Thank you for coming by The Everyday Marksman. This site and its community are a labor of love. I hope you stick around for a while, and maybe even join us.
-Matt
Matt is the primary author and owner of The Everyday Marksman. He's a former military officer turned professional tech sector trainer. He's a lifelong learner, passionate outdoorsman, and steadfast supporter of firearms culture.
How to Use Math to Master Your Physical Strength
I’m nerding a bit today. After many months, if not years, of reading various exercise programs and following many of them, I started to notice several similarities between them. I thought there must be some kind of forbidden knowledge that a non-trainer like me must be missing about how how these experts were selecting the given weights, sets, and repetitions. Then I stumbled onto the work of some Cold War-era Soviet researchers and it put it all together for me.
So now I’m going to share what I’ve learned about the math, and how to use it for your own strength program.
The Paper Plate Pistolero Challenge
I’m reposting this challenge with a few updates. In light of recent events, I think it’s an important reminder that you should regularly train with your handgun out to 50 yards. Most people are content with 7-10 yards because it’s fun, “go-fast,” and the close range often hides errors in marksmanship fundamentals. At 50 yards, though, it becomes a different proposition and you never know when you just might need to take that shot.
Developing a Flexible Team Communications Setup
I spent a good part of 2021 trying to figure out a way to better integrate communications into my equipment without breaking the bank. While I’m all for spending money on quality gear, I’m not above considering the return on investment, and I’ve not felt like $1000 communications headsets were worth it for me. Then, one random day, I realized that I had almost everything I needed already, minus one important affordable part.
Marksman Live: The Prism Optics Primer with Ilya Koshkin
This week I sat down again with Ilya, the Dark Lord of Optics, to answer some lingering questions I’ve got about prism optics. I wanted to understand how they work relative to traditional rifle scopes, and some of the tradeoffs required when designing them. During the conversation, we also wandered over how rifle scopes work in general, reticle color selection, durability, engineering tradeoffs, and more. I’m also posting the audio-only version of this as well.
Are Prism Scopes Due for a Big Comeback?
I’m making a casual bet that the market for compact prism optics is going to heat up soon. Low power variable optics (LPVO) have been king for the last several years, of course, but I’m noticing some trends and techniques that I think will lead us in a different direction.
Rifle Marksmanship Standards for Everyday Marksmen
Today we’re defining the Everyday Marksman minimum rifle standards. This is a two-part test of both speed and marksmanship fundamentals. I want to outline the test itself, why I defined this requirements, but also what I left out.
Terminal Ballistics: How Bullets Wound and Kill
In this article, we’re digging into terminal ballistics: the science of what happens when the bullet impacts a target. In particular, we’re going over the history of the research and what we know today about how bullets wound and kill a target.
Baseline Medical for You and Your Group
In this episode, we build on the concept of the minimum capable citizen caught in Scenario X by talking about medical. Both what you need to know, and what you should always expect to carry. I also discuss some of my favorite first aid kit pouches for good measure.
Are You a Tactical Minimalist?
The longer you’re in this community, the more you realize that there’s almost an overwhelming number of skills to learn. One of the biggest traps people fall into is trying to become a master of everything. Often that looks like learning infinite variations of each skill. I think this ultimately becomes a distraction, and prevents us from thinking about the bigger picture.
Do You Need an All-in-One Fighting Kit?
I ventured off into a thought experiment that ended up becoming something…more. I’ve long suggested that the average prepared citizen should consider a battle belt and chest rig (or plate carrier) combo as their go-to fighting gear. There’s a lot of advantages there. On the other side, though, I’ve been thinking a lot about a single “grab and go” fighting kit all contained in a single piece of equipment.
Here’s where I’m at with the idea.
Hammer-Fired vs Striker-Fired: A War on Two Fronts
There are several timeless debates in the firearms world: 9mm vs 45, Stoner vs Kalashnikov, 10.5″ vs 12.5″ AR-15’s, Kydex vs leather, or Glock vs…everything. Some of these have settled, but others….well I don’t think we’ll ever get to a final answer.
One of these debates is hammer-fired pistols against striker-fired. I’d like to put my own two cents out there.
Evaluating Your Gear for Real World Use
A series of recent events reminded me of the importance of actually checking your gear for fit, function, and purpose. It doesn’t have to take long, and it pays dividends when you actually have to use your stuff for competition, personal defense, or worse. Unfortunately, many people just don’t know where to start, so they begin and end with mounting pouches on their kit, snapping a few photos, and saying “Good enough!”