Pew Time 183 – SHOT Show news, Is it possible to get big name outside the industry sponsors at USPSA? and more!

you're about to listen to a podcast from the Firearms Radio Network. For more, visit firearmsradio.net. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Pute Time with Tony, and I'm joined yet again with my buddy, Eric. Yeah. He's been, he's been helping keeping me on track to make sure you guys still get episodes and some entertainment. So

Thank you, sir. Yeah, we got a lot. Oh, is this like an after hours episode? So it's kind of late at night. We're both drinking. Going to get wild. Same thing, though. We just came up with a bunch of questions going to get in depth in some news with some shock show stuff. But let's.

Well, I guess we'll go chronological order. We should probably talk about the shooting we did together on Monday. Yeah. The shooting practice. I came out a little weird. The practice of shooting. Yes, we were practicing shooting. I phrase that one.

But yeah, I don't know. So I had Monday off of work and I've got the American extreme coming up next week already. So I was kind of itching to do a little practice because dry fire. I mean, it helps a lot, but it only gets you so far. So you were nice enough to meet me at pine tree and we got to, I did a little bit of shooting. I don't know. Maybe 700 rounds. Try to judge. Again, that, uh, that ammo can depleted rather quickly. Yeah. Well, I had a lot of stuff I wanted to work on, you know,

Well, I want to touch on that because I had a long story short. I had a hell of a morning with multiple cars not starting, and I got to the lane. The rain is super late. And we had a limited amount of time because you had to leave at noon, right? Right. So I kind of just sat back. I brought a little ammo. I brought some guns to shoot, but I use it as a time to just get a little practicing with my carry gun. Yep.

and you came to get ready for a major match, and it was a sight to just stand back and watch. Like, he stuffs mags like all of his mags with the quickest speed you've ever seen. Then he just grabs him. You have no idea what he's doing. He's not talking about it, but you can see he's making a plan out of his head for what he's going to do.

He does this one set of drills, goes through all the mags on his belt, those different variations, looks at it, assesses it, goes back, stuffs more mags and then repeats the process and did this for two and a half hours. Yeah, two and a half hours. And I had brought three of those ammo cans, like, so I was like expecting to burn like maybe two to 3000 rounds that day. Geez. Yeah. So plus side, I don't have to reload this week.

That's not a normal practice for you. No, no, it was definitely that. So it was the last big one before major. So I guess something I like to do when like everything lines up like timing and components supply that kind of thing is just to like not let ammo be a limiting factor on a final practice type thing. So that that's what that was. Otherwise it would be more structured. It would would have been a lot shorter. OK.

That's good. When you go into something like that, do you just have a list of a bullet point list of things that you just want to knock out before a major?

Yeah, yeah, sometimes I write them down, but most of the time I don't, you know, there's like, I kind of have some bread and butter stuff I like to work on, like transitions, draws. And then it gets a little bit more, I guess, how I feel about stuff. And you kind of saw that where it's like, I would have like relatively bad runs, but I accepted that like, I'm going to push the time a little bit. I'm going to back up on the sites a little bit, that kind of thing.

But then I'd also wanna have like confirmation drills to say, we tried this, you know, like where am I confident at like the 95 percentile mark for like shots to hits type, you know, the shots that I call for the hits that I get type thing. And then the nice thing about that Bay three on pine tree is it's so deep. We could really push it back.

Yeah, it's for an indoor range, it's super nice to be able to, you could do, you know, good work, good practice at 25 yards, which for an indoor range is pretty good. Yeah. And they had steel available, which was extra cool. Yeah. It does make practice nice. I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere and it's pretty far, but.

And those kind of makes it worth it because everything is just there. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, you know, like, even with the important timeline, like, and plus I like smashed my finger really bad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, so people don't realize most indoor ranges with modern ventilation. Whatever the temperature is outside, it's going to be somewhere close to that inside because it's switching the air out. And it was freaking cold.

Yeah. The standard was outside. It was negative too. Yeah. So it was, it was pretty damn cold. And you decided to still push your in practice, rightfully so. But I think you found the, uh, the not so good, uh, meeting of metal gun, brass script, cold hand, dry hand, like, I would say I went to the bleeding edge of performance on that one.

Yeah. And it did not stop bleeding. Well, I had like that really good run on the six reload six. I was like, all right, well, what was it? Like three something like three seven, three eight or something. I'm like, all right, I think I can do a three, five, you know, relaxing hits, obviously, but just like, let's get the gun working. And when I went for that reload, I went hard and yeah, caught my finger in between the egg and the gun and just wouldn't stop bleeding.

Yeah, it was pretty cool to see how you kind of practice. I mean, we've practiced and shot together, but that was more kind of just us shooting together. This one, I didn't shoot so much. So I actually got to just kind of stand back and I guess get a bird's eye view of how you practice. And now I can kind of understand why you go through so much ammo or practice.

Hey, yeah, some of them can be kind of ammo heavy. It was, well, I was also working with, you know, the reduced timeline. And, uh, and I was freezing, but yeah, but I don't know, like a typical, like once the summer hits and I'm outside, you know, it's like, you want to bring at least 500 rounds and try not to burn more than 700 on like a practice night. But you also like, you want to be mentally engaged. So you're, you're switching things out as not as fast as you can, but you like shoot the drill.

analyze the drill, you know, kind of choose which direction you want it to go. Cause I like that like build out design for practice. So it starts simple, you know, like a target array of like interesting targets that, you know, provide a challenge that, you know, usually it's something from a match I just shot. And then kind of like, all right, well, how can I attack this differently? So I get reps on that thing, but I'm also not doing the same thing.

