Vortex Nation Podcast

In today’s day and age, it can already be hard to imagine a time where 30mm tubes were borderline unheard of. Ryan Muckenhirn and Jimmy buzz in for a 10 minute chat to talk about the evolution of scope tube sizes since Mr. Muckenhirn started in this industry not that long ago in relativity. It begs the question, will scope tubes continue growing? Will scopes of the future even be tubular at all? W...

Wood and bones – two things you very well may need to cut when you’re out in the field, and doing so without a proper saw can be a real pain in the tush. Thankfully, small saws like the one we talk about in this podcast are inexpensive, can be delivered to your door free via Amazon Prime in one day and will help you enjoy one of the best cuts of meat very few other people enjoy – The ribs.

Reuben and Justin Lipska, new guest to the show and also new employee here at Vortex in our shooting range, join Mark and Jimmy to take a deeper dive specifically into the technical reticles (You know - The cool looking ones) we commonly see in long range riflescopes. More specifically, three of the reticles we focus on in this episode are the EBR-7C reticle and the Horus H59 and Tremor3 reticles....

The long-standing perception amongst shooters is that bolt guns hands-down out shoot gas guns in terms of accuracy and long range capability. In the past this was certainly true, and gas guns were simply held to a lower standard in accuracy than bolt guns were. But now, have gas guns made enough strides to match their bolt gun counterparts? Are they a more viable solution for long range precision...

After drooling over the famed Ruger M77 in a Petersen’s Magazine as a 12 year old boy, Rick just couldn’t help himself and begged his dad to get one as his first deer rifle. After 16 years, he still breaks it out every season to fill the freezer. We got 10 minutes with him to chat about this rifle’s story, why Rick chose one chambered in God’s cartridge of .270 Win (The answer involves an old comp...

Dust off that old 10/22, go buy a bucket o’ bullets and prepare to have a ton of fun. Thought rimfire was just for kids and squirrel hunters? Think again, Cheyenne Dalton joins Mark, Jimmy and another special guest and frequent listener, Trent Brenny, to talk about the world of competitive rimfire shooting. Cheyenne started out her competitive shooting career in rimfire with a purple 10/22 she got...

Chad Mendes is a very recently retired professional MMA fighter (Still toweling of the sweat from his last fight and not retired at time of this recording), former collegiate wrestler, public figure in sports and at the risk of damaging his outwardly tough-as-nails appearance, a really nice guy. To us, perhaps the coolest thing about Chad is that he has been an avid hunter his entire life. From ma...

The topic of astigmatisms comes up more times than you can shake a stick at when people are discussing red dots. It seems everywhere you look there are people being affected by “Starbursts” or “Clusters of grapes” in their red dots, but why? In 10 minutes, Jimmy, Reuben and Mark discuss just what an astigmatism actually is, the issues most commonly experienced by users with an astigmatism, ways yo...

If you only remember one thing from this podcast, it’s probably how good Mike Love, new guest to the podcast and range instructor here at Vortex, sounds with his perfect radio voice. Anyway, in addition to Mike, Adam Maxwell joins Jimmy and Mark to discuss the “Wild West” world of red dots on pistols. With no convenient standard to adhere to like our beloved AR-15’s with their “Mil-Spec” parts, th...

Chris Denham, Arizona resident and recognized expert of “Grey Ghosts” from Western Hunter Magazine, joins Jimmy, Mark and Paul Neess to talk Couse deer hunting in the Southwest. If you’ve never heard of these deer before, imagine a scaled down whitetail living in the desert mountains that has mastered the art of blending in with its surroundings and remaining hidden. Why would anyone ever want to...

Reuben joins Mark and Jimmy for ten minutes to discuss the basic differences between 1x prism scopes like our Spitfire AR and red dots. More than just what the technical differences are between the two and how they work, but what might make you want to choose one over the other and what scenarios you may find one to be more advantageous over the other.

How much farther can we take the long range 100_ series? There are plenty more long range topics to cover out here, but this one might be the grand finale for the series, discussing simply shooting out to 1000 yards to now sitting down with Ian Klemm and Jeff Heeg, Extreme Long Range (ELR) competitor, to discuss taking rifles out to some truly mind-boggling distances. Whether it’s a .22 beyond 500...

When the word Bow makes up half your last name, it’s pretty much destiny much of your life is going revolve around chasing elk with stick and string.  That’s good news for the rest of us. We sit down with Zach Bowhay from Hunt DIY to tap into his vast elk knowledge - focusing on a first time elk hunters perspective. Don’t kid yourself, elk hunting is hard. Zach will tell you that first hand. Armed...

