Tactical Headlines with John McCoy – SEPT. 5,2024

About This Episode

In this episode, we review the Silencerco Scythe-TI Lightweight Hunting Suppressor, perfect for hunters. We also cover Hoist Hydration sponsoring the U.S. Army Best Ranger and Sniper Competitions. Check out KelTec’s new KSG410 and R50, plus Rock River Arms’ latest ARs. Finally, we discuss Grace Engineering’s acquisition of Montana Rifle Company and what it means for precision rifles. Stay tuned for the latest industry updates, reviews, and more!

Insights In This Episode

• Silencerco Scythe-TI: The Ultimate Lightweight Hunting Suppressor. (www.silencercentral.com)
• Hoist Hydration Powers Up the U.S. Army Best Ranger & Sniper Competitions! (drinkhoist.com)
• KelTec Unveils Game-Changing KSG410 Shotgun and R50 Rifle! (www.keltecweapons.com)
• Rock River Arms’ Latest AR Lineup: Built for Performance and Precision! (www.rockriverarms.com)
• Grace Engineering Takes Over Montana Rifle Company – A New Era for Precision Firearms! (montanarifleco.com)

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, we’ll 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 I am joined by my co-host and partner in crime, John McCoy. John, how are you doing? Good.

John: I’m doing good. Wade, how are you doing?

Wade: I’m doing well. Your beard is looking particularly frames today. I know you didn’t do anything to it, but it just woke up with a good beard day today.

John: So what I’ve got going on is a ring light off at a 45 degree angle, and it’s. It is just painting it.

Wade: It’s perfect. Illuminating the beard. Yes. It’s. If you needed to call in an airstrike on that beard, you would 100% be able to do that. Well, I’m excited to talk some some current events, some summer releases. Let’s rock and roll. What caught your eye?

John: So the first one actually in this one is pretty cool. The side T lightweight hunting suppressor. I was actually a little confused when I started reading the article, because he was talking about full auto suppressors, and I’m like, I don’t think that’s what this is about. And it’s not. So it is a lightweight suppressor that they dropped was this summer. This article is just from two weeks ago and it is an all titanium. And they really went the extra mile to make it light. And it is for all the whole spectrum of 30 caliber rifles. So you’ve got a 300 win mag. You’re good with this. Or you can put it on a little 8.5in 300 blackout pistol and you’re good with it. So they really went they went above and beyond. And I learned something really fascinating. I actually was not aware of that. You can still use a 30 caliber suppressor for a 556. They said that yeah it will it like two decibel louder than a 30 caliber just because there’s the big 30 caliber hole there. But so you can get an adapter piece to fit the five, five, six threads if you. So you could run it on your 30s and your two, two, three if you wanted to do that, which was a great selling point. Not saying I’m going to go out and drop 1200 bucks on a suppressor, but if I were going to, I now know that I’m going to buy a 30 caliber. So it’ll work on my hunting rifle so I don’t blow out my eardrums, and it’ll work on my five, five, six as well.

Wade: That is cool. And what’s cool about that, too, is that it’s someone who is there telling you all the good things about their product, and they’re not being a purist about it, because we talk about this every week about how in guns, most people like to be a purist about their thing. So like, no, I would never put this suppressor that’s not built specifically for my 556 on there. And they’re like, well, 2 or 3dB. You could listen to Megadeth and sabotage your entire life. Exactly. You’re not going to be hearing anything, brother. Like you don’t even know it’s shooting sometimes. Like you’re so.

John: Exactly.

Wade: So. And that’s the thing is, like. Is it. Utility is great, precision is great. But is it precision that that that works for you personally. So like yeah. Like if you’re an operator and those two decibels might be you might need a difference between those two decibels or something like that. But you’re using a totally different setup, right? You’re running the M4 and you’re not. You’re getting exactly what the government is going to give you. But so that doesn’t even apply. But a normal human being, you don’t need to worry about it.

John: No concept whatsoever that there’s any difference. And the other thing.

Wade: Too is if you’re going to go Gooch. Right. It’s like, well, if you buy two suppressors, then they’re okay, but then you buy one really good one. That’s the same price for two, but you just switch it back and forth basically.

John: Yeah, absolutely. And the percentage of people that dress and act like operators is substantially higher than the amount of people that really are, and I am really not. And I never would pretend to be or even want to talk in that lingo. But I do want to keep being able to hear things when I’m in my 70s. So I am really very bullish on suppressors. I think that’s the right term here. I’m not a stocks guy either, but I believe that’s the right term, and I would love to see them get dropped from the from the what is that, the class three because it is a health thing. So I know we’re frequency hopping here. It is a big deal.

Wade: Two things. One is that I think it’s funny that you’re right. It is a suppressor but they call it Silencerco, right. So even they know because they people they’ll mix it up and be like it’s a Silencerco is like silencer in there. Yeah, right. But then the other thing too is that, yeah, I agree with you. It’s people. What they think about suppressors is they think that they’re like only hitman assassins use them. And that’s the only reason for them is that you’re going to be like all your threaded barrel for your handgun, sneaking to somebody’s house and capping them, right, like, right. Well, that’s absolutely they don’t understand how loud some of these freaking guns are. Especially I would appreciate all of you people that shoot your Ars on my indoor range if you would use a suppressor. Please, please.

John: For everyone’s sake Yeah. Well, so this one with a three or with the 308, it only took it down to 140dB. Like that’s not quiet. That’s barely within the threshold of hearing safe.

