All Outdoor

The branding of gear companies is often overlooked in favor of the quality and design of the products. But a logo is indicative of a brand’s progress and transition over time; it’s also highly visual on products and can even add to the appeal of a knife.

As demonstrated at SHOT Show, many knifemakers are in flux–major knife companies like Spyderco and Kershaw are trying to break into the higher-end market with high-quality options, and niche brands are creating new models for everyday use. And some companies, like Columbia River Knife & Tool (CRKT), are trying to fill the spaces created by these transitions.

CRKT has had a unique reputation among knife collectors. Because of their accessibility at outdoor stores, CRKT knives were often assumed to be an affordable option (euphemistic for “lower quality”) aimed toward casual gear customers. Whether or not that’s an accurate statement on CRKT’s 20+ years as a knifemaker–I’ve personally encountered many CRKT knives, some of which are beautiful and well-made, others not so much–doesn’t change its reputation across industry forums and message boards. But its recent rebranding campaign suggests that its knives should and will be taken seriously by a growing EDC culture.

Over the years I’ve shot a lot of things, but the most fun and addictive are those metal targets that give an audible ting, bong, or clang when hit. If you have watched any shooting sports or tactical TV, then you know steel shooting targets are hugely popular for all areas of sport, target, and tactical training.

The advantages of steel targets go way beyond just the cool sound they make when hit.  Steel targets make for a cleaner range and more efficient range visits due to the time saved from setting up targets and checking to see if you hit the target.

Steel targets are one of the most effective training aids a shooter can have at his/her disposal. The audible impact of steel delivers fast feedback, especially during rapid fire drills, and the bullet splashes record shot placement. Generally, just a quick blast of cheap spray paint renews, protects and resets the lead/copper marked target for your buddy to have his turn.

However, steel targets do have some dangers. I’m talking about ricochets, which I have experienced first-hand. I was hit twice in the chest with ricochets, and suffered a couple fractured ribs, two deep tissue bruises which extended in 12” radiuses on my body from the impact, and the privilege of being on blood thinners for almost four months during my recovery. For the re

I recently got the opportunity to get a pair of the Lacrosse Footwear Aerohead Boots and give them a try during the tail end of duck season.  I first set hands on them at the ATA Show in 2013 and sat down with them for the tutorial on how they were constructed and why they’re superior to the standard rubber boots that are on the market now.

My eyes glazed over a bit on the science part, but it all has something to do with a sealed seam neoprene sock that has the lower boot and shin guard attached to the front by magic or pressure molding; then they inject extremely durable foam around the sock to make a waterproof boot.  

While at the ATA show a kind gentleman at their booth claimed that you could stab them with a pen and that the abuse would not puncture the boot; and right then and there he did just that.  So needless to say I was impressed.  My reluctance about the boot was mostly due to the way they look — they have a slightly odd foot shape, and the upper of the boot looks more like something out of an 80′s Hip Hop video from MC Hammer, but it’s all good if it works.  Then I tried them on — wow, comfortable.  So I thought no way, anything this comfortable out of the box can’t be tha

Sporterizing of military surplus rifles has a very bad reputation. Usually, that involves roughly chopping the stock to reduce weight, removing protective ears from around the front sight, and other irreversible steps, turning a historic artifact into a hunting rifle of marginal utility. The practice made some sense back when military surplus rifles and ammunition for them were dirt cheap, while factory sporters relatively expensive. But that hasn’t been the case for a decade or more.

The whole concept of turning military rifles into sporting arms dates back to the 1890s, when surplus Berdan rifles retired from Russian army service were turned into 16ga and 12ga shotguns, as well as various pistol caliber carbines. Those guns were more affordable than most commercial offerings, but they were rough and ready and not very prestigious.

By contrast, more impressively finished and fitted factory sporters came out of West European armories alongside the standard military models. One such example is based on the German 1888 Commission rifle. Although dismissed as a mere stopgap before the

MG Industries (MGI) has offered their MARCK-15 Hydra AR-reminiscent rifle for some time now. Its design allows users to change barrels in less than one minute, and to change calibers in less than two minutes.

