If you spend enough time around the tactical side of the internet, you’ll notice a distinct trend. Everyone is utterly obsessed with speed. We track first-shot delivery down to the hundredth of a second on electronic timers. We practice lightning-fast reloads until our thumbs bleed.

We convince ourselves that if we ever find ourselves standing under the buzzing fluorescent lights of a late-night gas station, facing a guy with a bad attitude and a cheap Saturday Night Special, our sub-second draw stroke is going to punch our ticket to safety.

But after 25 years in uniform, I’m going to let you in on a secret: the most critical factor in surviving a convenience store stick-up happens long before your hand ever gets near a grip.

It starts with situational awareness, a few basic tactical rules of thumb, and knowing when to keep your blaster exactly where it is.

The late-night convenience store—or the “Stop ’N’ Rob,” as we affectionately called them on the midnight shift—is a statistically high-hazard environment. They are bright oases of cash and quick exits, usually sitting right off a highway or a main drag.

They attract two things in abundance: graveyard-shift workers just trying to make a living, and desperate predators looking for an easy score.

If you are a concealed carrier, walking into one of these establishments requires a complete mental shift. You aren’t just popping in for a giant fountain soda or a bag of beef jerky; you are entering a high-probability conflict zone.

Over on the main site, I’ve broken down a complete survival guide for handling these specific environments. It’s built on a mix of police experience and hard-earned street logic. We dive into the big rules that can actually keep you out of the morgue, including:

• The Pre-Flight Check: Why you need to look through the plate glass windows before your boots ever hit the pavement. If you don’t see a clerk, or if something feels off, your feet should be moving back to your truck.

• The “Target Indicators”: How to spot a robbery in progress or an ambush waiting to happen in the parking lot.

• The “Not Your Circus” Dilemma: The absolute hardest pill for most armed citizens to swallow. If a robbery kicks off while you’re standing by the coolers, drawing your gun might be the absolute worst thing you can do. If the bad guy just wants the twenties out of the till, letting him take the money and leave is a massive win for everyone involved. Cash can be replaced; your life can’t.

• The Counter-Ambush: If the situation turns violent and you must fight, how to use the tight, cluttered geometry of store aisles to your advantage instead of getting caught out in the open.

Look, practicing your draw at home is great. It builds essential muscle memory. But carrying a gun is a thinking-person’s game. Having the wisdom to avoid the fight entirely—or the restraint to let a low-level property crime play out without triggering a shootout—is what separates a truly prepared citizen from a statistic.

I put together the full tactical blueprint over at GUNS Magazine to help you audit your late-night habits.

Click here to read the full article on Surviving the Stop ’N’ Rob over at Gunsmagazine.com.

How about you? Do you have a strict set of personal rules for stopping at gas stations after dark, or do you just wing it and trust your gear? Let’s swap notes in the comments.

Summer is officially here, and depending on where you live, the weather has transitioned into that special kind of miserable where the humidity is thick enough to chew.

If you’re spending hours outdoors right now—whether you’re working a match, running a multi-day shooting class, mowing the back forty, or rucking a heavy pack—you already know that heat is a genuine safety issue. It doesn’t take much to go from “man, it’s sticky out here” to looking like someone pulled your plug.

For decades, the standard, well-meaning advice was simple: just pound more water.

But if you’ve ever spent an August at a place like Gunsite Academy, sweating through your shirt by 9:00 AM, you probably learned the hard way that water is only half the equation. If you just dump gallons of plain water into your system without replacing what you’re actually losing, you run out of gas, get nauseous, and hit the wall hard.

Naturally, this problem has spawned a massive, $6.7 billion “Big Hydration” industry.

Walk down any drink aisle and you’ll find shelves lined with brightly colored powders and neon bottles promising rapid hydration, cellular absorption, and “proprietary matrices” developed by scientists in lab coats. The labels boast about added B-vitamins for “energy,” exotic antioxidants, and rare trace minerals harvested from remote mountain peaks.

It’s marketing hype at its absolute finest.

I recently decided to bypass the marketing copy and look at the actual science of oral rehydration. Guess what? The premier medical rehydration formulas used globally to save millions of lives don’t contain rubidium or Tahitian swordfish extract. They contain three basic things: water, salt, and sugar.

When you sweat, the primary electrolyte you dump is plain old sodium chloride. Salt. And that little bit of sugar? It’s not just for flavor; human physiology absorbs water and sodium much more efficiently when glucose is present. It “greases the on-ramp” to get the good stuff out of your gut and into your system.

The trouble is, commercial sports drinks are formulated for consumers, not pure performance. A truly high-sodium drink tastes salty, so big brands compromise on the science to make it taste like fruit punch.

So, being a cynical gun writer with a pantry full of baking supplies, I decided to mix up my own five-cent range elixir based on standard rehydration science:

• 1 quart of water

• 1/2 teaspoon of standard table salt (for the sodium)

• 1/8 teaspoon of Morton “Lite” Salt (to catch the potassium)

• 1 tablespoon of sugar (to activate the absorption)

Now, I’m not going to lie to you—the sports drink military-industrial complex is not shaking in its boots over the flavor profile. Out of the pitcher, it tastes exactly like what it is: slightly salty water. It is not a delightful beverage to sip while reading light poetry.

But out on a hot trail or a blistering range day? It works exponentially better than plain water or the sugary, bright-blue stuff. To make it palatable, I just toss in a small packet of sugar-free pink lemonade mix.

It’s cheap, it’s unglamorous, and it completely strips away the marketing nonsense. If you want to impress your buddies on the range, just tell them you’re drinking a bespoke, proprietary solution of salinated dihydrogen monoxide with an added sucrose blend. They’ll probably try to buy a cup off you.

I wrote a full breakdown over at GUNS Magazine detailing the exact science behind fluid loss, why piling on extra vitamins is like overfilling the engine oil in your truck, and how to mix this up for your next range trip.

Head over to Gunsmagazine.com to read the full article and stop paying a premium for salty marketing.

What’s your go-to play for surviving a brutal summer range day? Are you mixing up your own concoctions, or are you still paying five bucks a bottle for neon-colored marketing? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

A five-gallon bucket of rotting beaver meat, a cement mixer full of oats, used cooking oil, stale pastries, and, of all things, red Twizzlers.

