The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: Gear Maintenance

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

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Welcome back to the Matterfax podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at MWFpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Ravilley, Andrew, Nick, are on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back to the Matterfax podcast. It's 7.30 night. I have already show already gotten in my PJ's eye is freaking tired.

But I'm here, and so's next. Tis PJ's. Brough. usually I try to like look like a semi-professional and like you know at least throw on a shirt or something not be here in my pajamas but I told my wife I spent the last hour of my workday running up and down flights of stairs and I 43 year old chubby man my heart rate was was doing that number at about a buck 10. Yeah. Hey man stair climbing's fantastic exercise. It's great car. Yeah. Well what what my facility has done is finally. somebody got religious about physical security

and they activated the badge readers in the elevators. So now you have to badge to go, you have to badge to go any, like from the first four, you have to badge to go anywhere. Okay. And then you have to badge to go between floors. And the only thing you don't have to use your badge for

is to go from any floor down to the first floor to exit. Okay, I can understand that. Yes, but this now means that with the number of my coworkers, that are having difficulty figuring out how this new process works. People are trapped on floors, aren't they, Phil? Well, it's making, see, I don't usually take the elevators to begin with, because it's a little bit of a bonus exercise, but also because I'm impatient as hell.

So in an effort to not, like, you know, curse out a coworker about why are you taking so freaking long, wave your badge and let's get ahead on with the show, I just, you know, say, hey, I'm going to take the stairs and get some exercise. I'll meet you there. Really, it's for my sanity. but I sense it's for my health, which is also my sanity is also my health. But anyway, so we're in the process of moving people around on a couple of different floors because we have to do some building maintenance and build out on two of the floors.

And I have people on both of those floors who now have to move. Right. So that started today. And that was like up and down, up the floor, down the floor, down the floor, down the floor. And we took the elevator sometimes, but like sometimes it was just faster and frigging go upstairs. But anyway, no one, no one came to hear about all that nonsense. Point is, it's been, it's been a day. It has.

Oh. We had an interesting day of work today, too. Really? But that was mulsterge. No, we were a single story facility. No, we had, uh, we had to do some repair work on a couple. customers tool that they gave us a model the model did not represent the steel in any way shape or form no don't tell me the customer screwed up nick oh no no no the customer didn't screw up so this this is one

of our this is from another mold shop we're a mold shop from another mold shop your competitors they were doing they were doing a repair no that well yeah one of our competitors somewhere somewhere in the world we're doing a repair for them because they don't have a wire machine and it required a wire machine to do it. So, you know, all the mold shops kind of trade, trade little favors to each other because everybody's got their little specialty tool that not everybody's going to buy. For us, it's jig grinders in a wire machine that we have. And cut it the day before, sent it out, thought no problems. Customers calling angry at the end of the day wanting to know why the block doesn't fit in the

hole. I'm like, well, you didn't give me the block to put in the hole. so I had to go off your CAD model. Turns out everything was made rock. Outstanding. Which is why the mold got damaged and why I was working on it in the first place. But my God.

So what I'm hearing is that learning has taken place. Yeah, it turns out when you go to the lowest bidder in a foreign country, you have very little quality control. I don't feel like that's a lesson that. we had to learn a second time. You'd be shocked how often large multi-million companies have to learn that lesson. No, no, I really wouldn't because I've worked for large

multi-million dollar companies and I worked for a very large bureaucratic one now and they have to learn that lesson weekly, it seems. It's shocking how quickly people forget. It's been more than a few times where we've had a mold that was built overseas. You guys know where I'm talking about. Never even touches the customer's floor.

It comes directly to one of our shops and tear it down and it's fucked. Yeah. Like to the point where it's going to cost more than the initial cost of the tooling to fix it before they can get part one out of it. But look on the bright side. If it wasn't for people farming out all that crap to foreign foreign subsidiaries that do horrible jobs, you'd be so drowned in work from doing it right the first time you would know what to do with yourself. I'm okay with that. I would accept that. Hey, man, I'm all, I'm all for creating American jobs. And if we had to drown in work to create a bunch of American jobs,

I'm all about that. That's fine with me. I'll train a bunch more apprentices. That's what we call the business sarcasm. Oh, I know. But I actually do want to be drowning in work. I like work so much. I brought work home. Yeah, that, that, I'm pretty sure that's diagnosable, but we'll leave it alone. It is. Anyway,

admin work, and then we have to talk somebody into a firearm purchase, and then, which is a couple listener questions, and we'll get to the topic. And we're going to cover all of it today, and we're not going to go over an hour and a half. Best of luck. Nick, I'm looking at you,

we're not going to go over an hour and a half. I will try. Just give me the head nod, go with it. Anyway, patrons make the world go around to keep the show solving, they keep the show funded that keep me, I would say out of trouble, but mostly y'all get me into trouble.

And you'll definitely haven't been helping me get Nick into trouble, so I'm starting to feel picked on. I'm more resistant to peer pressure. Unless it's coming from my wife. Yeah, you just wait. Once I get her on my side, you're done. Yep.

You're like, Rachel, his and hers PBS 14s. It's exactly what y'all need. I'm saying, I've been trying to talk her into it. Yeah, you're going to have to get a bathroom

and maybe a bedroom remodel under your belt before I can lay that on her. I finished one bathroom. There's only two more in the house. Pit or patter get at her, son. Oh, I know. I'm starting in a couple months here

when it's no longer like negative 15. Yeah, you have the opposite problem you do about the weather. Like down here, it's like I just wait for fall or spring. So I don't have to die from heat stroke while doing things outside. Unfortunately, my brief window of beautiful weather went entirely too fast while I had other things going on. And I missed my window to get things done outside. And now it's like 40 degrees outside, which you probably find adorable.

But for us down here, it's Han Solo weather. 40 degrees. I would love that. No. We had a 50-degree day yesterday, and today it was like negative 10. No, my gusto. Anyway, code MOF at disaster coffee. If you like hot coffee, if you like cold coffee, if you like day-old coffee or brand-new, fresh coffee, code M-O-F. And if you don't use the promo code, I will find out about it.

And if I recognize your name, you should prepare yourself for abuse because I love capitalism and I hate money. And I'd much rather y'all save a couple percent using that promo code than throw a few more bucks into me and my business partner's pockets. And merch at the Southern Gals, you can do capitalism and give them all the money you want. I don't, we don't take a cut out of that. That is purely a promotional activity for us and for them. And quite frankly, if you don't want to throw a couple of bucks at a small business that supports a mom and pop and an adorable child, then that's where you should look.

Plus, they're bomb T-shirts, man. They're fantastic. Yeah. I'm not a funny man, but we really, really did try to inject some humor into those things. Oh, I meant the quality of the T-shirt material. That's different than bomb, yes. Yeah, they're top notch.

I do have to two moan horn. That was like the one thing I hit the, the brandons with when we went into business together. I told them, like, look, you can price the shirts, whatever you think is appropriate. I will give you like the first, I forget how many shirts we agreed to that they could sell profit all in their pocket. We didn't want a dime of it to like, you know, to offset their shirt. startup cost and everything. Absolutely. But the one thing I was adamant about was you cannot

use cheap, scratchy, itchy Chinese shirts. It's got to be something that feels nice to be worn. Because if I don't want to wear the damn thing, I'm not going to put my name on it. It's just not kosher. Okay. Now, some poor sociopath

crawled into our comments and said he needs us to talk him out of buying a Sig 211. And I don't think we can do that, Nick. I think that violates the terms and the terms and agreements. I do have a single question. This is not the sig. This is not the sig that that blows up. No, I know. I know. This is not the sick that shoots yourself. That's fine. I mean, you know, unless you're into that sort of thing. But what does this sig do that any other gun in your safe does?