Cause if you just ran the same drill for two hours, like it's kind of meaningless after probably 20 minutes, right? Right. Yeah. I'm a firm believer. You can get a really good practice. I mean, I, I felt I got a really good practice in evil with my little J frame and I was shot. Mm. 60 rounds. That's what it seemed about, right? Yeah. You probably put what 20 some through the J frame and like maybe

40 through the 2011. No, it was surprisingly more out of the, I shot over a whole box of the J frame. I didn't think it was that much until I brought the brass home. I was like, Oh, I shot that way more than I thought. But get a little practice, which it was still fun. I had fun doing it. So yeah, I had a blast. So thanks for taking me out there. So yeah, well, hopefully it pays off for your performance at the next.

Yeah, I feel more confident. I shot yesterday. I had my Tuesday league and it went pretty okay. Like it was not like a personal best, but that's it like Bullseye PPC positional shooting thing. Sure. And then tomorrow I've got to practice night at that Eagle range in Cuddahay, Wisconsin.

which will be my first time attending one of those. And the owner of the range kind of explained it. It's not like a true practice where there's just drills that you run. It's kind of like a mini match. So whatever, I'll go there and shoot it because practice is practice and dry fire and forehand. Yeah, all the sound rains and trigger time. Get what you need. Yeah, I definitely have.

Thoughts about how I want to tackle that because I'll probably be my second to last live fire event before the major Which is something to think about because you don't want to put yourself in a position where like You're pushing like the power times or whatever really hard Right before because that's not really what you want to do there like you want to be just really really consistent right so that's

For better or worse, because if you're too slow, you're kind of locked into it. But also, you're not going to be tossing bad stages, hopefully. Right. Let's see. Next question. Oh, chat show news. Yeah, I didn't know if you covered it or not. So I just thought, well, when I'm over some of the highlights that I've gotten,

Just from people that are there, other guys that I know and check their stuff. Let's see. Probably one of the big talks of the town. Smith & Wesson has released an M&P steel frame. Okay. Then we talked a little bit about that at the range, right? It comes with a comp. Yeah, it comes with an atrocious comp from strike industries.

Interesting. Yeah, I feel like for sure we've talked before about how like competitive shooting is the minority of the minority of the market But yeah, I look at that and it's like man that kind of sucks that gun's gonna be an open gun There ain't no round it. I mean, so I'm way round it, but I get kind of what Smith is doing. So every year they put out a they call it their spec series and it's kind of

their little limited run of, hey, it's gonna come with a lot of extra mags, a stupid challenge calling, and we're gonna put a lot of effort into showcasing kind of what we can give you this year. The problem is you've not made a gun that one can't be sold everywhere. It just can't like Illinois won't see them. Yeah, I mean, I don't feel bad for the little cap states.

Yeah. You've also made like the general purpose of making these steel frame would be to cater to you guys that are probably going to use them in matches or at the range. Yeah. Probably a large tactical market though that would be interested in it. Yeah. Again, but they're going to be pretty healthy.

They're not going to use that compensator. I'll tell you that. It just feels very lackluster to me. And I love the M&P. So I feel I have a lot of them. I got a lot of rounds on range on them. I can be pretty critical on them. The gun doesn't look good. It looks cobbled together. Yeah. It's not pretty. We said it's a limited run thing. So it's like here today going tomorrow. Well, I see that's the other thing. That's kind of where

They screw them as a competitor because then legally, no karyoptic shooter could buy that gun and use that frame because that's a different model. Yeah, we thought about the production or whatever they call it, the minimum number required. Right. So they are doing 500 of them, but it would never go on the approval list because it's only sold as a comp gun. Yeah.

So you could use it in limited optics. That's fine. You can use that frame if you wanted and take the, take the comp off and just shoot it as is. But I don't know. It just seems kind of goofy just to have that as like the solo release. Yeah. You know, all the guys, all anyone wanted was a steel frame with like a five inch competitor slide upper. That's it. That's just, they wanted that and optics ready. Like that was it.

add the comp as like an extra, you know, like, yeah, I would come out with both of them. Like, here's the karyoptics version. And here's the spec series, like, cool. But and it doesn't help do this thing. MSRP is $1,700. They see what Walter was doing. And they're like, let's do that. Yeah. So here's the problem with that. This gun only weighs 36 ounces.

Okay. That's, yeah, that's kind of light. Kind of light for a steel vent. It's heavier than the polymer M&P, but it is two ounces heavier than SEGS aluminum grip option. So interesting. So I don't know. I don't know. I think they're a little lost, honestly, at the moment. They're kind of just coming out with a little bit of everything.

Well, like tin foil hat, do you think this is like their entry into the steel frame M&P world? Like, hey, we're going to do a test run, you know, spec series, high margin type gun. And then if that's successful, if the engineering's good, then we'll add it to the metal line. Or is that they're calling their aluminum guns metal? Yeah, they're all called the metal. This is like metal performance center, something or another. They're going to come out with other ones.

No doubt about that. There's a tooling significantly different, right? To cut, you know, like going from a polymer to an aluminum and then aluminum to a steel. Once again, I'm not an engineer, just. Well, from what I understand, the aluminum to steel slightly different as far as the program to cut it because it's got to cut at a different speed. Yeah. But the general idea is most of the homework is done there. It's pretty.

