Tactical Headlines with John McCoy – MAR. 21, 2024

About This Episode

Get ready for an action-packed episode of Headlines! Wade Saklsky and John McCoy bring you the latest buzz in firearms, starting with the mind-boggling “OneShot” mystery. They break down the Tisas PX-9 Carry, unveil Sabatti’s 2024 product catalog of art pieces, and give you an exclusive review of the Premier Body Armor’s affordable Fortis Ballistic Helmet. Plus, don’t miss the scoop on the Gunsite Service Pistol (GSP) 1911. Lock and load for an adrenaline-pumping update you won’t want to miss!

Insights In This Episode

• Unveiling the Enigmatic World of “OneShot”. (USA1shot.com)
• Inside the Tisas PX-9 Carry. (SDSimports.com)
• Sabatti Unleashes Their Cutting-Edge Product Catalog for 2024. (Sabatti.it)
• Premier Body Armor’s Affordable Fortis Ballistic Helmet. (Premier Body Armor)
• All about the Gunsite Service Pistol (GSP) 1911 in .45 ACP. (Gunsite)

About Tactical Business

Tactical Business is the weekly business show for the firearms industry. The podcast features in-depth interviews with the entrepreneurs, professionals and technologists who are enabling the next generation of firearms businesses to innovate and grow.

Episode Transcript

Wade: Welcome to the Tactical Business Show. I’m your host, Virginia Beach based firearms entrepreneur and copywriter Wade Skalsky. Each episode will be exploring what it takes to thrive as a business owner in the firearms industry. We’ll speak with successful firearms industry entrepreneurs about their experiences building their companies, leaders and legislators who are shaping the industry, and tech executives whose innovations will reshape the future of the firearms industry. Let’s get after it. Welcome to the Tactical Business Podcast. I am your host, Wade Skalsky, and today my co-host has deigned us with his presence.

John: I’m good. How are you doing? I’m good.

Wade: We’re going to be talking current events again today, so I’m fired up. Let’s start talking with this Pcsk9, because I knew you’d be excited about this and have some thoughts. So talk us through the Tsar’s Pcsk9 carry breakdown and review.

John: All right, so it’s Turkish pistol. Some great pistols and shotguns have come out of Turkey for many years. I actually learned something about this. I did not know they use SIG magazines, so the full size uses a P226 mag. And then this compact the the carry model uses P228 mags, which you can go to any number of different places and buying surplus for ten bucks a pop. So genuine sig surplus steel mags for 1015 bucks, which is awesome. And I did not know that about them that they were using those I have listened to and talked to a number of people that actually swear by these pistols. They love them.

Wade: Is it a sig clone or is it? No, I don’t know. It’s a Glock.

John: Clone, but it uses sig mags. Got it, but not late model. So sig, P226 and 228 have been traditional police sidearms all across western and Central Europe for years. So Turkey being in servicing that market, I’m sure they picked up on that. And that’s probably why they went with those mags, because the sigs are used a lot in that area as a standard police sidearm.

Wade: And you’re talking about the pp9 duty, right? So that’s like that. Yeah.

John: So the duty uses P226 mags, which 226 is their full size nine millimeter double stack. And then the 228 is the compact version of that. So the carry will use the smaller carry which is more like a Glock 19 size can use either 226 or 228 mags, which is totally awesome. So that’s a stroke of genius.

Wade: Yeah, sometimes it doesn’t come through when you’re looking at it online, because the review was a really good review by SDS, SDSimports.com, SDSImports.com is where we found the review, and I actually liked the review because it has a lot of pictures, but sometimes with the pictures, it’s hard to get the size of the firearm because it looked to me, it looks smaller than the Glock 19. Yeah, but.

John: If you look at the stats it’s in that it well, it is smaller. It’s really light empty. It’s less than 14 or I guess £1.3. Sorry. Yeah. Ounces. So it’s it’s Glock 19 ish size. Yeah. It’s in that ballpark.

Wade: I like though that it’s compatible with a very known commodity. So that in terms of for the magazines because obviously they’re easy to find. There’s a million of them around. You’re never not going to be able to find them. And that’s the same reason why I like my PSA dagger. Right, is because I don’t have to change. I just grab my Glock mags. I don’t have to buy anything new on the magazine side. So that’s a really smart move for them to do. Very. And it’s a cool looking gun. It just looks so small.

John: A lot of people, though, really are starting to swear by the two source. They really like them. So that’s origin. Similar to the Springfield XD. It was a European pistol that got imported over here and so it is gaining in popularity. I’d like to get my hands on one.