I think is I think it's something that, you know, anybody that's looking to buy a new gun needs to think about. Yeah, I've got a big safe. I got to figure out how to mute Nick, because he's asking questions that don't need to be answered. It's just another gun.

I mean, if you want it just because you collect guns, go for it. I'm not going to tell you not to. I have a very large safe that is very full of guns. In fact, I have run out of room in the safe. Again. But, you know, heaven forbid I tell anybody not to buy a gun.

But all I'm saying is if you are going to buy a new gun and the rest of your preps have not been addressed, that gun better add something of value performance-wise to your safe. So that's true. If you don't have like a bolt action hunting rifle and you're going to get one, I get it. Different, different weapon system, different purpose. If you don't own a shotgun, you probably should, regardless of whatever else you own. If you don't have a semi-auto rifle and your state's not gay, you probably should have one. Now, if you don't have a pistol, you should probably have one because, look, if you're out doing farm chores, you're doing around the house chores, you can keep a pistol with you pretty much all the time.

It's a lot easier than a full-size long arm. but if you have a half a dozen handguns in a safe, the seventh one is probably not adding anything that you don't already have performance-wise. Yeah, Jeff Jaggsazzo, the 211 takes 320 mags. I don't think so, dude. I mean, I'm not super up on like six hour, but I think the 211 is like 1980s-90s design.

Let's see. They take P-250 magazines. Okay. And 320 magazines. They do take 320 magazines. Only the 23 round extended magazines. Okay. They only take the full big stick magazines.

Okay. Looks like. I do need a bigger safe. Yeah. With the recent acquisition of one of my father-in-law's handguns and two of his rifles, I am also out of safe space now. I, I, listen, I had made the room for that, that barretta. I was happy. There was nothing else going in there unless I lost my dag of mine and got to bear it or some other associate 50 caliber.

Or maybe a 338, but that's neither here nor there. But anyway, and then this happens. Now I've got a pistol and two more rifles that have got to go someplace. I don't know. I'll figure it out. You know what you should take a look at, Phil? how much space you've got for more safes in your house, but man, I really like the snap safe that I've got. That thing, I've got the Titan XL snap safe. There's not a single part of that safe that I cannot

pick up and carry down a flight of stairs. It was awesome for moving. It beats the hell out of the last couple safes I had to move. Yeah, I, I'm not there yet. I got to figure it out. I mean, on the one hand, I did I did briefly consider like just get like an old school like a I call them ornamental like gun cabinets. You know, nice wood glass pretty thing. Your daughter's old enough and seems responsible enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Yeah. And I mean, the truth of matter is I have I have a handful of firearms that I would think are pretty enough for like display. And that would free up space in the say in the existing say for like all business.

Right. business and front party in the back type of firearms. You know what I'm saying? Like the things that you use when doors get kicked in and that kind of thing. I believe that. Raggle, fragile. Did you hear the here PSA backpedal on releasing their budget 50-Cal rifle? I would rather them do that than have rifles explode.

I'm going to tell you that if you Google what the chamber pressure of 50 BMG is, I am a-okay with anybody. Oh. If you can't, okay, timeout. If you, Raggle was saying that the ammo for the test and test and evaluation was too expensive, I'm going to tell you that if you're developing a 50 cow and you can't afford the ammo to test and evaluate one, you can't afford to develop a 50 cow. Correct.

Period. In discussion. Like, I mean, you should be, you should probably be handloading those rounds anyway for your T&E. Yeah. No. Because you're going to want to find, you're going to want to find the failure points. for the weapon. Yeah, but for that, though,

you need standardized proof rounds, which are a percentage over existing. Oh, no, I was thinking of like underloading, loading odd grain weights, stuff like that. Yeah, Regal was saying their excuse, not mine. I hear you, but I'm just saying that like, I don't know.

If they put it out into the wild, I'm sure people will buy it. I wonder if it's going to want to be in like a lot of Palmetto State Armory's farms where they're bought shot a little and then stuffed away in the back of a closet after that. I think there's two kinds of people that buy that buy from Palmetto, especially like their budget gun lines. They're either guys that are just getting into it and they beat the ever-loving piss out of that weapon system and then build a better one and put that PSA one in the safe as their backup gun. Yeah, because that's that was mine. My first AR was a PSA build and I beat the Bajus out of that thing. Yeah.

And it was just fantastic. And see, I went the total other direction and nothing I bought was top shelf for my guns, but I put them to gear from a bucket of parts. And I expect every last part that went into both of them. So of the two rifles I built, one was a, I think a $300 PSA rifle. and the other one was like a $2,800 rifle. Didn't I tell the two extremes? Didn't I tell you what I wound up figuring out that I had into my AR, my carbine that's rigged up for night vision?

You did and it was upsetting. I was upset. I don't. Well, night vision is expensive, man. Well, and the minute you start, okay. So in the name full disclosure, like the minute you have to throw like a 200 and something, switch and a 400 R flashlight and an $800

laser box onto even a $400 AR, all of a sudden things get expensive very quickly. It's like when you buy a PBS 14 and like, oh great, now I need a helmet, now I need a mount, now I need this and that and that. And before you know it, the

three and a half four stacks you have in just your night vision optic just got another 25% laid on top of it in the shit you need to bolt it on to your noggin. It's just ridiculous. I've got something interesting from Joe here.

He's saying that PSA bought Panther and DPMS, and now he can't get parts. It's interesting. I never had a problem with PSA's customer service. Try reaching out to them on the social media platforms because you get a different person than when you're reaching out to like customer service, customer service. I don't know if you're on Reddit, Joe,

but PSA is fairly active on the gun subs. If you tag their username in your post, they will reply. And typically that's much quicker responses than a lot of customer service numbers. Yeah. And Jim's saying all my daughters learn to put together ARs with PSA parts.

I look at PSA like I do the modern day Liberator pistols from World War two. It puts a thing in your hands that you can use to defend yourself and ostensibly get a much better quality firearm if necessary should things ever go to 11. So, you know, I look at it like that. If it arms, if it arms the populace for a reasonable amount of money, and even better, if it gets you into an AR and get you out to the range and get you out to the training circle, when if you had to spend three times that much on AR, you never would invest. in it, then that by itself.

It's like the high point. It's the high point argument. If a $250 handgun and a couple boxes of ammo gets you into the realm of the armed citizen, but a $500 lock is something you just mentally can't put the

money towards, then the high point has value to me. It does. I do think, though, that PSA is higher quality than a lot of people give them credit for, for their price point. I think I have worked on a lot of my buddy's guns that have been PSA build kits, and I've not found problems with them. And maybe that's good luck on my part. They've all been what I would call a rack grade AR.

I'll give you that. I think what I have trouble with with that statement, though, is like, I don't come into the argument with the pre-ceived notion that PSA is just the biggest piece of junk on Earth. Like, you know, like it has met my expectations. And I feel like my expectations of them were fairly reasonable. Functional and I would say combat accurate. If anything, the only AR I've ever had my hands on that I legitimately had concerns with how I was put together. It was a gun shop special. It was one of these where it's like a gun shop and there's a dude.

The dude in the back puts together ARs with cute paint jobs and anodized parts to sell on the rack. It was one of those that was put together by God knows what. And I couldn't, I never got a chance like put gauges into it or measure things, but it just, it didn't, something about it didn't feel right. Put it that way. That's possible. Something, I mean, something about the way the bolt and everything went into battery. Like, I, I advised my friend. I'm like, you really want to like be careful shooting this thing.

