Training to shoot right handed

[Turnkey11]

A little about my background, I was born left handed but grew up shooting rifle right handed and pistol left handed. I have stuck with shooting this same way throughout my military and LE career (15 years combined). I had refractive eye surgery (PRK) in 2006 which left me 20/20 in the left eye and 20/15 on the right, with slight astigmatism in both eyes. Before this it was difficult to determine a dominant eye, but now that Im a bit older I have trouble maintaining focus on the front sight of a pistol with my left eye. Doing dry fire practice around the house, I have also noticed that my trigger control is much better with my right hand than with my left, due to shooting rifle a lot more than pistol. Has anyone else encountered this and have any tips other than get a holster and start shooting? Obviously Im not going to reconfigure my duty belt right away, the muscle memory isnt there yet.

[Surf]

A couple instances. Personal experience. I am a right hander but have been pretty ambi in sports. In particular I swing a golf club and a tennis racquet well as a lefty and I have always been a switch hitter in baseball / softball. I am also what they call ambi-ocular and don't really have a strong dominant eye and eye dominance can actually shift in the day, especially if I get eye fatigue. I have always shot well as a lefty, sometimes better when it comes to pure accuracy, so because of this I have actually taken entire courses shooting non dominant side.

Second is that I had a guy come through a 10 week course that I am involved with. He shot rifle and shotgun left handed but pistol right handed. I figured it was an eye dominance issue, which it was. He was left eye dominant. While this was far from a beginner course the first 2 weeks is basic firearms. He definitely struggled more so with the pistol. As training progressed in about week 4, after basic firearms was finished, oddly enough, it actually hit me that he wrote left handed. Never really bothered to take note of that before so I asked him about it. He said he was left handed?

I asked him about his shooting pistol. He related that 18 years ago, when he got his initial training, he was given a right handed rig and was told to use it that was all they had. I couldn't effin believe it. Bottom line is that he was very ingrained as a right hander when it came to manipulations, draw stroke, reloads, gear layout etc. When we back to shooting it was more advanced stuff and critical manipulations, more support side stuff. He was more accurate as a lefty and while the pistol was out he engaged strings or target arrays better as a lefty. Slowly I worked with him, however it is a pass / fail course with tough and strict standards so nothing was forced as he had a lot on his plate, not just pure firearms related.

He finished and passed the course as a right hander with the pistol. However after the course I issued him a second set of gear that we set up as a left hander. I initially worked exclusively with him for 3 days. One on one we got in a lot of training. Basically we did heavy emphasis on left handed as primary, but we still did some right handed work. The split was about 70/30 with more stress on lefty. I did this so as to give him time to practice both ways and basically become better with both sides. Didn't want to completely confuse his mind if it wasn't going to work out. Basically after about 2 more weeks of regular practice which included every day and every night of included dry manipulation work (which he rigidly stuck with) I re-tested him in several areas. At this point you could actually call him a very proficient ambi shooter and both he and I felt positive about him switching full time. He is now better with a pistol as a true left hander, but has the added benefit of working a pistol well as a right hander.

You have a few options.
1 - Higher visibility sights such as fiber optic.
2 - Stay as a left hander and learn to shoot with the right eye. If you are shooting two eyes open, you might want to try squinting one eye to not only force or ensure dominance, but sometimes that clears up the vision anyway. Never mind that situational awareness crap that people claim you will lose. You won't lose a thing in a real world situation.
3 - Convert to a right hander if you can actually pull it off. Just increase your training and practice time. Much of the manipulations and malfunction stuff can be done dry especially helpful are dummy rounds. Test yourself in various drills / situations and don't fully convert until your proficiency level and performance is on par. It may or may not happen. You will need to commit yourself to more training time and don't neglect what you currently do, just add more of the opposite side stuff.

[jenrick]

As Surf discussed above, enough practice and reps with your other hand will allow you to run the gun proficiently with that hand. One of my fellow instructors shoots EXTREMELY well right handed, to the point most people do a double take when they notice his holster is on his left hip. After spending 13 years of demoing how the gun is gripped, etc with a normal right handed grip he's basically able to run a pistol with either hand with almost equal proficiency. The only reason I say almost, is that when he shoots left handed he's even better.

-Jenrick