Looking for someone with similar experience...

[Barbary]

I took a marksmanship course while on my vacation last week. I have learned that while shooting my AR-15 the following: I am right handed, but left eye dominant. While looking at bolt action rifles, I came upon a unique difficulty the bolt and safety are on the right hand side. How does one compensate for this in my situation? Input welcome.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[archer51]

Buy a left handed model. Problem solved.

[BugDude]

Plenty of left handed WWII soldiers learned how to use right handed bolt action rifles. If you need speed in cycling, a bolt action isn't the speediest alternative regardless of orientation. Semi-auto, lever, or pump would be east to operate from either side. Bolt action is about the only type that is left or right specific. Opposite oriented bolt actions are available, but hard to find and not much in terms of variety. Probably a special order (which means expensive). Not sure as I've never searched one out, but I've never seen one in my local shops either.

[Ram Rod]

You know.........I've never really thought about this situation with a bolt action rifle. Truth be known, the world was made for right handed people even though left handed people are scientifically proven to use more of the brain than right handed folks. My mother is left handed by the way. I become ambidextrous at times depending on tasks that require dexterity especially in my job. The eye dominance throws another seldom thought of scenario into the game. We'll call it cross-domination. With a pistol, it's rather easy for me to sight with either eye since I keep both eyes opened. I have more of a tendency to close my dominant right eye when shooting a pistol weak handed (left), even though I try my best not to do this. A bolt action rifle pretty much dictates a mounted scope. There's where I can see the issue with cross-dominance. I've never been in the situation myself, and likely a very small percentage of folks would have. But here's my thinking on what you've said, and I'll try and keep it simple. If you're right handed, buy a right handed rifle........manipulation of the bolt and safety will be more natural for you....even though many manufacturers make left handed models at no additional charge, you'd have to be happy with what's available, and learn to work with your left hand. To me, (and I've been in many situations with a brain conflict of using my non dominant hand, and dominant eye, or going totally opposite. I can handle this (depending on the situation and manual operation) for a certain period of time before I need to take a break as the neurons start to scatter and frustrate me to no end. It's the truth. Getting down to it, I'd suggest one of two things. A) get an eye patch for your left eye and learn to use your non-dominant right eye. In my personal opinion (and a bit of personal experience), I think this will be easier, and less short circuits in the brain, than learning to go non-dominant hand. Most of our daily habits dictate which hand we use most (and like I say......it's pretty much a right handed world) (maybe right handed folks vote more, and the lefties are smart enough not to?). Your habits and ease of manipulation lie with your dominant side for performing operations. I also believe a cross dominant person can learn to go one way or the other totally. It's more difficult, and almost impossible for a left or right (totally) dominant person to switch completely to the other side. B) There are some 45° angle mounts on the market that might help. Mount these on a normal top mount Weaver base, and your scope could be mounted to the left. That, and with rings available in various heights, might be possible for a good sight picture. Never tried it, but there might be more options than you are aware of now. The human body is far from perfect. Our creation and existence no matter what one believes wasn't perfect. Humans never will be perfect, and they have no right to even think it's possible. The universe is random, and we exist as we are simply because of circumstances we'll never understand. What gets us through life, and continuing onto our end on this earth is what keeps us going......questions and looking for answers. The day we stop having questions is the day we know everything, and that day means our end. I'm hoping the day will never come when we know it all. I seriously doubt it will ever happen. I'm almost sure it's not possible.

[Northface]

I have scopes on my bolt action rifles. So, I close my left eye, and shoot and run the action right handed.

Shotguns I shoot with both eyes open. I got a semi-auto and learned to shoot it left handed.

[QKShooter]

You can fit your AR with an EOTech Holographic since that is correctly used with both eyes open and your focus with both eyes open is out at your intended target and not on the EOTech unit at all.

Once you get the hang of NOT focusing your eyes on the EOTech you should be good to go.

I would try out an EOTech if you can find somebody in your area that has one installed on their firearm and see how that works out for you.

[adclose]

I am the same way, left eye dominate, and right handed. I've never had any problems shooting or operating the bolt. I've had people suggest I buy left handed guns, and I've even used a buddies to see if it was any better and found that it's not much of an improvement. On my open sites guns I simply use a reach over method that work well once you get used to it. And on my Scoped guns, i simply slide the left had up a little to support the gun, while I bring my right hand down to operate the bolt. Both of these methods work well and just take a little getting used to. In-fact if find if my gun is resting on a gun rest or something that I can cycle it faster than a right hand person shooting right handed, because I can leave my left hand in position near the trigger, while chambering the next round.
Very early on I tried to use my weak eye, and even with a patch my shooting was much worse!!! And without the patch I had a hard time keeping my dominate eye closed no matter how hard I tried, this led to a horrible site picture and lots of frustration. I've found that generally aiming accurately and quickly is very hard with your weak eye. It's better to just adapt to how you operate the action.