D rail....anyone tried it?

[figgy]

Not hard to make or cut out of something.

[Hamster]

In all fairness it’s not the sort of thing you can peel off and lend someone as such, it would make far more sense to just ask to have a few shots with their gun even if it happens to be a less than perfect fit or even wrong handed.

[vmaxphil]

I've got the cheap version on my 303, I find that if you don't mount the gun exactly right each time it doesn't seem to work even minutely wrong alignment, if you want to try it you are welcome to it as it was on the gun when I bought it and I don't have master eye problems 

[Smokersmith]

From being left eye dominant as a kid, I've had a journey to shoot with both eyes open.

Initially shot with one eye shut, then after taking clays up again, I tried and had some success with the small clear patches to stick on glasses.

Next step was to remove that and I used a glove on my left hand with a piece of foam attached to my thumb that obscured my barrel from my left eye (not seen a D-rail, but I guess the theory is the same).

When that dropped off … I carried on, and manage OK with both open now, although it appears that somewhere in the journey, my right eye has now become dominant.

[figgy]

Eye dominance can change with age.

[JohnfromUK]

Having had a left master eye, but being strongly right handed, I have had to cope with this one all my life - and I have tried various remedies - sights that only the right eye can see, gadgets to obscure the bead from the left eye, 'blobs' on glasses.  Only one works for me, and that is just closing the left eye as I mount the gun.  It becomes as natural as sliding off the safety, or moving to the back trigger for the second shot.  None of the various 'sights' worked for me and I believe for the following reasons;

1. If there is a 'sight', it draws the eye and concentration is drawn away from the target to the gun.  This is the biggest problem.  When all is well - I don't 'see' the bead, rib or even gun consciously at all.  I know that as soon as I start seeing the bead - I have probably missed.
2. I use several different guns, including some old s/s guns.  I don't really want to stick something on them - and also to equip every gun gets expensive.
3. Blobs on glasses spoil your normal vision and so are no use for judging distance.

Looking back - maybe I should have learned to shoot from the left shoulder - but too late now.  I admit to not being by any means a fine shot, but I can do reasonably and do enjoy being able to do so without being restricted to a 'modified' gun.

[wymberley]

3 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

Having had a left master eye, but being strongly right handed, I have had to cope with this one all my life - and I have tried various remedies - sights that only the right eye can see, gadgets to obscure the bead from the left eye, 'blobs' on glasses.  Only one works for me, and that is just closing the left eye as I mount the gun.  It becomes as natural as sliding off the safety, or moving to the back trigger for the second shot.  None of the various 'sights' worked for me and I believe for the following reasons;

1. If there is a 'sight', it draws the eye and concentration is drawn away from the target to the gun.  This is the biggest problem.  When all is well - I don't 'see' the bead, rib or even gun consciously at all.  I know that as soon as I start seeing the bead - I have probably missed.
2. I use several different guns, including some old s/s guns.  I don't really want to stick something on them - and also to equip every gun gets expensive.
3. Blobs on glasses spoil your normal vision and so are no use for judging distance.

Looking back - maybe I should have learned to shoot from the left shoulder - but too late now.  I admit to not being by any means a fine shot, but I can do reasonably and do enjoy being able to do so without being restricted to a 'modified' gun.

It is impossible to say whether this is or is not true. It can depend upon the physical characteristics of the shooter, the size of the 'blob' or the shape/fitting of the glasses, etc etc. Consequently it is misleading. It must be said that it will not suit everybody - particularly those who have no need for glasses - and those who simply don't get on with the idea. It's very much a personal "cure" but one, if it suits, that does work. I can truly say that I can only imagine that the 'blob' has been either/or/ both too big and in the wrong place as I have never had this problem and only ever see it in my peripheral vision. While it is rare but not unheard of to have the wife comment when I get home that I've left the glasses on. Being illegal on the public highway, this is unintentional but does make my point. The only thing to watch for -  assuming you're still off-road and you've strayed from the clay pigeon range to the farm - and the patch is on the left eye, is if you're reversing whatever it is you're driving and still rely on the Mk1 Eyeball to do so, make sure you remove these glasses if, like me, you look over your left shoulder to see where youre going as you'll have a very big blind spot.

[JohnfromUK]

41 minutes ago, wymberley said:

It is impossible to say whether this is or is not true. It can depend upon the physical characteristics of the shooter, the size of the 'blob' or the shape/fitting of the glasses, etc etc.