Wade: All right. That’s my wife. That’s my wife yelling at me for not doing the dishes.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Wade: Well, and the other thing, too, about this, what I like about looking at stuff like this is that there’s. I think there’s two ends of the suppressors, right? There’s let’s look at the 3D printed ones that the costs are going to come way down. Right. And they may not I don’t know what the durability on those are, but but then all the way up to okay, let’s go to something which is completely made of titanium, which is like this thing is is about as durable as we can make it instead of making it out of, I don’t know, some other magical Star Trek material steel.

John: And it drops off several ounces to go with the titanium, right? Makes it a lot lighter.

Wade: Yeah, exactly. And when you’re running around in the forest with a pack that. Actually, I learned this from hiking, it’s like, oh, what’s another £3? Now, overall, it’s weight adds up on your back over time.

John: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I remember that from being in Boy Scouts and throwing all the crap in your pack on, like, a four day hike, and by the fourth day you’re like, I want to kill myself. You’re looking at him like, would anyone notice if I threw this shovel in the river? No one’s going to notice. You know, the shovel I didn’t use a single time.

Wade: I think the actual saying is only take pictures with you. Only leave the memories and your Boy Scout shovel. I think that is the thing.

John: I think you’re.

Wade: Right. You can get away with that. So. Yeah. So I’ve actually bookmarked this. So I’m going to this, this suppressor because as we talked about before I’ve got a 308 coming in my dad’s lever action hunting rifle. Yeah. So I throw this on there.

John: So that’s the thing is that for a while even I was like suppressor for hunting. But then I every hunter I know they don’t wear ear protection and they’re like, oh, I’m only shooting a couple times a year. I’m like, yeah, it’s a 300 win mag. One shot can blow out an eardrum. We’re not being we’re not being dramatic here. Like, that’s it’s really bad for your ears. And, you know, it’s a, it’s a safety factor because you can communicate with other hunters better because also you can’t hear squat after you take that shot, that unprotected shot with a high powered rifle, you can’t hear anything for a little while. That is a genuine safety factor. So these have a real safety application.

Wade: And even if you were going to wear ear protection, most hunting is there is a lead up time to the shot. So there’s this anticipation time where you want to hear the rest of nature, or there’s you want to be able to actually stalk the animal. If you’re depending upon the type of hunting that you’re doing and you’re not going to, people just don’t wear ear protection. They don’t. I’m not going to do this right, because it’s just not going to do it. It’s like anyway. So yeah, so I’m getting really bullish on suppressors actually.

John: Definitely.

Wade: So that’s my absolutely next round of uh, my next round of silliness for myself. All right. Cool. And so let’s get the website out. So this is for um, do let’s put the website silencerCentral.com. SilencerCentral.com. Yep.

John: That’s pretty pretty straightforward there. I think you probably know what you’re getting into if you go there.

Wade: Fairly certain you’re like, do you guys sell ammo?

John: Like is it in the name? Do you think we do?

Wade: All right. Cool. Well there we go. I like it in stock. All right. Cool. What’s next?

John: All right. The next one is Hoist energy. Drink is the fastest growing hydration beverage in the US. So it makes me think of Idiocracy. It’s got what plants crave. It’s got electrolytes. So anyway, I don’t remember.

Wade: I don’t remember that.

John: Anyway, remember, they’re using it for the plant, irrigation for the fields, and they can’t figure out why their plants aren’t growing anymore. Oh, he’s like, have you tried giving them water? And they’re like like from a toilet.

Wade: I’m telling you, that movie is becoming more of a documentary or prophecy than it is a prophecy.

John: Definitely insane. Mike Judge is a prophet then, which is interesting. I didn’t see that one coming.

Wade: So we’re going off track from the firearms to a firearms adjacent hydration drink, right? Yep. And it is one thing that is cool. Yeah, they do sponsor the Ranger competition and the international sniper competition. So that’s cool right? Just that they’re supporting the precision shooting and the troops and all that kind of good stuff. We are a Tactical Business podcast. So let’s talk about this a little bit. From a business perspective, one way to differentiate yourself is to go into the firearms niche, right. Because as much as firearms themselves might people might say it’s like saturated, right. Like, oh, another AR company. Right. Um, your adjacent gear isn’t actually not that saturated compared to the normal economy.

John: No, it’s really not. And the other thing, and we’ve all, especially in our private group chat, have talked about it is the proliferation of severely overweight people who are bulking up on guns. Fitness is one of your best attributes for good shooting. All right, so obviously these guys are the best right? These are this isn’t your Ranger doc. Like these are the best Rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment that are already out there in the field, that are competing with each other to see who’s the best of the best. All right. And then the same with the international sniper. These are the best snipers in the world. So these guys are not only are they peak shots, they are peak physical specimens. So what they’re looking for is whatever competitive edge they can get because they’re already have peak gear. And these guys are their strength. They’re trained killers. These guys are straight up trained killers. So any edge they can get. And so I don’t know if the international sniper, but the Ranger thing, it takes like two days. Like they’re up for extended periods rucking and running and doing these god awful, horrible things down in the swamps of Georgia. I had to look up Fort Moore after the Army renamed like 5 or 6 of their super famous posts. I was like, well, which one’s Moore? Well, it’s Fort Benning for the people that refuse to call them by their new names. So that’s where the competition is held, which is. And they have a whole bunch of swamp land. So these guys are traipsing around there in the swamps eating snakes and stuff.