Even more interesting is that the system offers modular mag wells, and with the correct parts this rifle can accept both 5.56 NATO magazines and AK 7.62×39 magazines, along with a number of others, as well. You can also swap uppers to burn handgun groceries like 45 ACP. It’s mighty keen.

These guns have been around for a few years now, but the latest word is that the company will be shipping all new production Hydras in pistol cases. Not only does it illustrate how very compact the rifles can be, but it also saves shipping and shelf space for dealers and makes storage easier for buyers. Nice.

On Hackaday, Shenzhen shows how you can make homemade taser-proof clothing by adding carbon fiber to the clothes’ lining.

Make a cut at the bottom of the lining of your jacket or any clothes. Put a strip of iron-on no-sew hem tape, top with a strip of carbon tape. Press with an iron. Convenient to operate if cut small pieces of carbon tape and spread it inside his jacket, like a mosaic. Place the strips of carbon tape as close as possible to each other, to avoid gaps. Step by step, fill the entire area of your jacket with the carbon tape.

Shenzhen’s tests show that the electric current flows through the carbon tape and not through the human body. Even if the taser’s needle pierces the skin.

Who needs a GoPro when you can record a hunt from your own trail camera! This guy shot a 9-point buck while he was swapping out the memory card on his trail camera during opening day.

Over the last year I have reviewed four distinctly different take-down firearms that can each fill a unique niche stuffed in different types of bug out bags ranging from big power, lightweight and ultra light design, and reliable utility. These firearms include the Henry AR-7 Survival Rifle, Mossberg JIC II Shotgun, the Pack Rifle, and the Ruger 10/22 Takedown model.

Originally developed by Armalite, then poorly produced and riddled by problems when produced by Charter Arms and then Survival Arms, the AR-7 design has now been rescued by Henry Repeating Arms who has updated this historic design. This is a very light rifle that is totally waterproof and even floats. The AR-7 will stow inside the buttstock, delivering a short packable 16.5″ length. Pop off the buttpad, pull out a magazine, the action, and barrel, and screw it all together. In under a minute, you have a working, semi-auto 8-shot firearm all without the need for secondary storage and it floats which is a huge plus for the boaters.

Brownells is a name known to just about anyone in the gun industry. For 3/4 of a century, this family-owned company has been supplying gunsmithing supplies to gunsmiths and shooters alike. They’ve managed to corner a large share of that market by providing quality merchandise and excellent customer service.

The company recently expanded into hunting supplies, and apparently that has worked well for them because they’re now offering archery gear for hunters and target archers. Beginning immediately, they say they offer “nearly 10,000 products from the greatest brands in the industry for bowhunters, crossbow shooters, tournament archers, bowfishers and recreational archers of all kinds.”

“I think it’s great Brownells is serving the archery customer now,” said Pete Brownell, CEO of Brownells. “Many of us are bowhunters and competitors at Brownells, and when existing customers told us they wanted archery products from us, it made the decision to jump in with both feet an easy one. We’ve been serving outdoorsmen and women for 75 years; this is just another way for us to continue fulfilling their shooting-related needs.”

Apparently, this move also means that all of these products will carry Brownells’ unmatched custome

The Calguns Foundation and The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) are claiming legal victory in a court ruling yesterday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

A case (Sykes v. McGinness) originally filed in 2009 challenged restrictive handgun carry license issuing policies in two California counties (Yolo and Sacramento). After Sacramento County agreed to relax its policy, the case against Yolo County was pursued as Richards v. (Yolo County Sheriff Ed) Prieto, with the support of SAF and Calguns.

The case was brought about because requests for concealed carry permits had been denied arbitrarily. Applicants were faced with having to prove “good cause” before they could receive a permit, which meant they had to show some cause why they should receive their Constitutional right to bear arms. Jumping through hoops to receive a God-given and Constitutionally-guaranteed right is, of course, wrong.

The initial May, 2011 ruling in the case was for the Sheriff and against freedom, and is quoted in part below:

Under the statutory scheme, even if Plaintiffs are denied a concealed weapon license for self-defense purposes from Yolo Cou

The t-shirt reads “Just for the Halibut”. I thought it was a perfect tourist prize for a flatlander fisherman that just caught a 65-pound Alaskan Halibut off the coast of Seward, Alaska. There are a lot of thrills on the face of this earth but deep sea fishing off Alaska has certainly got to be one of them especially for a guy from the south.