Yeah. And given that gun has a significant weight drop from other steel guns, leads me to believe that it's going to look just like the aluminum one underneath where they use plastic inserts to make the rounded edges inside of it where things connect. Okay. So like the aluminum one that's behind me, if I was to strip that gun completely down,

you probably couldn't even tell it was an M&P. That's how much plastic they use on the inside to finish putting the gun together. So it's very bare, very stripped out, very like square edges, like easy for machining. I get why they did it. Yeah. And that's part of the whole equation, right? Like ease of production. Yeah, I need to make money. I mean, they're a business, you know, it's not a charity. Are you sure they're not going to make a ton of money catering to competition shooters? I have to

Um, let's see, what else? Uh, we're done picking on Smith. Scott OHD. Uh, yeah. That's gonna be the talk, like at least thousands of miles away. That's the thing I feel like I hear the most about it. Yup. For the Caltech 5.7. I give Caltech all the credit in the world. Like show me another gun company that is trying

out of the box stuff. Triple clips in 2025. Here we go. Listen, it's like, talk about a company. It's just like, you know what, band states, fuck you. Yeah. You want 20 rounds in your pocket? We got you. You want 11? We got you. I was watching a video today where they're like, well, you don't have to fumble around with awkward mag releases or anything like that.

Oh, I got a good laugh. Yep. Yep. Like a C96 Mauser, right? You don't have to make release that. Well, I mean, some of them I do, but I give them credit. But yeah, this is kind of which these talk of the town. I do find it kind of funny. I guess, but I guess we'll talk about it. There was a YouTube comment screenshot that's going around.

where staccato decided they were going to get a little nasty towards another company. Oh, like a stealth arms platypus? Yeah, stealth arms. For those of you that didn't see it, I know I got a screenshot of the stupid thing. Oh, staccato engineers say that gun isn't possible.

Me, stealth bombs built that gun in a cave with a box of scraps. All the Iron Man. Iron Man reference. Right. And then staccato replied, if by scraps you mean those 80% shit parts from Turkey, you are absolutely correct. Check the parts, check the quality, check the origins, we'll wait. So, I'm all for shit talking. I'm all for proving you're the better gun.

The problem I have with this is somebody got up their panties in a bunch at staccato. And I think they're combining two of their competitors into one. So they didn't recognize who they were talking, like it's company B, not company A. Well, they combined them. In the instance, stealth arms makes 80% parts. That's how they started their company. They were an 80% company for 1911s.

And they still make them. But I've seen it. Another friend of mine in the industry has known the guy for 10 years. He's seen it. Those guys make everything in Ohio. Everything is machined in house. The Fusion X Pro that their partnered company is from Turkey. They use Turkish parts.

That's the other 2011 that takes glock mags, the XP Pro, or I don't know what they call it, it's the Fusion Gun. That also takes glock mags. So it just seemed a little knee-jerk reaction. It didn't make any sense. It feels like a reach in a sense. But yeah, I'm not on the inside of any of this, so I don't know.

Well, and that's the thing. I had a lot of people send me that screenshot. And guys, I don't work for stealth. I don't. I helped them design some stuff on the new gun, but I'm not employed by stealth. So when you send it to me, I'm just like, okay, well, I'm not okay with, I don't think any company should try and market their gun by throwing shit at another company.

Like your gun should kind of stand on its own merits. It's kind of interesting. Like, so my background is a microbiology from a microbiology degree. And so when I was in my food science program, they were talking about how the food companies have signed a pact where they don't market themselves. Other companies is being like unsafe rates. If craft happens to have an E. coli outbreak, like

I think who would compete with craft but let's say Tyson or something they're not gonna eat Tyson products because craft is unsafe You know like so basically saying like You can mark it on your on your good stuff, but don't try to drag everybody down because it's just kind of that as a whole I Forget the name act, but I mean that was Yeah, well it's more than that. I think it's a legal agreement among yeah

But yeah, that's something they do. I just found it funny. It was on staccato's hour-long video talking about the launch of the new HD. I was like, that's kind of weird one. And my problem was staccato in that video. I cliff-nosed it. I didn't watch the whole thing. But they talk about being the innovators. And basically, no one's ever done this before.

Clearly, at least two other people have. Yeah. I'm all for like, yeah, man. Do like bring on the competition. Like have more people. Yeah. Hey, man. People realize the glock mag, it's super reliable. It's a good design and it's okay to use it.

And a lot of instances for some users, it's preferable. For whatever reason, based on construction, availability, pricing, whatever, it is kind of odd. When you're looking at a 2011 platform, the costs associated, or at least used to be, because there's a lot of very budget-friendly 2011s now, where it's like, well, you're buying this gun at price point X, saving money on magazines is probably not your concern,

But it is a rock salad magazine, you know? Yeah. But it's also, I think the problem with 2011 is the guns inherent need for more care doesn't mesh well with the people that buy the budget version of a gun.