Wade: And it’s in their it’s even in their it’s even in some of their bottling. Right. So if you look at like the blaze orange, it has like a little camouflage on there. And I guess that these are available at 90% of the bases. Right. So your modern soldier knows what this is. Yes. I mean, I can tell you from a hydration perspective personally as like just a normal, regular person that what I do jiu jitsu, I drink that. But Gator Gator lite, right. Which is like basically like adult Pedialyte and even almost tastes the same.

John: It’s the same, probably.

Wade: But to me it makes a difference like to than regular water or Gatorade, at least because I don’t immediately feel like I’m going to die, right? Right after jiu jitsu. So I’m going to order some of this. Actually, I’m gonna try this and I’ll come back in a future thing and be like this. Blaze orange is delightful.

John: I was going to make a joke because their spokesman is a retired CW five. But I know you’re not a veteran, so you won’t get the joke.

Wade: I don’t get it. Well, give me the joke, though, because they’re a veteran. I was going to.

John: Say that I was shocked they could get a warrant officer to show up to make the statement, but you won’t get the joke, because warrant officers in the army are notorious for disappearing because the bulk of the warrant officer corps are aviators. They’re helicopter pilots. So they have this probably totally warranted. What do you call that? A reputation of disappearing and from assemblies and drills. Oh, I got to fly today. Sorry, I got to rest. Oh, no. So that’s the joke. I was like, I was shocked. I was surprised they could get a chief warrant officer to show up and make the statement.

Wade: I’m just I’m ordering some right now. I’m actually ordering some right now. I’m getting some of this blaze orange and I’m going to I’m going to I’m going to saunter into jiu jitsu with one of this and be like, just super cool Yeah. And like I said, again, from a business perspective, I think people get afraid. I think normal business people get real skittish about two way businesses or going into that vertical, because they’re just afraid of all the normal social media marketing getting canceled. Right? Because let’s say so, like you’re they’re going to wake up one day and they’re like, oh, our credit card processor has canceled us and not on social media. And all of our revenue is now gone. Right. Yeah. And I think that was actually much, much more of a danger five years ago than it is now. And the reason is because that did happen to a lot of people. But now you have like technical business podcasts sponsored by TacticalPay, which is all we do is do credit card processing for 500 people. And then but also like Twitter, for example, is like I think I tell every single people that I interview is like, you have to have a social presence on Twitter because.

John: You have to, especially if.

Wade: You’re. Yeah. Go ahead.

John: It’s the only one where you’re going to get where you’re going to get. You’re not going to get shadow banned. You know, if you’re in this vertical just it’s the only one where you’ve got a shot of not getting shadow banned, right? Right.

Wade: Well, I think YouTube is now demonetized influencers into a so like.

John: You can’t every 3D printing one that I follow. I’ve had to go to Odyssey or Rumble because they all get bumped off the platform and some of them just straight up shut down.

Wade: Yeah, the 3D printing. And I don’t want to get too far off topic, but the 3D printing, as a lawyer and as like a regular person, that’s going to be tricky, man. Like they’re going to they’re going to get at some point they’re going to be like, we’re going to start arresting these people, you know what I mean? So and that’s going to get real, real squirrely real fast.

John: So so I was I had a I have a membership to Defcad. And Liscio is their legal defense side. And this is just a real quick aside, but I was downloading some plans a couple days ago and now it was new Jersey, Hawaii, California. And I think New York. You have to provide proof of an FFL license to be able to obtain the files now. Oh, really? Yes, sir.

Wade: Yeah. Well, that’s going to go that’s going to go to the Supreme Court. That’s going to eventually have to make its way to Supreme Court.

John: I’m sure they’re doing it as a CYA right now, right? Because those states are demanding it and like, yeah, you’re right, it’s probably going to get settled down the road there. But for right now, yeah, it says in those states you must provide credentials. If you’re downloading from there of a of an FFL, which then it’s like, well what’s the point of printing this? Why would I do that? So it’s an interesting thing.

Wade: I almost think I and so going into the FFL thing is like, I almost think you should just get an FFL, right? I think so why wouldn’t it’s not expensive. It’s not I don’t think it’s like prohibitively expensive. And it just gives you like this layer I guess. Does the ATF visit every person that has an FFL but they audit you like I that I have to look at because that’s what I don’t want. Is the ATF coming to my house be like, hello? Yeah. Hi, sir. Let me let me hold on. Let me lock up my dog.

John: Yeah.

Wade: Whoa, whoa. Thank you. You do an obscure military. Joke’s on me over there. I thought you were an ATF dog. I’ve never met a member of the ATF. I don’t know, I’m sure they’re nice people. Whatever. But they get a lot. They need a public relations person so bad on social media.

John: Real bad.

Wade: That’s the thing.

John: They should not have a presence on Twitter. That’s my message to the ATF. You guys should probably delete your account.

Wade: Yeah, that’s not good. But they need a public relations person. Like, they so like people so bad. Like they they could be an out. But I guess that’s political because the powers that be, it just depends on who’s in charge. But all right about that. They’re going to show up tomorrow. They’re gonna be like, are you talking? I was like, oh, but I’m not in England. All right. All right, let’s go. So I ordered some of this.

John: Brutal.

Wade: It’s unbelievable. I ordered some of this blaze orange. So next time we talk of this point, the only challenge I have with it is Hoist is too close to moist, which is everyone’s least favorite word. So as a copywriter and writer, I understand why it is because of the Pararescue and all that.

John: So my guess is that Hoist that the CW five that I was given a hard time about. Probably what like their design team, they probably were helicopter aviators hoist their hoisting. They have hoist on them. So it would make sense.

Wade: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Listen, like I said, I’ve never been in the military, but you.

John: Didn’t miss much.