I can only relate my own experience where it retained peripheral vision - but when you looked 'straight at the target' as in mounting the gun, the 'blob' (which was in my case matt/frosted tape) - obscured the bead from the left eye - and also necessarily the target as they are on the same line from the eye.  That lost me some of the distance perception because only the right eye could see the target - so no 'stereoscopic vision' which is part of how we estimate distance.

[stu64]

hi scully someone has just listed one in other sales

[Scully]

2 hours ago, stu64 said:

hi scully someone has just listed one in other sales

Thanks for the heads up, much appreciated. 👍

[bunnykiller]

I have an aluminium one fitted to my gun,and if anyone who wants to try it sees me at a ground anywhere just ask and I will fit it to their  gun to try. 👁D

[Westley]

On 27/08/2019 at 22:03, Scully said:

glasses  know I should, but I don’t wear shooting glasses, so have nothing to tape anything over....maybe I’ll start. 

I’m with you on the looking at the target point. 

Thanks, will post results on here. 👍

How would you cope if you only had sight in your left eye  ?   I ask this because I have personal experience of a friend losing the sight in his right eye, after being struck in the face by a piece of clay. He had removed his glasses as he walked away from the stand. He has had to learn to shoot off the left shoulder and copes very well. I temporarily lost the sight in my left eye, due to a detached retina, it is certainly NOT something that I would recommend,.  I now use shooting glasses on BOTH clay and game, putting them on in the car park at clay grounds and before each drive on game shoots. Try wearing an eye patch for a day, then imagine how you would cope if that became permanent.  I have a few marks on my baseball cap peak, caused by falling clay bits from other stands,  when I have been clay shooting. That is why I wear a baseball cap and glasses all of the time, except in the club house .

[Scully]

1 minute ago, Westley said:

How would you cope if you only had sight in your left eye  ?   I ask this because I have personal experience of a friend losing the sight in his right eye, after being struck in the face by a piece of clay. He had removed his glasses as he walked away from the stand. He has had to learn to shoot off the left shoulder and copes very well. I temporarily lost the sight in my left eye, due to a detached retina, it is certainly NOT something that I would recommend,.  I now use shooting glasses on BOTH clay and game, putting them on in the car park at clay grounds and before each drive on game shoots. Try wearing an eye patch for a day, then imagine how you would cope if that became permanent.  I have a few marks on my baseball cap peak, caused by falling clay bits from other stands,  when I have been clay shooting. That is why I wear a baseball cap and glasses all of the time, except in the club house .

Each to their own. 👍

[figgy]

Crossover stocks were designed to combat opposite eye or central dominance. You can also buy a little sight that sticks out the side of the rib so you opposite eye can be used.

Sure I've posted similar pics up in past threads.

Another one is a side mounted  full length rib attached to the original rib.

Edited September 11, 2019 by figgy

[Salopian]

This thread reminds me so much of the Anglers who go to their Tackle shop every week for a pint of maggots and come away with a number of floats with orange dayglo tips .🤣🤣.

 I now know of three people who have bought these rails and it has completely ruined their ability to shoot  + the aluminium one has ripped the lining in the chaps gunslip .

[Westward]

On 02/09/2019 at 13:43, figgy said:

Eye dominance can change with age.

I've heard this from few sources but never seen any proof. Reason I mention it is because eye dominance is nothing to do with the eyes or visual acuity because it's determined neurologically. In other words it's like handedness in that it happens in the brain/neural systems.

[figgy]

1 hour ago, Westward said:

I've heard this from few sources but never seen any proof. Reason I mention it is because eye dominance is nothing to do with the eyes or visual acuity because it's determined neurologically. In other words it's like handedness in that it happens in the brain/neural systems.

Westward you could be right.

Just had a read online and some say it changes or can change twice in your life. First in puberty then in middle age from around 45 years of age.

Another says it's in the brain and most times is linked to which handedness you are. This maybe true, for me anyway as a small child I would draw and try and write with my left hand, started school and forced to use right hand. I use both hands for lots of things as I don't feel fully right handed or left handed and it can change depending on what I'm doing.  My eye dominance can change depending on where the target comes from.  Whether the info and findings of experts can help.is another matter. Even understanding it won't change it. Finding what works for you is the only way. Patch on glasses, thumb in way to obstruct. Bright shielded bead or other methods. I tried them all, ended up just making sure of perfect gun fit with a more head up position and shooting a lot more instinctively, less I see of gun or bead even in peripheral vision the better, I just trust in the gun fit and brain pulling the trigger.

