Welcome back to Front Line Friday. This week is an editorial, and the topic is the wave of drones, license plate readers, and other technology moving into patrol work, and what actually changes officer capability versus what just moves money around. Front Line Friday is brought to you by Dead Air...
Running the Gulf Stream to fish the Bahamas rewards planning far more than it rewards luck. The crossing itself throws steep seas and shifting current at you. On the far side, the fishing changes with tide, water clarity, and predators that can end a hot bite in minutes. Anglers who arrive prepar...
The odds of a wild, healthy wolf attacking you in North America are close to nothing. A widely cited 2002 study of wolf-human interactions covering Alaska and Canada, home to more than 60,000 wolves, turned up no records of people killed by wild wolves across the entire twentieth century. In that...
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...
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 ...
When you envision “bulletproof” firearms your mind might immediately leap to something steel, forged for strength, and with countless years of experience. We’re talking millions of guns made and billions of rounds fired through them. That firearm is the Model 1911. I can hear th...
Editor’s Note: In today’s article, Ramon Ramirez wades into the striker-fired vs. hammer-fired pistol debate. In the article, he uses two pistols to demonstrate the different systems: the Springfield Armory Echelon and the Springfield Armory 1911 DS Prodigy. Both guns were provided on loa...
Handguns have a strong record in documented bear-defense encounters. Dean Weingarten’s review of 204 fatal bear attacks found just one case with a handgun present—and the victim could not reach it. The lesson for armed Americans: a defensive handgun needs to be accessible when danger arrives.
Many of us grew up hanging off of the side of a tree while hunting. It was frigid, anxiety-inducing (swaying in wind gusts), and never stoked the fires of excitement for the pastime of hunting. Now, many of us have grown older, wiser, and desire more creature comforts. There’s no glory in f...
Vertx has expanded the Urban Ghost line with three new pieces aimed at people who travel armed and would rather not announce it at the gate. The headliner is the Urban Ghost 36L Weekender Travel Bag, joined by a matching DOPP kit and utility pouch. The 36L Weekender is sized to meet most airline ...