re: 9 year old son. Right handed, left eye dominant.

Saw it often when I use to shoot trap, especially in women. Most would put a sticker over the left lense of their glasses and shoot righty, but these folks here who have experienced it would know better than I would.

Been doing this my whole life. Right handed but right eye has been bad my whole life. Some kind of birth defect, but my left eye alone is better than 90% of the ppl I know. So I buy left handed rifles, bows etc. I do shoot pistols with my right hand, but look across and use my left eye.

Just speaking out my arse and not from experience, I’d think it better to practice to shoot right handed. I’m right handed and holding a rifle in my left hand would feel too awkward. Plus easier to buy right handed rifles.

I’m the same way. I spent a lot of time fighting it and closing one eye. Eventually I figured out if I slightly squint my left eye just enough to see but force my right eye to take over it worked. I’ve been doing that for 20 years with no issues.

I've done a lot of gun toting/shooting (close to a million rounds downrange myself) and have taught a lot of gun toters.

For pistols, a cross-dominant shooter needs to do one thing and one thing only - change his/her stance.

Example: A right-handed shooter will typically stand with their left foot slightly forward (not like the old Weaver stance, but like an athlete's stance - say right toe even with left heel or thereabouts.). When you stand like that, your strong side (in this case, your right) hip/shoulder are naturally slightly behind the other, making your strong side/right arm "shorter." Thus, when your hands are meeting on the pistol, it has to be slightly right of center (because your left arm is "longer and your right arm is "shorter"), placing it in front of your right eye.

For a cross-dominant shooter, just switch your feet. It'll make your weak side/left arm "shorter", thus dragging the pistol over in front of your left eye.

That's it. That's all you need to do.

Rifles depend a little more on the sight system - irons, optics (RDS or scopes), peephole sights, etc.

If it's just recreational shooting, then you can get pretty elaborate with how you go about it. For combat shooting - or shooting of any kind where something truly important is on the line - it needs to be simple and repeatable under stress.

And as with anything important, it's about getting reps in.

Edited to Add:

Our vision is best when our eyes are centered up/level in their sockets, so whatever solution you use should minimize deviation.

That's why typically it's best to just learn to shoot on the side of the dominant eye vs. extreme movements (head rolling/tilting, etc.) to get the good eye over on sights that are oriented with the strong side. Some people can pull it off okay, and that's fine. It's just something to consider as you work through it. (Add in low-light and it's even more important since our vision deteriorates anyway.)

We have two eyes to give us binocular vision and depth perception. One of our eyes does most of the "seeing" and the other provides the complimentary information to our brains. The dominant eye is dominant for that reason. You can, with some work, enhance the non-dominant eye or switch dominance.

Instead of a full blown patch, if you want to maintain a "both eyes open" habit, but retrain for dominance, just use clear glasses (which you should be wearing anyway) and smear some vasoline over the eye your current dominant eye. It'll blur the vision and force your other eye to take over, but will allow you to keep both open vs. going dark with an eye patch.

I'm the same way. I shoot well with all rifles. Handguns are harder. I want to hold it in R hand but use left eye.

I’m the same and have always shot left handed

My dad is this way and shoots a gun right handed and bow left handed.

This is mostly because growing up you just couldn't find a gun that was left handed readily, but bows were more common.

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think some of you all are over thinking this. Just close the left eye when shooting. Your brain will use the right eye.

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This. I certainly understand how changing to left handed early makes sense and I shoot my shotgun left handed often Turkey hunting. But all my guns are right handed.

I just close my left eye. Never been an issue

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How would you go about this? He’s kinda small built and wants to get first “real rifle”. Do I let him shoot crossed over? Or start now shooting lefty?

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I’m left eye dominant but right handed. I was taught to shoot by my older cousin who is left handed so he taught me left handed. I only shoot guns and pistols left handed but wish I would have learned how to shoot a bow left handed due to the eye issue. My muscles and muscles memory makes it to much of a hassle to change.
My auto loader shotgun is lh but all my other guns are right hand. It’s not really a big deal and speed of working a bolt has never been a real issue. Some prone shooters actually shoot wrong handed actions so that the bolt can be worked with the off hand and not change trigger hand.
If you keep him on right handed guns he will have more options later in life of buying selling and upgrading if he chooses.