As for the D Rail catching and tearing gun slip lining, few minutes with a small file and sand paper would round the sharp corners. 

I still can't fathom how the rail system works better that the eazyhit tube type. With the tube type, you can only see it when you have the correct eye rib alignment. The rail you could have your head and eye high and still see your bead and it be blanked from opposite eye.

Edited September 12, 2019 by figgy

[Hamster]

My own left dominant eye is and has always been stronger than my right, when dad bought me my first air gun aged 9 I would mount it as a right hander and try twisting my head over the stock to get my left eye lined up with the sights, I still remember him laughing and getting me to hold it “correctly”, I shot that gun with open sights with my non Dom eye and continue to do so with scoped rifles. I too don’t think master eyes changing is too common an occurrence. 

20 minutes ago, figgy said:

 

I still can't fathom how the rail system works better that the eazyhit tube type. With the tube type, you can only see it when you have the correct eye rib alignment. The rail you could have your head and eye high and still see your bead and it be blanked from opposite eye.

Stop asking logical questions.

[johnphilip]

5 hours ago, Salopian said:

This thread reminds me so much of the Anglers who go to their Tackle shop every week for a pint of maggots and come away with a number of floats with orange dayglo tips .🤣🤣.

 I now know of three people who have bought these rails and it has completely ruined their ability to shoot  + the aluminium one has ripped the lining in the chaps gunslip .

Yes same as all the fishing flies you see on display , they are to catch the angler not the fish 😂😂

[timps]

There has been a lot of rubbish written about eye dominance, I spent a fair while sifting through it and posted most of the relevant scientific papers (not old wife’s tales) on a very long thread on shotgun world a few years back, not that it did any good.

True eye dominance is governed by the neural pathways and the visual cortex, this was the sticking point until a few years ago as it was thought eye dominance was set for life once adulthood was reached.  Subsequent research, however, proves ocular dominance plasticity exists in adults so dominance can be trained or shift natural either by trauma  or stimulation. 

The ocular dominance of binocular neurons in the visual cortex is actively maintained by competition between synapses serving the two eyes. The dominant eye has in layman’s terms a fibre-optic connection while the non-dominant eye has dial up. The brains default setting is to pick the faster connection and fill in the missing bits (things the dominant eye cannot see) with the dial up connection. 

Simplistic way to alter dominance was to deprive the dominant eye for a while by use of an eye patch or occluding the eye and the brain would rewire the dial up connection to fibre-optic. The same process can happen through age if the dominant eye is not giving the visual information the brain requires, it rewires fibre-optic to the other eye to compensate.

However, with Stimulus selective response potentiation:-
(Perceptual learning, resulting in improved perception through repeated sensory experience, occurs in adults as well as children. This broad category of learning is characterised by an exquisite selectivity for the experienced stimulus.)

The thinking has changed a bit, the above is how brain training works, how the D Rail, easy hit work and can explain dominance shift in some adults. 

Basically, it has been noted in some instances, gains in perception can be restricted to the eye through which the stimulus has been viewed. If only one eye can see the sight then it alters the pathways to see that sight quicker even in a non-dominant eye, bearing that in mind it also sees the rib and clay through that eye making it the dominant eye should that stimulus come into view (i.e. as you mount the gun).

Obviously, there is a case as in my instance where dominance switches due to eye condition. For me one eye sees close for reading and one sees distance, my brain switches to my right eye due to Stimulus selective response potentiation and training so the right eye always sees the rib, the brain then does the rest with the left eye to see the clay. If I wear prescription glasses which has a distance lens  in my right eye then all is carried out by the right eye.

This is one of the reason there is no one cure for every instance we are all different. 

There are a lot more papers on it but a bit of light reading here😁. It shows that there is clear evidence that Hebbian plasticity may underlie adult perceptual learning so dominance shift and dominance training can and does happen.

Last time I posted about this in this detail on shotgun world it caused 10 pages of dominance can never change posts 🤣

 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22019003

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2013.0284

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/26/11/2951.full.pdf

[Hamster]

FWIW I’ve not trained to change dominance to my right eye, the left remains as such, I’ve simply trained to shoot effectively using the non dominant eye nonetheless. Whenever I catch myself pointing at objects close and afar (when not shooting), I’m instantly reminded that my left eye remains the fibre connnection.

