On April 28, 1910 the first-ever nighttime airplane flight was made by Claude Grahame-White, in England. According to Britannica: “Educated at Bedford in engineering, Grahame-White owned one of the first gasoline-driven motorcars in England and worked at a motor-engineering business in London until he became interested in aeronautics in 1909. On Jan. 4, 1910, he gained the first English aviator’s certificate of proficiency. Also in 1910, he entered many flying races in Europe and in the United States, where he won the Gordon Bennett Cup.” — April 28th is the birthday of Aimo Johannes Lahti. (Born in 1896.) This inventive…

Based in Arizona and veteran-owned, Simply Rugged Holsters builds holsters the old-fashioned way. They use Hermann Oak leather (a name trusted since 1881), hand-mold each piece and stitch with durable nylon thread designed to hold up under real-world use. The result? Gear that’s as tough as it is functional. The lineup is extensive. Their well-known “Sourdough Pancake” design, inspired by Roy Baker’s classic, offers a stable, close-to-the-body carry — but it doesn’t stop there. With optional conversion kits, that same holster can be adapted for chest carry or inside-the-waistband use, giving you multiple carry options from a single rig. That…

A mild winter and warm spring across much of the West have contributed to extremely below-average snowpacks and widespread drought conditions, prompting experts to use terms such as “historic” and “abysmal” when describing the current outlook. According to Climate Matters, the western U.S. snowpack was 65% below the 1991-2020 average as of March 30, marking the worst snowpack on record since 1981. Conditions vary depending on the subregion, but as of April 22, every region in the Westwide SNOTEL data provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is below average.The dismal snowpack has worrying implications not just for irrigators and…

A few Novembers ago, I set out for a hang-and-hunt on my favorite piece of public land in North Carolina. After over an hour of wandering, I stumbled across a hot white oak that was surrounded by fresh deer sign. Shortly after I set up, a young buck limped up to the acorns and stood perfectly for a shot.I couldn’t have been more excited as I walked up to that scrappy six-point. But reality started tugging on my sleeve as I field dressed him. My wandering led me nearly two miles from my truck, and I was totally unprepared to…

It takes more than a single bad decision to lose your hunting and fishing privileges for life. For Tennessee resident Jerry “Trey” Truitt III, it came after years of poaching violations across western Montana.Truitt was sentenced to a lifetime hunting and fishing ban in early April in Ravalli County after pleading no contest to five wildlife charges tied to incidents in 2024 and 2025, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.Those charges included two counts of unlawful possession of wildlife (a turkey and a sandhill crane), hunting without a license, criminal trespass, and hunting during a closed season. Investigators say…

Armed Citizen® Today Three men in Tucson, Ariz., allegedly tried to rob a fourth man at gunpoint on the evening of April 20. The intended victim, however, drew his own gun and fired, striking two of the three alleged assailants and causing the third to flee. One of the suspects died of his wounds; the second suspect’s injuries were non-life-threatening; the third suspect remained at large at the time of reporting. (kold.com, Tucson, Ariz., 4/21/26)   From the Armed Citizen® Archives – October 1991 Describing her attacker as a man who had once been “one of the family,” Juliette Blackmon, 81, of…

Making the Brine To prepare this recipe, you need a kitchen scale. Digital kitchen scales are cheap and well worth it to make a fantastic ham (especially when you figure all the time and effort you put into harvesting the meat).Curing Time The beauty of the equilibrium cure is that it’s almost impossible to mess this up assuming you did the math right above. The curing time is a function of the meat thickness, as it will take longer for the salt to penetrate a thick cut than a thin one.Too short curing time? You’ll end up with smoked meat,…

Browning’s Citori 825 Field is best described as a luxurious workhorse, sort of like a pick-up truck with leather seats and Bluetooth windshield wipers. Of the “8XX” series, it is designed for hunting or intensive clay shooting and is a well-rounded rendition. At its core is a redesigned receiver that starts out as a forging before the breechface is cut with a broach, and the rest is finished with precise CNC machining. If you’re up on your Citoris, you’ll notice that this receiver is cut to a noticeably lower profile than the preceding series. This brings the bore axis closer…

00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast, coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. 00:00:18 Speaker 2: You can’t predict anything. 00:00:20 Speaker 1: Brought to you by first Light. When I’m hunting, I need gear that won’t quit. First Light builds, no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer, no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at first light dot com. That’s f I R S T L I T E dot com. 00:00:43 Speaker 2: My god, are we Luckey. 00:00:44 Speaker 1: We’re joined…

The AR-15/M16 vs. AK-47 debate is often framed in a Cold War West vs. East. The reality is that AR-15-type firearms are now made around the world, while plenty of AKs are made in the U.S. An example of the latter is the Stenzel American Kalashnikov – 2021 or SAK-21. More than an American-made AK, Stenzel Industries calls the SAK-21 “a modular, purpose-built firearm, developed to meet the demands of special operations forces and professional shooters.”  The SAK-21 is an American-made updated version of the Kalashnikov that includes such features as a free-floating barrel, tunable short-stroke gas operating system, and…