About This Episode
Discover the latest in firearms and gear on this episode! Christensen Arms is now a member of SAAMI! Plus, we take a look at Winchester’s innovative .21 Sharp cartridge—how it’s designed, loaded, and what makes it special. Don’t miss this deep dive into cutting-edge ammo technology!
Insights In This Episode
- New SAAMI Member: A Game-Changer in the Firearms Industry? (christensenarms.com)
- Inside the Design & Loading of Winchester’s .21 Sharp Cartridge. (winchester.com)
Today’s Guest
John McCoy
John McCoy is a highly skilled and experienced Firearms content writer specializing in creating long-form, SEO-driven content. With a deep understanding of the importance of quality content in driving website reach and engagement, he is dedicated to helping businesses cast a wider net and attract the right audience.
Featured on the Show
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 I am joined once more by John McCoy. John, how are you?
John: Well, I’m 42 years old and have an infant, so i’m working on being coherent.
Wade: It’s not your. It’s not your birthday today, is it?
John: No.
Wade: Oh. All right. I was like, that is commitment to the podcast. Not only is it an infant, it’s a newborn. Congratulations.
John: Thank you.
Wade: How approximately how approximately how old?
John: 10 or 11 days.
Wade: I can’t believe that we got you today. So we’re going to get right to it and enjoy our time with you today. But as we are wont to do, we’re going to do the Current Events podcast talking about some articles that we’ve read. But before we get to the articles, how are you feeling about the the Trump presidency and its impact on firearms? Have you noticed a difference at all?
John: No. Well, I have noticed that in the news cycle it’s definitely been more entertaining. So that’s good. Yeah.
Wade: But it’s interesting because I’m the firearms people that I talk to. They always talk about the Trump slump the first time. Right. I’m wondering if there’s going to be another Trump slump this time. But I feel like the world is a lot more uncertain now, right?
John: It’s very unstable.
Wade: And so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. There’s never a bad time to start a firearms business. In my opinion. Some of the best businesses in the whole wide world were started during recessions, so. Sure. If anyone out there is hemming and hawing about starting a firearms business, don’t hem and haw anymore.
John: Exactly. I second that. Let’s just hope for not a repeat on the bump stock ban. Let’s just. Let’s not do that. Pump the brakes there, boss.
Wade: Yeah, I don’t know. Like, okay, let me point this out. I’m always against all regulation for guns. You should be able to buy any gun you want. Yes, you should be able to mail order guns to your house. Obviously, I believe that. I just don’t know what percentage of people use the use a bump stock. Do you have a bump stock or do you know?
John: I was going to say that if he was going to ban them, it should have been for them being super gay, not for them being particularly dangerous.
Wade: Oh. Got it. And I don’t want to offend anyone. Right. So I’d be like oh ways for two way regulation. I’m not. Right. But at the same time too is like we are in a political environment. We need to pick our battles. And so I don’t know.
John: Oh, totally.
Wade: I don’t know if the bump stock is the hill to die on.
John: It’s definitely not. I mean, it was just a goofy design to begin with.
Wade: Well, that’s one of those things where the market is getting pretty sophisticated and the offerings out there, some of them are getting saturated. So yes, people are sitting around with their big brains going, what can we invent that we can sell, right?
John: Yes, exactly.
Wade: And it’s also like the transition that I’ve seen to precision shooting, because I think when we started the podcast and talking together, or when I started the podcast as the host, I guess it’s been over a year now. There really wasn’t a lot of talk about precision shooting at all. And then all of a sudden, almost on a dime, all of a sudden all this precision shooting started coming. It’s not being niche, right? Yes. That’s the thing is like it was super niche back in the day. Obviously there were people doing it and teaching it, but it didn’t become mainstream hardcore until just last year where it really burst into the scene. And I think that’s because the AR market is so saturated.
John: Oh, it’s yeah, it’s insane, which is cool if you want to, you want a kicker gun to throw in your truck for 300 bucks, you can actually buy one. That’s the good thing about it. But yeah, the market on AR’s is. So it’s so crazy that yeah, they had to pivot to something else. Because what else can you do with an AR that hasn’t already been done that isn’t just a straight up copy off of someone else?
