Vortex Nation Podcast

Jimmy and Mark are once again joined by one of the optical engineers here on the team at Vortex, Christian Benson. Christian schools us on all the questions we could muster around the topic of “Light Transmission” in the optics we use. What is “Light transmission”, how is it measured, what makes an optic better/worse in low light scenarios and all the common misconceptions about light transmission...

Jimmy and Mark try a recipe from Hank Shaw with some surprise frozen jack rabbit found at the back of the podcast room freezer. Why do Jack rabbits seem to get a bad rap for their flavor? Can a bold tasting stew like this one make it better, or did we get ourselves into a pickle by using a half-broken ninja cooker to whip it up? Have you guys tried Jack Rabbit before? If so, how did you do it and...

Zach Ferenbaugh of The Hunting Public joins Jimmy, Mark and Erik to discuss “Unorthodox rut tactics” in what couldn’t be a timelier podcast for deer season! As many who follow the THP crew know, they're a huge proponent of hunting from the ground and can often be seen making moves that break the traditional “Rule book” of whitetail hunting. Zach shares why you should never sit idle and wait for a...

Mark Kenyon of Wired to Hunt joins Jimmy and Mark remotely from camp to discuss the history behind starting Wired to hunt, what led him to want to quit his “Regular” job and make podcasting and journaling a full-time gig, and why he loves hunting whitetails so much. Wired to Hunt is undoubtedly one of the longest standing and most popular hunting podcasts in the industry and the fact that it was s...

Offhand shooting in and of itself is skill completely unique and different from shooting with any form of rest. It adds in so many more variables to the equation and we immediately see how unsteady we can be when trying to maintain pin-point accuracy with only our bodies holding the weight of the rifle in front of us. The gun begins to get heavy and our muscles begin to shake, the motion created b...

Cool content and taking hunter recruitment by the horns – We sit down with Tom and Nathan Crick of Identical Draw to chat about their revolutionary “New Hunter Project”, where they have dedicated their season to taking folks from 0-to-60 on the bowhunting scale. Multiple states, multiple species, and multiple sets of hunters they’ve never met before will make this a season for the books – and quit...

Adrian and Pete from Vortex EDGE join Jimmy and Mark after a full day of training home defense scenarios in the indoor shoot house at our facility. In this episode, we discuss mentally preparing for a home defense situation and the many different ways it can present itself. The Vortex EDGE crew explains why “Clearing your own house” is a bad idea, but rather, how you should actually consider movem...

Kyle McNally, First time podcast guest and our instructor for practical martial arts for the day, joins Jimmy and Mark following a morning of learning the fundamentals of real world self-defense without a firearm. In this episode, we discuss the profound importance of understanding how to defend one’s self without relying on the deadly force of a firearm using basic and intuitive movements from ma...

Pete and Justin of Vortex EDGE join Jimmy and Mark following a full day of working the fundamentals of marksmanship with the fighting carbine (AR-15’s in this case). In this episode we discuss the importance of the carbine and training with it to ensure one’s ability to maximize the capability of the platform. We go over good drills anyone can do at their range to increase their skill and be much...

Pete and Adrian of Vortex EDGE join Jimmy and Mark following a full day of working the fundamentals of pistol marksmanship as well as a classroom session around the physical, mental and legal sides of concealed carry and deadly force. The pistol is perhaps the most common firearm for people to gravitate towards first when considering a gun for self-defense, and for many good reasons. The Vortex ED...

One of those very important variables in shooting performance and accuracy that so many of us take for granted or never think to check – the twist rate of the barrel in our rifle. What is the twist rate, why is it so important to consider, how do different twist rates affect our projectiles and how can you figure out which twist rate is best for your application? Ryan Muckenhirn joins Jimmy and Ma...

Bang!!! Flop!....Now what??? Mark and Jimmy sit down with Ryan Lampers (Hunt Harvest Health) to chat through meat care techniques and tricks after the shot - to ensure big game you take makes it to your table as the absolute best product possible. We cover warm-weather hunts, keeping meet cool, gutting Vs. the gutless method, how to take the heart liver and rib meat if you do the gutless method, s...

No series of 10-ish minute talks all about cartridges is complete without one dedicated to the ol’ reliable 30-30. Ryan Muckenhirn joins Jimmy and Mark to discuss one of the most popular American cartridges of all time that’s still slaying deer to this day. The history, the performance, and the nostalga! Everyone seems to have a story about a 30-30 at some point in their lives, what’s yours? We’d...