Or you really want to go get like a go no go gauge set or borrow one from somebody because I'm like, it just doesn't, this doesn't feel right. I mean, most quality gunsmiths out there will throw a gauge set through your gun without really charging you, hardly anything. In fact, the one that I go to on occasion, he won't. He'll just drop the gauge in there and tell you you're good or it's fucked. Yeah. Stewart has actually grouse me on multiple occasions that I need to invest in go-no-go gauges for a couple of things, at least for 5-5-6. And, yeah. Fortunately, I know I have a buddy that has.

all those gauges for 5, 5, 5, 6, and 300 wind mag. And I've just been able to kind of ride on that, not having picked them up myself. They're not, they're not that expensive. They're really not. And if you only get one, the field gauge is probably the most important, in my opinion. I think it is because that's, if the field gauge shows you an issue, you must stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect anything.

put that weapon in the rack and get it inspected by someone that knows better. Yeah. And if you don't know what a field gauge is, just take my word on it. There are three gauges. There's go, no go, and what they call a field gauge. And I've always been told, like, you know, the go gauge tells you that, what is it again? It's the, what you're looking for is like the chamber should swallow the go gauge. It should not swallow the no-go gauge.

And it definitely shouldn't swallow the field gauge. So if ever you drop a field gauge into a weapon and it will, like that bolt will close all the way, you take the firing pin out of it and you put it on the rack until you figure out what the problem is. But anyway, the problem is, is that the go and the no-go gauge by themselves or don't give you a whole, like all the information you need. The field gauge is there to tell you, is this thing safe to shoot? put together right. Not does the barrel need to be pushed in or pulled out a little bit before it gets pinned. That field gauge is just there to tell you you're about to blow this gun up. Yeah. This weapon has become dangerous. Yeah. So 23 minutes. We haven't talked about the topic. This is

turning into a pattern of behavior. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so last time we were talking about field gear. Cleaning, maintenance, so. webbing, replacing parts, all these kinds of things. And I thought it would be a little instructor because, like, we've talked about this over the years, a little here and there. Because, like, I don't know about you, but, like, I'm constantly working on little projects. And it's just, it's rare for me to have, like, all that stuff sitting right here by my feet so I can pick it up and show it to y'all. But, so I thought I would start with this. I actually was, nope, wrong one.

all the chicom gear looks the same yeah so in the name of full disclosure you're going to see a bit of chycom gear and a bit of old army surplus stuff and i actually didn't bring my pistol belt because i'm in the middle of ripping it apart and redoing it but you know yeah me too so for those to be uninitiated this is an very old actually according to the stamp on the back of this uh 1976 production but i needed like i was telling nick i need to i need to like i was telling nick i need I actually have a really nice stamp on the back of this. I need to do some research on, try to figure out what the origin of this thing is. But it might have actually been issued at one point, which is pretty cool. Yeah, it looks in surprisingly a good condition for issued gear, but it's,

you never know. Yeah. But in any case, so this is a completely unmolested, untouched, what they call a Thai 56 chest rig. And the annoying part of it is that the Chinese call the S-Chi-Chi-Chi-6 chest rig. And the annoying part of it is that the Chinese call the SKS and the AK-Type 56 weapons, and therefore they called this thing and the AK chest rig or

bandelier type 56 as well, so it makes things a little confusing. Thank you, China. But the reason I pull this out is because I have one of these that's now loaded with stripper clips for the SKS that it now have. Because if you have an old Milsurp SKS, why wouldn't you spend a couple of bucks and get a nice old chest rig to hold your stripper clips in? Because if you have a, If you're going to be a nerd, be a nerd. Embrace the nerd. Exactly. But the reason I pull this out is because, you know,

this uses these little wooden toggles and these little loops up here on the top to secure all these flaps down. This is literally just two pieces of webbing adhered at each side so that it kind of works like an X harness. You know, if you convert, if you wear this over your neck and everything, like a chest rig. It's not really comfortable. It's definitely not 21st century. It's not tactical at all. But if you need a cheap way to carry magazines and stuff, this is not a bad place to start.

Neither is the AK version. Because the AK version, it is deeper than your standard, like 30-round AR mag. So you just stitch or block the bottom. Yeah. So here's kind of what I was talking about the other day with me and Nick. So what I've done with this, also type 56, but this is an AK chest rig,

is I removed all the wooden toggles. All these flaps are now secured with Velcro, very 21st century, and you can't, I might actually be able to wiggle one of these things out. Y'all can call this Bubba engineering if you want. I don't care. It works. It do. This is medium density fiberboard, because at the time I did this,

I was building sublifer boxes as a, side business out of the house. So I had cutoffs and cutoffs and cutoffs of this stuff. If I had to do this again, I'd probably make it out of like a one by or some thick plywood, something that's a little more weather resistant to this. Because if you get this wet, it's going to turn to a mess really fast. You know what you should try, Phil? McMastercar sells high-density polyethylene sheets that you can heat form with a hot gun, with a heat gun or with your oven.

Don't use your wife's oven. A hairdryer will work sometimes too. it's a white plastic sheet that you can fold and form and you could make a hollow insert for that. I've actually got several sheets of Kydags in the garage. Oh, that'll work. I've got it for making. The nice thing about the high density polyethylene is you can use acetone to permanently weld it together. Oh. I'll have to take that into consideration.

But yeah, I've got all the Kydaks and everything lying around from building knife sheaves and everything. You're going to have to watch the comments because I can only multitaking it. so much and I need both my hands for this. I got you. Great. You got Dr. Scarry guy says, he started to say that the thing was super old,

but realized we would have been in school together. My back hurts. I feel you, bud. Look, when I was 36, I was talking to a buddy of mine that I served with. And I was like,

so did it occur to you that when we were in base training? There were kids that weren't even born yet. They're now old enough to go to base training themselves. I thought he was going to slug me. But yeah, both of my both of us kind of moaned in back pain at that moment. Yeah. One of my coworkers was telling me the first Shrek movie came out almost 20 years ago.

Oh. Yeah. So in the name of full disclosure, I have this weird thing with my relationship with my wife where like, I always have to think to myself how long we've been together, how long since we've been married. Like I know what year was. I just have to count.

Right. And then I yeah. Math. Yeah. And then today was the day that I realized that in a couple of months, my wife and I will have been married 18 years. That's fantastic. Yeah. But until I got asked that today, I didn't realize it was 18 years.

I was just like, I mean, we've been married for a while. And then I was like, holy shit. That's when you add it, when you add it up, that's a lot longer that I thought it was. Mm-hmm. I mean. Amazing. how fast that happens. I mean, it's cool. I love being married to my wife. I just

didn't realize it's been 18 years. That means I've got two years to really figure out something cool. Yep. Cool is going to be expensive, I'm sure. Yeah. Anyway, we're not going to... Isn't hers quad nods?

I'm sure... That's what I thought. I'm sure she'd like vacation. Much more than quad nods, Nick. Thank you. Well, quad nods on the beach. Yeah, she couldn't care less, I'm sure. Anyway, that's fair. So like I said, a little spacer in the bottom of this, replace all the top of the Velcro. I actually took what was the original grenade pouches, so to loop down the middle and made this into a twin pistol magazine pouch.

And then the other is still like grenade size, but I usually use this for like, you know, a tourniquet or some, you know, field dressings or whatever. but what I did was take a very cheap, still very cheap, but at the time I want to say these were like 10 to 12 bucks to your doorstep. Yeah, at one point they were shipping them in the little bubble mailers because they were so cheap. Yeah, but like I said, like a lot of this old surplus chai-com stuff is still dirt cheap and an afternoon with some Velcro and a very, very well, been made needles because this can, this. This is campus, so you ain't just going to punch through this with your grandma's sewing needle.