Wade: Well, I guarantee you, though, is that, like, there are military? Like seeing a helicopter is probably makes people very happy in certain situations. You know what I mean? Like for sure. Right. So, but so I’m equally respectful to all branches and all the people because I don’t I haven’t earned the right to make fun of them.

John: So I probably didn’t either in that way.

Wade: Right. All right. Let’s go on to the next one. But I’m excited. I actually, this is one cool thing about this podcast is I buy a bunch of stuff so my wife will be like, what’s this? She’s going to be yelling. She’s going to be yelling at me at that suppressor decibel back here. This is perfect here. Hold on. I want you to I want you to keep yelling at me at that, at that range. And I’m going to shoot my rifle over here and see if it’s the same level.

John: You’re in the backyard just punching holes in the dirt, like, hey, keep yelling, keep yelling. Yeah, this is scientific.

Wade: Oh, the ATF is here. What’s happening? All right. Oh, God. All right, there’s, like, three different callbacks to that joke. All right, let’s go. Let’s go to the next one.

John: All right. Caltech.

Wade: Okay, now, before we start on this specific new releases of the C410 and the R 50, right? Yep. I want you to give your general what we were talking about offline. About Caltech. I want you to be honest. Right. Because I totally. I have an opposing view for you, but. And so go ahead. So your view of Caltech in general.

John: Caltech is highly innovative. They have been highly innovated. And they also create what are generally accepted as some of the highest quality, cheap firearms. Like budget firearms, you can say you throw the PC. They’re budget friendly. No. They’re cheap, they’re inexpensive. Firearms that are actually reliable, extremely light, highly reliable. And a lot of their designs are really innovative. So like the. Well, it’s the CBR 30 is the rifle, but there’s a pistol version of it as well. The PMR 30 is a 30 shot 22 Magnum pistol, and it’s about the size of a Glock 19. And so it’s just it’s crazy innovation. They weren’t copying off of anyone when they did this. My beef with Caltech is their freaking ugly. All right, their guns are ugly. Aesthetics matter. Okay. And their guns are ugly. Like they are horribly ugly. In my opinion. They’re just, like the freaking ugliest guns in the universe. One of the ones we’re going to talk about, I swear to me. Well, the Csrg 410 shotgun looks like something. It actually looks like the rifles out of Starship Troopers the movie, right? It looks like those. And then the other one, it’s a 5.7 by 2.8 carbine. It looks like a ray gun out of a 1950s comic book. Like, that’s what it looks like. I’m sure they’re good.

Wade: For, like, 50.

John: Yes. Yeah.

Wade: And, well, it looks like a mini. It looks like a mini o r 50.

John: It’s an R 50. So it uses a P90 mag from. Who makes that HK or FN fn. It’s it’s that weird slide in 50 round magazine that is on top of the FN 90. It’s a 50 round magazine. And so they use they just use that because there’s a bunch of those. I think that the the design is really cool. It’s cool enough I would consider getting one, but it’s so ugly. That’s my critique. So a.

Wade: Couple things. One is that one man’s ugliness is another man’s wife, right? Like it’s like my.

John: Ex-wife’s been married two other times, so he’s been several other.

Wade: I wasn’t saying it specifically to you. I was just talking about.

John: I hope she watches this.

Wade: Right. But the. So that’s number one is that beauty is a liability. And some people, they just like they like different things John. And so that’s number one. But number two is that I think Keltec has done a really good job of talking about the public relations side of things. Right. Because they get their guns used in movies. So like the their shotgun was in John Wick. Yep. Jennifer Casey. Yeah. Jennifer Garner used KSG right in some movie. She’s playing somebody I don’t know, whatever. Maybe it’s the. I just looked it up and it says, what type of gun does Jennifer Garner use in the money laundering business fight scene in the movie peppermint? I was like, I didn’t even know there was a movie peppermint. But anyway, so they’re doing a Caltech is doing a good job of getting into the culture that way through the movies. Right? And that’s like, I just had this discussion with somebody on a last podcast interview I did that’s coming up soon about Dragon’s Breath as a shotgun shell, right? Like, oh, yeah. Right. Like Dragon’s Breath is no one would ever use. Right? No one would ever say to themselves, I need a shotgun shell that explodes fire and will start my house on fire when I use it.

John: Catch my house on fire. Yeah, absolutely.

Wade: But when you see in the movies, you’re like, dang, that’s cool. And so you that’s that. That’s your gateway drug into KelTecs, right? Yes, totally. They’ve done a really good job of that. And and I agree with you in terms of on the innovation side because we were talking about this before is that there are some things that they’ve done outside of the newer stuff that other companies have jumped on, like we’re talking about.

John: Oh, yeah. So Smith and Wesson. Yeah. Big Smith and Wesson.

Wade: I’ve heard of them.

John: I’ve heard of you may have heard of Smith and Wesson. I’ve got to look it up. I don’t remember what it’s called, but anyway, it doesn’t matter. They created and I think it dropped last year, a direct competitor of the PMR 30. It’s a 30 plus 122 Magnum pistol that’s based off. It’s an MMP. It’s one of their MPs. And they ripped it off a Kel-tec little Kel-tec Smith and Wesson.

Wade: Rip it off. It’s a model. They model the idea.

John: You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. They model.

Wade: It looks okay. So it’s very similar.