That is the recipe for bringing a seven-foot black bear within fifty yards of an elevated tree stand in Northern Alberta. It is nasty, sticky, smelly business. It is also the reality of predator management in the deep woods—a world miles away from the sanitized, plastic-wrapped existence of modern suburbia.

My friend Suzi Huntington, wife of my regular podcast co-host Roy Huntington, recently went north to sample this reality and joined me on the podcast (Link: @FMGPUBS) She didn’t go with a custom, high-dollar rig or a camera crew trailing her every move. She went with a Ruger American chambered in plain-jane .308, a Meopta scope, a mosquito net, and some flannel-lined jeans. Two hours into her first afternoon in the stand, she was tagged out on two massive bears—a beautiful cinnamon phase and a heavy-bodied black bear that made the other woods-critters clear the area like cartoon characters dodging a dynamite blast.

It was a clean, text-book, highly successful conservation hunt.

Then she came home, posted a couple of pictures on her personal Facebook page, and the modern digital outrage machine fired up its engines.

People Suzi grew up with—folks who haven’t seen a predator outside of a nature documentary or a city zoo—felt the burning, sanctimonious need to leave nasty comments. They didn’t stop there. They tracked down the family-run guide service’s business page to leave venomous reviews. They screamed about cruelty, they wept for the poor beasts, and they demanded to know if she was going to eat the meat.

Let’s address the last part first, because it’s where the ignorant always try to claim the moral high ground. The “eat what you kill” rule is a fine baseline for a whitetail hunter in Indiana, but nature doesn’t care about our simple rules. Susie asked the guides—men who have lived in those woods for decades—if they were going to cook up some bear steaks. The answer was a flat, disgusted NO!

These were spring bears, freshly emerged from hibernation. They had spent months living off their own fat reserves. Their meat is greasy, unpalatable and stringy. On top of that, spring black bears are notorious carriers of trichinosis. To make the meat even remotely safe, you have to cook it into dry, leathery oblivion. As the guides put it, “Even the coyotes won’t eat it.”

Yet, the keyboard warriors wanted a lecture on culinary ethics. They wanted to impose their suburban, Disney-fied morality onto a rugged, northern landscape that operates on biology, not feelings.

What these critics fail to realize—or simply choose to ignore—is that hunters are the ones writing the checks for conservation. The money spent on licenses, guides, gear, and travel feeds the local economies and directly funds the fish and game agencies that keep these wildlife populations healthy. Your weekend bird-watching trip doesn’t pay to protect the habitat; the hunter’s check does.

But the online mob doesn’t want a conversation. They want to perform moral superiority for their own peer group.

I’m tired of the entitlement of the ignorant. If you don’t like hunting, don’t do it. Keep scrolling. But don’t pretend you understand the delicate balance of game management from the safety of your air-conditioned living room while typing on a smartphone made with minerals mined by children on the other side of the world.

There’s another lesson here, and it has nothing to do with bears or bait piles. Suzi’s trip was a bucket-list adventure. It took time, coordination and hard-earned cash. A lot of people stare at those trips online for years, whispering to themselves, “Maybe next year, when the car is paid off, when I have more time, when things are perfect.”

I went to a funeral last week for one of my best fishing buddies. It was a stark, cold reminder that the clock is ticking for all of us. “Next year” is a luxury none of us are promised. If you have a dream—whether it’s hunting bears in Alberta, chasing plains game in Namibia, or just taking that cross-country road trip—stop waiting. Cut out the extra Starbucks runs, put the money aside, and make the plan.

Do it before you run out of road. And when you do have your adventure, don’t worry about what the keyboard warriors have to say about it. They’ll still be sitting on the couch, complaining about the world, while you’re out there actually living in it.

We shooters are an obsessive bunch. We will sit on the internet and spend three solid weeks arguing about the ballistic coefficient of a 6.5 Creedmoor bullet, or spend a small fortune on carbon-fiber tripods and custom bipods.

Then, we head out to a match, a prairie dog town, or a rural range, spend four hours laying belly-down in the grass to break a clean shot, and willingly serve ourselves up as a stationary, all-you-can-eat buffet for the local tick and chigger population.

It makes no sense. We obsess over “time on target” but completely ignore the fact that it is physically impossible to read the wind or pull off a crisp trigger press when a giant, blood-sucking mosquito is actively drilling into the side of your neck.

For years, rifle culture has been moving off concrete benches and into the field. Whether you’re shooting NRL Hunter, practicing field positions, or just stretching the legs on a precision rig, you are spending time on the ground. And let me tell you, the local insect population appreciates a prone shooter. You aren’t moving, you aren’t swatting—you are just a giant lump of warm blood.

That’s why my absolute favorite, unglamorous piece of summer range gear has zero M-LOK slots, no tactical laser-engravings, and costs about fifteen bucks a bottle.

I’m talking about Permethrin.

If you aren’t using this stuff yet, you are volunteering for a special kind of misery. Unlike DEET, which you slather all over your skin until you smell like a chemical plant and melt the plastic on your safety glasses, Permethrin is a chemical weapon designed strictly for your clothing and gear.

You spray your pants, socks, boots, and shooting mats until they’re damp, let them dry completely, and the microscopic molecules bond directly to the fabric. Once it’s dry, you can’t see it or smell it. But to a bug? It’s Death Row.

I became an absolute apostle for the stuff while hiking through Southern Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest—a place I affectionately refer to as “The National Tick Refuge.” More than once, I’ve looked down to see dozens of deer ticks scaling my boots. But the second they hit the treated fabric, they suddenly lose all enthusiasm for the project. They get a foothold, start climbing, and then dramatically swoon off my pants legs like they just realized they made a catastrophic life choice.

And don’t even get me started on chiggers. Those little demons operate on a delayed-action misery schedule. You leave the range thinking you got away clean, only to wake up 24 hours later discovering your waistline and sock tops have been turned into a science experiment in itching. Treated socks stop them dead before they ever get established.

With tick populations booming across the country, it’s not just about the itch anymore. Between Lyme disease and that bizarre Alpha-gal “red meat allergy” syndrome—where a single Lone Star tick bite can literally turn a cheeseburger into a life-threatening medical emergency—protecting yourself on the ground isn’t optional.

I just finished up a brutal, wet turkey season down here. Two weeks of crawling through damp woods and sitting against trees in prime bug weather. The final score? Nimrod: 1, Ticks: 0. (We won’t discuss the turkey’s score).