Yeah. So a broader education that needs to go on like the problems that we had with the old 2011s with all the mags need to be tuned. They need to watch this, this and that. That's all fleshed out. But now when we start using lower quality parts, different problems and some of the old problems start to rise up again. And those people are like, well, these are junk. Well, you're using a gun that is half the price now of

what the industry standard quotes would be. Well, yeah, I mean, I think in a sense, everything is about compromise, right? Like, you know, do you want to fast quality or I forget someone said something reliable, reliable. Yeah. And, you know, especially when you're looking at performance, you know, like

It is pretty common that as performance ticks up in anything, the amount of maintenance required goes up as well. Tolerance is our less, you know, like things are tuned to the bleeding edge. And so like, yeah, that is tough, you know, but it does seem like the cattle for the most part has put out like guns that are more in the duty lineup than other 2011's, right?

coming from the standpoint like I'm used to like the custom shop I'm not personally because I don't own any but watching people shoot around me is kind of see these like finely tuned like it's got to have this ammo of this length in this magazine or just doesn't run you know so that that's all kind of part of it

Well, and I think a lot of that has to do with just the inherent how you're starting cost of a staccato, where as competitors, we would buy a staccato and go, well, I want to change this, this, this, and this. You're already close to the cost of your local builder just building your one. And sometimes you're a lot less. Or I mean, the local builder's going to be a lot less. Yeah. Right. So I do have to pay for marketing and I'm not crapping on staccatos. I think.

I mean, this gun is as long as it's reliable. This gun is going to do well. Well, it's the other big change. It's like a series 80. I'm not a 1911's guy by any. So yeah, it's series 80. I think it's a little different, but it does have a fire and pin block. It's external extractor. They've completely omitted the grip safety. Yep. And the slide release as well as.

Safety and a reversible mag catch Push with the Glock magazine is already on the later right like Gen 4 after right? Yeah So the The Biggest positive I see with this and you see it with the platypus is the Glock magazine allows the

The grips are conference to be a lot smaller. Because those are based off of a 9-0 mag, or a 24-0 mag with based off 45s. So I think that's a big plus for people. And I think once more people get a hold of that HD, they'll be like, oh, it's just going to feel better. Yeah. And they got a new plate design, and they've thrown the rear sight in front of the optic.

Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, I like it. I like that placement. I think it's the better way to do it. Yeah, for the for the backup option, right? Like, yeah, not in your face. But if you're looking for it because the data has failed, like it's right there, you know, but right. Let's see. There was a couple of other things that came out Dylan.

has only had a bullet feeder. That's after, I don't know, 15 years, or at least a bullet feeder. Yeah, that was kind of interesting, because obviously I don't really follow this stuff, but a reloading buddy, a shooting buddy of mine, hit me up about that. And A, I didn't realize how much bullet feeders had increased in costs in recent years. I feel like I paid 250 for mine.

And that was probably seven years ago, six years ago, where I don't remember when I got it. But yeah, so he was like, oh, this is 500. I'm like, well, go with the double alpha option. The double alpha options are just up there, right? Like, yeah. So I don't know if it works, it works. And if it's rock solid and it comes with a good warranty, you're not going to be sad that you bought a bullet feeder if you didn't have one. Agreed. Yeah, they're real nice. Yeah, it's.

That's one of those things. I mean, you could definitely say it's well vetted. I mean, it's had enough time. Yeah, it looks like it works a little bit differently. I only see one video of it working, right? But like the collator kind of like stacks the bullets in a certain orientation versus like the exclusion model of the double alpha. So, I mean, that took me a little bit to figure out. I mean, this is like,

seven years ago, but once you figure it out, it, it totally makes sense. But depending on the type of bullet you're using, at least for me, because I'm shooting really cheap bullets for the most part, like, you know, the shape of the cone going to the point, like really matters on setting that exclusion. We call it space. Yeah, I think it's going to be fine. I mean, Dylan really doesn't make bad anything really.

Yeah, you know, and I would say if you didn't like their stuff, it's just a preference for the most part. I mean, what else came out that was, I thought was wire like, I was interested to see the bullet feeder, but then there's some stuff being the least Oh, Glock has released a second generation of their mounted bite. Their weapon. Yeah.

So what kind of thing on the, what's the combo that they came out with, like space and what it's called? You know, the optic, but it's not like into a, it's not a traditional like mounting thing. It's got like an A cut, they call it or something like that. Yeah, that's the new, uh, collaboration they worked on with Aimpoint with their new mounting system. So instead of MLS, this kind of like rocks into place with their new

a cutter, a mount, something like that. That makes sense. But their light is called the Clock Tactical Light 2, or the GTL2. Nice. It looks, I don't want to say way better, marginally better than the first iteration. But I don't have a price on it, but it's only 600 lumens.

in a world where most standard full-sides lights are usually a minimum of 1,000 if not 11 or 1,200 now. Yeah. It just seems like why? I mean, and this is just speaking from my experience, I would say like,

And I'm not, I'm taking this from somebody else, but like locks are very similar to Apple where you have like very small iterations on design. And you're not looking to upset the market necessarily. I mean, I feel like a lot of their products are just like small variations on things that had come before. So maybe there's something in the 600 lumens. I'm not a light expert. So not that unless it has like a super high candela, then I would probably get behind it, but

I didn't see anything on that. So it very well could be, but it does seem that there are offerings. They're like kind of integrating a lot of things together. You know, one stop shop. Once again, as competitive shooter, I have no inside information into how like, you know, departments and stuff by guns, but maybe it's like a package, right? Like you buy the end point, you buy the Glock, you buy the light, and that's just the pack. Now, now you don't have to like shop it around.

It could be something like that, but I have no insider information. I think that kind of wraps up like the big heavy hitters I've seen coming out of shot. Those kind of been just the talks.

I guess they released it a few years ago, but the 635 Colt Department of Energy gun. Oh, yeah, those are coming to the market. And that's kind of interesting because I was actually looking to procure one of those for machine gun match.