John: So but also you look at the sub 200 the their folding pistol caliber carbines. Yeah. Ruger and Smith and Wesson both are riffing off of them because Kel-tec was way before them by using pistol magazines, pistol grip, basically taking their pistol grip from their pistol and just slapping it on a carbine with a folding stock and and Smith and Wesson. Smith and Wesson looks a lot like the Kel-tec. So you have this company that is doing crazy innovative things and has the big competitors chasing them, and I have mad respect for that. But no one will ever make me think they’re not the ugliest guns on the market. That’s just it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t carry it proudly. They’re just ugly.

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 I’m with you. They’re not my cup of tea, necessarily.

John: They have a 308 bullpup for 1400 bucks. They have a.

Wade: Shotgun. Bullpup? I know, I know. They see I’m a mossberg guy. Like, I have a mossberg tactical with the pistol grip.

John: I love Mossberg, right?

Wade: And it’s just a sweet looking gun. And so I’m partial in that way. And so you’re not going to I don’t particularly like the kel-tec shotguns, but that’s just because I’m a Glock guy, not a sig guy. You know what I mean? Like it’s just. Yes. If you like, but they’re I. One thing I do like about them is that they’re accessible. Right? Yes. They’re not going to it’s not a Daniel defense AR where they’re going to get you out where you’re like, I’m going to charge you $4,000 for something.

John: You don’t need that unless you’re putting 10,000 rounds a year downrange.

Wade: And it’s the same thing about it’s the same thing about decibel level, right? Like, there’s no way you’re a good enough shooter. Most people are. They’re going to need one. But if you’re a collector or you just like guns. Yes. Of course.

John: Sure, absolutely.

Wade: But anyway. But Kel-tec is accessible. So. And that’s the one thing that’s like. And Palmetto Artists. Palmetto Armory solves it ourselves. Yep. So anyway, all.

John: Right, so the KSG for ten. I actually was watching the video and it got me thinking. I’m like, that’s actually pretty good defense shotgun for my kids to use because it’s six. It’s 12 plus one for full three inch mags. It’s a double tube. And if you use two and three quarters, it’s a 14 plus one shotgun. 1415 rounds of 410 is going to ruin anyone’s day. That’s a lot of rounds. That’s a lot. And it’s small. Yeah, it’s a small thing. And it is. You can look at it. It’s got a carry handle built on. It’s got a whole bunch of strap slots all over. It’s got this vertical carry handle above the barrel that’s got the sights on it. It’s a handle. And it’s also got three slots on it for straps. So no matter what size of shooter you can put a strap on there. It’s going to work. And they use the exact same pistol grip pattern that they use on all their pistols and most of their carbines. So if you’re familiar with their pistols, the trigger, the safeties, and just the way it feels, the ergonomics feels the same. So they’re very consistent across the board on that. And it’s cheap.

Wade: Well, and I will say this is I 14 rounds plus one solves one of the dilemmas of shotgun right. So yes because the thing is like I’ve taken the defensive shotgun and I know like yes. And I learned how to reload it fast and all that. But when you’re. You can’t reload a shotgun in a situation very fast at all. And so you’re just going to have to go to a secondary weapon. Right. Yeah. Because if you’re not getting it done with the first eight shots or seven shots or whatever it is, you’re going to have a problem. And so that is I will say, is that from a defensive shotgun perspective, having that many rounds and not having to put a drone on your gun, right. Yes. Is pretty, pretty cool.

John: Oh, and the sight. So it’s got a fiber optic sight site in the handle. And the cool thing about that is that the way they made the handle, your site isn’t going to get broken off, right? It’s very durable. They have it down in a little U shape kind of trough and this thing. So it’s 21in long. So it’s barely two barely over two feet long. It’s not even five and a half pounds is a lot of firepower in a very light, very small package.

Wade: Well, and now you’re saying now you’re talking yourself into buying yourself a kel-tec. Dude, you’re like, I don’t like how it looks. But that’s the utility argument, right?

John: The MSRP on their website is 510, which means the street price is way less than that.

Wade: And the street price, when you buy by your load in the back of your local library, is that what you’re doing?

John: Not the street.

Wade: The street, the retail price. The street price? Yeah. Just fell off a truck. This guy I know by my shotguns.

John: By the gram.

Wade: Yeah, exactly. All right, dude, you’re out yourself right now, all right. Also, I forgot on the website for the Hoist. It’s Drinkhoist.com. I forgot to say that. So. And to do a quick callback to that, it was making me laugh. Is that their. Apparently their cherry drink is optimized for night operations. That’s the copy that they have on there. All right. Cool. And the Keltec, obviously you should be able to find tech Weapons.com. Also Palmetto has them too.

John: Look at all. They’re very cool. But in my opinion very ugly weapons.

Wade: Amen. One man’s one man’s ugly is another man’s wife, dude. So it’s calm down over there, all right? I just made up a new saying I like it. All right, let’s go to the Rock River arms, new Ares. So. Oh, yes. All right, so we’re going to talk about another, ah, a new, ah, entry into the marketplace. And although I do think it is cool because what they, they take a little different approach for their. Ah. So go ahead.

John: All right. So what they were covering in the video were the ascendant series, the LR 15. These are straight up hunting rigs. The ascendant has three caliber options. It’s two, two, three. But then they offered in the 30 the 350 legend and the 450 Bushmaster. So are you familiar with either of these rounds and what they are? No. Okay. These are both straight walled cartridges. There are a few states, I think mostly in the Rust Belt. You cannot have a tapered rifle cartridge. You can’t use 308, can’t use 3.627. All those. You have to use a straight walled cartridge. So these essentially they look like a revolver, like a 357 Magnum, but they’re a lot longer. So they have a straight wall. So 350 legend is a 35 caliber bullet, basically 357 bullet. And it is they’ve been very popular. And then the 450 Bushmaster is a absolute stud. It is ballistically on par with a for a modern 4570. So it is a hammer. So you can use this but it uses a standard 15. So it’s not going in an AR ten chassis. It’s an AR 15. So you have the lightweight. It’s a 16 inch barrel standard are lower, so you can also buy these if you don’t want the whole package. You can buy the uppers for these as well. So the ascendants that they and then we don’t really need to talk about two two threes. So the ascendants these packages come with a scope. So they come with a vortex strike eagle one by six by 24 136 by 24.

