All firearm suppressors work the same way. When a trigger is pulled and the striker ignites a primer and sends a bullet down a firearm barrel, it’s trailed by hot and expanding gases from the combustion of primer and powder. Suppressors collect, ...
Gear
Understanding Knives: Blade Shapes
Cutting implements were among the first tools human beings ever created. Throughout history, we’ve created an impressive number of blade shapes fashioned from bone, stone, and steel. A whole lot of blade shapes have been created over the past few ...
4 Tips for Choosing the Right Road Running Shoe
Whether you prefer the urban hustle, quiet country roads, or well-heeled suburbia between the two, running can be an enjoyable, long-term exercise regimen and not the painful grind so many people perceive it to be. The key is finding the right ...
What You Need to Know About Fishing Kayaks
Kayaks make an ordinary angler a fishing ninja. They’re stealthy. They can get into target-rich skinny water that a larger boat can’t reach and would be impossible to wade, and they hold all the gear you’ll need for a day on the water or a multiday ...
How to Choose the Right Trail Running Shoe
Rolling uphills and downhills. Rocks, tree roots, and muddy stretches. Creek bed crossings. Brush-lined, single-track paths. Tall grass, slippery leaves, and steep switchbacks. At first glance, trail running can seem intimidating. The truth is, not ...
Camp Stoves 101: Understanding and Choosing the Right Cooker
There is nothing better than cooking over an open fire, but it’s not without its challenges. Regulating heat is difficult, and getting the right amount of flame and ember can be tough for even the most experienced fire-builder. The best choice for ...
Pro Tips For Shooting Better Outdoor Photography
Shutter speed, aperture, exposure, focal length, depth of field, composition. There’s a lot to take in if you want to up your photo game. Whether you’re using an iPhone, a point-and-shoot digital camera, or the latest and greatest Sony Alpha, putting ...
GEAR TEST: The Ultimate Replaceable Blade Knife Test
Sharpening and honing a knife blade is a necessary outdoor skill, but it’s hard to beat the convenience, weight, and surgical precision of modern scalpel-like replaceable-blade knives. Many of the most knowledgeable hunters and outdoorsmen have found ...
Starter Kit: Gear Up for Turkey Season
Turkeys are all hunted about the same way. First, you find them. Second, you call them. Third, you shoot them. It's simple to turkey hunt — but it's not easy. Spring is most hunters’ favorite time to chase turkeys because the season plays on the ...
Know Every Plant: A Cool and Useful Flora Identification Smartphone App
Sometimes the Instagram ads really nail you. No, I’m not talking about the cheap Made-in-China adult onesie it tried to sell me or the arthritis pain gel that got Paula Abdul dancing again. (How old do you think I am, IG?) But in my case, the ’Borg ...
Here Are the Reasons for the National Ammunition Shortage
Thanks to the pandemic and its one-two punch on the economy, I was furloughed from my day job — at a major health care provider in Michigan — in the middle of last summer. To pass the time, I took a seasonal gig behind the gun counter at a local ...
From Battle to Field: 5 Popular Military Knives That Are Also Great Hunting Knives
Every human has the knife-appreciation gene in their blood. We’ve inherited the recessive trait from our earliest and most inventive hunter-gatherer brethren. While the trait is not expressed in everyone, for those who served in the military or spend ...
Starter Kit: Learn To Cross-Country Ski
Flat, straight trails. Skinny, pointed skis. Boots that look more like high-tech sneakers. Bindings that only lock you in by your toes. It’s easy to think that cross-country skiing is the awkward junior high version of downhill that somehow missed ...
Starter Kit: Learn How To Ice Fish
To the uninitiated, ice fishing can seem like a masochistic endeavor: Drag a sled full of gear out onto a frozen windswept lake in frostbite temps, gouge a hole through ice that’s up to 2 feet thick, drop a line in the water, and sit on a bucket or ...
Understanding Blades: The Survival Knife
There is no such thing as a survival knife. Knives have been called that and have been marketed that way — as some kind of magical tool that will save your ass in some unlikely situation. But that idea is inherently flawed. Sure, some general ...