Wade: One thing to talk about too, I think. And I was talking with someone in a previous interview on the machining side. Right. So like on the manufacturing machining side, things are so much better now in terms of that you can do things on smaller companies can really have an extremely high level of reliability and an extremely or extremely high level of functionality. And so it’s not like it was it’s not like my dad’s Oldsmobile. Right? It’s not like everyone. It’s like I’ve been watching these videos on Twitter where everyone’s just hazing the boomer side about. It’s just generational. Yeah. And I think what is really exciting about that from a consumer perspective, is that there’s so many more guns that you can actually research and try, because you’ll never know which gun will. You’ll really like like my PSA dagger, for example. I love that gun. And so I don’t feel like, oh my God, it’s going to have a problem because PSA has figured out their issues with the functionality and the reliability.

John: And the thing about what you’re talking about with the machine, the machining quality is that it’s coming across a lemon gun is a lot less common now, like it used to be. Those are just they’re junk. Well, it’s probably because the manufacturing just wasn’t up to snuff. They were trying. A lot of companies were trying to make something that was budget oriented. I’m talking in the 90s, and it just couldn’t make it work because the machining just wasn’t there. But now high quality machining and thermo molding is everywhere and it’s accessible. You don’t see many reviews for firearms hitting the market that are lemons, that are just not reliable firearms. It just doesn’t happen that much anymore.

Wade: For someone like me who’s just basically I’m smack dab in the middle of the consumer market, right? Like I’m not going to go Super Gucci. I’m not going to go, I don’t necessarily have to go like the cheapest thing in the history of time, but from normal use, I’m never going to run out of a barrel from normal use unless I want to. Like, I’m like, oh, I’m gonna stress test this bad boy, put 6000 rounds through it, right? I’m not going to do that. And so just from me just keeping my skills up, going to the range firearm that works. And that is the cool thing about you really can feel comfortable buying a gun like this from a company because of those issues. You won’t see those issues because you’re not going to be you’re not a you’re not LARPing. As a Special Forces person who needs no 10,000 rounds to this thing and to put in the Arctic, most.

John: Of us can’t afford to put that many to put an accurate stress test through a modern firearm. We can’t even afford that much ammo. It’s just not. It’s a non-issue.

Wade: Yeah, well, I think some people are of the opinion that that ammo is so expensive that it’s very difficult to be able to get good enough at a firearm to be able to shoot enough. Right. And so it definitely is a commitment. I try to go to the range every week and it’s not it’s not inexpensive to do that.

John: No, it’s not nine millimeter rounds $0.33 a round or whatever it is that’s not cheap for target ammo. That is a commitment.

Wade: It’s unlikely to come down.

John: No I don’t see that happening.

Wade: No.

John: So overall, from everyone that I’ve heard talking about those to source, I haven’t heard a bad thing. They seem like they’re a really good gun. And I want to go full boomer and buy their GI model 1911. I’m just going to throw that out there.

Wade: Why does the 1911 make you a boomer?

John: Oh, that’s totally a FUD gun.

Wade: I just did you ever see the movie? We were soldiers, of course, and I watched that.

John: Right before I enlisted in 2002.

Wade: When Sam Elliott, I don’t think he had 1911. I think he just had like a Colt 45 sidearm or whatever. But he just I just remember that scene where he’s just like, I’m just going to use this gigantic sidearm right now. Yeah. Everybody running at me. And that’s I think a Fudd gun is more like a revolver. When you start getting into the revolver, like the 357 dirty Harry gun. Oh, yeah.

John: Yeah, you’re not wrong there.

Wade: Or the Joe Piscopo Johnny Dangerously. This gun goes through schools. So that kind of revolver. Right. But yeah, I don’t think a 1911 is a fun gun. I think that’s good. I think it’s a fun gun, not a fun gun. All right. Cool. What do you want to go next. So that is that’s an SDS Imports. Com is where you can find that breakdown for the Pp9.

John: We’ll talk about this One Shot thing. I’m I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.

Wade: I like it because you don’t get you don’t get stumped very often. So that’s really good. So I like it.

John: So I’m not stumped about what it is. I’m just trying to pull myself together on this one. So without sharing the screen, it is a shoulder. Yeah. Well the article is titled “What the Heck is One Shot?” And I think that’s valid. So it looks like it clips on to the back of any handgun. It says universal and just slides into position. So you hold it in place while you’re shooting it and it becomes a it’s a fully temporary. They can’t call it a shoulder stock because then that would be illegal. So they call it a portable pistol rest that anchors your handgun to your shoulder without actually attaching to the gun.

Wade: Yeah, and I get it. And it’s funny because I had just what I thought about when I saw this was when I was zeroing my new optic that I got on the dagger is I use a shooting stand to do that. Yeah, because I’m not accurate enough to be able to just be like, I love watching the videos are like, the guys are like, let’s zero my gun. And he’s just doing it freehand, you know what I’m saying? I was like, no, I’m not. And he starts.

John: Drilling, drilling the ring like, come on, man. You know.

Wade: It’s like, okay. I was like, all right, yeah, I can’t do that. But that’s what it, it, it made me think of, right. Was just it’s the ability to put the rounds where you want. And I guess the idea is that it extends the distance of the sidearm. Right? So, so that you’re able to, if you need to put rounds down, range far away from you, and it’s the only gun you have. Right. So yeah. Yeah, I would say spending $80 and getting this One Shot rest scenario is one way to go. And I guess too, there’s the idea where if you’re going to some people don’t you can’t really carry a rifle around.

