaters, plus a large blurry spot on the retina. My left eye is very good, and it is that eye that enables me to see the target clearly-especially in sporting clays where targets are often very hard to see.

Yet I am absolutley dominate right eyed, and have never had a problem cross-firing. Go figure.

 

[Big Jack]

My eye docter tells me I have the start of glucoma in my left eye and cataracs developing in both. I used to be able to see the lettering rotating on targets, now I see an orange streak and try to shoot the front of it. If I tip my head too far foreward I'm seeing a dark area and unable to find the target. I was forced to change my style to a more heads-up style and the left eye being slightly blurred makes me a one eyed shooter whether I like it or not. At least I'm still shooting, not as well as I once did but still trying!
Boy, it's hell to get old!

 

[KenC]

I think that it might be like Hap said, an image intensity problem (the amount of light getting to your eyes), at least in my case. I think maybe the eye getting the most intense image of what you are focusing on at any given time becomes the dominant one.

I intend to try out different combinations of lighter and darker lenses this spring.

One sunny Sunday in August, I broke 150 straight in practice (a personal best). A week later, on a cloudy Saturday, I couldn't break 90. I am also not very good 'under the lights'.

When I think about it, I rarely have a good score on cloudy days.

PS: I'm 62, RH & L Eye dominant so I shoot LH, w/both eyes.

 

[snowbird]

Hi Phil.

I shoot R/H with both eyes open and I am right eye dominant. I am 62 and have noticed for a couple years now when I point my gun and look at the beads my left eye takes over and I see the whole left side of the gun. That never happened when I was younger. I can seem to make it flip back and forth but in close looking at the bead my left eye seems more dominant. If I look at the targets on my Wall chart or anything that is farther away my right eye is still the master eye and I don't get that left eye taking over. Maybe working with your new eye exercise video will help the problem.

Terry.

 

[Phil Kiner]

Sorry guys-- screwing with your prescription will not fix it. I cannot tell you how many shooters have "fixed" it with prescription showed up at one of my clinics with a problem and the problem was cross-firing. They would still cross-fire like crazy no matter which set of lens they used.

 

[Old Cowboy]

I'm 61.....developed floaters in my right (shooting) eye about five years ago, then last year I developed floaters in the other eye also. I'm thinking that if you have significantly better sight in your off eye than in your shooting eye, and are not strongly dominant in either then the eye that's seeing more clearly will naturally try to take over.

I use a tape patch on my off lens to prevent cross-firing.

John C. Saubak

 

[hunter870]

I'm absolutely 100 percent serious about this. Crossfiring started happening to me about two months ago...and it scared me silly. It never occurred to me that it was related to age, or for that matter developed late in others. I've been getting ready to go to an eye doctor, and was hoping it had to do with my switching to progressive lenses.

Until I saw this post, I was moderately worried that something was going terribly wrong with my eyes, and while I feel like a total dweeb for not knowing it's common, I just wanted to humbly thank this board for all the things you folks discuss.

I'll still see the eye doc, but at least I won't be holding my breath until the appointment.

thank you

 

[JBrooks]

I'm 59. I started shooting 3 years ago 2 eyed. Decided I had started to crossfire earlier this year. Put a piece of tape on the left lens and have averaged 97.9 since.

What is really interesting is that I have taken a couple of non-shooters to the line recently and told them to close one eye and explained what they should see as a bird bead relationship. Both started hitting targets immediately. This was a much better result than when I told new shooters to keep both eyes open.