I wrote a full breakdown over at GUNS Magazine on exactly how to apply it, the gear you should be treating right now (hint: do your shooting mat), and a couple of safety rules you need to know—especially if you have barn cats running around, because wet permethrin and felines do not mix.

Head over to Gunsmagazine.com to read the full article and get your summer gear sorted.

How about you? Are you already a member of the Permethrin fan club, or are you still out there donating blood to science every time you shoot prone? Let me know in the comments.

I am, by nature, a cynical creature. Decades in law enforcement and the gun-writing racket will do that to a man.

So, when the folks at Remora Holsters first claimed they had a line of inside-the-waistband (IWB) gear that stayed perfectly in place without clips, loops, harnesses, rivets, heavy-duty welds, or an act of Congress, my immediate response was a deeply profound, Hoosier-grade snort of derision.

How, pray tell, is a piece of gear supposed to anchor a chunk of lethal machinery inside your waistband using nothing but gravity and good intentions? It felt like a blatant disregard for the laws of both physics and sensible gun carriage. Naturally, I had to prove them wrong.

To set up the ultimate failure test, I donned a pair of old, loose-fitting drawstring workout shorts. No belt, no structure—just flimsy nylon and disbelief. I shoved my trusty .38 Special snubby into the Remora holster, tucked the whole package inside my waistband, and whistled for Ivy, my miniature Australian Shepherd.

We set out for a brisk one-mile march. For the first two blocks, I engaged in what I call “the furtive touch”—the subtle, but highly noticeable to observant bystanders, paranoid pat-down every concealed carrier does when they’re convinced their blaster is slipping down their pant leg.

Yet, it wasn’t slipping. By block four, I had mostly stopped touching it. By the time we crossed the one-mile mark, my pants were still up, the .38 was exactly where I left it, and the dog was entirely unimpressed by my brewing crisis of punctured assumptions.

The Remora simply refused to budge.

The secret turns out to be a highly tactile, rubberized polymer outer skin. It acts like a microscopic non-slip mesh, grabbing hold of fabric or skin the second it’s compressed inside your waistband.

To really push my luck, I wore it through a full day of real-world “migration tests”:

• The Clinic Test: Sitting on paper-lined exam tables and getting jabbed with a round of vaccinations ahead of a brand-new, pending grandchild.

• The Muck Market: Navigating the crowded, humid aisles of a local plant nursery, lifting flats of petunias and buttercups to fix up my water garden.

• The Marshmallow Couch: The only time the rig shifted even half an inch was when I sank into my living room couch—a piece of furniture so soft it practically requires a winch to escape from. I don’t blame the holster for that one.

I even threw their matching accessory sleeve into the mix for a spare speed strip, and it pulled off the exact same friction-lock sorcery. The mag/speed strip pulls out smoothly, but the sleeve stays put.

Look, everything has limits. I wouldn’t try to pack a six-inch Colt Python this way, and it’s probably not the rig you want to wear to a Navy SEAL PT test. But for a lightweight snubby or a small automatic? It completely cracked the code. As it turns out, sometimes the best piece of carry hardware is no hardware at all.

I wrote up a detailed breakdown of the testing, the physics behind the grip, and how it stacks up against my old favorite DeSantis pocket holsters over at GUNS Magazine.

Drop by Gunsmagazine.com to read the full article and see the rig in action!

What say you? Have you ever trusted a clipless friction holster, or do you strictly stick to steel and kydex? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

“Brent, you ignorant slut.”

That classic Dan Aykroyd line was how my co-host, Roy Huntington, kicked off what was supposed to be our ‘Opposite Day’ experiment on the podcast. The premise was simple: Roy, a certified iron-sight purist who refuses to put glass on his carry guns, would argue in favor of red dots. I, a guy who routinely carries a compact 9mm with a miniature television screen screwed to the slide, would defend the old-school front post.

We lasted about twelve minutes before the charade collapsed. You just can’t fake the truth when it comes to the cold reality of life-and-death marksmanship.

The internet will tell you the red dot vs. iron sights debate is a holy war. On one side, you have the flat-bill-cap gaming crowd who think you’re a caveman if you don’t have a lithium battery powering your sighting system. On the other, you have the self-proclaimed ‘lethal Fudds’ who claim optics are just a high-tech gimmick destined to fail when the mud starts flying.

The truth, as it usually does, lies in the boring middle. And it starts with a biological betrayal: presbyopia.

If you’ve crossed the fifty-year mile marker, you know the feeling. Your arm’s length has become a blurry no-man’s land. If I don’t have my reading glasses on, pointing a pistol with iron sights feels like trying to aim with a fuzzy tennis ball. For older shooters, the red dot is a legitimate prosthetic miracle. It projects the aiming point onto the exact same focal plane as the threat. You look at the bad guy, the dot appears, and you press the trigger. Simple.

Except it isn’t.

It took me over at least 50 hours of dry-fire presentation drills and training to transition to a red dot and feel instinctively competent. A weeks of lifting the gun, searching for that tiny glowing speck, and realizing my wrist angle was off. If your draw stroke and presentation aren’t perfectly consistent, you will end up ‘bobble-heading’ under stress—pigeon-necking your head around trying to find the dot while the target is actively closing the distance.

Roy brought up a sobering statistic during our talk. Many law enforcement agencies transitioning to red dots have reported a slight bump in qualification scores. But look closer at the data: the average number of rounds fired in an officer-involved shooting has climbed to eight. Are they hitting because the red dot made them better marksmen, or are they just dumping magazines to compensate for the split-second hesitation it takes to find the dot under adrenaline?

And then there’s the failure factor. Roy loves to tell the story of a factory event we attended. A bunch of young hotshots were talking about how indestructible modern optics are. Roy walked over, scooped up a handful of dry Missouri dirt, sprinkled it right onto the lens of a $600 red dot, and told the shooter to target a plate facing into the setting sun. The shooter brought the gun up, stared into a glowing, opaque wall of mud, and froze.

‘You’re dead,’ Roy told him.

I still carry my red-dot-equipped nine-millimeter when I’m out fishing or walking in areas where a twenty-five-yard shot might be required. But my pocket gun—the snubby .38 I actually carry every single day—has a big, simple tritium front sight. It’s my ‘get-off-me’ gun, designed for toe-to-toe distance where muscle memory and instinct override technology.