John: Yeah. And here’s why I don’t understand because it doesn’t attach to the firearm. Because they’re saying that it will work as like a PDA, a personal defense weapon, because basically it’s just stabilizing it so that you can be more accurate. It doesn’t extend the length of the barrel or anything. It’s just right. It stabilizes it. It says here in the article, One Shot is meant for use in high consequence situations where missing is not an option. So I get the idea. And when you see it actually when he’s got it shouldered, it makes sense. I just don’t understand without actually holding it. I’m assuming that you have to pop it on to the handle and that it because of how it’s molded, it’s probably a spring shape and it grips onto the back of the, the frame of the, the pistol. Yeah.

Wade: Well and it’s, it.

John: Can’t be attached to it.

Wade: Right, right. It has a sling on it too. So you could have it as a sling. And I would think maybe like I said, I was like if you’re, if, if you can’t get a rifle right, you can’t carry a rifle around concealed and you needed to go on a distance, you could say, okay, well, we’re going to have a second group of people that are going to be farther away. They’re going to do Overwatch or they’re going to have right, right, or whatever. Right. And so if you’ve got two elements of bodyguards or your immediate guys are going to be okay, well, we’re going to just have our regular sidearms. And then your second set of guys have had to go the distance. Maybe they’re going to use this I don’t know. Yeah I don’t know.

John: It’s a fascinating design. We’ll see if it ever catches on.

Wade: Well it’s one of those things though where it’s like the firearms tend to so huge that I am sure that there is a niche somewhere that loves this. They’re like, oh my God, I can’t believe, like there’s a guy that’s just sitting there finally did it. There’s. Is like answered his prayers. He’s like, if only there was something like this existed and it’s probably the guy who invented it. He’s like, I need this for this reason. And that’s what I love about I’m not going to bag on it just because I don’t understand it, and I don’t know how I would use it. It’s it’s not necessarily my cup of tea, but because I know that there’s some good use for it and someone, somewhere is going to use it. Right. And so I’m.

John: Fascinated by it. It’s a fascinating idea. I’d love to shoot it, shoot with it just to see how it works.

Wade: Also to I love actually the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law thing that you see a lot in the gun industry because it’s very like we’re gonna we’re gonna follow the letter of the law here. So and we’re going to get we’re going to be, we’re going to do what we want to do, and we’re going to make sure that we don’t violate the law, because obviously firearms laws have high consequence if you violate them. So I love that’s my actual favorite thing of the ingenuity of this is how they pull this off. And so yeah, since.

John: It’s not attached to it, so it’s technically a break or it’s not even a brace, it’s a rest.

Wade: The lawyer in me is like, okay, I see what you’re doing there. Yeah. Oh, totally. So it’s an interesting it’s an interesting move. I see what you’re doing there. I’d love to talk to your counsel about it and see what advice they told you. So, but yeah. So that’s that Guns.com is the review for that. And their website is USA1Shot.com is the or the product. Yeah USA 1 and that’s the number one not spelled out one. So USA1shot.com if you guys want to check that out.

John: Fascinating. That is more one of the more unique things I’ve seen lately.

Wade: Well and that’s what’s fun to talk about is like it’s we can’t just talk about 9/11 all day, dude.

John: Ironically, in his promos it is hooked up to a 1911.

Wade: So yeah, he specifically says in there even your favorite 1911. So maybe he talked.

John: About it several.

Wade: Times. And honestly, if you’re disabled, like let’s say you’re disabled. Oh yeah. And you and I can see this is where I can see where this comes in. Like my dad, for example, his left arm, he cannot raise it above his shoulder.

John: Oh yeah.

Wade: Right. So he was he was born on the farm. They took him out with a salad tongs and it screwed up the shoulder. So he can’t raise his left arm above the shoulder. So if he had that in a sling for his gun, he could shoot one handed with that. So maybe that’s a use.

John: Oh, totally. Yeah, it’d be much more stable way to shoot a handgun.

Wade: Absolutely. All right. Where do we want to go next? We can talk about Sabatti.

John: And I’m going to be honest here. It’s a very old company and I’d never heard of them. Another Italian firearms company, and said they’ve been around since before 1700. And I was I’d never heard of them. So I was actually nerding out on like, wow, I’ve never heard of these guys. But like you said, the firearms industry is a very large tent and some of these can go unnoticed for a long time.

Wade: Well, you can tell. So gunsweek.com Has the has the review and then the, the actual it’s the they came out with their 2024 catalog. Right. And it’s so they’re at Sabatti. It’s Sabatti.it It because they’re in Italy. And you can tell like if you look at their catalog page they’ve got this like beautiful wood stock on this rifle. And you’re like totally beautiful. Oh I can smell this stock right here. You know what I’m saying? Like I can smell it like I know like I can smell. It’s almost like you’re taking, you know, that smell of an instrument and an instrument case that’s from back when they’re like, in back in the day when they’re like, learn an instrument. You’re like, oh, that smell. This gun has a certain smell. I can just takes me back to my youth.

