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.
Swampfox Optics Trihawk Review: I Can See Everything
The Swampfox Trihawk is a 3x magnified prism optic intended for tactical usage by law enforcement and prepared citizens. It sports a best-in-class field of view, great optical clarity, and battery-powered illumination. At about a quarter of the price of an ACOG, will it become my go-to recommendation for people looking at prism optics? Let's take a look.
Level 3 Fitness Standards: Tactical Excellence
This is the last of the Everyday Marksman fitness standards. Level 1 was about general health and fitness and Level 2 focused on strength and work capacity. Level 3 combines everything into a few events to test all aspects of combat fitness.
TA33 3×30 ACOG Review: The “Gunfighter’s” Optic
To start off a series of reviews concerning 3x prismatic optics, I wanted to start with the current king of the 3x hill, as it were. The TA33 has been around since 2007, and is well known among enthusiasts. Let's run down what makes this model so interesting, how it works up close, and where its age is starting to show.
The Complete Novice’s Guide to Your First Handgun
The first handgun purchase is usually a daunting decision, because there's a lot of technicality mixed in with personal preferences of the individual giving the advice. This is my attempt to simplify it down a bit and focus on the most important things.
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 ...
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.