Cross Dominant Red Dot

[Tungsten]

I was working on my pistol presentation with a red dot and noticed that I seem to be decent at bringing the optic to generally the same place and being able to find the dot. What I am terrible at is turning my head (like I do with irons) to line up my left eye correctly. Is it better to just keep my head completely straight and line up the dot to my right eye? That seems to be my natural instinct when seeing a threat. I don't like the idea of using two different techniques for dot and iron, but it seems like I should be as efficient as possible with dots since that is what I'm going to on all my handguns.

 

[Edwonbass]

That’s exactly how I shoot. Rifles anyway. I don’t have a pistol with a red dot.

 

[Blaster229]

You use both eyes with a dot. You look through the glass at your target. You "see" the dot and place it. You don't aim in with 1 eye.

 

[Tungsten]

You use both eyes with a dot. You look through the glass at your target. You "see" the dot and place it. You don't aim in with 1 eye.

I get that, but what is happening is I turn my head for irons. So I have that muscle memory, but with a dot I'm looking at the target straight and then having trouble converting the previous muscle memory to correspond to seeing the dot. I end up averaging it between my eyes and not seeing the dot.... that is a bad way of explaining it.

Think about it this way. I look directly at the target. Bring the gun up to my normal presentation. I don't see the dot. I then turn my head slightly like I'm still using irons, and the dot shows up perfectly in front of my left eye. So obviously my muscle memory is still set up for the left eye to see through the optic.

Should I continue to keep that left eye optic technique, or should I change my presentation so that the right eye sees through the optic while the left eye is target focused and keep my head straight towards the target?

 

[Blaster229]

How is it that you turn your head aiming iron sights? That's not normal.

You need a level presentation addressing the target, this will give you the dot. As long as the dot is on the target, the round will hit.
You don't aim the dot. Regardless of how your head is, if you see the dot on the target, that's your shot.
The hardest transition to using the dot is a perfect presentation. Everything else comes down to your mechanics.
Everything you know about aiming iron sights and how you do it has nothing to do with red dots.
Have you at least zeroed it from a support between 10 and 15 yards?