And I kind of, well, I kind of did. It's like all kind of up in the air, but I was talking to somebody about like bringing it to the submachine gun match and then just happens that Palmetto State is getting those out finally. Although the one I'm bringing is a 635, not the Department of Energy one, but that's pretty cool. Yeah. Uh, I guess speaking of PSA, they decided that they were also going to jump in the 2011 game.

Why not? Come out with the or soon to come out. I don't think it's coming out this year. The Sabre 11. Okay. I don't know much about it. It looks very plain. But again, if they have the same sales models they do for their cheap dagger, this is going to be very inexpensive. 2011. You know, it might not be the worst thing to, you know, with limited optics being as popular as it is, like,

The reality of a lot of these guns is like you're just buying frame, slide, if even that, like, assume from the barrel to the trigger components, everything's getting swapped. Like, why spend big money on it, right? Right. Yeah, I think that was kind of it from shot that was like the big, big talks of the town.

I don't recall seeing anything else that was really eye-catching. I'm sure more. I mean, it told me the whole day is it Wednesday, so there's still two more days of the show. But... Oh, what was our next question? Oh, I had sent a list. So let me... Oh. Okay, Bowdoin had sent me a question, but... I didn't read all the way through. Okay, so what I got.

Practice okay. What makes a good mix of stages slash challenges at a level two or above? Okay Right now, this is the question like you're designing a level two match you got let's say ten stages How do you balance the challenges and then also make it a good and interesting match without it just being a challenge match, you know, mm-hmm

Uh, well, I've really grown to like the mix of having like short medium long courses. Yeah, I think it gives a good variety. I think they kind of nailed that. And I think it's important to whether you test one or multiple skills on a stage. I do like seeing matches that try and test a little bit of everything, whether it's we can only, strong handle only.

prone, like heavy leans. Well, so each of those is an individual shooting challenge, right? But like, how do you integrate that into a match where you feel like.

You've been tested, but like at the same time, it's not just I put down this is the weekend course, this is the prone course. This is the, you know, speed, you know, like they're not just that way. Like how do you, how do you get enough of that in there? And then what is the balance? Oh, I don't think this question should be for me. I think it should be for you because I should be for you.

I'm looking at it from the inside and I'm looking to validate and or dispute what I've got going on in my own head. So I don't know if this will answer it, but to me, level twos, I should be tested for every aspect of my shooting and it should feel slightly more special in the essence of, hey, I don't get to shoot this every week.

like whether it's a long distance pistol shot or something like that, should be sprinkled throughout the match, because it's not something that you practice at a local level. So I guess that would be, you know, design stages that will incorporate the challenges within, but still have a good stage design that would make it good, flowing, like, I don't want to say. The match flow is an important thing, right?

You can't have a six round stage between 232 round stages, you know, you're like, unless there's a lot of setup or whatever, but you gotta kind of, that's part of what makes the sauce on those things. But yeah, so trying to think, like did you listen to the NROA, NROI podcast with, it had Kyle Stevens and Tim Heron on it?

Oh, it was really, really good. And Tim and Kyle, both are very astute people. But I was listening to it. And I had a text, Tim. I was like, because there were a couple of things going on in there. And one of the terms that was brought up was technical. Like, oh, you know, like a feel. I don't want to praise it like that. But like, so I've shot a fair amount of Ibsic, right? Like more than most. Sure.

And they're like, oh, it's so technical. I'm like, well, how do you define technical? And in my mind, the way I define technical is the expression of two skills simultaneously to maximize your score. It's kind of how I would say it. Because it's like, you could have a weekend stage where all you have to be good is a weekend shooting.

Is that technical? Like, no, I would say it's not. I would say the expression of that would be maybe shooting on the move weak handed. Now you got two things, right? Maybe you have something like a low port.

you know, a little port drop down, but then you also have to time a swinger. I would say that's technical. So I think when you're looking at level twos, level threes, whatever, like if you can incorporate two skill sets where being good at both or being able to plan around both will give you a higher hit factor than being just good at one or the other. I guess that was kind of where I was going with that.

Because to answer my own question, you know, it's, um, I keep saying, you know, the fucking Wisconsin boys work. Uh, so Wisconsin, thank you. So they're explicit things to Jackie. So you're fine. Yeah. But I'm trying not to swear, but I just let that one slip out, you know, uh, but, um, yeah.

I guess the couple that I've designed for majors, I try to pick a theme. Okay, so this is Niza, right? We have a certain style of shooting. Typically it would be, you'd say it's faster, it's closer, that's our thing. But then I would pick challenges from this kind of extreme challenge spot, distance shooting, partial shooting, weak hand, strong hand, prone, timer thing.

or time or like activator thing and then I would make sure to drop them in and I almost kind of like Take a list of that and I make sure that certain ones are expressed and maybe certain ones aren't because if you try to do them all like you can't do prone strong handle well Looking at Florida State obviously you can do prone. We can't shooting. You know that was a stage but But to try to make it flow and kind of make it like work out

You kind of pick and then integrate them in. Yeah, I would say it's a good question, but I don't feel like I answered you on what you're doing. Oh, no, I put it in there because I wanted it to your take on it, you know? Yeah, that's one of those things I unfortunately, I mean, I know what matches I like, but I don't design like I've never designed a stage outside of practice stages or stages for classes.

