The History of "The Shooting Bench"

UPDATE:

Guess what!?

After being dormant for 3 years, the Shooting Bench is coming back but in print and online format! Beginning in December of 2023, The Shooting Bench will be a regular feature on Mountain Daily Star.

TSB is unique in its content and there's nothing like it anywhere in the Southwest. Topics are primarily centered around firearms and everything that surrounds them such as shooting, training, reloading, self-defense, concealed weapons, hunting, gunsmithing, competition, etc, etc. Other topics will include disaster preparedness, survival and the gear and supplies that pertain to them along with communication, knives, current events, trivia, humor and probably some politics here and there! Another passion of mine is freedom, liberty and constitutional issues. 

The History of The Shooting Bench

The Shooting Bench was a radio show that I hosted, uninterrupted, for about 15 years before I finally shut it down in 2020. It started as a 30-minute show, once a week, on a FOX Sports AM station in Farmington, NM in late 2005 or early 2006 if memory serves. Due to the irrational behavior and unprofessionalism of that station, I quickly pulled up stakes and moved to another, much larger and more professional station. The show immediately went to one hour, once a week and shortly after that went to two hours. Life was good! 

Then, sometime in late 2006, a traveler on a highway about 40 miles away was listening to the show and decided that he wanted to meet me and see the store. He was impressed with the content of the show and suggested that I do a podcast. I said, "OK... um, what's a podcast?". Well, we had a lot to talk about and we quickly became good friends. Mike helped me get the podcasts started and a whole new audience presented itself! It took some time to realize that I was now talking to the world and not just northern NM and southern Colorado. 

In November of 2009, I was introduced to internet radio and another change took place. For a little while, I tried to do both but due to a some other changes that were taking place, I went all internet and podcast and abandoned the AM radio show. 

In early June of 2011, The Shooting Bench went to two hours a night, five nights a week on Just Measures Radio Network out of Indiana. The show and the network grew together and it was a lot of fun but I can tell you, doing 2 hours a day, every day, began to tell on me. It takes a lot of preparation to do 10 hours of broadcasting every week, 52 weeks a year, year in and year out!. That continued until November of 2014 when the show went back to one hour, five nights a week. A month later, just before Christmas, I obtained full rights and ownership of the network and The Survival Circle Radio Network was born. Most of the old hosts and their wealth of information came with me from JMR and the network was in full operation again. On 21 June 2013, with no thought or prior planning at all, I just did a show one Friday night that included no news or current events or gun talk or anything! Just classic country music. WOW! It was wildly popular and Liberty Lounge was born. Every Friday after that, I put the world's trials and tribulations on hold and entered into the weekends on a lighter note. I strayed off into classic rock from time to time but for the most part, it was all classic country. Liberty Lounge continued for two hours, every Friday night until I finally shut it all down.

Archived podcasts of The Shooting Bench podcast can be found at www.tsb.podbean.com