John: But when you go through their catalog, most of it is thoroughly modern.

Wade: Oh, yeah, 100%.

John: So the one I really dig is the Rover shooter, which to me it looks like it’s a scout rifle. Uh, it looks very much like Ruger’s Scout rifle. Seven shot, detachable box magazine. It has a threaded muzzle brake. Let’s see. It is probably in 308. I’m trying to find the caliber.

Wade: Yeah, I’m looking right at it. Right here. Yeah, that thing is, it’s. That is a nice looking gun right there.

John: This is 6.5 Creedmoor and 3.8 and 223. So I was.

Wade: Looking at that Falcon and Adler gun. And if they should just put a lever action on that bad boy. But it’s a shot. It’s a shotgun. So it’s a top. It’s a butt. Yeah. The varmint, the rover varmint. That thing.

John: I was just looking at.

Wade: That. That’s the same thing as like, Holy smokes.

John: Yeah, I do love the laminate stocks where they laminate the. They have the, the wooden grain patterns that are very unique. I think that’s very cool.

Wade: Yeah. These are beautiful, beautiful guns. And that is a thing too, where I think is the difference in cultures sometimes where Americans. I’m not saying that Americans don’t make beautiful guns 100% that there are companies that make beautiful guns. Right. But the question is like, what is the where does utility meet beauty? Where is the art and the utility? Where does that intersection? And that, again is a big tent where you’re the most some people, they think the most beautiful gun in the world is the Glock 17 because it never breaks. It never works, you know, it never works no matter what.

John: And that’s it’s the beauty of the eye of the beholder, man, if I’m in a dark alley, then it’s that Glock 17 that’s the most beautiful gun in the world. Yeah, in terms of aesthetics, I’m going to go with probably European firearms most of the time.

Wade: Well, if you look at the shotguns, the inlaid engraving on these, even the safety is like old school on these things.

John: It makes me think of, you know, Caesar and Beretta also have very high end beautiful shotgun. He kills me. When the American shotgun manufacturers will try to introduce a double, an overunder double barrel. And generally they’re like, all right, well, we can’t make them fancier. So we’re going to have the budget here.

Wade: Yeah. Yeah. Well isn’t cheap. No. And I think though what’s happening now is so if I look at this like this tactical evo us right. And I think that’s a beautiful gun too. And I think what’s happening and I wish I could give credit to who I saw say this because I’m not smart enough to come up with this. But if you’ll notice, though, a lot of some of the sort of the online gun influencers have started to talk a lot about, like, hey, let’s reach out and touch somebody right there. Yes, about the sniper guns. Right? And someone had said, the reason why they’re doing that is because they’re just trying to expand the market now, because the AR market in the rifle market, the carbines is like totally saturated. So they’re like, okay, we’re going to try to convince everyone that you need to be a sniper.

John: I’m going to interject here real quick. I’m starting to wonder if there’s like some sort of not a conspiracy, but coordinated effort. I won’t say who I’m writing for, but it’s a large AR manufacturer, and I just got tasked with a long range shooting article this week. And then I know exactly which tweet you’re talking about. And unrelated, because that company had nothing to do with it. So yeah, this is interesting.

Wade: It is interesting. I don’t remember if it was a company that did it or if it was a person that did it or whatever, but I was like that just because I’m on X slash Twitter a lot for my brand, for my writing brand. Right.

John: So that’s I’m on there to waste time.

Wade: So it’s funny talking about it’s true, I listened to I didn’t listen the whole thing because I can’t handle Lex Fridman for three hours, but he interviewed Elon Musk, and for whatever reason, I was listening to a part of it and I was like, and Elon Musk and him were talking about a metric which was regretted minutes. Right? Which is we call that doomscrolling. But they actually like when you’re doomscrolling. But they had a metric for it, which is regretted minutes. And like we’re trying to decrease the regretted minutes. This was like, it’s like Slumpbuster minutes. You mean time that I could this.

John: Could have been making money that I was scrolling. Yeah. Twitter.

Wade: But anyways. But yeah. And so it’s interesting because I’m on the algorithm I’m on gun Twitter. Right. So I write for various companies, the firearms industry. And I know you do too. And, and so like gun Twitter I don’t know if I’m in a silo, but I’ve seen a lot of sniper content recently. So. But yeah. So I’m looking at this tactical Evo us and that’s exactly who that’s targeted towards. So these are beautiful guys.

John: Oh yeah. Yeah they are.

Wade: Did you see the price on these anywhere. Did they put the price on them anywhere. I didn’t even see any of the suggested retail. It’s got to be expensive.