Wade: Well, I mean, and I think that’s the AR is greatest strength, which is it’s basically like a Lego set is also one of its weaknesses, because then there’s no barrier to entry where anyone can do it. Yep. So that’s why you have Palmetto Arms basically saying we’re going to make a very solid Are for whatever, $400. $500.
John: Yeah.
Wade: It’s cheap and and your normal person will never need to replace that gun. A normal person is not going to put 20,000 rounds through that gun.
John: No, no. Well, think about how expensive putting 20,000 rounds through an AR is, right? No one’s going to do that. It’s not going to happen.
Wade: And even if they did and you needed a new one, you just buy another one. Yeah. Buy two for a thousand and have one as a backup. Right. So.
John: Yeah. If you actually shot out your barrels, I mean, I get emails almost daily from all the different vendors for AR 15 barrel sale, 50 or 60 bucks for a totally high quality barrel. A barrel that would have been a prime machining has gotten so good. Now that a cheap barrel now is like a match grade barrel from the 70s or 80s. It’s just a machining technology is so good and it’s so fast. So, well.
Wade: I think there’s this return. I think there’s this return to simplicity too, is I think is what’s happening too is a lot of people. They went gooch on a lot of different things. Everybody put a red dot on everybody, you know, was doing their sides. And now honestly, what I’m doing is I’m just going back to iron sights for everything.
John: Iron sights is fun. Yeah, it really is.
Wade: I’m. I’m actually getting a new for my Glock. I’m on my my Glock 19. I’m getting a new slide for it. I’m going to keep the slide that I have that has the red dot on it. But I’m going to get another slide for it. That’s just iron sights. And I’m just going to I’m going to go back to the iron sights because I just I.
John: Can we go back to stick shifts and pickup trucks. Can we do that if we’re going to go back to iron sights?
Wade: Dude, everybody wants the Hilux, man.
John: They say they do. They say they do. But I guarantee you that in America, within five years, you just end up with a $45,000 Tacoma again, because they say they want the Hilux. Yeah. They don’t want the Hilux. They want the idea of it. They still want a $45,000 pickup for 15 grand.
Wade: Well, my second truck was a work truck that was came off of a construction site. So it had like 100 and, I don’t know, 60,000 miles on it or whatever, but it was a Chevy Silverado, right?
John: Like just the work truck package.
Wade: Yeah. And that thing, I drove that thing. And the best truck I ever had was a Ford F-150 with the with the Suicide Doors, which is the 2006. I never should have sold that truck. I wish I still had that truck and that I miss that truck. But yeah, you don’t need your truck to be able to do the dishes. I just know, get a truck. Yeah, I feel like that’s the Gen X in me coming out, and.
John: No, I’m transition point. I was born in 82, so I’m like, right there on that line. I can claim lineal or ex.
Wade: We’re an anti transitioning podcast my friend. So you have to pick one. You are whatever. Just pick gen I would pick gen X.
John: I would pick Gen X I mean I grew up in the 80s. I’m definitely more Gen X than millennial.
Wade: So yeah, I mean the 80s peak America was like 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979. So anything in that range, you’re that’s where you want to be.
John: Claim it. Great.
Wade: Make it yours.
John: I’m actually going to start with the second one about the 21 sharp. And this was a very cool article. It really interested me. So basically Winchester is Trying. They’ve been trying to build. You can’t build a 22 Long rifle with an all a non-lead bullet, right? So they’re all either just lead in those ones when you put them in your pocket and you have lead dust all over you, or they’re jacketed and they wanted to produce a rimfire that was compatible with it, not compatible. It’s basically it’s the same case as a 22 Long rifle. It’s necked a little differently, but so that you could take any 22 long rifle for like Savage, or if you’re a Ruger or any of those companies, and all you have to do is just drop a different barrel on it and you can produce them. So they wanted to have a very low footprint, so it wouldn’t cost any much more to develop. And they could use most of the same tooling they already have for 22 long rifle stuff. So what they ended up with in this 21 caliber sharp is a completely non leaded rimfire that is going to still be cheap. So the guns are still going to. The guns will have the same price point as when Savage when they put a 21 sharp out there, its price point is going to be the same as the 22 Long Rifle was basically the same rifle, but you’re going to be able to have a very highly accurate that has a projectile that is not leaded. So really cool design. I think that I think while we were talking about, I think you’re going to see a lot of people moving back to rimfire shooting, too. And just back to the basics. I think we went so crazy on the other end. At least that’s what I’m hoping is that people get more back to the basics. You can do a lot of fantastic training and learning with rimfire as well.