But a little bit of ingenuity, a little bit of time, and you can turn one of these in something that's actually like much easier to use, much nicer to use and much more relevant to today's kind of SOPs and way of doing things. And if you didn't want to go this route, your local Army Surplus store probably has a ton of Molly step, not a ton of Molly, a ton of Alice stuff in the back. the old school, think like post-Vietnam pre-G what like desert storm vintage that the old pistol belt and the H-horners or the Y harness suspenders and you get the canteens with the canteen covers

and the magazine pouches that whole three each plus little pockets on the sides for grenades you can outfit yourself for not a ton of money and if you don't want used surplus stuff Rothco actually makes pretty decent retro clones of that. stuff believe it or not yeah and I mean it it's getting stuff surplus is always going to be

kind of a like a a crap shoot on whether you're going to get really nice stuff or you're going to get fleeced but you're right if you just want to like buy it for the vibes and run it I mean Rothko's stuff is not bad I've bought some of it it's it is nothing to get upset about no no it's definitely not I mean I used I used an old Alice rig for a duck hunt or not duck hunting, pheasant hunting rig for myself. Because I had the high-vis vest from something else. But I didn't have anything for pouches or anything for shotgun shells or stuff like that.

So I used a butt pack to hold the birds. And I used one of the old M-16 mag pouches that a box of shotgun shells just drops right down inside perfectly. And I was all set to go for a last-minute pheasant hunt I got invited to it. It was pretty great. Worked out really good. Yeah. But like I said, I mean, that's kind of my perspective is like you can take a lot of this old surplus stuff. And with fairly minimal inventiveness and modifications, like you can, you can even make it work with more modern stuff.

Like I said, I didn't bring my old Alice pistol belt out. But I have like, so I've got a Blatech holster that's actually made for just two inch gun belt fits on there wonderfully for obvious reasons. Yeah. But then I've got like stuff that's meant to be on Molly. And I mean, if you just wrap the straps around the, you know, around the pistol belt, of course, it flops around a whole lot. But you'd be surprised what you could do with zip ties. Yeah, you can do a pretty good job with that.

I mean, I just finally replaced my old Alice Harness with that's on my belt with the one we got from Rebel. That's for the, uh, the med, the med pouch. I've got to get a couple of more pieces. of one inch webbing to lash the front of it together. And then I'm gonna be all set. And that's a nice lower profile option for that war belt over the old Alice, which I just had, I think my war belt had a couple little plastic like D rings. I just clipped the old Alice, the old Alice snap clips right through that.

Worked out great for many years. I've been running that belt since 2010. yeah i mean with with that age harness i hate to quote the old deal generic statement but like if a bunch of idiot privates couldn't screw it up it's at least tough enough for you to take out to the range or to the you know to milsum a couple of times like yeah a lot of this i mean there's a reason why for all these years i i was stuck with old millserb stuff it just it works i mean it wasn't until recently where i finally unloaded the old condor and got into rebels kit which is right here on the floor behind me, yet another of the projects I'm eventually going to get to one day

when I'm not drowning another crap. So, Phil, yes. Have you ever taken a class with all that kit on? No. All right. I know you spent time in the field and kit in the military. Yes. For those of you that haven't, those of you that have not yet taken a class with all your

kit on there, you're going to get sweaty, that shit is hot, it's uncomfortable, it's going get packed full of dirt and random other crap Phil what is your after class or let's say after field exercise how do you take care of that nylon gear so the last time I was in an operational theater

really and truly there was like especially back then there was no like taken and throw it in the washer or anything crazy like that it was a lot of damp rag spot cleaning and you had to be careful because these were like old the old serenance plates that didn't tolerate a lot of bull crap or getting wet or anything.

But really, it was a lot of, like, get rid of the dirt as much as humanly possible. And not for any sense of, like, not for any sense of vanity, but purely just because I don't think most people understand, like, how much dirt and sand will abrade nylon if you let it sit in there. And we haven't gotten in clothing yet, but this applies to boots. It does. The first thing I do every time I get done with a camping trip or a hike or anything is I take I go home, I take my boots, I'd like, you know, clomp them together really hard to get all the dirt and everything out of the soles and everything.

And I let, I usually I'll leave them, especially if it's been wet. I'll leave them for a day to let the, let the soil and everything dry out. And then I will clean the treads. I will clean the leather. I will pull, like, pull the tongues out. I'll pull the lace set up I have to. I get all of the dirt and the sand and the crap out of those boots because it will abrade the boots and wear them out prematurely. And I can't speak for the rest of y'all, but a $2, $2, $230 pair of solomance ain't something I'm willing to burn up prematurely just because I'm too lazy to clean them.

So what I tend to do is, first thing I do when I get back from a class, I lay out all my gear on a folding table, all of it. And it sits out, obviously take the magazines out, take the guns out of it. No. It lays out until it dries. Well, you know, if I'm not going to be home, I don't want to leave it. a gun just sitting loaded in a holster on my table in my basement when I'm not home. You live in Illinois. If it's, I'm surprised you don't have just guns like lying on the side of the road out there.

Well, we do, but those are usually attached to a body. Sorry, and about, I'm being in a five to 15. No, you're, you're not wrong, though. The number of people I know that have found a gun laying alongside the highway in Illinois is not a small number considering our laws, but, you know, what do you do with a gun? after it's created a body. People just chuck them. You know, I don't know.

They just do. But I lay my gear out so it can dry out. I'm a big guy, sweaty guy. You're going to get hot and sweaty wearing the armor. So what I like to do is I like to pull my plates out and pull the, I've got the trauma pads behind the plates just for comfort because those foam pads, they actually make it quite a lot more comfortable. Pull all that stuff out so it can all dry out.

And then I will take just usually like a broom and just scrub all of the dirt and mud and crap off of that stuff. Just so you can get a good inspection in on everything. And what is what are you inspecting? Stitching. First off. Stitching number one, look for anywhere that you're stitching could be coming loose. Look for any attachment points that could be wearing out. So like on Rebel's gear, it's a lot of Velcro, right?

Belcro does degrade over time with use. It does. My old plate carrier had cobra buckles on bungeys. Those bungeys would start to fray from where they were cut and heat sealed. And as they started to fray and move up closer that cobra buckle, at a certain point you had to replace those bungeys. And then usually after that, I'm looking for anywhere that is a wear point to see how the nylon's holding up. bottom of your magazine pouches in the corners, especially on an AR mag or an AK mag, that's the point that's going to start wearing out first.

And if you don't care that there's a small hole in it, fine. Nylon will technically rip stop, but it will eventually wear into a larger hole. And so if you can, a couple of stitches in that to close that up before it does start really getting away from you, you can extend the lifespan of those mag pouches and a lot of your other. other kit. Yeah. And for me, it's always a good opportunity to like practice that craft because like, I,

I am eternally and repeatedly shocked at how, how small a percentage of the U.S. population knows how to do things for themselves, like knows how to sew, knows how to fix it, knows how to diagnose mechanical problems, knows how to cook for God's sakes. And I will be the first to admit,

literally anyone watching this, your stitching probably looks prettier than mine does. I'll give you that. I sew like a blind meth head. It's awful. Does the stitch hold? It usually holds.

It's usually butt ugly, but it works. But like, I'll be the first to admit when I call somebody out for not knowing how to sew, I am telling you that I only know how to sew in the most technical definition of the word. but it's a great skill to learn and to maintain and to practice. And for me,

a lot of times, it's, it's, it's learning how to mess with different materials. Like, yeah, there's a huge difference between learning, learning to sew a pillowcase or something decorative,

and learning how to sew this freaking canvas that these chai con chest rigs are made of. Or the first time I ever tried to sew, um, one inch nylon web, Bubba, that stuff is freaking brutal. Especially if you buy the good nylon webbing, the dense woven stuff.

Yeah, hit the crap they have at Walmart. Have you ever pushed the backside of a needle through the tip of your thumb? Yes. Yeah. It is not enjoyable.