John: Yeah these aren’t Mossberg MVP’s okay.

Wade: Well that’s like when you’re doing the shotguns and you’re doing the barrels, right. Like you’re like, it’s. That’s why I have a mossberg tactical shotgun myself. But you know what?

John: There is nothing wrong with that. The Mossberg is a fantastic shotgun.

Wade: For whatever reason. Just an iron sights. I’m extremely. Well, I know why. It’s because I got a shotgun when I was 12 for hunting. So you can shoot bird and skeet. You can get extremely accurate with a must protect shotgun at 25 yards, which is the distance from my front door to another place close to me anyway. So yeah. So these are the body guns are beautiful. So that’s that Sabatti.it and that’s the product catalog is there for the 2024 offerings. And the nice thing about it too is I don’t know enough about this brand to be like, oh, they didn’t do anything from last year. It’s just these silly changes to me. It’s all new. So it’s all cool, right? That’s the advantage of not having gigantic knowledge of every gun in the world. So coming in at the end of it. So I was going to.

John: Give you some retails, but every model they have on buds is out of stock. So I have no idea.

Wade: This episode is brought to you by TacticalPay.com. Every few years, it seems large banks and national credit card processors suddenly decide that they no longer want to process payments for firearms and firearms related businesses, and so they drop these businesses with almost no notice, freezing tens of thousands of dollars in payments for months on end. If you want to ensure your partner with a payments provider that is dedicated to supporting the firearms industry, or you just want to find out if you could be paying less for your ACH, debit and credit card processing, visit TacticalPay.com. Again, that’s TacticalPay.com. This is one of my favorite things to talk about right now. We’re going to talk about ballistic helmets. Right. So there’s this review, this first look on this Fortis ballistic helmet at Firearms News.com and the actual link to the company I think it’s the blog. Yeah. PremierBodyArmor.Com has it on there. So tactical helmets are always I love talking about them for probably a reason that you don’t. You’re like, oh, why would you like talking about what is your. Before I tell you my thoughts on tactical helmets, what is your thoughts on tactical helmets, my friend?

John: Okay, so I went through basic training in 2002. So I was issued a Kevlar pot and and actually the Air Force at that time, I’m going to tell you, when we were in basic, half the kids still had Vietnam era steel pots. I’m not joking.

Wade: Like with the jungle camo on them and everything like straight out of the box. Still great. Still had like still had made out of wood on it, right? Yeah.

John: No joke. They were still wearing steel pots out of We Were Soldiers. This was 2002, no joke. And we qualified with M16a2. So 20 inch barrels, iron sights. Those were the good old days. And now I’m like, I didn’t feel like it was that long ago. Now this was the Air Force, so we didn’t get the Army was already starting to use optics and stuff, and I was not a door kicker ever. So anyway, I grew up in that era. We didn’t even have like nice chin straps on them, like it was wearing that helmet with, especially with a gas mask for hours was hell. It was horrible. So when I see these, I’m like, damn, that looks like a bike helmet. That’s awesome. And it’s got all like, you can put a it’s got a Picatinny rail on it, so you can just slide a light, any tac light just right on the side. There you go. Yeah. That’s from the end user perspective. Making Kevlar’s palatable was a huge move to make them so that something that you didn’t dread wearing because if you hate wearing it, you take it off. Yeah. And if you take it off, you get dead. Well, that’s like.

Wade: The thing with plates, right? Like if you have horrifically heavy plates, you’re going to start taking them off in different places, and that’s not going to help you.

John: When we also were doing our basic and stuff, we had to wear ballistic vests and they were the real like the flak jackets. Those things were like £40. Just horrible. So heavy.

Wade: Okay, so this is a three way ballistic helmet, right? And so it’s £2.8 and it’s $519. So that just goes to show you about like if you are going to go into start getting a ballistic helmet, obviously that is a great entry level price point for that level of protection for your head. Right. So and but for me and this is I’m always coming from the non veteran person who has never worn a ballistic helmet. I don’t own a ballistic helmet. I always thought it was like the ultimate in LARPing. If I was to purchase a ballistic helmet because I had no idea how to use it, like when I would, when would I put it on, like, you know what I’m saying? So, like, it’s for a zombie apocalypse, right? But I’m coming around on it for this reason, and that’s because I’m starting to go down the rabbit hole of probably time to maybe get some night vision and, and you got to put it on something. So it seems silly that you would spend a gigantic amount of money on night vision, because that’s not cheap and put it on a baseball hat, right, or something. Right. So because if you’re busting out the night vision, which you probably should have at some point, if you can afford it, you’re going to need a helmet, but that’s when you would need the helmet. That’s like where I’m coming around on it.

John: So I will tell you, you need to wear it for a while. It is so heavy and hard to get used to. We actually, I did a night vision course. This was years ago and we were driving our govs these f250 around a pasture with them on, and it’s the most awkward experience of your life because, well, they were camera rich ones. We had, but they were the two eyes goes down to a single monocle. So your field of vision is like, it’s like a toilet paper roll that’s about your field of vision. So you need to go out and practice with those in the field to feel what they’re actually like. It’s a bizarre sensation.

