Effect on POI when occluding red dot sights

[militarymoron]

You have to be target focused.

We're assuming people know how to use red dots. Being target focused doesn't fix phoria.

[MegademiC]

We're assuming people know how to use red dots. Being target focused doesn't fix phoria.

The problem is people thinking they are target focused when they are not.


Occluding the dot is used to show you when you are and are not target focused. You physically cant be target focused and have phoria. Phoria by definition is divergence of focus.

Edit to clarify : when I say "focus" i mean eye convergence, both eyes focuswd on a singular object.

Edit 2: look at a stop sign, if you swipe your hand over an eye, does it need to refocus? No. An rds is different because attention is drawn to it.

[militarymoron]

Occluding the dot is used to show you when you are and are not target focused. You physically cant be target focused and have phoria. Phoria by definition is divergence of focus.

You're bringing up two separate issues. One is the problem people have with where they focus their attention. It's referring to where their attention is going - are they staring at the target or tracking the dot. Ben explains it in the video.

A red dot is not like the front sight on a handgun. Focusing on the front sight makes the target blurry. With a red dot - whether the target is close or far, both the target and the dot remains in focus.

Phoria is another. You can totally be target focused and experience phoria. I guarantee that when I did my phoria experiments, my non-occluded eye was 100% focused on the target, which remained sharp. The dot just moved back and forth on the target when opening and closing the front cap. My attention and focus never moved from the target. Remember that when doing the experiment, the gun remains stationary on the target in a rest. The only moving thing is the front scope cover.
It's not like shooting a handgun that's recoiling and seeing whether you're looking at the target or tracking the dot instead.

[MegademiC]

You're bringing up two separate issues. One is the problem people have with where they focus their attention. It's referring to where their attention is going - are they staring at the target or tracking the dot. Ben explains it in the video.

A red dot is not like the front sight on a handgun. Focusing on the front sight makes the target blurry. With a red dot - whether the target is close or far, both the target and the dot remains in focus.

Phoria is another. You can totally be target focused and experience phoria. I guarantee that when I did my phoria experiments, my non-occluded eye was 100% focused on the target, which remained sharp. The dot just moved back and forth on the target when opening and closing the front cap. My attention and focus never moved from the target. Remember that when doing the experiment, the gun remains stationary on the target in a rest. The only moving thing is the front scope cover.
It's not like shooting a handgun that's recoiling and seeing whether you're looking at the target or tracking the dot instead.

I know what you're talking about, one eye diverges from the target.
How fast did the dot move when you closed the cap? IME, it can be trained a bit. Also, the less time behind the occluded dot, the less divergence. If you get behind the dot and shoot in 1 sec, how far off are you? How about 0.5s?

[militarymoron]

I know what you're talking about, one eye diverges from the target.
How fast did the dot move when you closed the cap? IME, it can be trained a bit. Also, the less time behind the occluded dot, the less divergence. If you get behind the dot and shoot in 1 sec, how far off are you? How about 0.5s?

It was years ago when I shot and experienced it - both slow fire and snap shots with my AR. I first noticed it off the bench, then experimented during drills with snap shots. Doing the experiment recently with fixed rifle aimed at a fixed target, the dot shift is immediate the moment I close the cap. It jumps instantly when I switch from sighting through the optic to occluding it. Again, this is dependent on the individual's eyes; just like eyesight/prescription. Some have it worse than others. If you don't, that's great.

Have you tried shooting slowly instead of fast to quantify the shift (if any) due to phoria? Try shooting 25yd groups slow fire to compare non-occluded and occluded to get your true offset due to phoria. That's just to identify and quantify the offset if any. Then you can work on reducing the effect if you have to. What happens when you experiment at home with a fixed rifle on a fixed distant target. Any dot movement when you switch from open to occluded?

[1168]

GTF425 is a professional nerd on the human body and abnormalities thereof, and some of what y’all are debating is exactly why he trains with occluded dots. He also trains with professional shooters and likely tests these ideas on them. Plus the infantry NCO experience, which is where I picked it up as a technique to force dudes (and myself) to be more target-focused in CQB. Y’know, dudes that thought they were, but weren’t.

There’s a good reason why when he suggested that I test the shift past shoothouse distances, I immediately did, and it wasn’t just morbid curiosity. I have no doubt that some of you may have anatomical, physiological, or neuropsychological reasons this won’t work for you, but you’re almost certainly in a single-digit minority. I mean, my left eye doesn’t even work right due to a cranial nerve injury, which makes it very difficult to practice this technique with a rifle and causes me all sorts of headscratcher problems, yet I was able to demonstrate a very small shift when occluded.

[Disciple]

GTF425 is a professional nerd on the human body and abnormalities thereof, and some of what y’all are debating is exactly why he trains with occluded dots.

Are you saying it is possible to train away phoria? There are exercises like the Brock String to improve convergence but it is not clear if these can correct an underlying muscular imbalance or simply improve the use of musculature when both eyes are working together, and I wonder it helps only around the arms length distance that the String is used and not convergence at 25 yards etc.

My phoria doesn't seem to have much effect on snap shooting with a micro red dot mounted forward, but slow shooting with a scope that takes up a larger part of the eye's field of view seems unpredictable.

I'm planning to also test this with a 4x ACOG, 1-6x Razor at 1x/3x/6x, and to stretch the RDS' legs to see how far it can effectively be used while covered.

I await the results of this.