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
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.
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.
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.
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.
What I Learned Moving from Glock to a CZ 75
MLC recently stared migrating from striker fired pistols to hammer-fired CZ pistols. He’s learned a few lessons on the way. In this post, he does a mini-review of his CZ 75 SP01 and how it what to look out for when comparing it to the ubiquitous Glock.
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.