Wade: Well, not only that, just you got it for night vision. You’ve got to. I haven’t the body yet, so I’m thinking about it. So then this is why I’m like, I finally started looking at helmets because I couldn’t bring myself to purchase a helmet because I can’t see a situation unless it’s a zombie apocalypse. Right? Okay. Whatever. But for me personally, there’s not a situation where I’m going to be doing training with a helmet. Right? But then the nods thing is like, okay, yeah, maybe I got to get it. So, so.

John: It’s easier to have them on a helmet, actually.

Wade: And also you want the helmet to be light, right? Because oh yeah, the night vision itself is heavy. So now it’s starting to make sense to me. I was like, okay, like this is why I’d want to get a nice light helmet that fits well with the night vision. Because like you said, first you got to get used to using it, and then how in the heck are you going to shoot with it? Shooting with it is a whole nother level of complexity. So. So yeah. So I’m coming around on that. So I wasn’t like scoffing immediately at the helmet and I was like, oh, this is cool. It doesn’t seem outrageous to me in terms of price for what you get. And so that’s why I was looking at it. And that is one I was like, okay, cool. So that’s how for me, I sell I think about it.

John: That is one definite use case for like an IR laser. Is that makes it a lot easier to shoot with that. If you have a good zeroed in laser because it’s bright as heck when you have nods on. So that helmet would have made life a lot nicer. Yeah, and Kevlar are insanely heavy and very uncomfortable. Now. They did give us new helmet kits as I was getting later on in my career, but it’s still the thing weighs like £5 and that really gets heavy after hours.

Wade: Well, this is the thing too, that I, I don’t understand is. So I live in Virginia Beach and we go, there’s this awesome air show every year here. Right. So Blue Angels at Oceana.

John: Yeah.

Wade: The Blue Angels come here and you. But if you go, that’s the only time you get to go on base, right? As a civilian. Somebody’s over there. And and it’s the same thing over there, too. It’s like, why are some of these buildings so old? Like, we spend so much money on the military? Billions and billions of dollars. Oh, yeah. And like and we’re spending billions and billions of dollars when you work in the military. And why are you getting Vietnam era helmets? Right. So anyways, I wondered.

John: About that. Give me.

Wade: A break. Like and that’s fun. I go on an Oceana is like everyone over there is awesome. Super competent people obviously like the pilots and everything is amazing. Planes amazing. But I was actually shocked about man, they really got to upgrade some of these. Actually.

John: I went to Oceana in 2014 on a work trip, and I’ll actually tell you that installation actually is pretty modern compared to some of the places I’ve been. Like, it was actually very nice. So put that in perspective.

Wade: Well, maybe I’m like too Gucci in my building requirements, right?

John: I actually thought I was like, man, this is really nice base.

Wade: Well, I don’t have any point of reference, right? So because for me it’s as a civilian, I that’s actually I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been on a base. I went on a National Guard base when I was in high school because I got to fly an Apache simulator. Oh, nice. Somehow my mom pulled strings to do that or whatever, and I was like, oh, this would be awesome. I’d love to do this. I was like, hey, but I have 21,000 vision. Can I still do this? And the guy looked at me. He’s like, no, he’s like.

John: Do you think you can?

Wade: I was like 17 years old. I was like nine two. That’s when I took the I took the Asvab and I had the armed forces people hounding me for three straight years. After that, I was like, oh yeah.

John: So have you thought about throwing your life away? Come join us.

Wade: So I had a really good friend who was in the Marine Corps JAG in law school, and I thought that was pretty cool, but even that was before 911, and they wouldn’t take anybody that had that vision. Problem with that kind of vision, you can’t do anything. I was like, well, all right then, but now they now I don’t think it’s a problem. I think you you can have the glasses like this thick. And they’d be like, yes, we’ll give you $100,000 glasses bonus or whatever to get in there. Please, for.

John: God’s sake, just come in. Just come on.

Wade: The recruiting issues are so bad. All right, last one we’re talking about today.

John: Okay, so it’s the 1911. It is the Gunsite service pistol. I did like this one. I like 1911. I think they’re awesome.

Wade: It was in your you start you started the podcast talking about your flood 1911. I was like yeah it’s not FUD. It’s fun.

John: It’s fun. Replace those DS with an In.

Wade: What’s the first rule? What’s the first rule of firearms?

John: Fun.

Wade: Have fun.

John: I love that kills me every time.

Wade: It makes me laugh every single time. All right.