Truth be told though, I was not a neophyte at hali fishing when I landed this monster. This was my fourth trip to Alaska for salmon and halibut fishing and I have since been one more time. I have strong thoughts about going back again if I could find a break in the air travel expenses.

Before I talk about this fishing trip and how to get connected for such a trip, let me extol the virtues of a vacation trip to Alaska. If you have not yet been there, then it needs to be moved to the top of your bucket list. The Last Frontier is one panoramic view after the next no matter which direction you look. Every turn on every highway in the outskirts is a post card of the most spectacular aura. I have been around the world, but few places can match the landscape of our own 50th State of Alaska.

Having been five times now with my brother we have an 8-9 day trip agenda pretty well worked out. We travel on a Friday, me from Jackson, Mississippi and Kenny from Seattle via Olympia,

Keltec PLR22 with standard 25rd magazine.

At first glance, Keltec PLR22 and Crickett .22 Hunter pistols couldn’t be more different. Keltec is a semi-auto feeding from 10, 25 and 50 round magazines, Crickett is a single-shot bolt action. They do weigh nearly the same (PLR22 is 2.8lbs, Hunter is 2.5lbs) and have similar barrel length (10.1″ on the PRL vs 10.5″ for the Hunter), but in every other aspect fall on the opposite sides of the .22 pistol spectrum.

Reloading is a pursuit that provides satisfaction to many people worldwide, and it’s a great way for shooters to create ammunition at home. Whether they are loading in bulk for three-gun competition, putting together a few dozen handgun rounds for the range, loading shotgun shells for skeet, precision loading for long-range target work, or just creating a good hunting round for a particular rifle, reloaders can easily find benefits in what they do.

Reloading can also be a very dangerous thing, especially when mistakes are made, or when boundaries are pushed. Finding and heeding a good source of load data is crucial, and Dad taught me to look in a number of different sources for comparison’s sake.

There’s no replacement for reloading manuals, which are provided by manufacturers of ammunition, reloading components such as bullets, and reloading equipment. One great source of info can be powder makers, since they above all others know what their products are capable of doing.

Hodgdon Powder Co., Inc, has long provided online loading data, and they recently overhauled that area of their website. These days, one company owns and produces Hodgdon powder, IMR powder, and Winchester powder, which means their data will cover a large swath of the powders used by reloaders.

Here’s what

In my time on this earth I have seen and used loads of stoves powered by all sorts of things: wood, kerosene, unleaded gas, alcohol, propane, and so on. But I have to admit, the Storm Kettle is one of the most impressive stoves I’ve used. In a survival or outdoor situation, “simple” is good because I guarantee “complex” will fail you at the worst possible moment. As far as gas stoves, my simple white gas/gasoline pump up single burner Coleman stove has never failed me, and my Weber Little Smoky works every time, but I was looking for a good option for a packable wood or scavenged fuel powered stove which would deliver simple boil and cook capability for camping, hiking, and preparedness.  Go figure that some Irishman long ago wanting a hot, easy and fast cup of tea would come up with a simple answer that will even work during stormy Irish days.

The original Storm Kettle design was made of copper and used on a number of trips by John Grindlay, and eventually he decided tweak the design back in his hom

It always seems to be a chore to cook for everyone that shows up at the hunting or fishing camp or other family event. You can just about mess up every pot and pan in the kitchen trying to fix something that will appeal to (nearly) everyone.

Well, now that problem can be solved with a relatively new cooking tool on the market: the Can Cooker. Invented and refined by Seth McGinn, this unique steam driven “milk can” cooker will fix a whole meal at one time.

The Can Cooker looks like an old fashioned milk can, because while working a cattle operation as a young boy back in Nebraska, Seth’s crew would pile ingredients into a real milk can and set it on the open fire while they worked branding cows. By noon the whole dinner was ready to be served. He got the idea to update the concept and produced the Can Cooker.

Built out of food grade anodized aluminum, the Can Cooker can be filled up with hundreds of recipes and then put on a variety of heat sources. This might be a conventional electric or gas stove top, a campfire, camp grill, or propane cooker.