Wade: That that’s.
John: A whole lot cheaper.
Wade: Back in the day. That’s what everybody learned on. You went to camp, right? You went to like Boy Scout camp, or you went to regular camp and you just plinked with a varmint gun and you’re just shooting a 22. What? Why do you think? Because I’m. I actually don’t know what the benefit of a non-lead bullet would be. Is it performance or is it just like people, or is it cost, or is it just like digging the environment or just want something different? Or what? Are you as a consumer? Why would you not? Why do you even care about not having I.
John: Mean, it’s a health issue, but it’s also a lot of it is that 22 leaded bullets are extremely dirty. So you know that whenever and some of it’s powder too. But I mean, it’s just a really dirty round, but also it’s an accuracy issue. They’re trying to make with a solid copper projectile a highly accurate rimfire. I mean, it’s not going to be accurate beyond 100m. But you know, this is a precision rimfire for short range work.
Wade: Yeah. I don’t remember the dirt aspect when I was a kid shooting 22.
John: Oh, it’s so dirty.
Wade: And I’m assuming I vaguely remember cleaning my gun. Right. So every once in a while. So I can see that from that perspective. So that’s cool. And I think the one thing though is I think is what you the reason why I think it is, I was just curious. I didn’t want to lead you in a certain direction. Oh, no. You’re good. What I think it is and you touched upon it was was cost, right. So when you have influencers out there, your gun guys going, hey, we’re really going to get into airsoft guns, and we’re really going to get into dry fire and for training. And the reason why we’re going to do that is because it’s just too expensive to get enough rounds on target with a nine millimeter. It is to be able to be proficient, right? Like I heard someone say, they don’t think that. They think it’s actually impossible to get enough rounds. And this was a Special Forces guy. So his version of his proficient.
John: Shooting 20,000 rounds a year.
Wade: Oh, yeah. Exactly. Well, and his all of his rounds were paid for 20 years or whatever. But I think what it is more is that people are they’re going to, like you said, go into the basics and say, okay, let’s train on. So they know that there’s a bunch of people going back to the 22, but then it’s almost like if you date the supermodel and then you break up with a supermodel, and then you start dating like a normal person, and you always remember what it was like to be with that supermodel. So you have that itch a little bit, right? Once you go a certain way, you can’t go back. So it’s like if you’re downgrading to a.
John: This is the life story here. Wait, where are we going with this?
Wade: No, my wife was at home. My wife was a homecoming queen. So no. So my wife was a ten out of ten. She’s super hot. So I never had that problem. But the thing is, though, is that let’s say you’re doing all the Gucci gear, you’re doing all the are. You’re doing all the precision shooting. You’re like, man, this is so freaking expensive. Let’s get reps down with the 22. Let’s give that group of people something new and shiny to shoot that will actually be accurate, have some advantage, but let’s fill that market. So I think that’s why they’re doing it is for that reason is to fill that market.
John: And have you ever seen the rimfire 100 metre targets? The bullseye is 22 caliber right now. I’m like, okay, that is takes a high level of skill to shoot that effectively anyway, and it’s a fraction of the cost. But yeah. So reading this article, the point was to keep the cost cheap so that you can still buy. And a lot of people now that the patent stuff is expired on the 1022, there’s a whole bunch of different companies making ten, 20 twos. It’s the same gun. It’s just. But it makes it really the 1022 is like a Legos gun. Like they are pretty easy to take apart.
Wade: Well, and you’re talking about you’re not talking about the takedown. You’re talking about the core.
John: 1022 the real. 1022 now you can build a 1022 from scratch. So the beauty of this is that those guys that are building their own rifles can they can take the same platform they’re already familiar with. And aftermarket companies are going to make these 21 sharp barrels. And I think that you will use the same magazines too, but it’s made for accuracy. So it’s going to be a highly accurate. And the cost to adopt it for guys that are serious about rimfire shooting is going to be really low.