It sometimes helps to take like the thousand foot view and say, all right, I'm attending this match. What is it going to feel like? And it's going to be like, well, most of the stuff should be within most shooters wheelhouses, right? Like you don't want to punish anyone for showing up, whether they're a D-class shooter or GM. Like it kind of sucks to just shoot head boxes the whole time.

Right. And that's not really the sport. But what you want to do is you want to find a way to like bring those challenges in where they feel achievable, but they also stratify the competition. Anyway. U.S. PSA Hawaii. Oh, man. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

I'm gonna be honest, you're gonna have to kick this one off and I'll go off of you because I just know, as far as the state goes, they're not very gun friendly. No, they have some laws that are kind of lame. But we have a friend there and they.

They're not posting about their new job or whatever, but they've been shooting quite a bit of USPSA in Hawaii, and it looks awesome, especially when it's freezing out here. It looks much, much better. Even our endowings are cold, damn it. Well, I think he's on a wahoo. So from my understanding, I might be wrong about Hawaiian gun laws is that rifles don't have a magazine capacity. So you got a AR-15 and AK, whatever.

run it, but handguns are limited to 10. And so the main range on Oahu, if I remember all the details he gave me correctly, they only have like two bays, because Hawaii is not a large state. Not Montana or Utah or something like that, but they do like two large squads, and then they have multiple stages on the bay, and they make it work.

but there's been a lot of fun to watch and it's very tropical. Yeah. I will say at least a little bit I know about Hawaii's like gun laws is they share an unfortunate similarity with Illinois and they are another state that actually has a gun owners card. Like you have to have a permit.

Yeah, that sounds about right. My friend who moved there, he had to report to the state police or something and declare the guns that he brought. But I'm not sure on his status of like residency. Right. Like, hey, you're from Wisconsin and you're living there. Like, but obviously the magazines were the biggest issue. Yeah. That's interesting. So it must be like a tropical Canada where everything is like open 10 and

Yeah, exactly for the handguns. But I also, I don't know if it's changed or not, I have an Instagram friend, I remember his name, Loha, Sassan, maybe. I know we pump Instagram somewhere around here, but he's like a PCC GM. When he shoots PCC, it's full rip unlimited, like send it, you know? Yeah, it's, oh, that's pretty cool. I guess we kind of hold you down there and shoot a match, even though I don't,

I'd imagine the sport shooting you. I guess that's something we'd have to look into. Shit, you travel more than I do. Instead of going to Peru when you go to Hawaii. No, no, it's being considered. Oh, really? What I want to go to is the Hawaii State Championship with it, which I'm pretty sure they haven't held in a few years, but if they did, I mean, in the total cost of the match, if I got to buy seven, 10 round magazines, you know, like, it's not a big deal. Sure. Just a travel there.

Definitely have done paperwork that's much harsher. Yeah, it's still America to some extent. Right. Blue passport. I'm good. Final question. Final question. Double jeopardy. All right. Let's go ahead.

Do you think we can ever get back to having big-name non-gun industry sponsors at matches like back in the day? If so, what do you think it'll take? So what I mean by that is you and I have enjoyed pretty long conversations about how practical shooting used to be.

how it was on ESPN. And I don't remember if it was you or I found it online, a flyer for like a major championship in like Wisconsin or Minnesota, we're sponsored by like Miller. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, like stuff like that is just, it doesn't seem like we'd ever see that again. But then,

I came across it and unknowingly, you saw the same thing. So you kind of already knew where I was going with the question. Is the tactical games is officially presented by Under Armour. Not a small name. Not a small name. Big thing. Not the industry. And they went as far to have Hayes custom guns build a custom 2011 with the Under Armour logo on it.

They made a big collaboration post about that done with their logo on the grip. It's a big deal. It is a huge deal. I mean, I definitely don't know the ins and outs of politics and how things are viewed, but it does feel like things are being more friendly in that direction. I do think we can bring big name sponsors back to it.

What do you think would be needed for that? You know, I hate to say that we compromise what we are because compromise doesn't often lead to like the best result in either direction, right? So I could something like just shoot turtle targets, just have 2011's or something, you know, not like common guns or whatever.

I think what it takes is like the right people in the right places, like the tactical games, you know, like it is not, it's not necessarily as much shooting as a USPSA thing from my understanding. Definitely not. But it does lead a market to people that would be into working out and being fit, which Under Armour is very into, right? Right. So yeah, I guess on a national level,

I think you'd have to find the right company, maybe the first one to jump in on it. Sure. You know, whether that be like, I don't know, let's play politics for a second, like maybe Tesla gets behind the USPSA nationals, right? Like that would bring in a ton of money, but that would be a kind of a political thing. Right. But once one jumps, the rest will probably follow. Yeah, there'll be outliers, of course, but sure.

Well, I think you're starting to see more and more people want to, it's not so much a political thing as it is common viewpoints, common goals. So like a big company that Jackie and I both have friends with and work with is first form. So they're a nutrition company, a supplement company.

And they are they just signed a deal to make an energy drink with and heiser bush Awesome, right it does help that both companies are st. Louis based Yeah, but that's a big deal and first form is very pro Pro freedom pro second amendment

like pro outdoor sportsmen stuff like that. So I see more and more companies realize like the working out thing like it's all types of people that shoot guns. It's not what people think it is. I mean, you're a prime example. What? You know, go to any match and just tally. Like, hey, what do you do for a living? You will be shocked.