Think of iron sights like a stick shift. You might drive an automatic transmission as your daily driver, but if you don’t know how to run three pedals and a gearbox, you’re missing a fundamental baseline skill. Buy the dot if your eyes need it, but don’t use a piece of glass as a possible shortcut to avoid doing the hard work of learning how to index a pistol naturally.

Well, life comes at you fast, and the podcast production schedule apparently comes at you faster. Oops—I completely forgot to post this write-up, and it is already almost time for a brand-new episode to drop!

But our mailbag was absolutely overflowing after our recent episodes, and the letters Roy and I received from all of you are far too important to leave sitting in the drafts folder. Before we roll into the next show, we wanted to pull back the curtain on the inbox and talk about a recurring theme you all keep bringing up: how the right to self-defense is quietly being turned into a luxury sport.

Our listeners are pointing out a quiet, insidious gatekeeping in the modern gun ownership landscape that has nothing to do with background checks and everything to do with your bank account. As several of you noted, politicians love to preach safety from their gated communities while passing laws requiring state-approved, high-dollar gun safes and mandating expensive training courses. When you factor in heavily taxed ammunition, a few folks wrote in to say that a simple practice session at the local range now costs them as much as a decent steak dinner. You hit the nail on the head: this isn’t safety, it’s class warfare disguised as public health.

The letters we get from folks living in different parts of the country really highlight this economic divide. Wealthy gun owners can easily absorb these regulatory costs—a thousand-dollar biometric safe is just a rounding error for someone in a manicured suburb with private security. But we heard from listeners who see a completely different reality on the ground: single mothers in high-crime neighborhoods who simply cannot afford a DOJ-approved steel vault just to secure a budget revolver. As your letters rightly argue, requiring high-end, high-dollar gear effectively disarms the very people who need protection the most.

We also received plenty of mail defending the budget-friendly tools that keep families safe. Cheap guns often get a bad rap in elite shooting circles, and many of you expressed frustration with the internet gear snobs who mock entry-level Taurus pistols, Heritage Rough Riders, or Hi-Points. You reminded us of the core truth of the Second Amendment: an ugly, heavy, blocky pistol that goes bang every single time is infinitely better than a two-thousand-dollar custom 1911 that sits in a display case because the owner can’t afford the ammo. We agree with our audience on this one—we should be celebrating reliable, low-cost self-defense options, not looking down on them.

Another major grievance running through the inbox involves indoor shooting ranges compounding this financial strain. Several listeners reached out to complain about private facilities banning shooters from bringing their own reloads under the guise of “liability issues.” Instead, you’re being forced to buy premium, house-branded factory ammunition at inflated prices. One retiree wrote to tell us that after local taxes and background check fees, a box of simple practice ammo runs him fifty bucks, forcing folks on fixed Social Security incomes to choose between groceries and staying proficient.

True safety comes from proficiency, not price tags. Roy and I talk about this constantly, and your letters confirm that parts of the shooting industry overlook the average guy. Interestingly, a few younger listeners wrote in to share that they are rediscovering the snub-nose revolver, abandoning flashy, high-capacity semi-autos because a simple double-action wheelgun just works. It doesn’t jam if it’s limp-wristed, and it doesn’t require an expensive red dot to be effective at realistic defensive distances. It’s a working-class tool.

The consensus in our mailbag is clear: legislators need to stop pretending these financial barriers save lives. Forcing citizens to jump through expensive regulatory hoops only ensures that criminals—who disregard safe-storage laws anyway—have soft targets. Self-defense is a natural right. As your letters so eloquently put it, it belongs to the guy working the graveyard shift at the gas station just as much as it belongs to the politician signing the bill.

Keep the letters coming, folks. We read every single one.

I spent a lot of years chasing “new.” New guns, new packs, new optics, new miracle gear allegedly engineered by retired ninjas in a volcano somewhere. Reviewing products for magazines has a way of feeding that cycle. Boxes arrive. You test things. You write the story then the next shiny object lands on the porch.

However, every now and then, something survives the review process and quietly earns permanent status.

This is the idea behind my recent piece for GUNS Magazine — not the newest gear, but the stuff I kept reaching for long after the articles were finished.

The funny thing about durable gear is it usually doesn’t announce itself immediately. A lot of products make a spectacular first impression. Fewer survive a year of real life. Fewer still survive travel, weather, hunting season, range trips and being treated like actual equipment instead of display pieces.

The gear that lasts tends to share a few traits:

• It solves real problems instead of marketing problems.

• It becomes part of your routine without demanding attention.

• It keeps working after the novelty wears off.

That’s why the list ended up being oddly practical. Here’s some of the gear I chose for this piece:

1. The Buck Range Elite knife earned its spot because it disappears into your pocket until you need it, then simply does the job. No drama. No “artisan tactical lifestyle” nonsense. Just a smart design backed by steel that actually holds an edge.

2. The 5.11 Founder’s Jacket surprised me because it became less of a “travel jacket” and more of a default answer for meetings, events and days where I needed to look halfway respectable while still carrying the normal loadout of modern life. It’s one of those rare pieces of clothing that quietly makes your day easier.

3. The Vortex Razor UHD 10x32 binoculars may be the best example of the entire concept. Expensive? Absolutely. Painfully so. But once you spend enough time behind mediocre optics in bad light, premium glass starts making uncomfortable amounts of sense. There’s a difference between “good enough” and “this actually improves the experience.”

4. And then there are the Viktos Range Trainer shoes, which looked too lightweight to survive serious use and responded by stubbornly refusing to die. Those kinds of surprises are rare.

I think most shooters and outdoorsmen eventually go through a shift. Early on, you chase features while later, you chase reliability. Eventually, you just want gear that earns trust and stays out of the way.

That’s the long game: Not trendy. Not flashy. Just proven.

You can read the full article here:

The Long Game: Gear That Actually Held Up

Greetings and hopes you’re having a good Memorial Day. Please take a moment to pause and think about what today is supposed to commemorate before you fire up the grill and crack open one of Milwaukee’s finest products.

Remember when shooting used to be simple? You’d grab a brick of rimfire, walk out the back door, and spend an afternoon perforating tin cans until your thumb was black with bullet lube.