Wade: Yeah, it’s itching that or it’s scratching that itch of the ah, Lego. It’s trying to take a 22 and let’s ah size the 22. So let’s make that that we can make it like a Lego just like the. Ah. And now that opens up this huge, pretty soon you’re going to see a Picatinny rail on a 22 barrel somewhere, right? So they’re going to turn it into like a mini. Ah basically. Right. Yes.
John: That’s the same concept.
Wade: And I don’t care what Winchester says is the reason why they’re doing it. Oh we want to make it cheaper for you. Well, no, they want to open a new market and do that. Right. Yeah.
John: It’s it’s board engineers that need something to do.
Wade: And also too is I don’t think anybody really cares about how clean it is. There may be like ten people that like like you like nerds, like clean nerds like you who used to work on aircrafts, like they had Everything had to be clean or consequences. Most of us aren’t like that. And so that’s the reason why I think you don’t.
John: Have anal retentiveness drilled into your head.
Wade: Well, I think it’s cool because for my son, my dad, he we obviously learned in the 22, but it was more like a camp. My dad gave me a 20 gauge shotgun when I was 12. It wasn’t that there wasn’t a 9 to 12 year from nine years old to 12 years old where you’re like, okay, let’s start plinking with the 22 and let’s take you out. And it’s real safe. You know, it’s like, let’s give him a 20 gauge shotgun and have him and his twin brother walk in a field and go pheasant hunting together. And he wasn’t, surprisingly enough, he wasn’t there. He dropped us off at the edge of the field the first time, and he’s like, walk across and meet me on the other side because he’s like, I’m not going with those crazy kids with the guns.
John: That’s parenting very Gen X.
Wade: Yeah, well, there’s a reason why we are the way we are. My man, you know, wouldn’t even think about doing that today. Like I you not for your first time. The first time I ever went pheasant hunting, my dad drove us, me and my twin brother with our new brand, shiny new ducks, unlimited single shot, 20 gauge shotguns to the edge of a thing. Edge of a field dropped us off and says, I will pick you up on the other side. Go! Kill!
John: Here’s a tourniquet.
Wade: Go kill something. No, we didn’t have a tourniquet. I wasn’t even wearing a belt. So anyway.
John: David Spade in his book, which you should definitely read, talks about growing up a white trash kid in Arizona. He might be your brother. Actually forgot you and how he didn’t have a dad, so he had his three brothers or whatever, and they just go out with their shotguns shooting stuff in the desert for fun.
Wade: When we moved to Arizona for high school and when I moved to Arizona, we knew I was in a different place when we because in North Dakota, nobody open carried handguns, right?
John: Like, you don’t need to.
Wade: Right. Everyone has a shotgun in their truck or whatever, right? No one open carries handguns. When we were in a Coco’s, which I’d never been to before, I was like, this is the finest restaurant I’ve ever been in my whole life. The Coco’s right, which is like a village inn, basically. Which is like a Denny’s, right? So you’re looking at me like, what’s the Coco’s? And so we walk into this Coco’s and there’s like this. I would say she’s probably she was like 65, 70 years old lady with a cowboy hat on. And she was open carrying two revolvers. I couldn’t tell what they were right, but it looked like maybe they were like peacemakers or whatever.
John: But that’s fantastic.
Wade: And nobody cared at all. Nobody said anything. And I was like, oh, we’re in a different place now. For me.
John: That’s wild, man. There’s nothing really is wild.
Wade: Arizona used to be extremely conservative. Now it’s getting more purple because all the people from California are moving there. But Arizona used to be the Wild West.
John: I mean, Colorado was awesome too.
Wade: Yeah, that makes me sad because I taught horseback riding in Winter Park for a summer at a YMCA camp, and we just went, I love Colorado, it’s such a great state. It’s just sad. It’s sad to see.
John: It is sad to see.
Wade: What’s happening to that place.
John: So especially it’s my neighbor, like it’s only an eight hour drive to get in the mountains, and it’s almost intolerable even just to visit anymore. It’s so bad.
Wade: People just don’t have an appreciation or a connection to the land. If they did, they wouldn’t be that way.
John: That’s exactly it.
