Crossfire Eliminator Experience

Are there any "two eyed shooters" on here that use a crossfire eliminator (angled bar stuck on the rib) with double sided tape, to prevent seeing the sight with the other - left or right - eye, depending if you're a left or right handed shooter)? I learned of them from a gentleman a few months ago when buying his gun and he swore by them but I've never used one. The claim, as I understand it, is that you may not even be aware that your opposite eye is taking over on you - mainly on angled birds - and you're consequently shooting behind the bird. These are also available as part of a stick-on sight, from the same supplier, which accomplishes the same end result (Meadow Industries).

I'd love to hear any comments from folks on here using one, along with their results, both before and after putting one on. And how did you know you needed one or did you just apply it on a trial basis. Thanks if anyone has some history I could draw on.

 

I use the Meadow Industries on my trapguns. I had a slight, intermittent cross dominance for years shooting sporting clays but didn't know what the problem was until I stumbled on it on the skeet field. I could miss low 1 five times in a row...all you gotta do is blot it out, how tough can it be? Then I closed my off eye and smoked 5. Problem was my off eye taking over and when I saw the target as blotted out, I was actually 2-3 feet in front. When it happens, it leaves me with a twilight zone effect...like, wow, what just happened...as opposed to knowing why I missed, like too much lead or I stopped the gun.

When I took up trap I figured the same thing could occur on left angles (I'm right-handed) so I used the blinder. Looking back over thousands of targets and the relatively few misses on left angles, I'm convinced it's working. And anyway, it does no harm as long as you're able to be totally unaware of it. It HAS to work...put one on and note that it's impossible to see the bead with your off eye so it can't possibly take over.

I use one on my O/U for trap doubles, which I stink at, but can't use one for sporting. With the gun pre-mounted I can ignore it but when starting from a low gun hold I'm aware of it as the gun comes to my face. My best solution for sporting is to recognize an incoming left target and squint my left eye.

 

I tried the Meadow Industries unit on my guns and did not like it. It was blurry, but visible and I ended up using it as a bead. I took the off and went with the Easy Hit FO "bead" and tube and never looked back. They cure the problem and just plain work.

 

If it's good enough for Kay and Debbie it's fine with me-regardless if it works!!

 

I use the Uni-Dot hooded fiber optic front bead. I asked Kay Ohye why he uses the rib blinder and he told me that if it gets him one extra target in a hundred why not use it.

 

My clay target guns have the Meadow Industries Vari-Brite-Site III on them. This is the one with the fiber optic rod and channel to block the off eye. My hunting guns have the Easy Hit fiber optic sight with the tube. With my Unsingle the tube sight does not work since I needed to raise the comb to get the POI that I wanted. It took a little time to get used to seeing the fiberoptic sight yet keeping the focus on the target.

Mike,
It is interesting that you had problems with the right to left targets. In my case I have a weak dominate right eye and shoot right handed, I see 2 barrels with both eyes opened focused on the target. I had a lot of lost left to right targets. I had an instructor stand behind me and he stated that the gun never reached the left to right target when I fired.

Jason

 

Last I noticed Kiner has one on the end of his gun. Better to be safe than sorry if there is a possibility of shifting eye dominance.

 

I have one on both my MX3 single barrel and the MX3 O/U barrel. I use the Meadow Industries stick on sight blinder. I honestly can say that, as I get older, the sight blinder has helped me from crossfiring on several occasions that I am aware of, and probably many more that I'm not aware of. I agree with Phil Kiner that it can't hurt so why not use it. If it saves you one bird in a hundred it's worth it.... I don't even notice it's there anymore, however, when I shoot one of my other guns without it, I can actually tell the difference right away....

 

Jason,

That is indeed interesting. We have the same dominance issue/handedness but with opposite problems. Makes perfect sense that when it happens to me on lefts, I shoot in front, but when it happens to you on rights, you're behind.

 

Mike,

Right to left targets are not a problem for me, the "correct" barrel touches the target first.

Do you see 2 barrels in your peripheral vision?

To me it seem like you are switching dominance and only see the "wrong" barrel on targets from the right.

 

Jason,

Taking your question first, yes, I see 2 barrels. But one is what I call a "ghost" image, substantially less intense than the primary. And I'm really only aware of it when I'm looking for it, as I just did when you asked. Which brings me to your first sentence; I don't see 2 barrels as I approach the target. I don't have 2 barrels competing so I so don't see whether the correct or wrong barrel touches the target. If you see that then you must know exactly when and what happened when you miss that right angle.

Maybe the difference for me is that I'm not normally conscious of 2 barrels, I see one barrel but it's with the wrong eye. It's as though I've closed my master eye and seeing only with the off eye. So the sight picture looks perfect to me when I miss. That's why it took me years to figure out what was wrong. I only stumbled on the answer one day by closing the off eye and smoking the target I'd just been missing with 2 eyes. Clearly, the off eye wasn't just interfering, it was taking over completely.

To see what I was dealing with, close your master eye, point at a distant object with your strong arm, and sight down it with your off eye. That simulates what happens when the weak eye takes over completely. Open the master eye and close the weak eye and you'll see how far the muzzle jumps off target.

When I chase right angles, my dominant right eye is over the rib and the target is to the right of the barrel and I'm constantly looking to the right; my left eye is bringing up the rear and not really much involved in the shot. When the target angles left it's in my left field of view and during the swing the muzzle is constantly moving into that field. That encourages the left (weak) eye to take over, lock on the target and show me when I touch it....when in fact, I'm well ahead of it. That's probably why I didn't miss many trap lefts without the blinder; a little built-in lead on a hard left was a good thing. On an incoming skeet target at 20 yds out and closing, the pattern is getting smaller and the lead is diminishing not increasing, so it was much easier to miss in front.