Today, unless you own a few hundred acres or have an uncle with a farm, going shooting feels like booking an international flight on a budget airline. First, you have to call the indoor range days in advance to secure a reservation. If you’re five minutes late, your slot is gone. When you arrive, you’re treated like a suspect in an ongoing investigation. You have to sign a stack of liability waivers, buy their marked-up targets and shoot only their proprietary, gold-plated ammunition. And god forbid you show up alone—many urban ranges won’t even let solo shooters through the door anymore because their lawyers are terrified of liability.

It’s expensive, it’s clinical, and frankly, it drains all the joy out of the sport. No wonder a novice shooter who buys their first defensive handgun leaves it in the box, unfired, sitting in a nightstand drawer. The barrier to entry isn’t the price of the gun; it’s the absolute headache of finding a place to pull the trigger.

But there’s a cheap, quietly brilliant loophole sitting right under our noses: the air rifle.

Now, before the tactical crowd snorts and goes back to adjusting the laser-enabled-flashlight-cup-holder on their modular carbine, sorry, “Personal Defensive Weapon,” hear me out. Sight picture is sight picture. Trigger press is trigger press. A pellet gun fired in your basement or garage at fifteen feet will teach you more about grip consistency, front sight focus, and trigger control than a hundred rapid-fire magazine dumps into a dirt berm at a public range.

My podcast co-host, Roy Huntington, keeps a high-quality air pistol in his workshop. The shop is about sixty feet corner-to-corner. Whenever he’s out there working and needs to rest his brain, he walks to one end, takes three or four careful, deliberate shots at a self-contained target trap and focuses entirely on the mechanics of the shot. No ears required, no drive time, no range fees.

We recently received a brilliant comment from a listener that perfectly captures this dynamic. He wrote that when he teaches concealed carry classes, he holds up a double-action revolver and tells his students, ‘This is writing in cursive.’ Then he holds up a polymer-framed Glock and says, ‘This is texting with autocorrect. One will teach you; the other will spoil you.’

He’s dead on. The modern shooting world has become obsessed with autocorrect. We buy handguns with three-pound match triggers and red dot optics, slap so many accessories on our rails that our guns look like a toddler’s first attempt at a Mr. Potato Head kit, and call ourselves marksmen. But if you can’t cleanly break a shot with a heavy double-action trigger—or a spring-piston air gun with a slightly creepy factory pull—you aren’t actually steering the bullet. You’re just letting the technology cover up your bad habits.

Of course, air guns have their own set of rules. For starters, do not treat them like toys. If you’re using a break-barrel spring rifle, that steel barrel is under immense tension. If you lose your grip while cocking it or pull the trigger prematurely, that barrel will snap back with enough force to literally smash your face in.

But if you respect the tool, a basic pellet rifle or CO2 pistol is the ultimate training cheat code. It bypasses the range-day bureaucracy, costs pennies per shot, and lets you build real, lasting muscle memory in your own backyard.

At the end of the day, ‘gun’ and ‘fun’ are only one letter apart. If we spend all our time worrying about being high-speed, low-drag tactical operators, we lose the plot. There is immense joy in being a self-proclaimed, proud member of the ‘low-speed, high-drag’ club. Grab a tin of pellets, set up a cardboard box stuffed with old newspapers in your garage and go have some actual shooting fun.

Listen on Libsyn

There’s a certain kind of insult that doesn’t land the way people think it does.

Call someone a “Fudd” in the gun world and the assumption is you’ve just dismissed them—written them off as outdated, out of touch, clinging to the past. The funny part is, the older I get, the less that bothers me. In fact, I’ve started to see it as a kind of accidental compliment.

Because buried underneath the label is usually something else: experience. Not theoretical experience, not “I watched a video” experience but the kind that comes from doing something long enough to see the cycles repeat and the fads come and go.

This week on the podcast, we leaned into that tension a bit. The idea was simple: what if you shot like it was 1955?

Not as nostalgia or rejection of modern techniques but as a corrective.

There’s a version of the modern shooting culture that is all gas pedal. Faster draws. Faster splits. Faster everything. It looks good, it feels good, and—if we’re being honest—it’s a lot more fun to practice than the alternative.

The alternative is slow.

Deliberate.

Quietly frustrating.

Bullseye shooting is not exciting content. It doesn’t make for great YouTube clips. There’s no soundtrack behind it, no timer beeping in your ear, no sense that you’re preparing for some cinematic moment. It’s just you, the gun, and the uncomfortable realization your fundamentals are not as solid as you thought they were.

That is the part people tend to avoid.

I get it. Nobody wants to stand there and watch their own limitations play out in real time. It’s much easier to move faster and call it progress. Speed can hide a lot. It can “cover” for a sloppy trigger press, a limp wrist, a bad sight picture. You can convince yourself you’re getting better because you’re doing more, but accuracy has a way of telling the truth.

That’s what those older disciplines understood—they didn’t have the luxury of hiding behind speed. If you were off, you saw it immediately, in black and white, right there on the target. There was nowhere to go but back to the basics, and the basics are stubborn things. They haven’t changed nearly as much as we like to think.

Grip still matters. Trigger control still matters. Sight alignment still matters. You can bolt on all the modern gear you want, adopt every flashy new technique that comes down the pipeline, but if those pieces aren’t there, the rest of it is built on sand.

The uncomfortable part is fundamentals are not something you master once and move on from. They’re something you return to, over and over again, usually right after you’ve convinced yourself you no longer need to. This is where the “1955” idea starts to make sense.

It’s not about going backward. It’s about removing the noise and stripping things down to a point where you can’t lie to yourself anymore. No movement, no speed, no distractions—just the shot.

When you do it this way, a few things tend to happen. First, your ego takes a hit. Second, your shooting gets better. Not immediately, and not in a way that feels exciting but in a way that actually holds up when you add the complexity back in.

There’s also a strange kind of satisfaction in it. The kind that doesn’t come from performance, but from understanding. You start to feel what a good trigger press actually is. You recognize what a stable sight picture looks like before the shot breaks. You begin to trust the process instead of trying to outrun your mistakes.

None of this is new and therein lies the point of our podcast episode.

We have a tendency to assume newer automatically means better, and sometimes it does. But, sometimes it just means we’ve found a more complicated way to avoid doing the hard part. The hard part, as it turns out, hasn’t changed much since 1955.

