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Tactical Skills for an Adventurous Life
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The Pistol Fundamentals Challenge
The PIstol Fundamentals Challenge is my variation on the classic Dot Torture popularized by Todd Green and Dave Blinder. It’s a 30-round challenge testing your ability to maintain accuracy across different circumstances while under time pressure.
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Matt here. Here you’ll find a complete listing of all written articles on The Everyday Marksman as well as some curated content from our most popular posts. We recalculate the top posts every month based on what you’re reading.
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A Trip to the Gun Show, it’s Been a While
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase, “Gun Show?” I think your reaction is very culturally dependent on where you grew up, the circles you run in, and the kinds of things you take an interest to. It’s been a long time since the last one I attended, so I took an opportunity to hit a local one over the weekend. Here are some of my notes.
Project Gungnir: My First Precision Bolt Gun
I’ve written a lot about the AR-15 platform and its uses, but there’s a lot more than that to shooting. Allow me to introduce you to my precision rifle project, which I plan to use for long-range training and competition.
The Tactical Chest Rig: What You Need, and What You Don’t
Today we’re talking about the chest rig. Whether it’s standalone or a plate carrier, putting stuff on your torso has become the de-facto “cool guy” way to do things. So what do you need to know about doing it?
Tarred Bank Line: the Cordage You’re Not Using, But Probably Should
Let’s step away from firearms for a minute and talk about cordage. Just about everyone in the shooting world knows of, and probably uses, 550 paracord. In fact, we love to “paracord all the things” with bracelets, rifle slings, and more. The stuff is useful for a lot of reasons, and we’ll get to it. But bank line is another alternative that you really should try out.
The Survival Fire Marksman Challenge
Building a fire is a fundamental outdoors survival skill. Fire keeps you warm, cooks your food, signals others for help, and purifies your water. But too many of us take the easy route for building one. The survival fire challenge is about doing it the old fashioned way.
The Tactical Belt: Minimalist Duty Loadout for Everyday People
Today we continue our discussion of load carriage options by talking about the tactical belt. You might also know it as a duty belt, and it’s a great method for carrying gear when you do it right.
The AR-15 Barrel Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need to Know
This post summarizes just about everything I’ve learned about rifle barrels in general, and specifically the AR-15. Barrels are an important topic, so settle in for some details.
Choosing the Best Concealed Carry Belt for You
Today we’re continuing our discussion on load carriage. But now we’re moving towards the discreet end of the spectrum. I didn’t think all that much about my belt when I first received my CCW permit. It was all about the pistol and associated holster. But the truth is that a good concealed carry belt is part of a system that includes the pistol, holster, belt, and you.
The Go-Getter Marksman Challenge
Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
At its heart, The Everyday Marksman is about taking action. The more action you take, and the more wins you amass in the process, then the stronger your mindset becomes.
As Coach Lombardi put it, winning is a habit. So even if you have to start with small wins and slowly build up to big wins, that’s still building a habit towards success. For this challenge, you are going to set a goal, tell us about it, and then follow it through to completion.
How to Breathe for Better Marksmanship
One of the easily overlooked areas of good marksmanship is controlling your breathing. I really believe it’s one of those things that everyone knows they should get control of it, but good breath control becomes one of the first marksmanship fundamentals to go out the window as pressure mounts.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the midst of a stage and didn’t even think about my breathing until after it was over. Of course, then I try to go backwards and wonder if I did it correctly anyway, or if I did it wrong and it cost me a little bit of performance.
Conquering the Emergency Shelter Challenge
For this challenge, we’re pivoting to the survival world. With hunting season approaching, or just general outdoors activity in cooler weather, I thought it was appropriate to work on developing and deploying an emergency shelter kit.
So let’s talk about the Emergency Shelter Challenge.
AAR: GoRuck Active Shooter Intervention
On July 20th, 2019, I attended GoRuck’s Active Shooter Intervention training course, as well as a night fire. I took away a lot of lessons from this one, including a preference for fiber optic sights on my pistols over tritium night sights, as well as the importance of good weapon light usage.