I always feel like this is one of the best things about probably any sport, but shooting is the one we're involved with, where you meet people that in regular life you have no business associating with, for whatever reason. You'll be at a match and, well, I'll give a little nod to some of our friends, but like, oh, you're a surgeon at a top medical facility in Chicago. You're the lead singer of a punk rock band.

successful rapper, you know, like, like these are, these are not your like, funny gun guys, you know, what we're all interested in one thing. And it's like, what do you do? I'm like, I work with wastewater. It was not that glamorous, you know, but we're all there for a common goal. And it has nothing to do with who we were outside of the sport. Right. So I mean, that's a good marketing opportunity because you kind of pool a lot of different people together. Well, I think that's

Hopefully, we're getting rid of the stigma that, oh, all gun people are the same. No, there's a huge variety of people that are in the sport. Huge. Yeah. Well, and definitely, like, I feel across our lifetimes, like, now I'm going to put my old guy mid 30s head on, you know, it's like,

I feel like we've seen the new 2A in our lifetime because at least on a personal level, like I meet a lot of people at my matches that I run that are only gotten interested in firearms through like Call of Duty. It was just something our parents generation probably would be appalled at.

But it's like, oh, you played Call of Duty when you were in high school, and you liked guns, and then you were a responsible adult, and you wanted guns. And now you're being responsible with them. This is a win-win. But you have no interest in a deer rifle or a single shot shotgun. You want to mag-fed awesome thing that we can shoot at targets fast. Right. I think when it comes to the big name sponsorships, though, I think, at least in the States,

we are our own worst enemy in the aspect of how the sport is treated here versus elsewhere in the world. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah, it's not like the beauty of it is it's such a part of our culture that pretty much anyone legally or that can legally get a can come and shoot our sport.

It is not reserved for the elites. Correct. Where the rest of the world, it tends to trend more that way. I would agree with that statement. Yeah. Taking a little bit more seriously. It's more of a big ordeal when they host a big match. Yeah, there's more. Robotost to it. That's a great way to put it. Like, um,

The international matches that I've attended, you'll sometimes see some companies that are very non-shooting related involved, but tends to be the owners or whoever are like, like shooting. But it's also not viewed as a bad thing in some places, you know? Like, trying to think of a good example.

Feel like I was at a place where roofing company was a very big sponsor, but we also had spectators at that match. Like people who were just interested to see other people shoot guns. And I think they paid that. I know they paid to enter to watch. But it's different, right? Because there's far less fewer gun owners.

Right. And again, that's, I think, where our own worst enemy in that aspect is we have such easy access to do it that I don't think we put as much time or effort into the big matches to give them the exposure or viewership that would be required to attract big companies.

Oh, as things stand right now, yes. But I don't think we're too far off. No, no. I think, I mean, the opportunity to do so is there. I just don't know, like, do we really have to tackle this item? And I think we absolutely have to tackle the side of getting it streamed somewhere, like with a professional crew.

to make it easy to watch. You know, I'm not a professional on this, but I would say the more you look at it, what you want to have is compelling stories. Like, how do you tell? Sorry, interesting stories that everyone can relate to an underdog story, a head to head story, you know, regs to riches story. And I don't watch hot shots or yeah.

Like, I thought they did a pretty good job of it, but if we could get more of that going where anyone can tune in for a minute, right? And then be like, oh, this is the up and come reverse, the old war dog or whatever. That's compelling and interesting. It's kind of like, why is curling so important to the Olympics? I mean, curling is not a super popular sport worldwide, but it's easy to understand.

And so if you break it down where like anyone can watch for a minute and be like, what's going on, that'll really turn a lot, a lot of things in our favor. Yeah. So I started looking more into it in the aspects of the sport of drifting. Okay. Because it started much like shooting sports, very young, very grassroots.

And they've kind of just kept building it year in year, did streaming and a lot of it involved, like what you're talking about.

getting the drivers or shooters heavily involved in crafting their own stories, becoming the characters, giving a storyline of this guy versus this guy for this title, where he comes from, having commentators be able to explain while people are watching what hit factor is, why dropping a point here cost him this stage to the layman people that just don't know that.

Well, yeah, the scoring system is good, but it's very complex. You know, like, because there's three things being measured at all times. And it's kind of like, how does that play out over the course of many stages? Right. But I think breaking it down and showing people even on the basic scale.

if you were just to have, you know, say on a stream if you had at the end of a run and the shooting, like the view of it shrunk down and then you saw the tablet being tallied up. That's enough information to people understand, oh shit, this is the score and you're starting to see how it affects it.

Like there are ways that I think it could be done to show people it's not that difficult if you just sit down and actually look at it and see it. Like the calculating part in being able to do in your head is completely different. But the basic understanding of it is not difficult once you see it.

Well, I would say outside of live streaming it, you can always find the stories you want to tell because any kind of big event, especially like a nationals, there's going to be very compelling people doing very compelling things.

And you can, of course, edit it or make it look like it all comes down to this, right? Like so-and-so is going for senior title. I don't know, just picking something that I don't know much about. If this guy gets a five-second run with X number of alphas, it matters. And then you can watch the stage and then watch them score it or live score it or whatever, and then it'll be very tense. People kind of like that, you know? Yeah. And I think that that is

a good way to do it, and again, to take it back to drifting. It's kind of what they do. They livestream it in the raw, and those live streams can take six hours. But after it's all said and done, they have guys that cut it down, condense it to create a more condensed, palatable story to people that just want to launch drifting, or in our case, would just want to watch shooting.