Did that once, learn my lesson. That's when I got the little thimble, and then I sheared the back of a needle off. Like broke the eye and half. Yeah. Yeah, you really need to buy quality,

either canvas needles for this stuff or believe it or not, leather work needles. That is what I wound up doing. That eventually, like, that did the trick was needles that are meant for leather working. Needles that specifically say they're for heavy duty use. Like heavy canvas, heavy leather. Needles made for denim actually seem to do okay. But like, the heavier duty, the better because this stuff doesn't play around.

What do you use for thread for stitching up your gear when it's when it's damage? Um, you, so I couldn't tell you that it's anything special. I have several spools of just, um, you call it kind of camo colors. The black, black, OD green, brown. Um, frankly, if I have to use anything stronger than that, I usually go straight to like very, very fine fishing line. A lot of what I use and Jeff brings up a good point here, sailmaker's needles. Uh, fantastic. for sewing heavy canvas.

I use, believe it or not, four pound spider wire stealth. I bet it works like a UV resistant. It's UV resistant. It's braided. It's a, it's a, some kind of synthetic polyester. So it lasts forever.

Is it Dachron by chance? I have no idea what it's made of. It's like a matte green color that that almost disappears when it's in the water. Something to do with the, the way the light works, but it's a very abrasion resistant fishing line and it's really, really fine. And I have like three or four partial spools from from loading up fishing rods and reels. So I just use the leftovers of those spools to repair my gear. I keep a bunch

of it in my kit bag. And heck, if I ever need fishing line for whatever kind of survival needs, it's there. It's fishing line. It's one less thing that I have to keep in my kit bag. And heck, if I ever need fishing line, bag. Yeah. And while we're on the, while we're on the discussion, like the other things, I think are really, really good for you to stock in your, um, your tactical tool bag or your tactical tailoring tool bag is webbing at least one inch webbing. Yeah, one inch webbing is, it's pretty universal. It's on everything. You could argue that like other sizes are helpful. I, I, I have honestly never found enough of reason to buy like more than the one role of one inch webbing I have. And I use that for all. almost everything. Buckles. Doesn't matter if they fit your gear. You have a male and a female.

You can unstitch whatever's on the damn thing and put your own on there. That's how that works. So ITW makes pretty much all of the U.S. military gear buckles. Just about all of them. If you buy an ITW one inch buckle, an ITW two inch buckle,

and ITW 1 inch and 2 inch, I think they're called turn buckles, the ones where you lash the stuff back through, those will fit on pretty much any modern Western gear and will interface with the buckle that's already on your pack. Yep. Because those are the buckles that are already on your pack, and you can get 10 or 15 of them on Amazon really, really cheap. Yep. I have, I've just bought bowl packs of just male and female buckles

stuck together over the years because I use them for a lot of the stuff that I home brew. like the, um, like my battle belt. I use that old Alice pistol belt, but one of the things that started to irk my freaking nerves was that the, um, the old blade tech holster that I use was made in a time when it wasn't really invoked to have like a thigh strap.

Sure. So the holster tends to like, depending on if how you draw, if you don't draw this thing just right, the holster, yeah, the holster tends to gimbled away from your, leg instead of just drawing smooth. Thigh strap stops at. Not

the strap that goes around your knee because the holster hangs halfway down your thigh. It's a mid-ride holster, but just a strap to kind of like, you know, tuck the boys up a little bit and make sure the holster stays up against your thigh. One inch webbing and a male and female buckle. Bing, bang, boom, done. And it's the kind of thing that if you look at like certain parts of the

internet, like somebody will happily sell you one for like 20 or 25 bucks that does the exact same thing mine does. Mine's just the stitching is a lot uglier. Yep. And it costs me. If you can see it. Yeah. And it costs me like that much one inch webbing and a buckle.

Mm-hmm. Who cares? You know, that's one thing I like to harvest off of gear when I'm getting rid of it because some part of it is failing. I will snag the buckles and turn buckles. And sometimes the webbing, if the webbing is still good, usually if I'm trashing a piece of gear, like I'm probably going to just throw away my old Ares Derma because the only thing's still good on it is the three inch extra wide cobra buckles. That's the only thing on it that's not rotting apart. Yeah.

So you might have got your money's worth out of that one. Oh, dude. I ran that thing in hundreds of hours of classes and that's not even coming close to including all the fucking around in the woods I did with people. Yeah. I'm trying to think like what else goes in this. I mean, I guess it should go without saying, like, think long and hard before you throw something out, because I've still got like mag singles for AK mags and various, I mean, I, okay, I just got through going through all my crap and I actually parted with some of it. Like, don't ask me why. I actually had an old Black Hawk Serpa holster.

Don't even remember when I bought it. Don't even remember when I bought it. God knows how long it's been hiding out in my in the back of my my gun closet. At a time, it was a good option. Yeah. But I pitched that. I pitched a couple of things that I just legitimately do not need anymore.

But like, you know, the truth matter is, is like I'm very hesitant to throw a lot of this stuff away because a lot of it can just be repurchased. Like, I've been telling people everywhere, everybody I talked to since I got into comms. I'm like,

you know, an average AR mag shingle is like the perfect size. It's a little deep, But it's the perfect size for a for a Beofeng radio. If you get something, if you get an insert. If you put the extended battery on it, it's exactly the right size. Or if you get a shingle for like a DMR, like for a three, a three away caliber 20 round magazine. Beofeng drops in his pockets perfectly with plenty of space on the sides for your com setups, your com cables and everything.

But it's that kind of thing, though. It's like I hate to throw that stuff out because I know it can be repurposed for something. I mean, at this point, I've got a whole spare plate carrier and probably enough crap lying around to build an entire other set for somebody if I had to. You probably should. I mean, if you have it, why wait to put it together? How do I smooth talk, Mrs. Matter of Facts, into taking pictures wearing body armor? There was mention of a beach trip earlier. I have, yeah, it's going to take a little more bribery than that.

I think the last time I smooth talked her into trying on a plate. carrier. She made, she made mention of the fact that it was obviously designed by men that had never seen boobs before. That is accurate, though they do make body armor that fits women better. Raggle's got a good question. Phil, how much of a pack rat are you guys? Surprisingly, why are you so mean? Not a lot. Well, look, it's a fair question because we do say, you know, be mindful about what you, about what you throw away. Yes. But what, what Phil and I have both said before, and Andrew has echoed this back in the day, too, if it gets to a point where it is interfering with your day-to-day life, it needs to go. Yeah.

Or it is making a negative impact on your life. It needs to go. I throw shit away. I go through phases where I will just start ripping into boxes that are in my basement. I haven't fucking touched this in 10 years. Pitch it out it goes. Unless I know someone that does need that thing. except for tools.

I will never throw away tools unless they're wildly beyond repair. Yeah. I mean, I think for me it really comes down to like, I don't consider myself a pack rat. I keep a lot of stuff like lying around and I keep it filed away as much as possible. My wife is going to bust my ass if she happens to hear this right now because she would call me a pack rat in split second.

But like I'm very, I would like to think I'm very good about not bringing. more shit into the house unless I can genuinely think of a reason to bring it in. Like, you know, if I'm offered something, I'm much like, oh, yeah, free stuff I'll take. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, thanks. I don't need that. Yeah. And especially like, you know, helping my in-laws downsize and having recently helped my sister

and my brother-in-law pack, I have had a lot of crap offered to me for free 99, if I've just put it in my truck and take it home. And pretty much all I took home was like a couple things, a couple rolls of like garage, like shop paper towels, an unopened jug of laundry turgeon. That was exact same brand we use. Why would you not? You're going to use it. Yeah, but like most of the stuff I was off. I was like, no thanks.

