Jim Harmer is the founder of Backfire, a shooting and hunting brand built for people who are serious about firearms, gear, and the outdoors.
Jim started Backfire LLC with a simple goal: create straightforward, useful content for hunters and shooters without the hype. The brand has since grown into a large online audience through YouTube and Backfire’s other media channels, where Jim tests firearms, ammunition, optics, hunting gear, and other shooting products in real-world conditions.
Backfire is a very small company with only a few employees, producing rifle recoil pads and chassis for hunters.
Backfire has also expanded beyond media into designing and manufacturing its own products for shooters and hunters. Jim remains heavily involved in product development, testing, and content, with a focus on solving practical problems and creating gear he would actually want to use himself.
When he isn’t working on Backfire, Jim is usually shooting, hunting, testing new gear, or spending time outdoors with his family. His wife, Emily, and three children all enjoy the outdoors and hunting together.
My Time Outdoors
When I was a teenager, I somehow got it into my head one day that I wanted to learn how to bowhunt. My dad wasn’t a hunter, but agreed to take hunter’s ed with me and learn together. Boy am I glad he was willing to take that adventure with me. I loved bowhunting growing up, I got tired of bowhunting’s increased risk of wounding game, so as an adult I turned to a rifle.
I worked three summers as a Rangemaster on gun ranges. I took the NRA’s Range Safety Officer course, but couldn’t justify paying for the certification since the NRA has a history of embezzlement.
I grew up in Idaho, so camping, fishing, and hunting were all I cared about. Now, I live in St. George, Utah, and get to enjoy the red rock landscape all around me.
My Family
If you want to know what I’m all about, just look at the picture above. I took my son, Ruger, away from his phone and XBOX to hunt big game animals in Africa. After a successful hunt, he experienced the African rite of passage of having the animal’s blood put on his forehead. I spend most of my time trying to create experiences like that for my kids.
Another one of those experiences happened in the picture below. My then 9-year-old son Cole was terrified of guns after I did a poor job of getting him started shooting hunting calibers. He overcame his fear and successfully took a hog in Texas–his first hunt. Next time we’ll just work on keeping that finger off the trigger when posing for pictures, son.
People today have a hard time understanding guns and hunting. They only see dead animals and guns, and if you live in a big city, that can be tough to wrap your head around. For me, it’s about taking my kids away from civilization, putting them in uncomfortable and difficult circumstances, allowing them to experience disappointment, and celebrating their success. We love the outdoors and the animals we’re thankful to hunt. We are very careful about the specific animals we kill to maintain healthy populations, and we eat what we kill.
My daughter is a little young for hunting still, but she assures me she’ll be out with the boys as soon as she’s big enough. My lovely wife, Emily, and I are very happy to get to raise these kids together.