We talked about that this week—what gets lost when we chase speed without control, and what we gain when we slow down long enough to fix it. It’s not a rejection of modern shooting but a reminder that the foundation underneath it still matters.

And maybe that’s what being a “Fudd” really comes down to.

Not living in the past—instead, just remembering what actually works.

Every year about this time, somewhere around the final days of Indiana turkey season, I hit the wall. It’s not because I’m spending too much time outdoors. Quite the opposite. It’s because I’m rolling out of bed at 3 a.m. while the last guy from karaoke night is still trying to remember where he parked his pickup.

Turkey hunters remain living proof of the old saying that “the early bird gets the worm,” along with lower back pain, questionable decision-making and the kind of sleep deprivation usually associated with hostage negotiations.

After a solid week of hunting, a man starts seeing things. Shadows become gobblers. Fence posts become gobblers. A black trash bag caught in a hedgerow becomes a gobbler right up until your hunting buddy points out you’ve been trying to call in landscaping debris for 15 minutes.

I’m not hallucinating yet, but I am operating under the dangerous delusion that voluntarily waking up this early qualifies as recreation.

This season has delivered the usual mix of misery and greatness.

One hunt started with a late-night text from a friend who claimed he had permission on “the best turkey property in western Indiana.” Those words remain the turkey hunter’s equivalent of a sailor hearing singing from the rocks.

Naturally, I said yes.

By the time I had gathered my gear, charged electronics, packed snacks, checked weather apps, updated mapping apps and verified I had enough battery packs to survive a lunar expedition, it was nearly midnight.

Three hours later, my phone alarm detonated beside the bed like a flashbang grenade. My smart watch joined in. So did the backup alarm on my tablet because experience has taught me one alarm is optimism while two alarms is planning.

My wife barely moved this time. After all these years, she has accepted turkey season the same way farmers accept hailstorms and fishermen accept lies.

Despite laying everything out the night before, I still left late.

There’s something about turkey hunting that destroys a man’s relationship with time. No matter how prepared you are, you always end up hurtling down a dark county road convinced sunrise is arriving 45 minutes earlier than scheduled.

I met my buddy at a rural intersection somewhere near the Wabash River. We transferred gear like a pair of nervous smugglers, then bounced down a field lane in his side-by-side at a speed suggesting he had either tremendous confidence or excessive life insurance.

By the time we parked, dawn was beginning as a salmon-tinged smear across the eastern sky.

We hurried across a muddy field and set up along a timber edge. My friend arranged decoys with the concentration of a museum curator while I collapsed against a tree trying to lower my heart rate below “medically concerning.”

Then he started calling.

He did well, too. Right before sunrise, he called in a hen that landed practically in our laps. She stared at us from point-blank range with the expression of someone questioning every decision that led her to this moment. You notice details when a turkey is standing six feet away. The color in their eyes. The texture of the feathers. The acorns on their breath.

Nobody tells you wild turkeys have breath capable of stripping paint.

The rest of the morning was classic turkey hunting. We heard distant gobbles. We repositioned twice. We became convinced a tom was “just over the ridge” approximately 11 different times.

We never got a bird into range. Oddly enough, it didn’t matter much.

That’s the thing non-hunters never quite understand. The older I get, the less turkey season feels like a competition and the more it resembles a collection of moments stitched together by exhaustion, optimism and fresh coffee consumed from dented travel mugs.

• The smell of wet leaves at daylight.

• Songbirds waking up before sunrise.

• Fog hanging low over a creek bottom.

• The thunder of a gobble echoing through timber so hard it vibrates in your chest.

Those are the things you remember long after the tags are filled or forgotten.

Our final hunt of the season happened on a property no one had hunted before. The landowner swore turkeys crossed his driveway every morning “like commuters.” Experienced turkey hunters know statements like that should always be viewed with suspicion. Still, we believed him because turkey hunters will believe absolutely anything in April and May.

We slipped into the woods before daylight and waited.

Nothing.

No gobbling. No scratching leaves. No wing beats.

We moved to a powerline cut and called again.

Still nothing.

At that point, the accumulated fatigue of the season finally caught me. My head grew heavy. My eyes drifted shut. I began accepting the possibility that another spring would end without a punched tag but full of good stories, cold mornings and enough memories to make me do it all again next year.

Honestly, there are worse reasons to lose sleep than chasing a bird with a brain roughly the size of a gummy vitamin.

In the middle of a yawn, I happened to glance left.

A gobbler stood 20 yards away staring directly at me.

At moments like that, I still wish I were hallucinating.

We’ll finish the story here.

Oh, the gobbler? As both my regular readers know, I am a staunch conservationist and refuse to harvest animals that show singular bad judgement or terrible luck.

Maybe next year…

I had one of those moments this morning where my brain sprinted three laps ahead of reality before the rest of me caught up.

The headline stopped me cold:

“Gun magazine found on Frontier Airlines flight…”

As the former editor of GUNS Magazine, my mind immediately went somewhere completely different than the average reader’s. For about three seconds, I genuinely thought we had entered a brave new world where somebody left a copy of a firearm publication on a seatback tray and the TSA responded by evacuating the aircraft like it was a live rattlesnake.

Honestly, in 2026, would any of us be completely shocked?

Then I clicked the story and realized they meant an ammunition magazine left aboard the aircraft, apparently by a law enforcement officer. Passengers were deplaned, rescreened, and the flight delayed overnight.

Problem solved. Crisis downgraded from “dangerous reading material” to “loaded feeding device.”

Still, the momentary confusion says something interesting about where we are culturally.

The word magazine used to require context. A magazine was something you subscribed to. It arrived in the mail. It sat beside your recliner until your wife threatened to throw it out because the pile had become structurally significant.

Today, depending on the audience, “gun magazine” may mean a publication, a detachable box magazine, or — if you’re a Hollywood-type — apparently any vaguely gun-shaped object including things commonly known as “clips,” “assault bullets,” “assault sling” and “fully semiautomatic ghost shoulder things.”

Language drifts. Terminology evolves. Fine.

But the deeper issue is how reflexively people now associate anything gun-related with immediate alarm. We’ve reached the point where a headline can plausibly sound like printed reading material shut down commercial aviation for a minute before your brain applies brakes.

And frankly, that may be the future.

Not literally. TSA agents probably aren’t going to confiscate your dog-eared copy of GUNS Magazine because it contains a review of a lever gun and an article about handloading .44 Special.

