Why Do Trap Shooters Wear Blinders? Clay Shooting For Beginners

When trap shooting, you need the right equipment to make your shot more accurate, and blinders are one such piece of equipment that can be of great use. When you mount your gun and focus on the target with both your eyes, it can be difficult to have the right angle, which is why trap shooting is easier with the help of blinders.

Blinders can deal with many different problems that you can encounter on a trap line or range. They help in keeping the wind and debris away without bothering your eyes and allow you to stay focused on a specific line of sight.

There are two kinds of blinders commonly present today, side blinders and flip-up blinders. Most people tend to wear side blinders, but if there’s a competition where precision is of utmost importance, then shooters opt for flip-up blinders. These translucent flipping blinders are better suited to your eyes instead of the solid colors, and they provide you with good peripheral vision. On the other hand, side blinders work best for your focus only.

Blinders And Eye Dominance

Eye dominance is a natural tendency in everyone where they favor one of their eyes over the other one and at the same time maintain binocular vision. This is a subconscious act carried by most people, and eye dominance is due to a neurological preference. For right-handers, the dominant eye is usually the right one, whereas left-handers prefer the left eye. However, in some cases, the brain doesn’t have any preference, and this is known as cross-dominance.

In order to discover your dominant eye, you simply need to place an object at a distance. After placing it, point the finger at the object and look along your arm to the object and focus on it. Try to shut each eye and take turns. Your dominant eye will be pointing straight at the object, whereas your non-dominant eye will be pointing at the side. However, if both of your eyes do not work, then you may have a central vision, which means that your eyes share the same view and no eye is dominant over the other.

What these blinders do is that they allow you to focus on your dominant eye and make you see the target easily. If you are trap shooting and have trouble focusing using your front site and want more clarity with the target, then blinders are your best friend. They not only provide you with good vision but also prevent the sun from glaring in your eyes.

trap shooting blinder

The Problem With Flip-Up Blinders

Even though flip-up blinders can be great for your focus, they are not ideal in the long run. This is because if you are shooting with your eye closed for more than 10 minutes, your dominant eye will start to get double vision. Your eye picture will start to double up, and you will see your target stacked up over one another, which will be a very weird picture to deal with.

Furthermore, apart from the double vision, flip-up blinders can also give you a headache after long-term use. If you are shooting in the sun with these blinders and you take them off after 20-30 minutes, then you can get dizzy because your non-dominant eye will not be accustomed to the sun. The entire experience of flip-up blinders can be very uncomfortable, and it can also provide you with a headache, bad target shots, and a tired feel.

Flip-up blinders also include eye patches, and even though they give you a pirate-y look, they aren’t very cool in performance. These eye patches put your eye in the dark and help you focus on the target, but once you take them off, users can feel an instant sting of headache pain due to their eyes getting exposed to the sun. The change from complete darkness to light around can damage your eye and even weaken it, depending on how much you use these blinders.

trap shooting blinder wear

Should I Use Blinders?

If you are new to trapshooting, then blinders can be a very good investment to make. They are not only good for beginners, but they are great for professionals as well. They can deal with plenty of different issues, such as keeping the sun glare away from your vision, avoiding wind and debris from messing with your eyes, and keeping you focused in the right direction. With the use of blinders, you can keep your eyes focused on the target and reach your full shooting potential. However, it is an important decision to make between flip-up blinders and side blinders.

A standard practice in trapshooting is to pick a spot in the target’s flight path and wait on it till the target intersects with your line of sight, and then shoot. Most shooters do not track the clay pigeon and instead take a shot while their weapon stays moving, but this does not have a good succession rate. In order to hit your target successfully, waiting for the clay is important, and this is where blinders come in. They help in focusing your attention on a generalized area, which makes them very handy.

Side Blinder For Better Performance

If you are aware of the trajectory of your clay target, then side blinders are the best option to hone your focus. If you are on a shooting line and want to keep your eyes focused, then side blinders are ideal for you. They help in keeping distractions from the side at bay, and they do not have any after-effect, such as flip-up blinders do. Furthermore, if you are in a field where the wind is strong and the sun is shining into your eyes from the side, then side blinders provide you the relief you need from such conditions. Most side blinders have an adjustability feature as well. Using this feature, you can easily set what you want to keep away from your eyes.

Keeping side blinders far back helps in reducing the sun glare that you encounter in very well-lit areas. Side blinders are very efficient in terms of performance and are loved by trapshooters because they allow them to focus on the target and make your shot 99% efficient.

trap shooters blinders


Blinders can be an incredibly excellent product for trap shooting since it helps in making your shots more efficient. These products help in keeping distractions at bay, dust, and dirt away from your eyes and keep you more focused on the clay targets in front of you. With the right blinder, you can become a professional at shooting and enjoy hitting the target every time.