[timps]

I don’t doubt it Hamster, it’s why I have said we are all different, and there is no one cure for every instance, the paper linked quite clearly states that Stimulus selective response potentiation  for one eye was seen in some rather than in all cases.

However the research seems to state that while everyday pointing or suchlike you will be left eye dominant but with the stimulus you have trained with (gun or bright bead) you will be right eye dominant and the neurons that transmit this stimulation will have been upgraded but not necessarily any other of the neurons making you only dominant to the intended stimulus.

I am in no way inferring you have changed dominance or been upgraded only that it certainly can be done in some instances and it gets quite heavy on the details so I have never bothered reading further.

Edited September 12, 2019 by timps

[Gordon R]

Timps - thanks for that.

[Scully]

On 12/09/2019 at 14:08, timps said:

There has been a lot of rubbish written about eye dominance, I spent a fair while sifting through it and posted most of the relevant scientific papers (not old wife’s tales) on a very long thread on shotgun world a few years back, not that it did any good.

True eye dominance is governed by the neural pathways and the visual cortex, this was the sticking point until a few years ago as it was thought eye dominance was set for life once adulthood was reached.  Subsequent research, however, proves ocular dominance plasticity exists in adults so dominance can be trained or shift natural either by trauma  or stimulation. 

The ocular dominance of binocular neurons in the visual cortex is actively maintained by competition between synapses serving the two eyes. The dominant eye has in layman’s terms a fibre-optic connection while the non-dominant eye has dial up. The brains default setting is to pick the faster connection and fill in the missing bits (things the dominant eye cannot see) with the dial up connection. 

Simplistic way to alter dominance was to deprive the dominant eye for a while by use of an eye patch or occluding the eye and the brain would rewire the dial up connection to fibre-optic. The same process can happen through age if the dominant eye is not giving the visual information the brain requires, it rewires fibre-optic to the other eye to compensate.

However, with Stimulus selective response potentiation:-
(Perceptual learning, resulting in improved perception through repeated sensory experience, occurs in adults as well as children. This broad category of learning is characterised by an exquisite selectivity for the experienced stimulus.)

The thinking has changed a bit, the above is how brain training works, how the D Rail, easy hit work and can explain dominance shift in some adults. 

Basically, it has been noted in some instances, gains in perception can be restricted to the eye through which the stimulus has been viewed. If only one eye can see the sight then it alters the pathways to see that sight quicker even in a non-dominant eye, bearing that in mind it also sees the rib and clay through that eye making it the dominant eye should that stimulus come into view (i.e. as you mount the gun).

Obviously, there is a case as in my instance where dominance switches due to eye condition. For me one eye sees close for reading and one sees distance, my brain switches to my right eye due to Stimulus selective response potentiation and training so the right eye always sees the rib, the brain then does the rest with the left eye to see the clay. If I wear prescription glasses which has a distance lens  in my right eye then all is carried out by the right eye.

This is one of the reason there is no one cure for every instance we are all different. 

There are a lot more papers on it but a bit of light reading here😁. It shows that there is clear evidence that Hebbian plasticity may underlie adult perceptual learning so dominance shift and dominance training can and does happen.

Last time I posted about this in this detail on shotgun world it caused 10 pages of dominance can never change posts 🤣

 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22019003

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2013.0284

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/26/11/2951.full.pdf

Thats a good post and very informative. 

As I don't seem to have much problem shooting game, I'm trying to shoot clays in the same manner in which I shoot game, which is a simple swing through, whereas with clays I seem to get bogged down with 'tracking' some rather than simply responding to them. 

[Scully]

Mate and me spent an enjoyable hour or two at Crabtree this morning. He wanted to try out new set up with his Miroku, and me the D-rail

First time I’ve been on the layout to the left of the gulley, and have to admit there were some quite testing targets thrown, but really enjoyed it. Nothing conclusive to report regarding the rail as it’s still early days, but even with 3/4 and full I was quite happy with my shooting. May open them up a tad; mate thinks they’re far too tight and I have to admit he’s probably right; I just enjoy ‘dust’! 🙂

Have never seen Crabtree as busy as it was today; struggled to get parked. 

Edited September 21, 2019 by Scully