The contents are brought to a boil, as indicated by white steam escaping the vent on the top of the clamped cover. Once the steam starts the Can Cooker is allowed to cook for roughly an hour, and then set aside for fiv

Turkey season is coming on strong, and will be here before you know it. A recent announcement from Tristar Sporting Arms about a new tactical turkey gun made me wonder how many hunters prefer tactical guns over traditional ones.

When it comes to hunting shotguns, the word “tactical” usually means it has a pistol grip descending from the butt stock, rather than the more traditional buttstock with a built-in grip portion. The addition of a picatinny rail and high sights on the Raptor ATAC (see photo above) add to its tactical-ness.

While I prefer traditional guns, and usually hunt turkeys with an ancient over/under shotgun made in the 1930s rather than toting a newer scattergun, I do appreciate what a pistol grip can do for a gun’s vertical stability. Grabbing that grip gives a shooter very good control of the gun and allows your hand to be in a somewhat more natural position.

The high sights, I’m not so sure about, but raising the line of sight above the shotgun may allow more of the target to be viewed, rather than letting the barrel and receiver hide much of it. This is more advantageous for turkey hunting than for traditional shotgunning such as wingshooting, skeet, etc.

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CRKT has always been innovative in delivering functional tools with a cool twist, and that’s certainly true of the Para-Saw Survival Bracelet. Very few items in a survival kit offer more utility than a length of 550 paracord. You get plenty of functionality from normal, intact paracord, and once you pull out “the guts” them all those little strands add up to a limitless list of uses.

Although I’m sure some bored military man created the first survival paracord bracelet deep in a WWII foxhole, I could not find a validated source of the first survival bracelet ever created. Most claim the first paracord bracelet dates back to WWII when paracord was first widely used on parachutes. After hitting the ground the troops would cut off lengths for other uses before hiding the chutes.

Cord bracelets have been around as a fundamental staple of jewelry since the dawn of time, but the invention super strong 550lb paracord material has made such jewelry highly functional, as well. Depending on the stitch/weave used, the length of cord packed into a survival bracelet can vary from less than a foot to 25 feet for complex woven bracelets. The “cobra” stitch is by far one of the most common methods for making a paracord  bracelet, and it packs approximately 1

A snake fought, wrestled and then ate a crocodile whole following a dramatic five-hour long battle. The incident was captured on camera below.

In my Salient International Glock 17 review, I featured a Galco holster and I received so many emails and questions that I decided a review was called for. The main question was “is that holster as gorgeous as it is in the photos?” The answer is definitely “yes.” In my experience Galco holsters are the finest production holster money can buy.

Like so many companies in the firearms industry, Galco International has a very storied past. The company was founded by Richard N. Gallagher in 1969 in Chicago, Illinois, and was originally known as “The Famous Jackass Leather Company. ” The company specialized in horsehide holsters, which many still consider the best gun leather available.

In 1980 the name was changed to Galco International and later was moved to Phoenix, Arizona where Galco resides today. Chances are you have already seen and drooled over the stunning quality of the Jackass shoulder holster system when it became a “recurring character” on the popular 1980’s TV series Miami Vice. Galco continues to be a favorite choice of Hollywood, appearing in more films and TV shows than any other holster maker. If you see a stunning looking leather holster prominently portrayed, chances are extremely high that it is a Galco.

For one reason or another I always seem be short either one upper or own lower for a matched set. At one point I was cruising the information superhighway looking for something unique in another lower receiver and I landed on the GT Virtual Concepts (GTVC) website, and saw a video of their in-house machine shop creating their own AR-15 billet lower receiver with a unique look. So I ordered one for review.

The fit and feel of this lower receiver are excellent, and the finish is a deep black Type III mil-spec hard anodizing. The GTVC Billet lower matted up perfectly to a variety of upper receivers I tested it on. without any goofy overhangs.

If you only have seen forged lower receivers then you most likely have noticed that the forging process does leave surface imperfections, and even some billet receivers I have seen can be a little rough. Most companies count on bead blasting to overcome imperfections; GTVC on the other hand completely finishes the receiver on the machine. This is from my understanding unique to the company and quite impressive after you see the finish. Keep in mind it has not been bead blasted at all. The finish on the GTVC Billet lower conveys the precision medical field tolerances that the company works to, because they are defin