Like we've got plenty. I don't need any more. I don't need that. I'm very good about not bringing extra stuff into the house. I'm very hesitant about getting rid of stuff unless I can like go through my process and say, okay, the original purpose for having brought this in doesn't exist anymore. So it's okay to get rid of stuff. of it. Yeah.

I think that's fair. Jeff's got a good idea, though, to get your wife in body armor pictures. Armored group photo for the camping trip. That definitely won't look weird. At the, where we're going. Nick, you do know that I worked really hard to convince everybody's spouses to come to the camping trip under the auspice that we weren't going to be weird, right? Body armor and cigars.

Body armor and, well, that's going to be. call it a climatization training? That'll be great if it's all boys, but I don't think we get a lot of our ladies to join in that. They're pretty much going to sit in their lawn chairs and be like a bunch of nerds. Yeah, but they say that about us anyway. It'll have a different connotation this time. That's fine. I'm okay with being the weird guy.

Before we get, well, we already kind of started talking about boots and clothing, but go for it. This was the other project. So this is what Stewart has lovingly called my main. purse because he's an asshole. He's also not wrong. It looks like a purse. Okay. But this is actually an old surplus

messenger bag. Literally this was made for like carrying maps and documents and stuff. But anyway, so this has been sitting around in my house for a long time. I have no, I think I originally bought this with the, under the auspice of this being like the shoulder bag

of carrying for like prepper camp and it just never ended up getting pressed into that role. but it has a nice solid fiber backing, very spacious, and now it is also turned into the companion for when I'm taking a trip in the truck, and the scorpion is the truck gun, and I'd be carrying my concealed carry gun. So the idea here is that in this one pack that you can just throw over your shoulder and run, nice and low profile, and it doesn't look like a chest rig or anything,

you got three scorpion, three 30 round scorpion mags, two pistol mags for my daily carry gun, and an entire IFAC worth of stuff just shoved down in here. So I have right here, basically the contents of what you would keep in a chest rig,

and it just hangs off my shoulder, it's quick to throw over my neck, I can grab what I need and run, and it doesn't look like a chest, chest rig or body armor. True. Which is important if it's sitting on the backseat of my truck. That is very true. But there are a lot of benefits to having things discreet.

But the reason I bring these up is because this isn't just a bunch of stuff thrown into a bag. This is how you make those, that big mag shingle for those scorpion mags sit in here and not move around and act like a part of the bag. is you cut holes through the fiber board, the exact spacing of Molly and snap this in place. And then you take your pistol magazine shingle and you stitch it into this pocket so that it will never come out. And bang, boom. Afternoon to work, one broken needle, because this was very thick canvas, some very creative profanity while I cut through, while I cut through this fiber board, which was surprisingly sturdy. Oh, yeah, very.

but I was able with a little bit of planning to take two magazine shingles and integrate them in that bag in such a way that they're not going to easily come out. They're not going to come loose. They're not going to move around or shift. And they very secure. I mean, even the bungeys are still holding those magazines in place, which is super important, by the way,

because with the flap shut and button, the scorpion mags actually can't pull high enough to get out of the magazine shingle. But those two pistol magazines can 110% come out of those shingle. come out of those shingles if those bungee's aren't in place. Yeah. I know because I literally spent a, I had a day to myself when the girls weren't here to call me a weirdo. And I literally did nothing but run dry fire drills around the house with that bag to just to see like what's going to shake loose. What's going to work?

Yeah. What I determined very quickly was this very thin, unpadded strap, perfect for like a very quick engagement. not at all the kind of thing you're going to want to wear all day. True. Especially it seems how this bag, fully loaded with all the mags, now it's five and a half pounds. That's a lot.

You're going to notice that sitting on your shoulder. That's a lot on a three quarter inch nylon strap. But you know what you could do, Phil? You could always remove that strap and put like a two inch piece of webbing on it. Yes, ragel. It's a satch hole. What is a satchel? but a purse by a different name

Buzz off No, you're right I mean, I could It's one of those like effort reward kind of things Because for the intended Put it's this way I place much more

Priority on the comfort The long term comfort Of like my hiking pack Because when I throw it on my shoulder It's going to be on my shoulder It's going to be cross body For several months miles and I don't want to have to constantly like pull and tug at it and I definitely don't want to have to carry it.

This thing in its intended use is literally I need to get out of my truck and do hood rat stuff for a few minutes and I need extra magazines and I need things in case I get hurt. And then hopefully I'm going to get back in my truck and leave. That would be ideal. So long term comfort's not really baked into the pie because it's not really one of the mission requirements. That's fair. That's very fair. I mean, you need to choose your gear based on what you are going to be doing. What you intend to do with it anyway. With a little leeway for margin of error. Yeah. I mean, all that's, that is all perfectly fair. It just comes down to like, you know, if you can't purchase exactly what you need and you have a little bit of smarts about you, you can usually make it, which is actually what I want. I don't know how much I want to get into it right. now because it could turn into a rabbit hole really quickly. But I have a new project to deal with. Like I didn't, it didn't already have enough lined up behind me. It occurs to me, I normally keep

about an IFAC worth of stuff in my work backpack. Sure. It occurs to me that in the event that I had to like quickly unasked my desk, I don't want to have to drag the entire backpack worth of work crap. I really just want to be able to grab my stuff, which is the medical stuff, an emergency ration, and like a quantity of water. Sure. And I want to be able to grab that stuff and bolt. So I'm kind of in the mode of thinking right now about do I have a small pack or could I purchase a small pack that's about the right size to carry all that to fit inside the work

bag so that if I have to, you know, pump and dump, I can literally just reach in my bag, grab that bag, pull, and then just jet. So what I use for my hiking bag for a medical bag is actually a little condor like four by six pouch. Without the size of an eye back. Yeah, that opens completely up. I think it is their old IFAC pouch. I don't know if they make that exact model anymore.

And I think I've seen it on your hiking bag. And I would just leave that loose in my backpack in a specific spot that way I could just unzip reach in, pull out. And there's my med stuff. That all in there. That might actually work. I actually have that exact same IFAC pack on the back of that old plate carriers. That's my old hike.

That's my hiking pack. It's actually too big to fit into my work bag with all my other crap. But the little condor would probably be just about perfect. It might actually be a little small. Jeff had a good idea for you, Phil. The Velcro on shoulder pads that wrap around like the main strap for your body armor support. You could just throw one of those on that satchel.

Yeah, I could. It'd be pretty easy. Yeah, if I cared enough. Yeah, if you cared enough. I mean, if it's, if it's not a priority for you, it's not a priority. No,

it does, it does exact what it's supposed to. Good. And it's what matters. And it, and it irks Stewart because I refuse to call it a man purse. Got to get some fun at it. Oh,

he has plenty of fun with it. me, trust me. But yeah, that's really about all I can think of as far as like maintaining your gear. I mean, it's one part cleaning and one part fixing this stuff. And I really just think like at the end of the day, the one thing you, you kind of breezed over, even though we've talked about it more in the past, you talked about like how when you get your equipment sweaty, the first thing you have to do is like really dry it out.

Do not let moisture build up in it. That is boots, that is clothing, that is field gear, that is, everything. that is everything. That, by the way, is tents and sleeping bags. That's everything. There's nothing harder to get out than mold once it gets in. And even before mold, literally no piece of fabric like staying wet. Yeah.

Done. Your very first priority at all times has got to be to keep your gear dry or dry it out. Absolutely. To the degree possible. I mean, obviously, like, if we're down here in swamp land, And it's the wrong kind of season. You're going to get wet and stay wet for days on end. But the first chance you get, you have to dry and clean your gear off.

Yeah, absolutely do. So Raggle has a good question for you. Can you maintain rain gear or is it done once it's punctured? It's going to heavily depend on what rain gear. I will say it depends on what you mean by maintain. Because if you're willing for it to look, the tiniest little bit gets. and not to be like a factory authorized fix. There's absolutely a reason why I keep a whole role of a guerrilla brand duct tape in my camping gear.