Your problem is more substantial since even a little behind is a miss. But it sounds like a sight blocker has pretty much fixed it for you, too.

 

Mike,

To me your problem seem more substantial since your off eye is taking over and you had to close it to shoot straight.

In my case it seems my subconscious mind was seeing the off barrel clear the right angling target and I would fire. The Vari-Brite-Site III has helped me a lot. Having a glowing red dot only on the "correct" barrel has eliminated the left to right angled target mystery misses. I also feel that it has helped me with bead checking. There is no wondering were the bead is...it is glowing right out there; focus on the target and move the glow bead to where the target is going.

Jason

 

Mike Campbell wrote: "When I chase right angles, my dominant right eye is over the rib and the target is to the right of the barrel and I'm constantly looking to the right; my left eye is bringing up the rear and not really much involved in the shot. When the target angles left it's in my left field of view and during the swing the muzzle is constantly moving into that field. That encourages the left (weak) eye to take over, lock on the target and show me when I touch it....when in fact, I'm well ahead of it."

This is exactly what happens to me. I have used the Uni-Dot hooded fiber optic front bead for 10 years now but sometimes I still crossfire on hard left angles and don't remember seeing the green bead but instead I vaguely remember seeing the left side of the black tube. Phil Kiner says locking on the target with the wrong eye is the real problem and he recommends using the tape patch when the crossfire preventer is not enough to solve the problem.

 

The discussions between Jason (waverider) and (Mike Campbell) are really telling and I'm glad they went into such detail. Everyone would do well to read their descriptions and put some serious thought into it. These two guys, and especially Mike, have opened a yet unknown door for me and I'm now a true believer. I've never been one to simply do something - blindly - because someone else does, as I need to understand why. These guys have done that for me.

Picking a spot on the wall, and considering that spot is a clay bird, I raised one arm at a distance from that spot, pointing my finger, and approach it as though I'm swinging a shotgun to it. I did that simulating moving my arm to the right (for a right angled bird) and to the left (for a left angled bird). I did that with my "off eye" (as Mike clearly calls it) only open and then with my "master eye" only open. When I got to the spot on the wall, with my extended finger pointing to it, I then opened "both eyes". What I saw clearly tells the whole story but it doesn't really confirm whether you, indeed, need a "crossfire eliminator". That can only be confirmed by shooting and honestly assessing the results (i.e. not always blaming a miss on something obscure when you have a properly fitted and patterned gun).

For me, being a right hand shooter with a right master eye and often dropping right angle birds, I must be experiencing my left "off eye" taking over which is putting me behind the bird when shooting. The key for me was having occasions where I was so far ahead of a right angled bird, when I pulled the trigger, that my mind told me it would never break but it literally disappeared. Further, I had no trouble breaking left angled birds - as my eye crossover was automatically putting me ahead of the bird, as mentioned by Mike.
To Mike and Jason - thanks for your discussions. You've made a believer out of this shooter!

 

Something else to consider is your left eye and your right eye send an image to your brain.
Your brain chooses the best image and uses it to compute the proper lead on the target. It is important
that your shooting eye supplies the best image. If you wear prescription lenses check to see that your shooting eye
has the proper correction. HMB

 

Good point "hmb". If your supposed dominant eye can not focus on the bird as quickly as the off eye, your off eye will take over as the primary information source, of vision of course.

This is why I believe vision is the main reason for not only lost birds, but flinching also.

 

They seem to help me, have no plan to remove them from my trap guns.

Matt Nicol

 

Here is the concept of the Meadow Industries stick on sight blinder


;This was probably one of the first attempts at
blinders. I thought this up with only about 10
minutes of thought on the subject back about
50 years ago. It is probably the most obvious
blinder you can come up with. I know many more
than me were able to come up with this idea,
because I have seen a number of them for sale
commercially. Here is a picture of the fence.


The theory here is that the "off eye" cannot see
the bead, and by blocking the bead from the
master eye, you can let the other eye control
the aiming. The theory is good, but in actual
practice this is a really sorry solution. The
problem with it is this. Your actual sight
picture that the brain uses is a lot more than
just the bead. Your brain knows that the bead is
just part of what you are pointing. In fact you
are pointing a receiver, barrel, and vent rib,
in addition to the bead. All of this is sight
picture. The fence only stops your "off eye" from
seeing the bead. The "off eye" can still see the
rib and barrel, which actually makes up more of
the sight picture than the bead does.;

Considering the above how this fence can stop crossfiring?

Bill

 

Bill,
Maybe you're right and it doesn't stop crossfiring. But, as the above poster indicates, it does provide feedback on a miss. I miss hard angles much less frequently than shallow, "almost" straightaways but during the mental playback of a miss I'm sometimes aware of having lost sight of the bead after the fact.

I opted in on the blinder because it "made sense," but I see your point. It clearly works for me on a low, quartering-in targets but maybe that's because I can shoot that target with much more bead awareness than I do trap targets. From there, I may have gotten ahead of myself thinking it would be "necessary" for outgoing tarp targets but, on the flipside, I personally see no downside to it. I know others try them and quickly remove them.

Maybe the concept of a small lens patch makes more sense; I haven't tried that yet.

 

Mike,

If you are using the Blinder/Fence, do you also have a fiber optic bead?

Jason