All Outdoor

PETA has long been known to go to extremes to show that it values animals higher than it does people… and lately, it’s going to new heights in order to harass hunters.

Three armed and masked men took guns into a Marathon gas station in Canton, Ohio, and attacked a clerk. The clerk was armed, though, and he fought back.

To say that I am a fan of WMD guns and their finishes is an understatement. After purchasing a Barnes Precision Machine (BPM) WMD coated AR-15, WMB NiB-X coating my Browning A5, and even testing a prototype WMD Beast rifle, I have been very impressed. The NiB-X coating is super slick and durable. In the case of my Browning it was a transformative upgrade from durability, looks and cycling. In the case of my BPM AR-15 and this recently introduced WMD Ultimate AR-15 Chassis, they are the slickest cycling AR-15 rifles I own.

With a $125 a piece to spend on a knife and a light you can do quite well. Benchmades are now readily available. High quality flashlights abound. Even the most ardent gear geek can be satisfied for a lifetime with a pair that comes in at $250. This particular light/knife pair of recommendations has been unchanged since I originally wrote up recommendations three years ago. This is about a close to a set of classics as you can find, though this year I was tempted sorely to go in a different direction. Utility won out and the pair remains unchanged:

Someone in Oklahoma has learned a valuable lesson. It’s one that most of us already know: Don’t break into peoples’ houses.

I am sure almost every boy wanted to be a cowboy at one point or another. I seemed to alternate between pretending to be both the good guy and the bad, but I always had my dual cap guns strapped to my waist scaring the crap out of one or another stray cat on the property. I would sneak up on them and “Pow Pow”, then giggle like made. Never have liked cats, and still don’t. Mom and dad definitely got mileage from that cowboy outfit and accompanying cap guns.

You have worked all spring and summer keeping your feeders filled, building new deer stands or fixing old ones, planting food plots and planning hunting strategies for your first fall hunt. Each time you checked your feeders, food plots or game trails, you were encouraged by new deer sign, fresh tracks, rubs, scrapes and other signs that deer continue to use the area. But, now that archery or early gun season opening day are here, you’re not seeing the deer you expected to see and now you may be asking yourself, where are the deer? Or, what did I do wrong? When this happens, and believe me it happens to all of us, there are several factors to keep in mind. Let’s discuss a few.

A deer camp is a special place. There’s nothing better than sitting around the campfire watching the flames dance against the woods line, talking over the day’s hunt with plans for tomorrow, eating a roasted hot dog or a melted marshmallow and taking in the subtle scents of perfume. Perfume? Say what?

At this point in our gear recommendations series we are entering the price points where you can get real, great gear. I feel much more confident about my opinions now that I have finally reviewed each of the major company’s standard bearer blades, quite a few of which are in this price range.

The last time I looked most of the ATV manufacturers have labels right on their ATVs giving a recommended age for its use. I feel certain, too, that the owner’s manuals probably have many safety suggestions listed as well. Of course, you have to read the manual to know that.

Scrapes are often compared to calling cards and singles bars, but I believe a more accurate comparison is a truck tire. Drive into any farmyard, and the first male dog that runs up will lift his leg on your tire. At the next place, another one will sniff the work of the first and leave his mark, and so on.

Now this is cool. The folks at Miggo – an Israel-based company which got its start via Kickstarter – have expanded their nifty multi-purpose protective gear to include binoculars as well as cameras.

Some outdoor sports put us in harm’s way, and life is unpredictable. This air horn might be something worth taking with you, next time you head into the great outdoors.

Gear geeks will consider $25 each on a knife and a light as a pittance, but in reality, the vast majority of people owns a light and saber pair in this price range. The challenge, it seems to me, is to figure out what you want to spend your dollars on. In the $25 price range you basically have to take what you are given, but here you have enough money to demand at least one really good thing–materials, design, carry–something. You don’t have enough to get an awesome well-rounded package, but at roughly $25 per tool, you can, if you are careful, get some damn good stuff.

The rimfire silencer has not changed much since its invention in the early 1900s. Most silencers (now known more as sound suppressors in the US or moderators in the UK) are comprised of a robust machined blast chamber and lighter baffles in a stack.

I’m trying to determine which would be more terrifying: Hearing the howls and waiting for them to arrive, or seeing one which would imply that they’re already surrounding me.

It’s National Preparedness Month, and I usually take some time right about now to go over my preps. One of the big issues that has come up in the past few years is our family food supply — I’ve got a large cache of MREs and many of them are starting to expire. So, I took this opportunity to do a big food purchase — specifically, a one-years supply.

Triple Aught is one of my favorite gear makers right now, and they’ve just announced a slick-looking half-zip wool sweater called the Pursuit.

A year or so ago, I worked with Houlding Precision to tailor fit a lightweight battle rifle to me. The company was just getting started transitioning from a precision agriculture focused machine shop into top shelf firearms. Yep, quite a switch. Houlding Precision has done well since then — very well. In fact ,they even make the billet receivers in an OEM relationship for a few notable companies including JJFU – Jesse James Firearms Unlimited. Under their own firearm label, they have grown and grown. Indeed, the last two years have been painful for them from a growth perspective just the way it has for other top tier AR-15 companies.

At the press of a button, rangefinders bounce a laser beam off your target. An internal clock measures the time it takes for the beam to reach the target and back and calculates the distance to within +/- 1 yard or less. The range is then displayed in yards/meters on an internal LCD display in less than a second