Wade: All right, let’s go to the next thing you can look at this ammunition at Winchester.Com. And then if you want to look at the article, it’s Winchester.com/support in the news media in the news. So just go to Winchester.Com and you’ll see it. So yep. And actually this will be useful for me when I start taking Luke to Duke out. Taking him. Shoot. He’s got a couple years. He’s six. I’m gonna give him a couple more years. He’s highly impetuous and not emotionally stable enough to give a firearm. Right now. You gotta know your kid, man. You can’t pick. He can’t even handle the rules of the game with Nerf guns. We’re trying to with Nerf guns. He can’t handle them. Just shoot me in the face all day.
John: Shoot him square in the face.
Wade: Stop shooting me in the face.
John: It’s a low bar sign.
Wade: Right. So we’re. It may take us a couple of years with the Nerf guns to figure it out. 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 dropped 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. Let’s go to our next one.
John: All right. So ten new companies have joined Sammy.
Wade: Sammy is the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute. So as a writer I.
John: Wrote about Sammy. I wrote an article about them years ago. I can’t remember who. I think it was one of my firearms contracts years ago before we heard about Sammy.
Wade: Before we get into that, though, before we get into that, though, I disappeared there for a second. Before we get into that, though, we have to talk about the acronym. Oh, we gotta find something different. The way that they whoever came up with this just got it. I know it’s since 1926, and there wasn’t a lot of copywriting going on, and they weren’t super concerned about the acronym. Yes, but Sammy seems like it’s got some kind of sandwich issue, right? Or it’s a girl that you dated in high school that became a dancer or something. Like, I don’t know. I don’t think that’s just not good. What was the article? Do you recall what you wrote about them?
John: No, I can’t remember who it was for. That’s the problem. When you’ve been writing for a long time, you ever try to go through and scrape together all the pieces of work you’ve done over the years, and I’m like, I don’t even remember who I was writing for.
Wade: I stumble across things from time to time I came. I look at a stat, and I was, I think I’ve written like 2 million words in the last couple of years, two years or whatever. And I was like, I’ll come across something. I’m like, oh, this is really good. Who wrote this? It’s like, oh, I wrote this. No wonder it’s nice.
John: And boost your ego.
Wade: A little. That happens for me with jokes when I write jokes in writing, and then I forget, and then I’m like, that’s a funny joke. Who wrote that? I’m like, oh, I wrote it.
John: Oh, of course I wrote it.
Wade: I wrote that funny joke. All right, so ten new companies. But besides the jokes aside, this does seem like an excellent group or organization to be in. It’s been around for a long time, so it has some institutional knowledge.
John: Yeah. So what Sammy is it’s a it’s a big, large grouping of basically all the major stakeholders. I said that because.
Wade: You.
John: Asked me about stakeholders.
Wade: I use that word for a goat. I used that word in ghostwriting for a client.
John: I think we should synergize our energy on this.
Wade: I never use that word, but I felt.
John: Dirty, horrible use.
Wade: I felt dirty using the word stakeholder.
John: I don’t, but it actually, contextually is correct this time. So it’s they get voted in and it’s major players in the ammunition market. And these are not rules. And I checked the FAQs on their website to make sure I wasn’t speaking out of turn. They’re not rules, but it is. They are basically create industry standards that are suggestions. They’re not mandatory. It’s the idea.
Wade: It’s best practices for the.
John: Yeah, it’s a.
Wade: Big.
John: Conglomerate of best practices so that you have the best minds in reloading and ammunition design and manufacture. Basically, just pooling together their knowledge to help QC that are good products are are occurring. And I mean it’s obviously worked because ammunition is so much safer now and it’s so much safer and so much better quality. So it’s.
Wade: A I have had so few malfunctions.
John: That are ammunition related.
Wade: Correct. And if it is, it’s probably because I did something wrong. Like it’s almost never the ammunition.
John: Yeah. And I’ll say guns too. I mean just firearms, new firearms in general. The new firearms are bought barely ever jam. And that was not the case like in the 80s. If you bought like a I’ll name drop here like a marlin 22 because that was the Walmart and Kmart 22 brand. So that was why I learned on and my Marlin 22 were turds. They barely ever operated. Right. And you seldom buy a firearm. Now that is a dog. They almost always work and ammunition is the same way so.
Wade: Well, and that’s definitely something that we want because even it’s one of those hammers that’s really big, right? Like, yes, if you, you do all this work to not have a negligent discharge and then, you know, your gun blows up like that’s no bueno. We don’t want that.