John: So Gunsite is world famous shooting center out in Arizona. Gunsite Academy. It was Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Cooper’s brainchild. He was like, one of the one of the rock stars of shooting of all time. He was a staunch 1911 guy. So this is a really cool pistol. And it is made by Finks Custom Gunsmithing, which means it’s not cheap. Anyway, it’s slick man. It is really slick. All you need to do is look at the hammer to be like, mm, that’s sharp because they have the little Gunsite Bird or very cool. This is one that I’m not going to go into because he actually guys will be like you miss this detail about it. I’m just going to say it’s a very slick pistol and I would definitely shoot it.

Wade: Yeah, I like this picture of Jeff Cooper on here. He looks like you could just drop him off in the bush right now in that picture. And he would be like, I’m fine.

John: Yeah, he actually ate the snake. That band came out of off his hat of his.

Wade: His snake hat. Yeah. Well, is that true story or are you making that up?

John: No, I made that up.

Wade: Oh, it could be true.

John: I don’t know. Do you think it’s true? I don’t know, I could 100%.

Wade: It could be totally true. It’s so funny, too, because I lived in Arizona for a really long time, but I wasn’t into guns then like I am now. Every time I talk to somebody in Arizona, I was like, oh man, I wish I was back in Arizona right now. Yeah. And for me, like aesthetically, it’s just a nice looking gun.

John: It is.

Wade: Walk me through what you like about the 1911. So much.

John: Okay. So I like the history. Just historically speaking it’s a really cool pistol. It is heavy and I would not carry it concealed. I’m a total wimp. I want the lightest thing that’s reliable to carry concealed. What I like about it is it’s slim. You can buy magazines, good ones for next to nothing anywhere. And that that’s always like my litmus test for a gun is like, if stuff hits the fan, can I buy mags for this? Can I buy parts for this? So yeah, night or not, night sights are available everywhere. Parts for 1911 are available everywhere and cheap. Obviously, you’re not going to do a lot of tuning because this is probably a four figure gun already. But that’s what I love about the 1911 is that it is extremely. Easy to find stuff for. There’s parts for it everywhere, and you can take a simple GI model and make it Gucci on your own. What I don’t like about them is they are now, I don’t I’m not going to go deep because I actually don’t know all of the ins and outs, but they’re not like a Glock to assemble. There is a lot more to assembling a 1911. I think that takes some special tools to do.

Wade: Are you saying that the leader of the ATF would have a problem taking down this gun? Is that what you’re saying?

John: If he couldn’t take down a Glock, then I’m going to say yes. Oh, you got.

Wade: The, uh. You got my joke. Oh, yeah, I saw that. I thought my joke was better than that. Right?

John: Oh, I’m just happen to be a nerd in two a Twitter as well. I saw it, I’m like, oh, great. These guys.

Wade: Grantham did a funny video where he was like, let me see how many Glocks I can take down before he was able to give it away to somebody else.

John: Show me a guy.

Wade: That.

John: Never touched a Glock in his life.

Wade: I don’t know anything about the night. I don’t know anything about the 1911 at all. I just think it’s a cool looking gun, right? I don’t know, I don’t know anything about it. What I will say, though, is that this on that. So that is guns and ammo. Com is an old school website publication, been around since a million years and I looked at.

John: That when I was 12.

Wade: Yeah, exactly. And the gun site website is Gunsite.Com Gunsite.Com. Right. So but they’re not helping the FUD argument. Did you see on here it says on the article it says the pistol uses a Wilson combat single side tactical thumb safety that moves smoothly and cleanly.

John: So did you have ChatGPT write that?

Wade: Yeah. Right. Right. But no, but the Wilson the.

John: Msrp is down here at 17.99.

Wade: Yeah that’s a lot. Yeah that’s a good yeah. You got to be like a 1911. It’s the combination of the 1911 and the Gunsite thing together right. You’re like oh I gotta have it. But no. But the Wilson combat angle is the the FUD side, the FUD side of it. That doesn’t do them any favors because there’s I love the EDC videos where like I’m it’s not EDC, it’s hiking. If you have that much stuff in your pocket. Yes, yes, if you know that or not. But I didn’t know that. So yeah. So other than the Wilson combat thing, which I have no problem with because everybody on there knows more than me and can shoot better than me, and I’m not making fun of them. But Gun Twitter likes to make fun of Wilson content. It’s like Wilson combat is the FUD mascot on on gun, basically.

John: Oh, totally. Totally. But they’ve carved out a great niche and they make a lot of money, so.

Wade: Oh yeah.

John: Well, and great products.

Wade: Yeah. And that’s the cool thing, which I love. It’s like talking about sports teams. Like if you were to take, like if you found another 911 person and you showed them that, you showed them this Gunsite service pistol 911, they would geek out on it, right? They’d be like, I like this, or I like it’d be like talking about the run and shoot versus the wishbone or something. It’s just people would just be like, no, you’re an idiot. And I just love that’s what I love about talking about firearms is that it’s there’s so much depth everywhere. And it’s just like, let me ask you this question on this as we’re like winding the winding it down. What is your thought on the three hole skeletonized match trigger? What is your thought on that trigger? As a gun person, it looks cool. It’s just the aesthetics, right? There’s no reason.