How To Pick Out Your First Deer Rifle
Whatever your reason for reading this piece, you’re somewhat interested in the subject of deer hunting — the adventure, the benefits of harvesting your own meat, or the camaraderie with friends and family. Choosing your first deer rifle shouldn’t be ...
ATF Reverses Course on Honey Badger-Style AR Pistols — Again
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has reversed course on plans to reclassify AR-style pistols with stabilizing braces such as the Honey Badger from Q LLC. In a letter released two days before Christmas, the ATF withdrew its ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Adventure Travel Wish List
Shopping for traveling adventure seekers is tough. So much gear marketed at globe-trotters is straight junk, like outlet adapters we’ll never need, passport wallets, or goofy hats and vests. And a good adventure, if anything, helps us pare down on ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Hunting Wish List
When we’re not making coffee or printing T-shirts, you can bet the crew here at Black Rifle Coffee Company and Free Range American are out hunting. How into hunting is this team? The HR department gives away hunts for filling out internal work ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Fishing Wish List
The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and for outdoors enthusiasts that means one thing: new gear. New gear to gift our buddies who fish and hunt. New gear to put in our own letters to Santa. This year, FRA decided to go big and asked ...
Honey Badger vs. the ATF: What You Need To Know
Update: The ATF Reverses Course, Again Last week, Q LLC, manufacturer of the boutique Honey Badger AR pistol, made public an Aug. 3 cease-and-desist letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that seemed to outlaw ...
Bushcraft Knives vs. Survival Knives
The terms “bushcraft knife” and “survival knife” probably go back to the 1980s. The first comes from a seminal book by the Canadian survival expert Mors Kochanski. Bushcraft was published in 1987 and is an instruction manual on how to live in the ...
Is This Hunting App Worth $100?
In the second week of my 2019 elk hunt I was playing the public land shuffle — bouncing around forest service and Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, roads trying to locate elk while avoiding other hunters. No stranger to this game, I had pre-plotted ...
There’s Something About MOLLE: The History and Evolution of the Modern Tactical Load Carrying System
The modular lightweight load-carrying equipment (MOLLE) platform has been an integral part of the standard-issue military backpacks since the early days of the Global War on Terror. Since then, first responders have also embraced elements of this ...
GEAR TEST: The Ultimate Bino Harness Shootout
With binoculars ranging in price from $300 to $500 for entry-level glass to more than $3,000 on the high end, it only makes sense to protect them. Not long ago, that meant a harness of a few elastic straps that held exposed binoculars close to the ...
Review: Garmin’s Instinct Tactical is Fit for the Wild
When people think of Garmin, they generally think of the first GPS unit they had for their vehicle. But Garmin’s global positioning system technology is used across a variety of industries, including aviation, marine, fitness, and outdoor recreation. ...
Backcountry Water Sterilization: 4 Methods for Drinking Clean Water While Off the Grid
When it comes to going off the grid, whether it’s backpacking, hunting, or fishing, water is a basic need. One can survive for weeks without food but only days without water. Unfortunately, humans are not equipped to drink water from natural sources ...
Review: The Tyto 1.1 is a Knife Every Outdoorsman Should Own
Hunters across the United States head into the wilderness each autumn in search of various game. Aside from their weapon, the most important item that every should hunter carry is a good knife, which allows them to properly care for the meat after ...
Review: Stay Warm with Eberlestock’s -22 Degree Euro Down Sleeping Bag
Looking up through the spruce trees, I could see the stars, bright and sharp overhead. A cold breeze blew all night, and the day had been cold enough to half-freeze my water bottle while I hiked. But tucked into my sleeping bag in a bivouac camp, I ...
Sitka’s Fanatic Jacket and Bib: The Ultimate Cold Weather Whitetail Hunting Outlayer System
While there’s a certain segment of the population who views the dropping temperatures and falling leaves as a sign for all things pumpkin spice and flannel, there’s a whole other segment who sees a purer purpose: the rut. In most areas of the United ...