John: That’s not good. So the company we were supposed to mention for this one, this is one of the companies is Christensen Arms. They actually speaking of which, they are.
Wade: Supposed to we can talk about whoever we want, but they are they were noted as a company of interest that we’re keeping our eye on John.
John: Well, so whatever you just said, I wholly endorse. Yeah. They speaking of which, they actually are precision rifle manufacturer. So if you go to their their stuff, they make precision rimfires and precision. It looks like they. Yeah, they look pretty sweet. Their price points are pretty sweet too.
Wade: Who are you talking about?
John: Christensen Arms.
Wade: Oh, Christensen Arms. Yeah.
John: I had never heard of him before. They’re a niche, high end company. So.
Wade: But that’s what’s so cool about this business and why we can, will literally will have a podcast as long as they’ll have us. Because.
John: Yes, please.
Wade: There there’s and Christensen Arms. First of all, it’s like a good Norwegian name, right?
John: Very good Norwegian name.
Wade: My wife is Norwegian, the homecoming queen. Maybe I told you that already on this podcast.
John: I think he did. You might have mentioned it.
Wade: Actress for 20 years. Super hot. Still hot. Yeah. That’s. I’m winning. Yeah. Um. Good job. I had nothing to do with it. She hunted me down like a dog for some reason.
John: So I need to find this lanky guy.
Wade: From.
John: Kota.
Wade: Which is a true story. By the way.
John: Did she see you at, like, an open mic night doing comedy or something?
Wade: No. We met at a Valentine’s Day party in Santa Monica, actually, of all things. Yeah, there’s something called the Pacific Crest Trail, which is the West Coast version of the Appalachian Trail.
John: I’ve heard of it.
Wade: That starts at Mexico and goes to Canada. And so you have to leave.
John: I had a friend that hiked it, actually.
Wade: Did they make it all the way through?
John: I don’t know if he did.
Wade: You have to.
John: Be a prolific hiker, but.
Wade: It’s a long way. So anyway, so I was getting ready to do the hike and I was I had shut down my law firm. I was going to go do that hike and you start in March. So I met her on Valentine’s Day, and we hit it off at this party. And I said to myself, well, if I don’t go out with this girl now, when I come back from this hike in six months, this girl’s going to have a boyfriend because she’s super hot, right? So she’s going to have this boyfriend.
John: She’s a homecoming queen.
Wade: She was. So I’ve heard. Yeah. I can’t remember if she was the homecoming queen or she was the prom queen. I don’t know. I think she’s the homecoming queen. Anyways, whatever. You know what it’s like. You forget all these awards, right? No, but I’m going to get myself into trouble. She’s going to give me a call. She’s like, what are you doing? I was like, I don’t know.
John: My wife doesn’t watch these, so.
Wade: That’s not something I talk about very often. I don’t even remember how I got into it anyways. But my point was, is to tell the story, not firearms related. Is that because we only have two things to talk about today, is that I said, well, if I go on this trip, she’s going to have a boyfriend when she comes back. So I said, let me see where this goes. And that was 17 years ago. Coming up in next month, 17 years and two kids later.
John: So my wife and I’ve been together for 17 years and seven kids.
Wade: Yeah. You are aggressive.
John: We were also like you.
Wade: Two is you’re doing the Elon Musk. You want to put your the Elon Musk. You want to put.
John: One of these.
Wade: Yeah. It doesn’t matter. It’s like you want to put your genetics throughout the world with as many kids as possible. But the one cool thing about let’s get back on task here before I get fired from this job. Uh, one thing though, that’s so cool about the depth of the firearms industry is that you’re always discovering new companies that are doing it just a little bit different. Like Christensen Arms, first of all, their website is awesome, right?
John: They have a good website.
Wade: I don’t know who did it, but if you guys are watching this and maybe we’ll send you a link or whatever, this opening picture is just like it’s.
John: Oh yeah, it’s a good website. It’s money.
Wade: And they’ve been around since 1995, which is an eternity in the firearms right now. Everybody’s got a new thing from three years ago. But yeah, so they joined. They joined it. I think it’s good. I think any kind of institution that has institutional knowledge that aggregates people together, which aggregates power, which then you can have aggregates. Political power is good for two a what do you think about that?