But culturally? The distance between “objects associated with firearms” and “objects considered socially radioactive” keeps shrinking.

This is worth paying attention to because once a society starts reacting emotionally to vocabulary itself, the vocabulary rarely remains the actual target for long.

Story Link: https://abcnews.com/US/gun-magazine-found-frontier-airlines-flight-passengers-forced/story?id=132856291

We have all fallen victim to the belief that buying the newest, shiniest piece of equipment will instantly transform us into world-class competitive shooters. The reality is that the endorphin dump of purchasing a new firearm or optic rarely translates to better marksmanship on the range.

In GunsPodcast.US episode #334, Roy Huntington and I sit down to tackle the age-old gear trap and discuss exactly when equipment actually stops mattering. We break down the psychology of impulse buying, the manufacturer marketing strategies designed to upsell you, and how to find the sweet spot in mid-grade gear that truly enhances your capabilities without draining your wallet.

Key Takeaways

• Upgrading gear will not fix fundamental flaws in marksmanship.

• Follow the Wait a Month rule before making impulsive purchases.

• The mid-grade price point is usually the sweet spot for the vast majority of normal shooters.

• More gear often just equals less freedom in your life.

  Quote of the Show

  “”I mean, whoever has the most toys I think is an idiot and failed.” - Roy Huntington”

Audio Only: Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music/Audible, Player FM or Boomplay

In the latest GunsPodcast.US episode #333, we cut through the mainstream media noise surrounding the recent security incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Joined by my oldest friend and CEO of Gunsight Academy, Ken Campbell, we look at the reality of event security and why the system actually worked exactly as designed.

It is easy for commentators to claim a security failure from the comfort of a studio, but when you understand the mechanics of concentric rings of protection, the picture changes entirely. Ken and I break down how the inner, middle, and outer rings operate, and why the absence of fired shots by protective details was a calculated, professional decision to protect innocent bystanders.

Beyond the headlines, we also share some classic operational debriefs from our days as young cops guarding high-profile VIPs, ranging from former Presidents to Miss America. It is a candid, straight-talking episode that reminds us all why personal preparedness is paramount, because at the end of the day, you are your own first responder.

Key Takeaways

• Security worked as designed: The concept of outer, middle, and inner security rings successfully stopped the threat before it reached the VIPs.

• Tactical restraint: Agents withheld fire due to the risk of crossfire and lack of a safe backstop in a crowded ballroom.

• The importance of hot washes: After-action debriefs are critical to evaluating what went right and improving future responses.

• Personal preparedness: You are your own first responder, no matter how many federal agencies are in the building.

Listen on Libsyn: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/41082345

Welcome to the breakdown of the current GunsPodcast.US episode #332, where Roy Huntington and I tackle a topic that stirs up plenty of debate in the self-defense world: staging firearms in your home.

It is easy to stash a pistol in a desk drawer and feel like you have checked the preparedness box. But, as we have learned from decades of real-world law enforcement experience, simply having a gun nearby does not mean you will actually be able to access it when the front door gets kicked in. The reality is that under extreme stress, humans revert to ingrained muscle memory. If you have not physically practiced retrieving that hidden firearm, or if you keep moving it from the kitchen cabinet to the easy chair, you are setting yourself up for a fatal brain freeze.

We have seen seasoned cops fumble with new electronic shotgun locks because their bodies were not trained to hit the new button. If professionals struggle with split-second changes, imagine what happens when you are jolted awake at 3 AM.

In this episode, we break down the practicalities and the pitfalls of strategically placing defensive weapons. From under-desk magnets to the absolute worst places to hide a gun, we explore how to build a layered home defense strategy that relies on more than just hoping you remember a lockbox combination.

Key Takeaways

• Standardize your staging locations so muscle memory takes over under stress.

• Avoid storing firearms in couch cushions where they migrate and collect debris.

• Treat staged firearms as the final layer of a holistic home security plan.

• Consider carrying a pocket pistol at home as the ultimate immediate-access weapon.

Quote of the Show

“If you’re more than a second or two seconds away from your gun, you’re too far. - Roy Huntington”

Gear Featured in This Episode

Looking for the storage and safety solutions mentioned in the video? Check out the links below:

• Streamlight SpeedLocker – Secure, portable power-free storage.

https://Streamlight.com

• Skinner Garment Bag – The ultimate low-profile transport system.

https://SkinnersSights.com

• SOFhold Magnets – Magnetic mounting solutions for quick-access storage.

https://SOFhold.com

In episode #331 of the Guns Podcast US, Roy Huntington and I celebrate our recent first-place broadcast award from the Hoosier Outdoor Writers by doing what we do best: talking straight about practical firearms.

This week, we are diving deep into the fascinating world of snub-nose revolvers. From their hidden history as the true everyday carry guns of the Old West to their modern resurgence among shooters tired of polymer semi-autos, the snubby holds a unique place in self-defense. We explore why this classic pocket gun is often the most reliable tool you can carry, proving that having a five-shot revolver in your pocket beats a custom 1911 sitting back at home on your nightstand.

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Listen on Libsyn: https://sites.libsyn.com/223715/331-snub-nose-revolvers-small-guns-serious-self-defense-power

If you’ve been around the shooting world long enough, you probably internalized a universal “truth”: if you want real accuracy out of a .22 LR, you buy a bolt-action. For decades, semi-autos like the classic 10/22 or the Marlin Model 60 were fun, affordable, and incredibly reliable, but they were fundamentally “minute-of-barn-door” rifles. In GunsPodcast.US Episode #330, my co-host Roy Huntington admits he was one of those guys—until a brand new factory rifle completely shattered his preconceived notions and proved that the old rules no longer apply. Roy has spent decades chasing precision, dropping thousands of dollars on custom barrels, match triggers, and aftermarket stocks just to squeeze bolt-gun accuracy out of a semi-automatic platform. But in this episode, we dive into his hands-on experience with the new Ruger 10/22 Carbon Fiber.

Weighing in at a feathery four pounds and sporting a $650 MSRP, this out-of-the-box rifle didn’t just meet his expectations; it delivered ragged one-hole groups at 50 yards, equaling many of his custom builds. More than just a review of a neat new gun, Episode #330 is a fascinating look at the “Golden Age” of firearms manufacturing.