I have fixed. I have fixed rainflies. I have fixed tarps. You can fix a raincoat or a poncho in a pinch. I'm not saying it's going to hold forever, but I am saying that it will keep a ruin in your weekend if you have a hole in the roof of your tent and you need to make it stop raining on you inside now i will say you can stitch gortex rain gear yes you can however you must thou shalt respray that with new dwr

durable water resistant coating yep as soon as you're done stitching that because all those little stitch holes that you poke through there are are going to be a path that water can then get back in. If you reseal it with the DWR as you're supposed to, then yes, you can repair that. Vinyl raincoats, you can patch. There are manufacturer made like hot and cold patches you can use for those that you can fix that. Frog togs, you cannot stitch. I do not know if they make patches that will stick to that, but I'd be willing to bet that one or another of those vinyl repair patches that they make either for your inflatable sleeping pads or the old the old heavy rubber raincoats probably work yeah rubber cement and probably ester patch would go a long way they do I'll say this

much is for and this you could get away with this on a really small hole but this just comes to handy for all kinds of stuff you have you and I talked about the single use super glue tubes don't use that on nylon no no no no not on nylon, but on a variety of other things. The only trouble with super glue gets too brittle. It'll crack off. True. But shoe goo works very well for that sort of thing for a somewhat more permanent repair.

Yeah. That's why I said earlier. It really depends on how you define repair. Because the way I approach a lot of this is is that you're out in the field, you need something to get the thing fixed and get back and action and you'll do a proper repair on it when you get home. Yeah, which is why I lean towards stuff like duct tape, super glue. Quick patch.

Yeah, because you can patch it and you can roll it and you can get back in action. But now they do those, they do make those quick patches that are, they're like a sticker and they've got the adhesive built onto them for backpackers and stuff for like your inflatable sleeping pet. That works pretty well on most rain gear as long as you're not on a point where it's going to be constantly pulling on it and creating like a ripping action. Yeah. And I know we've talked in the past about like, especially if you're going to be out for

several days, a spare pair of boot laces can go a long way. But again, in a pinch in a field repair, unlace your boots, tie the two broken ends back together and then lace them back up and go. Yeah. Before I remembered to tell my wife that I was out of extra boot laces, I had three different spots on one boot that the lace was tied together. They were getting real short. But again, if you're in the field and you need the stupid thing to work for like another

half a day to get you home, that's, that's, that's the way I approach things. Because nine times out of 10, like if I get home, I'm going to make an assessment of whether or not the thing can be fixed or it just needs to get chucked in bought new. I mean, like, it, it's, it's a, it's an interest balancing equation at the end of the day. about how permanent is this, how permanent is this fix going to be? How much does it cost to buy a brand new one? And then I know the next time I go out,

I'm not going to have to worry about this fix, leaking or failure or giving me trouble. I have a brand new thing and I know it's going to work. That's the equation I go through. But in the moment to fix it and get back on the road, that's what I ask myself, how do you fix it and just move on? Makes sense.

But this is also why I always go back to those single-use super glue tubes because you'd be shocked the number of things. You just, I mean, even in an office setting, I've had to hand one nose out to a coworker. I don't you remember what it was that broke.

It might have been like, I think they did that thing where like their shoe started like talking to you because the sole delaminated on the front of the back. Yeah. And just single use of glue tube squirted in there and she put some weight on it for about 30 seconds. Then she was done. But those things are just,

they're too useful. And they're too, I mean, they're not cheap, but they're, they're too affordable. And I actually keep a whole like six of them in a little old pill pill bottle in my work bag. Yeah, they're great. I actually keep in my hiking pack too. And they work really, they work okay if you really should need a stitch, but getting a stitch isn't an option. So, yeah, I use super glue a fair bit at work to glue small cuts shut because it's better than getting the, coolant, oil, and chip, steel chips in the wound.

If you're, say, out backpacking or whatever, and you happen to get a cut that's bad enough that you should probably get stitches, unless you can really be sure you've got that wound cleaned out, you probably shouldn't glue it shut. I mean, unless you're going to bleed out because an infected wound is better than bleeding to death, because we can fix infected wounds. It's awful hard to fix blood to death already. Yeah. Just because you can create a pocket for infection and create an abscess inside that wound and make it worse. This is also the reason why. And if Tommy were here, he might cringe at this advice because this is probably very old advice.

But what I had always been taught back in the day was basically let the damn thing bleed for a little while. The blood rushing out. For a little bit, yeah. The blood rushing out is going to carry most infection out and wash the wound out all by itself. Yeah, yeah, that is true. And you can use. use most potable water. If it would be safe for you to drink, you can usually use it to clean a wound. Yeah. But it may not be perfect. It's not sterile saline, but it beats having dirt or something else in there that will cause an infection.

We started this conversation off by talking about super going your wound shut. So I don't think the need, I don't think saline, sterile saline is part of this equation. Yeah. I mean, some people do keep disposable single-use salient bottles in their first aid kits. Those same people also carry liquid stitch. They do. Unless you're a moron like me and you carry super glue. But it works.

Hey, you know, it, it, I have found that the little satchets of super glue last longer than the little vials of the medical new skin. and stuff like that in your backpack. For whatever reason, they don't seem to harden or go bad as fast. I'm sure it's all part of the medical industries plot to make you spend more money. Or it could just be that it's a different chemical composition. It's the medical industry's plotting. Okay.

Nick's like, whatever, Phil. That's fine. That's fine. If you want to throw a conspiracy theory in there, that's cool. Don't threaten you with a good time, right? Right. I mean, I like a nice conspiracy. All right.

So is there anything else to toss in here about boots or clothing? We started talking about this earlier because, you know, the rabbit started running and we both just said squirrel and started chasing it. Do you use any permanent insect repellants in your clothes, Phil? No. Have you ever tried it? Have not. I own stock in mostly. off. I have applied pirethrin, pyrithron coatings to several pairs of clothes. And I have to say,

seems to work. When I was deer hunting on the edge of a swamp, it worked great. I might have to give that a whirl. I was going to say, since we started talking about bug spray, just to dove that dovetail very quickly back towards maintaining your stuff. Durable waterproof coatings do not like deep. Nope. So, Tense. That's one of the reasons why I put pyrithrum on my base layers for hunting.

Yeah. So let's see here. If you use like deep woods off or anything like that and you spray it around your tents, your cortex, if you have cortex boots or anything with a durable waterproof coating, you're going to discover, you're going to have a really, really unfortunate experience very quickly afterwards.

Yeah, the, what is it, the alcohol or the acetone that they used to keep the deep in solution. DZOL. It will eat the DWR right off. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Seeing it, done it.

Everybody's heard that story. My wife still hasn't lived it down. But you also need to be careful about. That's the stuff for me. Thank you, Jeff. Isn't that what you said? I feel like it's what you. you said. I think I said pyrethrum.

Oh, permethron. That's a different thing. Permethrin is correct. Yes, it is. Probably shouldn't spray that on your clothes if that was not the chemical. Anyway, I mean, anybody that's ever hunted knows that you should probably use, like, scentless detergent

everything to clean your clothing and everything, so you're not taking that out into the woods. I don't know how much that matters. I don't know that it matters a ton. I would just say that, like, me personally i've always made a point of like a mild a mild detergent not a lot of extra crap and everything in it like literally just wash the clothes and especially for things like

especially for things like sleeping bags it's like delicate cycle cold water hang dry sure yeah that makes sense you you have some of this some of this stuff i mean coming from the guy that You used to just chuck a whole, whole duffel bag full of crap into a laundry machine and hit the button and didn't give a damn big out room for the best. Privates or privates for a reason. But like some of this stuff, especially once you get out of the surplus world and you get into like specialty camping hiking stuff, some of this stuff has very specific laundering instructions. And you would be, it would behoove you to pay attention to them and make sure that in the process of cleaning your stuff, you don't F it up royally. Yeah. I mean, that's part of any maintaining anything is knowing how is following what the manufacturer tells you to do for how to maintain it. They all come with that little instruction booklet that everybody throws away without reading it most of the time.

