Cross-Eye Dominance in Shotgun Shooting

What It Is, How It Affects You, and the Modern Fix That Lets You Shoot Naturally

Most shotgun shooters spend years refining their stance, mastering lead, and improving follow-through — yet many still struggle with inconsistency they can’t explain. Targets break one day, float past untouched the next. The problem often isn’t skill. It’s sighting.

More specifically: eye dominance.

What Is Cross-Eye Dominance?

Most people have one eye that their brain naturally relies on more for visual alignment — known as the dominant eye. Ideally, a shooter’s dominant eye matches their dominant hand, such as right-handed with a right dominant eye.

But for a large percentage of shooters, that’s not the case.

When your dominant eye and shooting side don’t match, you are cross-eye dominant.

In shotgun sports — where your eye is the rear sight — this mismatch can cause your brain to line up the shot using the wrong eye, even when the gun is mounted correctly.

How Cross-Eye Dominance Affects Your Shot

With a scoped rifle, you align sights mechanically. With a shotgun, aiming is visual and instinctive — both eyes open, head up, watching the target. But if your non-shooting eye takes control, problems appear fast:

• You may shoot off-line even when your mount feels perfect
• Leads look right but consistently miss left/right
• The gun feels like it’s not pointing where you think it is
• You might unconsciously tilt your head to force alignment
• Clay targets you should break sail away untouched

The conflict isn’t mechanical — it’s neurological. Your brain is trying to aim with the wrong eye.

Traditional Ways Shooters Have Tried to Fix It

For decades, cross-dominant shooters had limited choices:

1. Close One Eye

Removes the dominant eye from the equation, but sacrifices depth perception and peripheral vision — both critical for moving targets.

2. Use Tape or Dot Occlusion on Shooting Glasses

This blurs the dominant eye, but still interferes with natural vision and can feel unnatural or inconsistent.

3. Switch Shoulders

Technically the most correct long-term solution — but extremely difficult for experienced shooters with years of muscle memory.

All these work… but they come with compromise. Shotgun shooting is at its best when done naturally, two eyes open, head level, confident, instinctive.

That’s exactly why EasyHit exists.

How the EasyHit Bead Solves Cross-Eye Dominance

A modern optical fix — no eye closing, no tape, no shoulder switching.

EasyHit beads are not just bright fiber-optic sights. They are engineered specifically to overcome cross-dominance through optical control — without limiting vision.

Here’s the key:

The fiber-optic EasyHit bead produces a bright dot that is visible only to the shooting eye.

Because of the fiber-optic tube and rib alignment:

• The shooting eye sees a clean, bright dot down the rib
• The non-shooting eye is occluded from seeing that dot
• The shooting eye automatically becomes the dominant visual reference
• Cross-dominance is overpowered — naturally and instantly

You keep both eyes open.
Your depth perception remains.
Your target stays fully visible.

No squinting. No tape. No awkward head tilt.
Just instinctive, natural shotgun shooting the way it was meant to be.

Why EasyHit Works So Well for Shotgun Shooting

Shotgun shooting is fluid — there’s no time to think about your bead. You watch the target, mount, swing, lead, and break. For this to work well, your eyes must work together.

EasyHit makes that happen.

With EasyHit installed:

• The correct eye sees the sight
• The wrong eye cannot override it
• Your brain gets one clean image, not two
• Shots feel natural — and hit more consistently

Clay shooters, wing shooters, upland hunters, trap competitors, waterfowlers — thousands report the same experience:

Better sight picture.
Better alignment.
Better hits.

Is Cross-Eye Dominance Affecting You?

Here’s a quick at-home test:

1. Extend your arm and point at something 20+ feet away.
2. Close one eye, then the other.
3. If your finger “jumps” off target when one eye closes — the eye that keeps it aligned is your dominant eye.

If that eye doesn’t match your gun mount side — you’re cross-dominant.

The Smart Fix Is Simple

Cross-eye dominance doesn’t require changing everything you do — just the way your eyes see the sight picture. EasyHit lets you continue shooting on your preferred side, with your natural stance, both eyes open, and your vision working with you instead of against you.

Whether you're new to shotguns or a seasoned shooter who always felt “just a little off,” this may be the problem — and the solution.

Fix your cross eye domiance once and for all!

→ Explore EasyHit beads