As you’ve probably noticed, since 2017 the giveaway list for the Athlon Outdoors network (Tactical-Life.com, BallisticMag.com, and PersonalDefenseWorld.com) has gotten pretty big. Since we get so many questions about who wins, we decided to finally put everything in one place.

The Athlon Outdoors Giveaway List

The most common giveaways we run are “Free Gun Friday” on Tactical-Life.com, the “Custom Challenge” on BallisticMag.com, and “Fully Loaded” on PersonalDefenseWorld. There are some one-off giveaways that we run here and there, but for the most part, those are the “big three.”

Also, in case you didn’t know, we write about our “Custom Challenge” in every issue of Ballistic Magazine and our “Fully Loaded’ package in most issues of Combat Handguns. Make sure you subscribe to each magazine at OutdoorGroupStore.com.

So why did we make this list? For starters, we get asked about 100 times each week who won the last giveaway. Having everything in one place makes it easier on all of us. Then we also have the conspiracy theorists who call our giveaways “scams” because they don’t win. Apparently they’re not familiar with the way “odds” work. It’d be like us yelling that “Mega Millions” is a scam because we didn’t win despite buying 10 tickets.

Choosing Winners

Anyway, we’ve listed a bunch of winners and they’ve already been contacted and know they’ve won. We won’t list anyone here until they’ve been contacted and accepted the winnings, so no need to check here the second a giveaway ends — it takes a lot of time. Why does it take so long? Firstly, people need to respond to the email declaring them the winner. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t respond to our initial and miss out on winning a gun. Secondly, once confirmed, we have to collect FFL information and get the necessary paperwork, which we all know can take a while.

We’ll try to update this list as frequently as possible. We can’t post full names for legal reasons. We’d also love to post photos of the winners with their new guns, but not everyone sends photos back to us. However, a couple of people did. Here’s Ryan. W from Missouri, who won a DoubleStar ARP7 Pistol topped with an Axeon 3XRDS RGB Dot Sight as part of our July 2019 Free Gun Friday.

And then there’s Lindsey G. from South Carolina below. Lindsey won one of two custom Magnum Research Desert Eagles as a part of the “Custom Challenge” in the February/March 2020 issue of Ballistic Magazine.

There’s plenty more on the way, and we’ve got some new giveaways that are going to blow you away. Stay tuned! In the meantime, see our previous winners below. If you’re on your phone, you’ll have to scroll a little to the right to see the complete table, including the winner’s name and state.

Free Gun Friday

“Free Gun Friday” started in April 2018 and it’s our most popular giveaway. It’s very simple: We wanted to make Fridays better, so each month we give you the chance to win a new gun and gear. You can enter any day of the month, we just thought “Free Gun Friday” had a nice ring to it. See below for the most recent winners.

Ballistic Magazine’s Sweepstakes

Our Ballistic sweepstakes center on the “Custom Challenge.” In each issue we give the same gun to two different custom specialists, give them a theme, and then have them come up with their own version. Then, we give both guns away to two lucky winner on BallisticMag.com. We’ve also done a couple of other giveaways over the years, like our POF-USA torture test that included a gun and 3,800 rounds of Hornady ammo. See below.

Personal Defense World “Fully Loaded”

Last on the list is our “Fully Loaded” sweepstakes, which can be found in Combat Handguns Magazine and on PersonalDefenseWorld.com. We’re big proponents of self-defense, so our “Fully Loaded” package usually involves a pistol, ammo, holster, and more!