Ryan Holm is the new Director of Marketing for Leica’s Sport Optics division. While Ryan is new to the high-performance optics industry, he is no stranger to the hunting market. I first met Ryan when he was in a similar position with the pack company, Mystery Ranch. I still give him major credit for building that brand into the category leader.

I was born and raised in northern California and started shooting a bow in 1974 when I was five years old after I found an old wood recurve under a neighbor’s house. I grew up in a hippie family of artists of various mediums. My mother was a vegetarian, but I’d acquired a taste for meat early on, and this only fanned the flames of my interest in hunting I’d somehow discovered my love for woodworking and building things started out about the same time.

Working with the Outdoorsmans optics trade-in program for the past couple of years, I have seen high-end binoculars in every kind of shape imaginable. I loved cutting open a box to see a dusty pair of Swarovskis that had turned a whole new shade of green from some dude’s hand grease. I always knew those binos had some soul, they had probably seen some cool stuff, and there was plenty of life left in them.

I’ve struggled with a fear of heights for as long as I can remember. My dad has it even worse, so I’m pretty sure it runs in the family. For me, the feeling hits when I’m on open slopes without trees or cover – the kind of country mountain goats live in.

There are many beautiful things in the anatomy of a rifle. Its tapered and elegant barrel. The crisp and precise break of its trigger. The fluid repeatability and strength of its action. Its balance, its weight, its sound. And its stock–the component that is both skin and skeleton of a rifle, bringing everything together, turning machined aluminum and steel into a functional instrument of art.

Eberlestock’s tried and true Mainframe set the bar. The new Modframe takes it further. It’s leaner in weight, stronger in […]

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Steve and I explore the fundamentals of not just making a pack but also building a business and customer base that will sustain a company.