Jimmy, Mark, and Erik sit down with Chuck Rossi, avid firearms enthusiast and former Facebook employee where he worked as an engineer behind the scenes and the “subject matter expert” on all things gun related in the company. There seems to be a million and one theories as to why social giants like this have tended to be so stringent upon the gun and hunting industry. Listening to Chuck, some of t...

Lots of rangefinders have “Angle Compensation” built in, and if you’ve got a Vortex Rangefinder, regardless of the model, this is certainly the case. (We happen to call it “Horizontal Component Distance” or “HCD” mode) But why is angle compensation so important? When should you be concerned about the true horizontal distance between you and a target and when is it actually more beneficial to just...

Combining solo hunting with solo filming takes a high level of talent, persistence, patience, creativity, and straight-up grit – Tim Burnett, Producer and Host of SOLO HNTR TV has these qualities in spades. He won’t tell you that about himself though, so we will. Jim and Mark sit down with Tim to chat solo hunting, solo filming, the Vortex Selects series he put together for the Vortex YouTube page...

From large tracts, to tiny parcels with unique and difficult access, public land open to all of us dots our landscape like a Jackson Pollock painting, but it’s not always obvious where the different boundaries lye – or that they even exist. Jimmy, Mark and Erik sit down with Dylan Dowson and Jared Larsen from OnX Maps to chat modern mapping and land navigation. Scouting public and private land, us...

You asked and we listened! Ryan Muckenhirn joins Jimmy and Mark to discuss the almighty .338 Lapua. What is it, where did it come from, what makes it so special, and how has it developed a nearly made-of-unicorn-dust status in shooter’s eyes? On top of that, we touch briefly on the .338 Norma Mag and how the 6.5 creed has very likely been the reason we see fewer commercial .338 Lapua offerings on...

In this installment of the Vortex Nation Podcast, we cup up and set down with the fellas from Midwest Flyways, diving into navigating waterfowl hunting on public land – with a few sweet private-land tips thrown in. Pretty sure we limited on puns in our first sentence – oh, that’s another one. We cover finding places to hunt, scouting waterfowl, and some solid techniques to get these flat-billed bi...

Jimmy and Mark are at the range following a number of PRS-style stages put together by Nick Laufenberg to challenge them and their fancy new custom rifles. We take the time afterwards to review our rifles, their components, their accuracy and all the many things we learned as shooters behind the firearms now that we’ve really had the chance to try it all out in a fairly real-world, practical-use s...

Mark, Jimmy and Nick Laufenberg sit down to discuss Jimmy’s “Entry-level-ish” rifle that he and nick put together here at the shop with a few simple tools, a vise and some trial and error. And no - no engineers were used in the making of this rifle, so you, too, should be able to do it! We go further in-depth on trigger selection and adjustment, lessons learned after our first build, whether or no...

Step into the mind of a professional gunsmith who builds precision long range rifles for a living. Isaiah Curtis of Curtis Custom Weapons joins Jimmy, Mark and Nick Laufenberg at his shop in North-central Missouri immediately after building and testing Mark’s ultra-high-end rifle. We get the chance to pick his brain about everything that actually goes into building the gun itself and how to make i...

Jimmy and Mark settle in for 10-ish minutes to discuss their top recommendations for optics in the Vortex lineup for the typical midwestern whitetail hunter. Everything from the riflescope choice to binos, rangefinder and… a spotting scope? Who’da thunk! If you’re busy trying to throw together your whitetail gear before fall really hits this year, give this one a listen for starters.

Like hunting itself, producing a hunting television show is full of excitement, passion, ups, downs, the unexpected and everything between. Jim and Mark sit down with Willi Schmidt -  host of Pure Hunting TV -  to chat about how he got into outdoor TV, what he loves about it, challenges and more. Willi’s show takes viewers on adventures from birds to bucks with family and friends. Check it out on...

When it comes to catfish, Mike Valley of Valley Fish and Cheese in Prairie Du Chen, WI. is your guy. Mike has caught millions of pounds of catfish, and still adds to his total commercially for his business, as well as for sport in his spare time (Spare time we still don’t understand how he finds…) Mike schools Jimmy and Mark in the types of catfish, how to catch them, where to catch them, how to p...