John: Jerry Miculek and the 100 other people in his category in the world. It makes a difference for them. For me, it makes zero difference at all. I can’t hardly tell the difference between a Gucci trigger and the cheap $40 parts kit I got for my AR. I’m just not there. I look at guns, I just find them fascinating. And I’ve been poring over specs since I was ten years old. It would never make sense for me. That would be like me playing a $4,000 Les Paul and struggling through the G major scale. All right, be worthless for me to do that.

Wade: But what is the argument? What is the argument for it that it makes better? Right. Is it is it an ergonomic thing or is it because it does idea. What does it. It doesn’t do the trigger. It doesn’t change the trigger break. Right. Like it’s.

John: No, it’s purely aesthetics. Probably just to save weight because it’s an all steel trigger and the pistol is already weighs in at 40oz empty. So add another eight plus one of 45 ACP. And that is a heavy pistol, right. So I assume that it’s just to save weight. I don’t really know what the rationale is for it. I assume it’s just weight saving since it’s already so freaking heavy. I’m gonna get.

Wade: So much hate mail right now. People emailing me, it’s like, how can you not know the skeletonized match trigger? Like I’m like, dude, I’m the normal guy part of the podcast. I leave that stuff to John for the tricky stuff. Yeah, but it’s a it’s a gorgeous.

John: I did a poor job of preparing today. I didn’t read why skeletonized three hole triggers exist. Well, I.

Wade: Like to just I just like to spring things on you. Right. That’s what I thought you did all the research on this hat that he’s wearing with the with the the snakeskin. Bandolero.

John: Oh, no, that was totally. I was off the cuff right there.

Wade: I was like, My God, you did put a lot of backstory on the colonel, Jeff Cooper, the father of the modern technique of the pistol.

John: He he ate the head off of a rattlesnake at Gunsite.

Wade: Yeah, well, this is the guy where you’re like, you would play some version of horse with him, right? Like about the game of horse and basketball. And he wouldn’t care. He’d be like, all right, I want you to hop on one foot three times, fall down, spin around and. And shoot that at 600 yards with your pistol at one time. He’s like, okay.

John: Yeah, right. Oh, how’d you do that?

Wade: Yeah. Well, it’s like when you watch those gut. It’s. Yeah, there are just certain people who have a skill level with firearms that it is.

John: When you put 100,000 rounds down range every year, you tend to get there. Yeah, of.

Wade: Course you have a.

John: Sponsor that’s going through $50,000 worth of ammo a year. Still a month. I don’t even know.

Wade: It’s still it’s like a golfer, right? It’s like it’s still there are people that could put that many rounds down, down, down range and still would not get good at it. You know what I mean? Like, you’re not like those guys. There’s just a subset of people that they were born to shoot a gun. Yes. And that when the confluence of history and their where they were born and then they got the opportunity and everything comes together and they get that person that those rounds, that person is like magic. And I just, I love watching that stuff. I can watch videos of people shooting like that all day long.

John: That’s awesome.

Wade: It’s I just think it’s a mix. I don’t have that skill. And one last thing. So and I know the one thing I do, though, I will say one last thing about this gun is I do like the tritium powered front night sights. I do like green night sights personally, so. Oh yeah, I love those I don’t like, I don’t like orange. I like the green.

John: I’m in between on the color. I could go either way. I wrote for a Night Sight company one time and they sent me a complimentary set for my MMP 40, and I was very happy about that.

Wade: You’re like, I don’t care what color it is, it’s free.

John: So yeah, I was like, I don’t care, man, just send me something. And actually he did let me pick it. I. I haven’t shot that pistol in a while. I need to look at it.

Wade: I can see that gun writing.

John: They send you stuff? Yeah.

Wade: Of course. Yeah. Well, yeah, I have a lot of holsters in my house and. No, but the. I can see for orange though the benefit like for sight acquisition at night. Like or you will find orange very quickly obviously. Right. So I can see the benefit of that. Well anyway. All right man. Well I love I felt like we had a fun time chopping it up today. Yep.

John: I’m gonna go rush out and buy a 1911 right now. Don’t do it. Not not a night. Not an $1,800 one. No, don’t do it.

Wade: Your wife will not be happy with you. Don’t do it like.

John: Okay, dude, whatever.

Wade: Your wife will be fine. If you went out and you bought, like an RV, she’d be like you. So you could have three RVs. Instead. She talked me into it.

John: I was like, are you serious? She’s like, yeah, go buy it. I was like.

Wade: But she would give you the she’d give you the grumble, grumble, the grumbly voice if I came home with another gun. But that’s a you problem. Yeah. All right man, great. Well, as always, I can’t wait to, uh, chop it up again. And, uh, current events and different things on thoughts. And this has been the Tactical Business podcast. You’ve been listening to the Tactical Business Show by TacticalPay.com. Join us again next episode as we explore what it takes to be a business success in the firearms industry.