John: And they use PZ light. So that is their precision stock. They released Magpul released the PZ light. It’s been a couple of years now. I think the PZ has been popular for a long time, but it’s really a bulky, heavy stock. So they wanted to go with this, that it has a lot of the characteristics of a fixed stock, but it’s adjustable so it has a cheek weld rest on it, and it has the feel and a lot of the look of their fixed stock of an A2 style kind of ish. But it’s adjustable, so it’s got the carbine buffer instead of an A2 style buffer. So it is still collapsed It still is in that the total weapon length is going to be comparable with an M4 or a standard 16 inch AR 15, so a lot shorter than like a 20 inch barrel with a fixed stock. It’s going to be a lot more compact weapon, but it is there to give you a very precise stock fit. This is a hunter. This rifle is straight up hunter. So I think it’s really cool stainless steel barrel, but it’s like a Matt. It’s a bead blast. It’s a matte finish comes with each one of them. I think they’re a five round metal mag. So these are hunting guns. I really like these. They are not cheap. The with the scope it’s the MSRP is 2610. So you know, if you’re a hardcore deer slayer in one of those states, this probably is gonna be your go to two things.

Wade: One, is that what I like about it too is because it’s on the AR platform. You’re it has the capability of pulling Only in non-traditional hunters. Yeah. So like, let’s say, for example, you didn’t have your dad take you out, you know, going pheasant hunting or shooting deer or whatever when you were a kid. So like, let’s, you know, shoot an AR, you’re getting out of the AR. You know how it works. You’re totally comfortable with it. And you’re like, okay, well, there’s not going to be as much of a mental leap to say, I have to go buy a I don’t know anything. What do I buy for a hunting rifle? Because when you go outside, your core competency in firearms that you’ve spent a long time getting good at or learning about, you forget that there’s all this sort of like, oh, I have to learn all this new stuff and all this. It’s a big learning curve.

John: It is.

Wade: Whereas when you’re going from the AR platform, it’s it’s just shortens the learning curve. And so it brings more people. It has the potential to bring more people into sport hunting because you could be like, look, just buy this. They are it’s a hunting. Are you already know how to use it? You already know you already have parts for it. You already know how to do everything with it. We’re just changing. Obviously we’re going to change up the ammo a little bit, and so then you can just go right into learning how to do it. So that is one thing I do like about when people when AR when people do like little niche AR’s like this because from a hunting perspective, it just makes sense to just go buy an actual hunting platform gun, you know what I mean? But if it’s a good call.

John: So and this is it’s funny because Kansas, it’s probably been ten years or so now. They legalized 2 to 3 for whitetail hunting, which I just can’t imagine why anyone would. But it’s because AR’s were so popular. But really the AR culture has shifted so much. The 300 blackout is actually I’m actually going to buy an upper for mine for my 14 year old daughter to use, because then I don’t have to transfer it through an FFL, and a new upper is like 250 bucks, and people have been using 300 blackouts with great success for harvesting whitetail for that in the same range as 3030. So around that 100 yard range for shorter range chip shots, and which is about what my back pasture is. So it’s about ideal. They’re quiet, they have almost no recoil. And it’s a cheap option. And the AR is really simple firearm to use for a new novice shooter. So yeah, to your point, it’s it reduces the learning curve. And it actually opens up that avenue because there’s a bunch of calibers for the AR 15 pattern that are really very well suited. The 6.5 Grendel is good. It’s common. The 6.6.8 SPC two is good, and the 300 blackout is very good and it’s cheap. And then you have the 350 legends and the 450 Bushmaster in case a rogue black bear is roaming around my pasture, which is completely unlikely, but it’s a good excuse to buy one.

Wade: Absolutely. And like I said, it’s it’s so ubiquitous in terms of you’re going to have an armorers and stuff that are wherever you’re at, they’re going to know what to do with it, you know what I mean? And and yep. So yeah, for me and like I said, it’s like I actually have like I have a 308 that my dad used. So that’s what I and I just now I’m more comfortable with it. Right. So if I wasn’t then and I had just come to an AR first and like, all right, well let’s go, let’s try that. So I think that’s pretty cool. Also rock River arms I don’t know if you looked at their website, but they have some looking precision rifles like, oh yeah, I was like, they look amazing. They look amazing. I don’t know if they’re any good, but they look good. You know what I mean? That’s pretty good.

John: Yeah, they’ve been around for a long time. They’ve been on the.

Wade: I’ve never heard of them. Oh, really? But that doesn’t mean anything because.

John: Yeah, they’ve been rock River arms has been they’ve been around for quite a while.

Wade: Remember I’m just I’m your surface level regular dude.

John: Right? Yeah. They’ve been oh they’ve been prominent. Ah. Builder.

Wade: And you froze it back, right? You froze there for a second. All right. Yeah. Anyways, these they look pretty sweet. These things. The RBG series. Good lord. Yeah.

John: They are a premium brand, too.

Wade: That’s six five Creedmoor.