John: Totally agree. The ten companies that were in this round it’s Boston Consulting Christensen Arms Daniel defense got in on this one dynamic research HSM just cause solutions liberty ammo Refer to them. General inspection. Older research and Q ink. I don’t know who that is. So not just ammunition companies. These are different companies from all over. Because I wasn’t sure. I thought at first it was just ammunition. But it’s not. It’s players from all over the industry, which is cool because they’re looking at the same nut from a different angle, like firearm company is going to look at things different than an ammunition engineer because you’re looking at different things. So that’s really cool. That’s good. And it’s good to have those that knowledge base pooled. Right.
Wade: And again too, because it’s been around since 1926, it’s almost 100 years old. It has that cache and it has that credibility. When they approach you they say, hey, we’ve been in this space for 100 years. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen administrations come and go. Here’s what we think are the best practices for the industry. Here’s what we’ve learned over the last hundred years. If you’re new coming into the industry, you can’t go wrong by taking a look at what they’re suggesting. So you can compress a lot of time frames by doing that.
John: Yeah, I’m looking at the other articles they have on here on Sammy’s website. And so they were the ones that kind of gave the blessing on Smith. And Wesson’s was at the 30 Smith and Wesson. It’s what they use for their shield. So it’s a nine millimeter neck down to a 30 caliber. So and then if you go across their website, they have a whole laundry list of publications. So I mean, even just for the the home loader, this is a good idea to go over their stuff so you have a better understanding of what you’re getting into as a hand loader of ammunition. Have you ever done that?
Wade: I’ve seen it handloading ammunition. I’ve seen it done. I’ve never done it myself.
John: I have actually an employee of mine when I was still had a real job. He has a big time hunter, like he’s an African safari hunter. Like that’s his jam. So we were handloading some 338 Weatherby Magnum, I think, and that was a very cool process. So I it’s easy once he has all the die set up and everything, but I would still feel a little bit iffy about loading my own ammo.
Wade: Yeah. I mean well it’s just some people, they don’t want to place their trust in anything else other than themselves. Right. Which I totally get.
John: I think it also was because for that caliber, it’s 60 bucks for a 20 round box of ammo. So it was actually substantially cheaper for him to reuse the.
Wade: Yeah, that makes sense.
John: Yeah. That was actually his safari rifle. Like he shot a Cape Buffalo with it. I was like, dang, dude, that’s rad.
Wade: I don’t ever have.
Wade: A desire to go on a safari. Would you ever want to go on a safari?
John: Not a chance.
Wade: Shoot, no. Why is it that you don’t want to do it?
John: I can barely even get a deer to step in front of my rifle. Like, why would I want to go get rejected by animals in Africa?
Wade: I have no idea.
John: And they scare me. In what way? Scare me.
Wade: In what way?
John: Cape buffalo. They’re huge. They’re violent. There’s lions. They’re just that.
Wade: That’s the thing that people don’t understand about African animals. The most dangerous animal in Africa is the hippo.
John: Yeah, it’s super dangerous. They scare me so fast. Like, and extremely territorial.
Wade: In the water. It’s fast, like it’s faster than boats.
John: Yeah, and on land, I think for short distances, like 40 miles an hour.
Wade: It’s insane. Yeah.
John: And they’re huge.
Wade: Yeah. No. They’re like. Yeah. And so, like, even if you had the you’d have to have a gigantic gun to shoot a hippo.
John: Yes. And you have to hit him the first shot or you’re dead. Yeah. That’s why I have no interest in in going to Africa to hunt.
Wade: I mean, my hunting will increase as I get older because I want my son to have the same experience that I had. But if I think if I didn’t have a son, I wouldn’t hunt very much at all. But I’m going to keep to more towards the. According to Hoyle. Hunting. Fishing? Yes. Deer. Pheasant.
John: Things that generally don’t try to kill you back. Generally, I’m just here to eat the animal. That’s really it. It’s not about sport for me. I just like to eat.
Wade: The one thing that surprised me about duck hunting always was. And this is what people don’t understand about hunting, at least it was for me, was that the actual taking the shot was the least enjoyable part of the experience for me when I went to accounting, right? Like because I don’t do it a lot, but it’s the getting up before the sun comes up. It’s like you’re with your buddies, you’re hiking out to where you’re going, you’re getting into the blind, you’re setting up the decoys, you’re there’s all this kind of gear involved because you’ve got.
