Brandon Foster

Every fall season, tree stand accidents send hunters to the ER with broken backs, busted pelvises, and far worse. According to state wildlife agencies, falling from an elevated stand is one of the leading causes of hunting-related injury and death, and the single most effective piece of safety equipment between you and a bad outcome … Read more

Picking the best hunting backpacks for big game is the difference between a triumphant pack-out and a back-breaking crawl down the mountain. I have hauled boned elk quarters, antlered mule deer heads, and 80-pound moose loads out of some steep country, and the pack on your back matters more than any rifle or bow. Our … Read more

Spotting a buck at 600 yards across an open ridge and realizing your rangefinder is still clipped to your belt is the kind of mistake you only make once. I learned that the hard way on a spot-and-stalk mule deer hunt, fumbling to swap optics while glassing and losing the angle. That moment is exactly … Read more

Three winters ago I tagged my first coyote at 11:40 PM with a thermal riflescope I’d mounted on a bolt-action 6.5 Creedmoor, and it changed how I hunt. The brush was black to the naked eye, but the scope showed a clear heat signature sliding through a cedar thicket at 220 yards. That moment sold … Read more

Handloading without a chronograph is a guessing game. I learned this the hard way after developing what I thought was a tack-driving 6.5 Creedmoor load that turned out to have a 38 fps extreme spread across ten rounds. After adding a chronograph to my reloading bench, I trimmed that spread to under 12 fps and … Read more

One pull of the trigger is all it takes to damage hearing for life. A single .223 rifle report hits around 166 dB at the muzzle, well above the 140 dB threshold that causes immediate, permanent sensorineural damage. That is exactly why finding the best electronic ear protection for shooting matters more than picking the … Read more

If you have ever tried to settle into a solid prone position on rocky ground, wet grass, or loose gravel, you already know why a quality mat matters. The best shooting mats for long range turn a punishing firing point into a stable, repeatable platform that protects your rifle, your elbows, and your score. After … Read more

After logging more than 200 hours of range time and three cross-country airline trips with scoped rifles, our team has handled more rifle case failures than we care to admit. Broken latches, popped zippers, waterlogged foam, and one unfortunate scope misalignment taught us exactly what separates a great rifle case from a disposable one. We … Read more

Running boards are flat, step-mounted platforms that bolt along a truck’s rocker panel to make climbing into a tall cab easier, protect the body from door dings, and add a finished look. Picking the best running boards for trucks comes down to three decisions: the material (carbon steel, aluminum, or stainless steel), the style (nerf … Read more

Every fall, our team hears the same story from truck owners across the Northeast and Midwest: a deer lunged out of the cornfield at dusk, the hood crumpled, the headlight shattered, and the driver wished he had bolted a bull bar on six months earlier. That single collision can run a thousand dollars or more … Read more