John: Oh, yeah. So that was another thing. And it’s more.

Wade: Of a sexy look at that thing.

John: Oh, yeah. And that’s the cool thing about the AR ten is that you can swap out uppers. You can have a 308 or a 6.5 Creedmoor, or you can. There are a couple manufacturers that make 243 Winchesters, which is just a 308 necked down to 24 caliber. Right. Um, and that’s a deer slaying machine, man.

Wade: Good. All right, so, RockRiverarms.com. You want to check all that stuff out? If you’re not like me and or if you are like me and you’re like, I’ve never heard of them, it’s actually pretty cool. We got a lot of cool stuff on there. Yeah, the AR’s, the Creedmoor. That is. That’s nice. All right, last one.

John: So this is two companies I’d actually never heard of before. First off, so the article is Grace. Grace engineering acquires Montana Rifle Company. I’m like what? So Grace engineering I looked them up. They are breaking into firearms. They are not a firearm manufacturer. They are not a firearms anything. They are actually they’re out of some somewhere in Michigan. And they they build like precision Swiss screws and like super high precision screws like a very precise machining operation. They’re machine shop like really high end machining. And so they bought this company, Montana Rifle Co. So I checked them out and they only have two rifles it looks like. So this article is from January. But Montana Rifle Co still has their website and brand. So I’m guessing Grace is leaving that alone.

Wade: Yeah you wouldn’t buy the IP and then change it. You would. The whole purpose of acquiring something like that is for the intellectual property. Good.

John: I’m glad that I’m glad you’re an attorney and know this stuff because I didn’t know that. So that’s great.

Wade: So that’s why I make a good team. John.

John: Exactly. I know guns and law stuff. It works. It’s. We should do like a sitcom. Starsky and Hutch.

Wade: That’s what this is. This is like our own little sitcom right here. It’s like the Odd couple.

John: Love it. That’s what makes.

Wade: Us for our Joe Rogan like numbers.

John: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Watch out! Joe! Coming.

Wade: We’re coming for.

John: You. All right, so I checked out their rifles. So they have two models. The junction in the High line, and I didn’t see prices on here, but I have my suspicions. They are very high end precision. So their bolt is and receiver. Their bolt is based off of the Mauser and which are long Mauser style. Claw extractor is made from tool steel, so mausers have been long considered to have the smoothest action of all rifles of all bolt action rifles. So what everyone said after World War two was basically the M1 Garand changed everything. It was the best battle weapon ever conceived. But everyone also said that the Mauser. So the K98, the German Mausers were the best rifle ever made because they were so smooth and so accurate. They were honestly like a fine timepiece sitting on the battlefield like they were so good. And the Americans were like, well, that’s great, but we can produce a buttload more M1 grants than you can produce because the Germans were always their downfall production wise in World War Two is their stuff was so good, but like their tanks were way overly complex and they never ran because they were so complicated. Americans had inferior tanks, but we had a 10 to 1 advantage. So we’re like, fine, we’ll just outproduce you. And we did. And that’s what we did with aircraft too. Like it was like the 8020. What’s that law called?

Wade: The Pareto principle.

John: Yeah. Pareto principle. Like yeah okay. You’re 109 and Focke-Wulf 190 are incredible airplanes. But we just outperformed. We saturated, we carpet bombed your entire country and we have your fighters 10 to 1. Alright. And ours are 80% as good as yours. And they always run. So. But for this where you’re not in the field with crap gumming up rifles, it’s an incredibly smooth action. Everyone knows the Mausers were the best action in the world. Their receiver is built off of it’s conceived basically off of the Winchester Model 70, which is considered to be one of the finest civilian bolt action rifles ever. And then what I love about it, I was checking it out and they made it with integral Picatinny rails machined into the receiver. Yeah. So which is incredible because what you’re doing, instead of having set screws that can back out, which is how most rails work, these are integral, which means that these are also going to always be true. Because if you’re putting on a rail like you take this Weaver rail and you put it, you unscrew this set screws with an Allen wrench and you put these in there. It’s impossible to be perfectly aligned because you don’t know that aluminum rail set from Weaver is perfectly true. And you don’t know that it’s perfectly true to the receiver because you’re mating up two dissimilar items. Whereas this way, this was a controlled environment. Those are always they’re dead on as perfect as you can get So I thought that was super cool. For 16 stainless steel blank is what they use. So they’re using stainless steel. Beautiful stock. These are obviously high end rifles. They’re gorgeous.

Wade: Yeah I found the price. I found the price was 2500 bucks okay.

John: That’s about what I figured they would be. The High line looks awesome too.

Wade: What I think is interesting about this is that they. Is that their accuracy guarantee. Right.

John: Oh, the half moa accuracy guarantee.

Wade: Yeah. They’re all guaranteed to shoot a three shot group inside a half mile from Cold Barrel using premium ammunition. Like that’s a ballsy. Is it ballsy? That’s a.

John: Bold claim. Dude, I saw that. I was like, so this is for the guy that spends a lot of money on his gear because these are just straight up, these are hunting rifles. And this is I’m still firmly in that. Hey, I went and bought a savage access to at Walmart for 350 bucks camp. That’s my speed. Still works. Yeah, man. The designing and tooling and that cheap budget savage is light years ahead of every battle rifle in World War two. You think about it that way. That’s a crazy thing.