John: Your senses are high.
Wade: Yeah, exactly. And it’s like you’re just experiencing everything. And it’s like in The Gladiator when he’s, like, putting his hand on the wheat. Right? It’s like you just experience everything. And then there’s all those, all this anticipation. It culminates in you take a shot, you hit your miss. It doesn’t really matter. It’s like it’s just that whole experience and the killing of the harvesting of the animal is the least important thing about it to me. Yep. And that’s what people will never understand. People that are against hunting will never have either never experienced it or don’t understand it.
John: And they’ve never had a deer smashing their Sienna when they’re just trying to drive home from the grocery store and have that rage factor.
Wade: I was the second person to hit a deer I was driving on in Los Angeles and I can’t remember the road. It was like.
John: You hit a deer in LA.
Wade: Well, it was like on Mulholland or something like that, or like or on the side of the fort. There’s some road on the side of the 405 by the Hollywood Bowl that I can’t remember what it’s called right now. And anyway, so I’m driving my Ford F-150 and I’m driving, and I see this deer pinwheeling through the air, all four limbs out at a 45 degree angles. And what had happened is there’s a road above me, and someone had hit that deer above me and pinwheeled it’s coming towards my truck like a ninja shooting star. And then it hits my truck and it’s still alive. And then I drive and I stop. I was going 50 miles an hour and I drive and I stop, and then it’s behind me, right? And it’s still moving. And then all these cars, these people get out in California, and they’re pointing at me, and they’re looking at me, and I’m like, I had nothing to do with it. It was it fell out of the sky. So I was like, This is California. They don’t understand that deers are. They’re like, it’s like you killed a person. It’s like, first of all, I was the second person to hit it. There’s nothing I could do. It rained out of the sky. And it is a deer. It is a prey animal. Its whole purpose in life is to be killed. So I need everyone to calm down.
John: Yeah, exactly. But no, seriously.
Wade: Pointing at me like I had, like taken out a family of five people, like, ever so angry.
John: It’s a deer, people. They wouldn’t make it very long in the Midwest.
Wade: Well, I don’t know how to, but how do you explain that to people, though?
John: They don’t already get it. You’re never going to get through their head.
Wade: Oh, no. The first part. Not even the hitting the deer. I’m talking about the pinwheeling through the air part. I had no choice. I noticed it coming out. I was looking at the road in front of me and something at the top of my peripheral vision. I look up and there’s a deer pinwheeling through the air, and I was like, well, you don’t see that every day. And then they froze me and I hit it with my truck.
John: I’m glad it didn’t go through your windshield.
Wade: Well, yeah, it could have killed me.
John: They would have been having a candlelight vigil for the deer.
Wade: Yeah, exactly. And then all of our listeners would be denied today’s content.
John: Exactly.
Wade: Well, I think that’s pretty good for today. Any closing thoughts about what we’ve talked about today? Any thoughts, concerns, quibbles, complaints? You’ve learned a lot about me today. I had a lot of stories today.
John: Yes. Go to Sammy. Every shooter honestly, should just go check out their publications. It’s worthwhile. If you like to shoot, you need to know what you’re doing. Check them out.
Wade: Christensen Arms has the blog that we’re talking about, which is talking about Sammy. And they also have an article. Their most recent article is about seven millimetres backcountry rifles.
John: I saw that I actually saw that post.
Wade: And this picture of this rifle they had on here is pretty sick.
John: Yes. So I don’t have anything besides that. I’m actually really curious about the 21 sharp. So Winchester.
Wade: We’re not talking about this today, but they have the suppressor on this gun, like, 20 inch barrel with a suppressor, seven millimeter long gun. Look at that thing. It’s not a bad looking gun anyway. Well, I like talking to you, I liked. No, I didn’t like talking to you today. I loved talking to you today, as my son likes to say. And man, like, yeah, let’s do it again. Let’s not wait so long before we have another cohost episode. My brother.
John: Sounds good.
Wade: All right, man, stay warm over there in Kansas.
John: We’ll do.
Wade: 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.