Vortex Nation Podcast

Vortex Optics

Welcome to the Vortex Nation Podcast. Brought to you by lovers of hunting, shooting, public lands, the Second Amendment and dang good food.

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942 episodes
Updated Yesterday

Episodes942

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Feb 3, 2020 · 1 hr 4 min
Ep. 110 | Optics Care – Cleaning, Maintenance and Best Practices
Jimmy and Mark got the unique opportunity to talk to two of the technicians from the Vortex binocular repair team, Scott and Cody, so they could answer many of the questions we’ve received about how to properly care for, maintain and generally be good owners of one’s optics. These guys spend every day working on binoculars, spotting scopes and other observation optics that have been used, abused, rode hard and put away wet. Many times they’re using professional optical equipment and years of kno
Jan 28, 2020 · 10 min
#10MinuteTalk - Best Backcountry Snacks
What’s your go-to backcountry snack to pack for fuel? Jimmy, Mark and Erik hang out for 10 minutes to each give their number one go-to snack from canned fish to candy bars. Tune in to hear what they are and why they pick them!
Jan 27, 2020 · 1 hr 22 min
Ep. 109 | Long Range Muzzleloaders??
Jimmy, Mark and Ryan Muckenhirn are joined by Luke Horak from Arrowhead Rifles to chat about long range muzzleloaders. That’s right – you didn’t read that wrong – we’re talking about rifles you load from the front just like they did well before even the 1900’s that can also shoot accurately out to 1,000 yards. To get a frame of reference, we also take some time to talk about the more classic forms of muzzleloaders and what makes them different from the high performance builds Luke makes in his s
Jan 21, 2020 · 9 min
#10MinuteTalk - Cheap tools you can’t live without - Vaseline and cotton balls
It’s been a minute since we last brought up some cheap tools you just can’t live without in the backcountry, but we’re back with Mark and Jimmy to discuss Vaseline and cotton balls as a dang good fire starter. Combined, this cheap DIY will give you easy ignition and super long burn times considering how small and lightweight they are together. They’re easy to carry around and the Vaseline even doubles as a good protectant for dry skin or wind burn to keep you comfortable in the wild.
Jan 20, 2020 · 1 hr 4 min
Ep. 108 | Calling all Coyotes with Dustin Butler
Looking for a howling good time – look to calling coyotes. Jimmy and Mark sit down with Coyote calling expert (he would be humble and deny the title “Expert”, but we insist) Dustin Butler to chat through how a person goes about calling one of these masters of their surroundings into gun range. These crafty critters will test a hunters mettle every time they head afield. Coyote hunting can be a year round pursuit, licenses are cheap, and there is typically no bag limit (obligatory always check t
Jan 14, 2020 · 11 min
#10MinuteTalk – Still Hunting (Tactic)
Jimmy, Mark, and Erik spend 10 minutes talking about a tactic in hunting that involves walking at a painfully slow pace through the woods, utilizing each and every one of your senses to their max, and possibly getting crazy close to wild game without them even realizing you’re there – Still hunting.
Jan 13, 2020 · 1 hr 23 min
Ep. 107 | Let’s Talk LPVO’s (Low Power Variable Optics)
Adam Maxwell and Rob Morell join Jimmy and Mark to talk all about LPVO’s (Riflescopes that go from 1x to a higher magnification) their rise to huge popularity with the shooting community these days and one very exciting new product coming out from Vortex in the category for 2020. If you like to be in the know on new and exciting stuff, you won’t want to miss this one! As always, we want to hear your feedback! Let us know if there are any topics you'd like covered on the Vortex Nation podcast by
Jan 7, 2020 · 10 min
#10MinuteTalk - 375 Ruger - Snappy yet Sophisticated
Looking for a new “Do-All” big-game cartridge. Don’t ignore this medium-bore darling of the modern era. Modern case design took all the big pill hucking qualities of the 375 H&H and put it in a standard length cartridge sans the belt without sacrificing a thing in the performance dept! The result - an easy-to -carry, 600-yard capable bomb dropper. The smart phone is to the Rotary dial as the 375 Ruger is to the 375 H&H. Extreme – maybe? Listen and decide for yourself.
Jan 6, 2020 · 1 hr 3 min
Ep. 106 | Remi Warren Talks Survival in the Wilderness
Remi Warren is an all-around badass, so when we get the chance to podcast with him following up a bizarre conversation over sushi about the time he tried eating a slug as part of a survival course he was doing “Just for fun”, we had to jump at the opportunity. When he’s not remembering last minute that slugs aren’t exactly… “Edible”… Remi is a master at surviving in the wilderness. It’s not just the gear that he carries with him (In fact, you’ll find he doesn’t carry a whole lot) but simply the
Dec 31, 2019 · 10 min
#10MinuteTalk - 2020 New Year’s Resolutions
Mark, Jimmy and Erik take 10 minutes to go over their hunting and shooting 2020 New Year’s resolutions. In typical Mark fashion, he has about 20 of them, all of which we need your help keeping him accountable for. What are your hunting and shooting New Year’s resolutions for 2020? We’d love to hear what you’ll be working on this year!
Dec 30, 2019 · 1 hr 13 min
Ep. 105 | Barrels – The Most Important Part of Your Gun?