Wade: Well, and again and so like look. And so this is and this is all perspective okay. So if I let’s say that I go deer hunting every year, let’s say that I spent a ton of money just going on trips somewhere. Right. It’s not in my backyard, I travel or whatever. A gun like this makes sense, right? It’s just like, that’s my thing. Like I am an AR. Like I’m a craftsman with hunting deer, right? Yes. And and so this is my thing. This is my this is what I do. I get it like I get it. But then or there’s someone like me who’s like, I’m not there. It’s not. That’s not where I’m at. Right. And although this is a beautiful gun.

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that walnut stock is gorgeous.

Wade: This is an heirloom kind of gun basically. Exactly.

John: And I’m going to tell you in recent I was looking at AR uppers for my kids for hunting, but then I was also started looking at getting a couple of rifles like maybe savages, but getting them with walnut stocks, giving, buying a couple of heirloom rifles, not going with budget, but buying beautiful rifles. Because for the sake of beauty, because aesthetics matter.

Wade: I have a like I said, as I talked about before, my my 20 gauge single shot Ducks Unlimited shotgun with a beautiful walnut stock and the barrel is amazing. Still, that’s what it’s like. It’s appraised at $300, right? Like, yeah, it’s like. But your prized possessions.

John: Yeah, it’s not the money. It’s the intrinsic value in that for you. And there is something to that. There’s a lot more to that than when I, when I was younger, looking at guns, this would have never appealed to me. But now that I’m older and have a bunch of kids, that sort of thing where I think about it, I’m like, you can buy that. And that’s something that can stay in your lineage for decades. Your grandkids can use that. Yeah, well, yeah, keep it oiled. You keep it in a moisture controlled safe, that thing, and it only comes out to to zero it and to hunt that thing can stay there for.

Wade: Yeah And I think stuff like this is like really cool. Like I said, I’ve never seen an accuracy guarantee like that. Like, that’s that’s wild. That is a ballsy claim.

John: Big time. Yeah.

Wade: So. All right, man, well, let’s give the website out because it, like you said, is like, if you can, they don’t make it super easy to buy on there. The only thing I think is funny is like, how do I what I want to buy it. How do I buy it?

John: But reminds me of is that old saying is that if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it. Like that’s an automatic gatekeeper because they don’t put the links hey, go to and pick one up or go to Academy Sporting Goods. They’re like, no, we have a gatekeepers here.

Wade: Oh there’s a oh, here’s a dealer. Here’s a dealer location. That’s dealer location situation. Yeah. There’s no there’s nowhere within 50 miles of me to get this thing.

John: So they Memphis, Michigan. That’s right. And Grace that bought them is also in Memphis, Michigan.

Wade: So I’m in a weird dead zone for these guys I’d have to go to if I wanted to go buy it in person and not have it shipped to me, I would have to go to. It’s not in West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia or North Carolina or Tennessee. Wow. Interesting. Wow. Not my childhood state of North Dakota, either. Come on, guys, get it together.

John: Now, that kind of surprises me.

Wade: Actually, you would think, right, with a Colt Montana rifle, they don’t even. They don’t.

John: Even have. They’re not in Montana.

Wade: They’re not even in Montana. Guys, you gotta. If you’re going to call yourself a Montana rifle, you got to have a location in Montana.

John: Well, if they were going to be honest, because they’re in Michigan, they’d be like the militia rifle company or something like that.

Wade: Oh my goodness, I’m going to. Oh my goodness. You gotta have a location in Montana guys. Anyways all right well again let’s play. Any closing thoughts from our chat today John?

John: KelTecs are beauty. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The Montana Rifle Company rifle actually is beautiful. Rock River arms still makes awesome stuff. Drink your hoist And what was the first thing we talked about? Oh, Silencerco, get a silencer. Don’t lose your hearing.

Wade: It’s a suppressor gene.

John: Thank you. Well, but the company says Silencerco.

Wade: Isolates a suppressor.

John: Correct.

Wade: That’s like. That’s like. That’s like what I call something a clip. It’s not a clip. It’s a magazine. It’s like, I don’t know. Yeah, well, I don’t usually call them clips, but sometimes it slips out from 40 years of watching movies. It gets.

John: I was just going to say, well, they called it a clip in Die Hard. Okay. You want to argue with.

Wade: Them talking about movies like, you know what those KelTecs look like? Is that gun from. Did you ever see that movie with Sylvester Stallone? Cobra.

John: Oh, yeah.

Wade: He’s a KelTec. Is that what it’s called? It’s a nine millimeter submachine gun. And they only made, like, very few of them. And they had very few that were ever imported to United States. And it’s like a collector’s gun. It’s a Finnish nine millimeter submachine gun from Jatimatic, which looks like the kill switch. Gotcha. But anyways, that’s what makes me think of talking about movies. Can’t go wrong with Sylvester Stallone, Marion Cobretti.

John: Nice.

Wade: What’s his name? Marion Cobretti.

John: Huh? Cobra. Got it. Makes sense. Yeah.

Wade: Writers. All right, brother, I appreciate you. Thank you for another great issue episode, and I’ll have a report on this hoist orange drink the next time that we talk, because hopefully.

John: They’ll sponsor you. Can.

Wade: I ordered I ordered a case of it. My wife is going to be like, what is this?

John: This?

Wade: It happens, it happens. So it’s too bad you can’t. It’s too bad you can’t. I put it on her credit card shop comes up. I’m gonna put it on her credit card. So she’s gonna want to have that conversation.

John: She’ll be like, what’s a silencerco? Wade? Yeah. What is this like? Oh, I don’t know. Weird. For $1,400?

Wade: Yeah. Her credit card gets the drinks, my credit card gets the suppressors. All right, brother, I appreciate you. Yes, sir. All right, we’ll talk. 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.