who we are

Father-and-son explorers. Honest field testers.

The Rugged Outdoorsmen are JB and his son Mike: explorers with a passion for the great outdoors, and a mission to give outdoor brands honest feedback through real-world field testing.

years exploring the backcountry

field stories published

magazine and press features

generations on the trail

The Rugged Outdoorsmen started as a passion project between a father and his son who shared one obsession:

getting outside and seeing what's over the next ridge.

JB has been an avid outdoorsman since his early teens, hiking, fishing and camping in New York's Adirondack Mountains. That love of adventure led him to the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as an infantry squad leader and instructor, and later to New York State Corrections, where he retired as a Drill Instructor after training thousands of officers.

Today JB and Mike explore the desert Southwest from their home base in Mesquite, Nevada. They take outdoor products on real excursions, photograph them in use and give brands honest feedback, the good, the bad and the ugly. Their work has appeared on the cover of Overland Adventures Magazine and in View On Magazine, and M-Tac is their official exploration sponsor.

— How we test

From gear locker to trailhead to verdict

01

Deploy

Gear goes straight into an active trip — no controlled test bench, no studio lighting. Real overland routes, real hiking loops, real weather.

02

Document

Every test is documented in the field with photos and video taken during actual use: what worked, what failed and when.

03

Decide

Back at basecamp, the notes become a plain-language verdict: the good, the bad and the ugly.