We discuss how modern CNC and EDM machining have completely revolutionized the industry, replacing the charming but inconsistent file-and-fit methods of the past with unparalleled, reproducible precision. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in—this is a masterclass on why today’s factory guns are the best we’ve ever seen.

Key Takeaways

• The Semi-Auto Myth is Dead: The new Ruger 10/22 Carbon Fiber delivers out-of-the-box precision that rivals, and often beats, high-end vintage bolt-action rifles.

• Custom Precision at a Factory Price: Building a comparable custom 10/22 used to cost between $1,500 and $2,000; today, modern factory rifles offer the same turnkey performance for a fraction of the cost.

• The Golden Age of Manufacturing: The shift from conventional machining to advanced CNC technology means perfect, identical parts every single time, drastically improving quality control and lowering costs for the end consumer.

Listen on Libsyn: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/40796340

The floor of forest had been transformed into a flower garden of sublime beauty, complete with a miniature menagerie of critters scurrying around among the duff. I then realized that it had been a long time since I actually stopped and looked at the micro-scenery.

The day was a perfect example of type of weather that makes even grumpy old men kinder, with a brilliant electric blue sky occasionally punctuated by cotton-puff clouds. The temperature was also perfect—just cool enough to make sitting in a sunny spot on a hillside seem like a warm bath. After our dank Hoosier winter, the sun seemed to actually soak into my bones.

Strolling along the creek, I saw trout lilies poking their mottled leaves through the dried debris of the previous generation. A single overachieving plant had hoisted its inverted yellow flower above the masses of its brethren on a stalk resembling a shepherd crook. The tiny, succulent heart-shaped leaves of wild ginger stood nearby like a crowd of bystanders watching the flower show.

Farther along, bluebells were just getting started, lifting themselves from the ground like a slow-motion fireworks show. Spring beauties dotted the forest floor, scattered like stubborn remnants of snow that refused to acknowledge the change in season.

Next to a fallen tree, a lone Dutchman’s breeches plant displayed its strange little flowers—tiny pairs of pants hanging upside down on an invisible clothesline. The pale green, lacy leaves looked like they belonged in a carefully arranged flower display, not dropped casually along a trail.

Many younger trees had already leafed out, eager and optimistic. The older ones stood back, cautious, having learned a thing or two about late frosts and false starts. The wind had softened, losing its bite, though the creek remained indifferent, continuing its yearly work of carving new ground and back-filling its previous work.

On a whim, I decided to plop onto the ground and take stock of the smaller residents of the area.

At some point, I gave up walking altogether and sat down to see what was happening at ground level. Beetles and ants conducted small, serious wars over scraps of organic debris. A stink bug decided my forearm was a fine viewing platform. It was gently evicted. A tiny yellow spider, however, made a poor real estate decision and paid the price. Nature extends only so much grace.

Early spring might be the best deal going. Enough life to make things interesting, not enough to require chemical warfare in the form of bug spray. My biggest problem that day was finding the perfect spot to sit and absorb it all.

As I walked back to our host’s log cabin, their old dog was sprawled on the wooden porch swing waiting for a handout and a scratch behind the ears. Sometimes a dog’s life doesn’t seem too bad. I almost wondered if I had accidentally wandered into one of those idyllic backlit beer commercials.

If this all sounds like aimless rambling, I’ll plead guilty. However, I’ve finally learned such aimless minutes—wandering, lingering, refusing to be productive—aren’t wasted. They add up to make your life longer. In fact, I’m counting on it.

At this rate, I figure I’ve got a real shot at reaching 150.

Photos by author

With the world feeling increasingly chaotic and federal threat alerts bombarding us daily, it is easy to become desensitized or fall into paranoia. In GunsPodcast.US episode #329, Roy Huntington and I cut through the noise to discuss what geopolitical tensions actually mean for everyday citizens. We draw on our decades of law enforcement experience to explain why, when seconds count, police are minutes away, making you your own first responder. Instead of living in fear, we share practical, real-world strategies to stay aware. By introducing a simple mental rehearsal tool called the ‘What If’ game, we break down how to overcome the deadly ‘freeze’ response, ensuring you and your loved ones are prepared to take action when it matters most.

Key Takeaways

• Federal threat alerts often lead to fearmongering and desensitization; focus on actionable preparedness instead.

• In the face of unexpected violence, most people don’t fight or flee, they freeze. Mental rehearsal is the key to breaking that freeze.

• Playing the ‘What If’ game during your daily routine helps pre-program your brain with an escape or defense plan.

• Do not let social politeness stop you from acting on your situational awareness or leaving a suspicious area.

• If you carry a firearm, ensure it is a functional tool you train with regularly, not a forgotten ‘dust buffalo’ sitting in a drawer.

Quote of the Show

“If you see a guy fiddling with wires and batteries and something that looks like a road flare under his jacket. Don’t wait to see what happens. That’s time to leave.”

If you have been around the shooting sports for any length of time, you already know the painful truth: we all make the exact same mistakes when we first get started. Whether it is buying a mountain of gear we do not need, over-cleaning our firearms until they literally break, or thinking a fancy new pistol will magically fix our terrible trigger pull, the journey of a shooter is paved with empty wallets and misplaced confidence.

In this episode, Roy Huntington and I sit down to unpack the five (or more) things we wish we knew before we ever pulled a trigger. We dive deep into the beginner mindset, laughing at our own past blunders while offering real-world, practical advice for the newest generation of gun owners. From the myth of ‘just one more accessory’ to the reality that ammunition disappears faster than snacks at a party, this is a must-listen for both rookies looking for a roadmap and veterans wanting a good chuckle at our shared history. Episode Link in the Comments.

Key Takeaways

• The Gear Trap: You will never be just one accessory away from perfection. Focus on basic fundamentals instead of buying another range bag.

• Technology Cannot Fix Technique: A cool-looking, CNC-machined pistol will not make you a better marksman. Start with a standard .22 and learn the ropes.

• The Over-Cleaning Myth: You do not need to detail-strip your firearm to the last pin after every trip. Keep it well-lubricated, wipe it down, and go shoot.

• Beware the Social Media Expert: Going to the range three times does not make you a tactical guru. Stay humble and keep learning.

• You Are Now an Ambassador: Buying a gun means you will inevitably have to explain your choice to non-gun friends. Be prepared to represent the community well.

Listen here: Podcast #328