No Sponsored Placements

Nothing in Ridgeline is paid for. No brand can buy a spot in the gear database, a better ranking, or a review. If we ever earn a commission on a purchase through an affiliate link, that commission has no effect on how an item is scored, tiered, or ordered. This is the one rule everything else in this page exists to protect.

Affiliate Disclosure

Some buy links in Ridgeline are affiliate links. If you click one and make a purchase, the retailer may pay Ridgeline Hunt LLC a commission. You pay the same price either way.

Commissions never decide what gear is in the database, how it’s tiered, or how it’s ranked or ordered. Gear is listed whether or not an affiliate program exists for it, and many buy links go to retailers we have no relationship with at all.

Expert kits show gear an expert says they carry. Experts may have sponsorships, discount codes or affiliate deals with brands, and those relationships change over time, so Ridgeline doesn’t track them; we only label an expert’s own brand. Ridgeline isn’t paid to add gear to anyone’s list, and an expert carrying an item never changes its tier.

How We Tier Gear

Every item in the gear database carries one of four tiers, always visible on the item itself.

• Ridgeline Tested — Personally field-tested by our founder.
• Ridgeline Pick — Extensively researched but not yet personally field-tested.
• Independently Reviewed — Reviewed by a credible third party with no commercial tie to the product.
• Listed — Cataloged with specs, no endorsement attached.

A separate label, Mentioned, marks gear that an expert was seen carrying but did not review or endorse. Mentioned items show no tier badge, because nobody has actually vouched for them.

What Counts as Independent

“Independently Reviewed” only means something if we’re strict about who qualifies. A reviewer loses that status and the gear is marked Mentioned instead when either is true: they own, work for, or are sponsored by the exact brand being reviewed, or their own brand competes in the same product category. An outdoor brand founder can still review gear outside their own category with full independence. Retailers are never eligible for Independently Reviewed status, in any category, regardless of who’s writing.

Tier is a property of the gear itself, not of any list it appears in. An item’s tier never changes because of which loadout or hunt plan it shows up in.

A negative review stays exactly as independent as a positive one. Our tier badges signal how a judgment was reached, not what that judgment concluded.

Where Our Data Comes From

We’re specific about the type of source behind every claim in the app, because a controlled lab test, a manufacturer’s published spec, and one hunter’s field report all answer different questions and shouldn’t be blended into one number. When we point you to third-party testing, we link to the source and label it as theirs. As hunters log real-world outcomes through Blood Trail, that data will always be kept and labeled separately too — lab testing, field reports, and manufacturer specs are never merged into a single “score.”