Planning on buying a new bow? Try your custom ideas on a myriad of bows with the Mathews Custom Compound Bow Builder and explore the possibilities. For 30 years, Mathews has been building, innovating, and bettering the bow. Couple that with education and conservation efforts, and you’ve got a group of passionate archers involved in the hunt from top to bottom. Alongside their holistic effort to better archery, they’re also making custom bows that lend themselves to the personalities of the folks who shoot them. I built my TX-5 using Mathews’ Bow Builder, and even as a novice archer, the process was simple, fun, and intuitive. With nine customizable areas and deep dives into smaller custom notes — like choosing the color of your harmonic damper or center and end serving — the Bow Builder creates a bow that’s entirely unique to you. The author’s customized Mathews TX-5 Once you’ve created a …

Buying a New Compound Bow? Make It Custom Read More »

Folding knife construction has largely gone unchanged since the late 18th century. But recent advances have changed this mainstay — sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Here’s how integral folding knives stack up. A basic folding knife has a pivot, a blade, a blade channel, and two handle pieces on either side of the blade, all held together by fasteners. Knifemakers have made only some small modifications to this basic folding knife design over the years. They include different locks, different opening mechanisms, and standoffs (pillars that allow dirt and debris to flow through the blade channel instead of getting lodged against a solid backspacer). But that’s about it. That is, until about 15 years ago when things began to change. Machining abilities expanded, and the public’s willingness to pay high prices for both custom and production knives increased. We have witnessed a fundamentally different way of making a folding knife: …

Integral Folding Knife Design: Pros & Cons Read More »

Whether you’re hunting moose in the Yukon or wing-shooting pheasants in South Dakota, we’ve done the research and rounded up the best men’s hunting boots of the year. Hunting boots are a particular kind of beast. Boots are generally individualistic and will depend on the wearer and the feet they’re packing. But some boots just stand above the rest, heeled or not. So, when looking for the best of the best, we doubled down on researching what hunters wear for various styles of hunting. And that specialization can mean the difference between an optimal day in the field or hoofing it back to the truck empty-handed because your feet are unhappy. From the best elk hunting boots to the warmest boots for the treestand, you’re bound to find something that’ll work in this list. Testing boots and gaiters in some of the nastiest mud we’ve ever experienced during a pack-in …

The Best Hunting Boots for Men in 2020 Read More »