Eye Dominance and Visual Delay

The instant the new shooter says something about the confusing picture, they are immediately misdiagnosed as “cross-dominant!”

There is a perception out there that if you are right-handed and right-eye dominant that you can look at the target and look down the barrel and get the correct lead to hit a moving target with no visual confusion. But in our experience, nothing could be further from the truth.

Please realize that what you “see” when shooting a moving target with a shotgun is a perception, because it occurs in the periphery and what you are aware of in the periphery is as much as three-tenths of a second behind real time. In fact, everything you do with a shotgun when shooting a moving target occurs in your periphery because your primary focus is on the target. Because of the delay of the peripheral data stream to the brain, it’s a perception – meaning it’s not real.

That’s right. And you have experienced this when shooting a relatively easy pair of targets like a true pair of floating incomers. On the third pair, when executing the shots, you see that little Polaroid picture of the lead on each target. Then on the next pair, you put that lead on each target and they do not break. But the lead was exactly like what you just saw on the previous pair!

What you perceived on the previous pair that you smashed happened three-tenths of a second before you pulled the trigger. And if that were not confusing enough, add another three-tenths of a second delay in the time it takes for the trigger to get pulled after the brain says “send it.” Add another three-tenths of a second delay when you switched from your subconscious brain – which lives only five milliseconds behind real time – to your conscious brain which is three-tenths of a second behind real time.

This is what really happens when you get too involved with checking or measuring the lead at the end of the shot and why it will never work.