5 Days Fishing, Camping, & Whitewater Rafting in Montana’s Grizzly-Infested Woods

I spent 5 days at the best cutthroat trout fishing destination in the US with Glacier Anglers & Outfitters. At the start of the trip, I had little fly fishing experience. I’d never caught a trout on a fly rod, but by the end I’d caught well over 100 westslope cutthroat trout. Including se...

By Wes Littlefield •

Blast from the Past: M1A-A1 Bush Rifle

Editor’s Note: This piece was crafting as a special retro-style “mini-magazine” within the Winter 2026 print issue of The Armory Life. We styled it to look as though it had been published back when the author was a young teenager poring over his collection of Springfield Armory catalogs. Yo...

By Mike Humphries •

The Dueling Roots of the Old West Gunfighter

The lone gunman squaring off in a dusty street, hand hovering over a low-slung holster, is one of the most durable images in American gear culture. Its origin lies not on the frontier but in the East, in a formal ritual imported from Europe and practiced for decades by prominent men in the young ...

By James Chen •

FFL Direct: ATF Built a Real-Time Tap on Gun-Buyer Records

ATF calls FFL Direct a convenience for gun dealers. The program automates serial-number trace responses that can send purchaser information to Washington while the bound book stays with the dealer. Congress must confront the backdoor registry infrastructure before an anti-gun administration explo...

By John Crump •

Maintaining The AK Series Of Rifles: From The User To The Maintainer

First, before buying and using the weapon, visually inspect the rifle for damage to better assess its condition. Begin with an overall examination of the rifle. Inspect for obvious damage, corrosion, contamination, missing components, and other visible deficiencies. During this inspection, you al...

By Lynndon Schooler •

Ayoob: The Guns of Cormac McCarthy

When I plucked the September-October issue of Smithsonian magazine out of my P.O. Box, the first article I turned to was “The Secret Life of Cormac McCarthy” by Richard Grant. As I skimmed it, a pull-quote leaped out at me: “He never left the house without a book. He never left the house wi...

By Massad Ayoob •

The Rimfire Report: Shooting the Peters .22LR That Started It All

The first rifle I ever really shot was a plain old Ruger 10/22, and the ammo feeding it came out of a brown box that looked like it belonged in my grandfather's tackle shed. Peters . Forty grains of lead, high velocity, round nose, and in my memory it never once let me or my 10/22 down at th...

By Luke C. •
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