Or even if you're like, you're at a bar or restaurant or whatever and it's on, they're gonna be like, oh, if so and so can get a time of this or a hit, you know, these kind of hits, like you'd be invested for like 10 seconds, 15 seconds or whatever, it would definitely make it more palatable. Sure. And I don't want to discredit people, especially when it comes to competition because a perfect example is curly.

No one talks about curling, except during the Olympics. And then all of a sudden, everyone is a fucking curly expert. Yeah. But it's really easy to understand what's going on. Like you want your rock to be in this spot. Right. Right. Everyone has to do with happening.

But then you start talking to people and you realize they recognize the nuance of it or the planning behind this and the strategy behind that. Do you even do this? No, no. But during the Olympics, because they're invested in their country or they just want to see competition, they're invested on how this game works.

Yeah, it's very easy to wash. It's almost as easy as like a foot race. Like a hundred meter dash, right? Like guy at the end wins. If you got good commentators, they'll tell you like, so-and-so's up and coming. So-and-so's won this many times. So-and-so has an injury. Like it makes it like, well, is the injured guy gonna win? Is the old dog gonna win? You know, that kind of thing.

So what you're saying is we need a recording crew and some good commentators and video editors, and this should be a piece of cake. Yeah, it's just that easy, right? Yeah, cool. Makes sense, checks out. But I agree with you, I don't think we're far off. I think things are there, people are interested, and you can just see it even more so

taking a step back looking at like some of our friends who are more of like the celebrity type. There are a lot more celebrities that shoot USPSA than I thought. This is awesome. I mean, it is a lot of fun. That's what we don't do it. Right. Tunnel fun. I mean, we're talking champion level UFC fighters. World record holders for like rapping.

But there's a lot of people in here, uh, championship race car drivers, like there's a lot of different people, you know, high limit inspection, low end that are really into this. Yeah. And it's definitely kind of a lifetime sport, where it's like, obviously you have a prime, you know, age, physical ability and stuff, but you're not precluded from competing at a high level, you know, until you get very old.

You know, if your health is holding up, you know, it's not going back to like foot races. Like if you're going to be Olympic sprinter, there is a finite time that you're going to sprint in the Olympics. Right. But you're going to shoot like it's kind of like golf. You can be good for a long time. Yeah. I mean, I not to pick on them, but Eric Grafella is not a spring chicken anymore. It's almost the scene here. He's up there, but.

Damn, is he still really, really? It is. And it's compelling because you can tell a story like that. This guy won World Shoot as a junior. He's going to win a World Shoot as a senior. Right. Insane. He probably will. It hasn't happened yet. It's happened in September, October this year. Yeah. My money's on that. I'll do it. Probably will. Yeah. But you never know. You never know. There's always new people. That's true.

We'll definitely have to talk about that. Maybe we'll do a prediction and show closer to world ship. Hopefully I'm doing it from Johannesburg or, should say, Steppolentine or Clerk's door, but wherever it's held. But we'll have to do it before you leave for sure. Well, I didn't get a spot yet, but when I do, you will. I would look at it is because you'd be going as does they don't have any more team slots, right? You'd be going as well. Yeah, I did not make a team slot. So.

Oh, the last update they said is basically based on interest, they requested so many slots, like 60 more, and then you just go as an individual, which I'm totally okay with. If I'm not mistaken, I could be, but I think the last time I was watching someone at the shotgun world shoot who didn't make the team ended up winning as an individual. Well,

If anyone's game, once you show up, you just got to be able to show up. That was Josh Freelik. Yeah. And then next, next year, the shotgun world shoot is in Corinth. Yep. At the same shooting range, the Europeans was two years ago. Okay. Tonight's really nice. I got to get out there, grab them one.

It's got to make it an important time. Surprise Jackie with it. So like, yeah, we're going to be going out of the country now. Well, if you can, go to go to Greece. I mean, like, like everyone gets married. They're like, Oh, Corinthians blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, that letter was written over there. Like that thing they always read before every wedding. It's just written like that's cool, Paul.

Oh, we're in a BSC stories. We went to Thermopylae. Something you don't think about is like how much the geography has changed since ancient times. So like, you think like 300 where the 300 Spartans died, like that shit is way away from the water today. But it's not back then. So there's a fun match. It was a good time.

Oh, that's it for this one, right? Yeah. Yeah. You got anything else? I don't have anything else. Well, I mean, I use this as a platform, Northern Illinois shooting association on February. Let me pull up my calendar.

Fourth weekend, it looks like February 23rd. That Sunday we're going to have a members meeting at the Burchwood Grill in Kenosha. So everyone's welcome to attend and then we can talk about NISAs stuff. I'm hoping to run a major match on Memorial Day weekend. I just have to finalize the plans on that. So it'll be a short planning time, but I think I can get it off and that's all I got.

Same old, same old for us guys. Uh, you know where to reach us. If you have any questions at laugh and load on everything, uh, and put on podcasts at gmail.com and then the actual website, laugh and load. And I thank you so much Duke for coming on again. Uh, yeah. Happy, happy to be here. We'll do it again soon. Very soon. We'll knock it out. Thank you guys. Sleep around 10 soon. Yeah.

This works out for both of us and your little ones asleep. Awesome. Well, thank you, dude. And we'll get to you guys. This podcast has been a production of the Firearms Radio Network. For more, visit firearmsradio.net.