Ian Klemm, previous guest from some some of our most popular podcasts of all time in the Long Range series, joins Mark and Jimmy to talk all about barrels. Are these the most important parts of your gun? Why are there so many different kinds? Materials, fluting, twist rates, types of rifling, lengths, coatings, tuning, free floating, the list goes on and on! Ian discusses all these topics in-depth in the way only a mega-genius gun-nerd engineer could. Whether you’re looking for a barrel to compl
Dec 24, 2019 · 10 min
#10MinuteTalk - How to Survive the Holidays - For Hunters and Shooters
“It’s the holiday’s – we’re all miserable!” OK, maybe not all of us, but the holidays certainly bring some of us a great deal of stress and time consumption doing things we, quite frankly, would rather not be doing. Jimmy, Mark and Erik discuss some of their best tips and tricks for hunters and shooters to make it through this time of year. From “Sneak hunts” to last minute squirrel sniping and showing up at the front door with a bucket of AR parts, these will make the time fly by!
Dec 23, 2019 · 1 hr 8 min
Ep. 104 | Pass the Eggnog & Fill the Freezer – Your Guide to Hunting Through the Holidays
If you can avoid holiday parties, schmoozing the in-laws, and consuming enough calories to comatose a sasquatch, the holiday season offers plentiful hunting opportunities. This episode is all about the seasons still in full-swing during the waning months of hunting season. Jimmy, Mark, Ryan, and Erik fill you in on big and small game species you can chase from the upper-Midwest to the southwestern desert. Even better - most of these hunts come with tags at affordable price points that are very a
Dec 17, 2019 · 11 min
#10MinuteTalk - Cross-Eye Dominance and Riflescopes
It happens more often than you’d think. Someone is right handed, for example, but not necessarily right-eyed. Everyone has an eye that their body naturally relies on as its dominant eye, and if it happens to be opposite of your dominant shooting hand, people are often left scratching their head as to how they should go about shooting. Switch to the other hand to take advantage of the better eye? Try to train the weak eye? There are different answers to this question depending on the reasoning be
Dec 16, 2019 · 1 hr 28 min
Ep. 103 | The Unexplainable Reasons we Hunt
In this episode, Ryan Muckenhirn says he feels sad for people who live and party in big cities, Mark says “Intimate” an uncomfortable amount of times, and Jimmy talks about cars more than hunting. It’s hard to sum up this interesting podcast where we go deep into the human DNA to try and figure out why it is that we hunt. Mark and Ryan are die hard hunters who want to do and think about nothing other than chasing game (Or picking berries for Ryan, too). Meanwhile, Jimmy enjoys hunting, but has h
Dec 10, 2019 · 11 min
#10MinuteTalk – The 220 Swift by popular demand
After many requests to discuss the .220 Swift, Ryan Muckenhirn joins Jimmy and Mark to do a 10(ish) minute dive into the cartridge, its history and application. As always – it is phenomenally interesting not only to learn about the cartridge but to get a peep into the cartridge encyclopedia that is Ryan’s brain.
Dec 9, 2019 · 1 hr 14 min
Ep. 102 | Riflescopes – Everything you ever wanted to know (Part 1)
We didn’t expect to need two parts for this topic, but there’s just so dang much to talk about when it comes to riflescopes! Lightweight Dave joins Mark and Jimmy once again, this time not to talk about sawing his toothbrush in half, but to discuss all things riflescopes. How they’re made, how their optical systems work, how our eyes interact with the light they funnel through their many lenses, what parallax is and what parallax adjustable scopes do when you spin their dials, and so much more!
Dec 3, 2019 · 12 min
#10MinuteTalk – Bullpups – What’s up with these things?
Bullpup firearms have long been the choice of sci-fi movie heroes (or villains) and middle schoolers playing their friends in Call of Duty. They look crazy cool with all the common features of a regular rifle or shotgun, seemingly thrown into an engineering blender, coming out on the other end with parts in weird places that look nothing like their more traditional gun cousins. Adam Maxwell joins Jimmy and Mark to discuss what all the fuss is about these unique looking firearms, why they exist a
Dec 2, 2019 · 1 hr 22 min
Ep. 101 | The 6.5 Revolution
You’ve seen it at the range, your local gun store, long range matches, and now you’re even seeing it in the military - it’s hard to deny 6.5’s are here in a big way. But while we all look to prom-king cartridges like the 6.5 Creedmoor as a new and totally exciting, 6.5mm rounds have actually been a part of the cartridge landscape for quite some time - and there are seemingly countless variants of cartridges all pushing 6.5 mm bullets down barrels. Ryan Muckenhirn, the cartridge version of a bea
Nov 26, 2019 · 10 min
#10MinuteTalk – Painting Your Riflescope
People often ask us if they can paint their riflescope without causing any kind of rip in the VIP-Warranty-Time-Continuum. The answer is yes – you’re still covered even if you paint it. Unless it’s ugly… Just kidding! But what are the different methods out there for painting or “Coating” your riflescope? Whether it’s just for looks or for a specific application like camouflage for a hunting rifle, coating your scope (and gun) can be a ton of fun and give you a very unique looking package. Just m