It is widely considered best to shoot with your dominant eye, so if you’re left eye dominant shoot left-handed. This is particularly true with shotguns for two reasons:

1. It doesn’t take a great deal of fine dexterity to manipulate and fire a shotgun. With a little practice you can shoot as well pulling the trigger with your weak hand as with your dominant hand.

2. Bird shooting depends significantly on instincts associated with binocular vision and a full field of view. You seriously handicap yourself if you don’t keep both eyes open when shooting a moving target!

As for putting pads on the stock: I have tried several variants, but none are ideal. Anything that disrupts a repeatable weld between you and the gun will reduce your accuracy potential. Pads that aren’t securely fixed to the gun will slide around with every shot and not stay exactly where you need them. That’s irritating after just a few rounds of clays; forget about dealing with those on an all-day pigeon shoot!

Especially if you have the opportunity to do a high volume dove shoot please invest in finding or fitting a stock that fits you! If, after getting a gun that fits and practicing a good weld you still want some recoil protection, I recommend modifying the stock with a Gracoil or Edwards recoil reducer. If that’s not an option, or still isn’t enough, the last step would be to buy a shoulder pad like the 1cm-thick PAST pads that can be worn over or under your shooting jacket.

I have a couple of questions:

1. Im left eye dominant and shoot right hand. What if I put a patch on my total left lens ?

2. Are those pads that you place on the top of the stock of any help ??? If yes, can you give me an email address where I can get one?

Thanks a lot. Jaime