Retrain/rehab suggestions after losing an eye.

[Roadking Larry]

My son-in-law recently lost his right(dominant) eye to cancer. He is also right handed.
Today was the first time we have been able to get in some range time since the surgery.
Prior to losing the eye he was a decent shot.
Today he was shooting his Glock 17 Gen 5. He was consistently pulling left, couldn't hit a half size IPSC steel plate silhouette at 10yds I'm not much of a shooting coach but I watched what he was doing and suggest a few of the "hitting left" remedies without success.
He also shot my commander size 1911 in 9mm with pretty much identical results. Switching to shooting left handed is an option but not tried today.
I finally stepped to the line and shut my right eye tight and tried a couple of things. Best result was tilting my head and putting my chin on my shoulder/bicep which lined up the left eye back over the shooting hand. I had him try that and he was back to ringing steel like a big boy. One of the better smiles I've seen on his face since the surgery.
In the near future we will walk back down to my range and take my Ruger MKIII .22 rf and work on it some more including shooting left handed.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation that might have some suggestions?

 

[Oklahomabassin]

My father had to switch to left handed left eye after losing vision in right eye. He has been successful.

 

[HoLeChit]

I still have both of my eyes, but I went from being right eye/righthand dominant, to left eye right hand dominant after an eye injury. Real pain in the butt. I have to do the shoulder/chin touch thing now, but I'm hoping to slowly work and fix that. Havent figured out how yet, but I am hoping for something to work. Otherwise, I have found that some sort of optic helps immensely. Perhaps a red dot on a pistol would help him have something a little more natural as he learns how to live with one eye? I have found that helps me a lot with rifles, it just helps me focus quite a bit better, regardless of what eye I am using.

Honestly, if I lost my right eye, I would consider retraining myself to shoot left handed.

 

[SoonerP226]

I can't speak to losing an eye, but I've always been left eye/right hand dominant, so that's how I learned to shoot. I wouldn't say that I touch my chin to anything, but I do cant my head forward and to the right a bit to help bring the sights into alignment in front of my left eye.

A parallax-free optic (red dot) would probably help, but I'd rather adjust to irons first.

 

[El Pablo]

I can't speak to losing an eye, but I've always been left eye/right hand dominant, so that's how I learned to shoot. I wouldn't say that I touch my chin to anything, but I do cant my head forward and to the right a bit to help bring the sights into alignment in front of my left eye.

A parallax-free optic (red dot) would probably help, but I'd rather adjust to irons first.

This is what I do, or just shoot lefty.

 

[Shinneryfarmer]

My dad's friend was a instinctive shooter( hand eye cordination) who lost his right eye vision due to a chemical accident. Even being instinctive it through him off and he had to retrain himself. He spent many hours practicing, looking at a target then closing his eyes, raising the pistol pointing at the target, not move the gun while opening his eye and checking sights to see where he was aiming. Before the accident you could take the sights off his pistol and he could still out shoot you, I lost a bet on that one. It took some time (over a year)but he was back to shooting better than dad and I. That period was the only time dad could out shoot him.

 

[JeffT]

I lost the sight in my right, dominant eye at 32. For a pistol, If he will still use the regular right hand grip, and move his right foot straight back about 6 or 8 inches from normal, it will cause his shoulders/waist to twist a little to the right. Which will make it easier for him to aline the sites correctly with his left eye. It helped me a lot. I had to learn to shoot long guns left handed.

 

[Two Gun Warrior]

My father had to switch to left handed left eye after losing vision in right eye. He has been successful.

When I was shooting IPSC and IDPA, I practiced switching hands and eyes when I went from right to left side of a barricade. After a month or so I noticed I was doing it automatically. Now I catch myself even looking at things with my left eye sometime. Hope that might help.