Whether you need to condition your bowstring to prevent it from drying out, avoid potential blisters, enjoy the ambient glow of a candle, or start a fire, there’s one tool for that’ll do it all – Chapstick. Heck, you can even moisturize your lips, if that’s your thing. Regardless, we jammed the many uses of Chapstick all into one 10-minute talk, solidifying its minuscule place in your pack.   Got...

Nick, a frequent listener of the Vortex Nation podcast, reached out to us after our first WW2(ish) podcast revolving around a few historic firearms and not only explained how the M1 Garand’s grenade launcher system actually worked, but also explained that he and his dad are avid (Understatement) WW2 era firearms collectors and reenactors. Jimmy, Mark and Ryan Muckenhirn were lucky enough to sit do...

Navigating Western Tag applications, Draws, Preference Points, Bonus Points, Odds, Over The Counter Options – #AlreadyOverwhelmed. It’s not your fault. This stuff is more confusing than trying to understand the opposite sex. Not anymore. We sat down with Brady Miller and Trail Kreitzer from Go Hunt to break down this topic using the advanced tools they offer. GO Hunt has compiled all the info you...

Mark, Jimmy and Erik argue the pros and cons of wearing a turkey vest vs simply taking a backpack afield for hunting turkeys this spring in 10 minutes. Maybe this will help you decide which you choose or maybe it will leave you in exactly the same undecided state by the end, but hey, it’s only 10 minutes! As long as you’re out chasing gobblers, is there really any wrong answer? What’s your preferr...

As the glowing orb of sunlight pierces the horizon, sounds of sirens, kids at play, and bumper-to-bumper traffic overwhelm Taylor Chamberlin’s audible senses. These aren’t conventional sights and sounds associated with bowhunting whitetails, but Taylor’s swaying from the treetops of suburbia, Washington D.C., keeping the growing whitetail herd at bay and filling his freezer in the process. While t...

Mark and Jimmy join Paul Neess and Rob Morell of our product development team to discuss laser rangefinders for this special episode. Not only do we dive in to the history of the laser rangefinder, how they work, tips and tricks to maximize the performance of your laser rangefinder in the field and the different types of features and their applications, but we also discuss a brand new, never-befor...

Plug in your headphones and grab a bowl of garden fresh vegetables as we visit with Ryan Lampers and Doc. Hillary Lampers from Hunt Harvest Health. We talk fasting and Doc Hilary uses words like Autophagy (because she is smart) - which basically means taking the garbage out of your body’s cells. We also cover eating good on the mountain and making your own backcountry food/meals (way before your h...

How political is hunting these days? With the stroke of his pen, Gov. Philip D. Murphy signed an executive order effectively ending the state’s planned 2018 bear hunt on all state-owned lands. For the public landowners out there – that happened on YOUR public land!!! No consulting of biologists, no scientific or ecological reasoning. Simply the fulfilling of a campaign promise to do everything pos...

If you find yourself guilty of not properly maintaining your firearm after listening to this podcast, don’t worry about it too much – you’re not the only one by a long shot! Unfortunately, so few people are aware of the actual proper methods of maintaining a firearm that our head of range operations at the Vortex shooting range, Adrian Alan, and head firearm instructor, Pete Schreier, suggested th...

Buckle your hip belt and hold on tight as we join the Born and Raised Outdoors crew for an upbeat conversation on how they consistently call and kill bulls year after year. Bugle, rake, repeat. It sounds like a simple concept, but Trevor, Trent, and Kody and the rest of the crew at Born and Raised Outdoors have been filling their OTC elk tags with beautiful bulls on pressured public land by perfec...

Why suppressed? Consider the fact that if you’re listening to this podcast, that’s courtesy of your functioning ears, which we should all be doing everything in our power to maintain. For some the answer to the question of “Why suppressed?” is obvious, but due to some unfortunate misinformation in popular and social media, suppressor ownership and use can be scary, seemingly unnecessary or just pl...

We’re joined by Scott Walter, Large Carnivore Specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to discuss bears, wolves, cougars, and other predators in the Upper Great Lakes on Ep. 59 of the Vortex Nation Podcast. Did you know cougars are known to travel from South Dakota’s Black Hill as far eastward as Connecticut? How about the fact that humans are increasingly living in close proxim...