And that usually has your care instructions in there in pretty good detail. Oh, speaking which, I don't remember if I wore it to summer camp or not. I probably had it with me. My old black polar tech fleece jacket. I don't remember if I had it in Michigan or not. It was pretty... I remember you wearing a quite heavy jacket while we were up in Mackinac City when it was blown sideways. I don't remember if that's what I brought or not.

But anyway, so I was issued that in 2003 while we were spooling up to go to Iraq. I just had to retire it a couple of months ago. that's a good jacket um 10 years no it's not bad no no no i'm sorry nick it's 2026 now i'm old 20 years old oh yeah that's a good point yeah uh finally uh one of the zip one of the two zippers fell off just kind of ran off the bottom of the track and disappeared but yeah um had holes in the pockets it It was time to go. It was time to let it go. I just had my mom, she's a much better seamstress than me or my wife.

Just had to put a new zipper on one of my jackets because I like it so much. I went ahead and let this one go just because like if I replaced the zipper, the poor. At 20 years, yeah, the nylon's probably gone. This was a zipper that from the factory was never quite right. Yeah. But I replaced it with an olive drab version. of it because you know the army doesn't change anything and they basically continue to issue some version of this thing all the way until current times so is that that fleece that i see

pretty much every guy that's ever served wear that's a quality fleece i know exactly which what you're talking about now oh hell yeah it's quality it lasts it through 20 years of hell on earth with me it's been all over the world but it finally it finally said that'll be the that'll be the that'll be the fleece that I see every kind of close to Gwatt vet wearing. My buddy's got two of them. I'm certain I know exactly which fleece you're talking about. Yeah, check the tag on the inside.

Betta says polar tech. He is such a cheap ass. I guarantee you it's the one he was issued in Basic. One of these days, we're going to have to do like a study of Gwad vets. I swear to God, there's got to be so much weird shit. Only us do.

and every one of us does it. I mean, you already called me out because it's like, okay, Phil, dude, you own a coffee company, you do a podcast, you have a beer and you have tattoos. You're the G-Y. I'm saying, man, you wrote a book, you promote coffee, you got yourself a podcast, full sleeve, and then you're there.

Full sleeve and then you're there. You know what, just for that, I'm not getting a full sleeve ever. Just out of spite. That's fair. Oh, I really can't think of anything else to throw in here, though, man. I mean, I think that's good. Do we want to tease next week?

We should. We should. So I don't know whose idea this was. I'm going to give it to Nick, though. I think it was Nick's idea. I thought it was your idea. Well, if it turns out poorly, I'm definitely going to blame it on you. Oh, that's fine.

I will accept the blame. And if it turns out good, I'm going to steal the credit. Good. Yes. Anyway, like a proper boss Exactly Like a proper politician Yeah, ouch

Anyway, Nick and I are going to dream up a nickname for his wife Unless we want to rename Unless we want to rename her Mrs. Matter of facts And my wife would become Mrs. Raisin values. The patrons seem to call her mom Yeah, she does kind of have mom vibes.

Well, she did mom incorrectly. M-O-F mom. Could. Anyway, we're going to invite my wife and Nick's wife onto the show. And I think at some point we were talking about having a topic. But the more I think about it, I think we just, I don't know, the four of us just sit down and bull crap and see what comes out. Talk about like, we could do that. Well, you and I kind of started out like doing like, I'm giving this an inner.

quotes dad advice because I'm a dad but not a dad you must be watching the show but like you know given just I don't know life advice talking about relationships talking about how the two of us met our spouses and what the hell possess those two to tolerate us for God's sakes I mean my wife works lack of decision making at a critical moment well my wife works with special special needs children so I'm just assuming she loves idiots mine also works with young children. So it makes sense. Didn't you and I had this conversation, though, about like, we did.

So you got you, me, Eddie, and Chris, all four of us are married to teachers. Yep. Yeah, there's a type there. They're used to dealing with children and irrational behavior. Oh, good God. But yeah, that's what we're going to do next week. It's going to the two-man show is going to turn into a foursome show and Christ Almighty only knows what's going to come out of that. It'll be fun.

It'll be fun. You should. We should get our wives texting each other because they'll figure something out. They'll organize it. They're planners. Hmm. I mean, I'm pretty sure our wives already have each other's numbers. But I don't know if they currently are texting each other.

They might be now that I've said it. But yes, Raggle. I am also sensing a trend. Yeah. Although Nick and I came to that conclusion when we started talking about our various hobbies. And I'm like, oh, great. So two nerdy guys that both grew up playing Mansion to Gathering and Tabletop RPGs. Yep.

Who are borderline on the autism spectrum, almost certainly. Yeah, probably. My wife said, told me she thought I was the other day a while back. whatever. I told her it's a good excuse for me to make a rideable miniature train in the backyard. Yeah, we've been watching Big Bang Theory a lot lately. That's a great show. Yeah, it is.

To a point. It's a great, it's a great show, but every now and then Sheldon will do or say something, I'll be like, shit. Have you ever watched, all right, you need to go. There's a YouTube channel that did Big Bang Theory, but without the laugh track. it's weird well rachel i think what it says about the husbands is that we had the good sense to marry women who were used to dealing with children yes yes kinder smarter people than us

and y'all get the best of both worlds you all get fully grown adults capable of making money who are young at heart yes that's a nice way of saying you know, young at heart, acts like a child sometimes. Young at heart, old in the joints. Oh, that's the best of both. That's the worst of both worlds. It is.

It's like, my brain says, I'm 12. My body says you're 80. It's not my fault. They didn't come with grease shirts. I would have used them. All right. But yeah, Rachel, you and my wife can talk. And whether or not,

We have a topic or it just winds up being a melee between spouses. God only knows. But that'll be fun either way. It will be fun either way. But that's matter of facts for the night. It's almost 9 o'clock. It's actually not my bedtime yet, but I'm very old. And I climbed enough stairs and I'm frankly tired.

And I've got at least three hours tomorrow of climbing stairs again. Well, you know what, Phil? you did want to work on your fitness. I knew you were going to say that. Take this. Hey, dude, today was a cardio day. I didn't want to do it either, but I did. Nick, you know, I love you to death, right?

But sometimes it's a really good thing that I can't strangle you through this computer screen. I know, right? And I'm really quick over short distances, too. I'm telling you, though, if I ever get Rachel on my side, you're in trouble. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be a problem.

problem. There's only two people I really can't say no to. Yeah. Well, her and my grandma. Oh, you don't say no to grandma. No, can't say no to grandma. All right. Matter of fact, going out the door. Good night to everybody. Thanks y'all for hanging out with us. I saw Dr. Scary guy in here for a little bit. You're on my list to try to get back in touch with. He actually reached out to me through Facebook. Nice. And because Meta's notifications are freaking stupid. He reached out to me a week ago and I got it today. So it took me a minute to figure out that this person was Dr. Scary guy because different logging names in different places.

But anyway, I got to get connected and see if he wants to join the masochism in the Signal group. It's fun and informative. And no, Raggle, I sure haven't. I'll talk to you offline. I've been there's been personal things. not like world-chattering, just personal things, horning in on my time. Life and family.

Shit gets complicated sometimes. No freaking shit. All right. Going out the door, good night, talk to y'all another week, and we'll bring the spouses with us to keep us in line. Bye, everybody.

Good night.