A chapstick trick trains shooters to keep both eyes open

Shooting with both eyes open keeps your field of view and depth perception intact, but a lot of shooters default to squinting one eye shut because the dominant eye's sight picture gets blurred by the other eye's input. In a video from Tactical Rifleman, the instructor walks through a low-tech fix that trains the brain to sort this out on its own.

Snapshot

The video covers a progressive range drill that uses a dab of chapstick on the non-dominant eye's shooting lens to slightly blur that eye's vision, letting the dominant eye's sight picture take over. The speaker's point is that this is a brain-training process, not a permanent crutch, and the blur gets dialed back session by session until both-eyes-open shooting becomes automatic.

Key points

• The method: smear a small amount of chapstick on the non-dominant eye's lens so that eye's image goes slightly blurry while both eyes stay open.
• Why it works: the blur is just enough to let the dominant eye lock onto the sights without the other eye competing for focus.
• The progression: each day at the range, use less chapstick than the day before, tapering it down over four or five sessions.
• The goal: by the end of that stretch, the shooter no longer needs the chapstick at all because the subconscious mind has learned to prioritize the dominant eye's sight picture.
• The exception: the speaker notes that if the sole focus is competition accuracy and the tightest possible shot group, closing the non-dominant eye is a reasonable option instead.

Quick take

This is a simple, cheap drill for anyone who's been closing one eye out of habit and wants to build real both-eyes-open shooting for broader awareness. The chapstick trick won't look sharp at the range, but Tactical Rifleman's point is that the payoff is a trained subconscious, not a party trick.

Watch the full video: Tactical Rifleman