The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: Keep Up, Or Not

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

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Welcome back to the MatterFacts 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 mofpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Rablis, and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. And welcome back to the of Facts Podcast. The title of the show is Keep Up or Not and we are probably going to start chasing

rabbits any minute now because it's been a long day and there's there's Tullamore Dew in this cup. Oh, I got water. Well, I mean. You didn't tell me it was a drinking show. It's not really a drinking show unless you want to start talking about the atf

it was more like a drinking day but the uh the the storm that swept across country from west to east woke me up at two o'clock this morning when it sounded like baghdad outside my house from the thunder and lightning and then i don't know i don't know how long i was awake or how long took me to go back to sleep but i don't feel like I got enough sleep last night. So here we are. I have been self-medicating with NyQuil, and it's awesome. So you've been making out with the green fairy every night then? Yeah.

And, well, so what's crazy, like, so when I start getting sick, which I feel like a freaking ton better today. I mean, I called a script in, or I called the Teladoc, and that was awesome. like so when i start getting sick which i feel like a freaking ton better today i mean i call the script and i called it the teledoc and that was awesome it only took three minutes and he was like what do you normally do and i'm like well it's a sinus infection and i get uh oh crap it's the uh penicillin shoot damn it amoxicillin yes thank you Damn it. Amoxicillin. Yes, thank you. God dang it. I always forget that for some reason. But anyway, I go, yep, I usually self-medicate for a few days, and then it doesn't go away, and I go to the doctor, and I get amoxicillin.

And he goes, how long have you been self-medicating? And I said, since Thursday. And this was Saturday. And he goes, so more than 10 days? And I go, yeah. He goes he goes all right here's a script he goes go get it I'm like all right cool so so yeah um but no I've been uh self-medicating with NyQuil and holy crap I do still toss and turn and I still get up in the middle of the night sometimes but man I fall right back asleep and I felt like I've slept better in the last three days being sick than I have in like the last three months like it's and it's addicting because I'm like I man I should

just keep doing it but no I can't but uh I don't know I I was shocked because uh not to go down this stupid rabbit hole but I last night I got out of work, got home at like around midnight, had to be back up and back to work at 7. And I think I got to bed, I think I fell asleep at almost 1 o'clock, and I did a shot of Night Quill just to kind of try to knock me out. Of course, that didn't work. I tossed and turned and stayed awake until I think it was like 1.15, 1.30 was the last time I looked at my clock. I woke up wide awake on my own five minutes before my alarm went off at 6 o'clock. I was like, I woke up.

I'm like thinking, I'm like, crap, I'm late. I overslept. 5.55. I'm like, what in the heck, body? And I felt great. I felt so freaking good. I felt like, what in the heck, body? And I felt great. I felt so freaking good. Like, I felt like I slept for like 12 hours. So I was like, I don't, man, I don't know.

I need to get that recipe. I mean, I usually stick to a pretty good regimen of peaceful thoughts and calming energy right before bedtime. I don't know. I can see why you toss and turn a lot. Look, you know, you would think that as high strung as I am, but to this day I piss my wife off so bad because when I'm ready for bed, I literally like turn off my lamp, roll over, three minutes and I'm snoring. It's this weird thing I inherited from when I was in the military

where it was like, okay, y'all got an hour to get some rest, and the light's out. It's just like a programmed part of my brain that just says it is time to go night, night, click and flip the switch and I'm done. But it drives people who can't sleep that easily crazy. So anyway, so I thought we would have a conversation today because like got to talking about some of our older gun builds. And for me, it's some of the builds that I really haven't fooled with a lot in the last couple of years. So the very first firearm I ever bought for me with my own money was a Kimber. Because every firearm collection needs a 1911.

And at the time – Not a Kimber, though. Well, but hear me out, okay? I'm just – I mean, some anger i know you're you're not you're not mad you're just disappointed i get it but um so hear me out the rationale behind this was this was like 2005 early 2005 and kimber had not long prior to this released the TLE RL2, which the custom TLE series was, you know, like it was a black coating. They were for Kimbers because Kimbers are usually referred to as like barbecue guns. You know what I'm saying?

They're very ornate. They're very pretty. And the custom series. Safe Queen. Yeah. Well, the custom series, it's all matte black. It's got black grips on it. It's not a really pretty gun.

It's not a very ornate gun. But it's because they were modeled after the contract firearm that was specced for LAPD SWAT. They are the ones that had Kimber build them all their 1911s for the SWAT departments out in there. You know, I think this would have been back in the mid to late 90s. So Kimber was now selling basically a version of that firearm on the open civilian market, and the TLE RL2 had the integrated accessory rail built into the dust cover. Unlike the original mid to late 90s contract guns for LAPD SWAT, which they used something, it was something Surefire that was purpose-made for the 1911.

Basically, it was an accessory light, I think that attached to like the dust cover and the front of the trigger guard. I don't remember all the details. So that was my emphasis for getting one. I wanted a 1911. I kind of wanted a 1911 with an accessory rail on it. At the time, there were not a lot of options out there. All your 1911s, this is like pre-Springfield Operator. This is before a lot of the more modern 1911s with accessory rails. And I like the gun. Honestly, I haven't had a lot of complaints out of it.

And interestingly enough, Kimbers of this vintage are well known because this is when Kimber flirted with an external extractor versus the internal extractor that all other 1911s use. Kimber had so many problems with this design, with breaking extractors and breaking extractor springs and poor cycling they eventually recalled all those guns and to this day if you send in one of those external extractor guns to them they're going to send you a brand new slide back they will not service them so i still have that external extractor on my gun and it still runs fine. Like it extracts fine.

I get a little bit of an issue. I had a little bit of an issue with feeding for a while, but I traced it back to like my boneheaded reloading practices when I first started. I wasn't crimping around enough. So I had a little bit too much flare. It was getting stuck on the way into the chamber. It was totally my fault. Once I cleaned that up, that gun's been really reliable actually. But here comes the thing.

That gun is cursed with Crimson Trace laser grips. Because in the mid-2000s, that was like the thing. Everybody had to have a laser on every freaking handgun. And it also has a Surefire X200 on it, which you might remember, but the people that have been in the gun business for very long, that see like the Surefire X300s and the X300 turbos, the X200A is the predecessor to all those. And to be fair, this little tack light is brighter than that thing is

like in by modern standards it's by modern standards it has laser grips on which are just completely out of vogue and it has a weapon light that is laughably anemic compared to what they have available today and so i find myself in this quandary of, I built this gun and like, if I wanted a period correct kind of quasi FUD gun, like this is it. It's all those parts and all those decisions date back to that time. I even swapped out the flat mainspring housing with an arch mainspring housing because at the time, that was more popular. But it begs the question of now it's like looking back on this thing with hindsight, it's like, do I rip this thing apart and change all this stuff? Like get rid of it.

Sell it. I can't sell it. Sell it. It's my first handgun though. I know. No, my first handgun was a. 45 as well 1911 yeah uh but it says colt property of the u.s army on the side of it and uh it does not have anything cool like no cool rail it says colt property of u.s army on the side of it that's way freaking cooler than a kimber in my

opinion i know my it was a hand-me-down i got from my great uncle and he got it from i believe the story is he bought it from a um like an armory or something back when he was in the military uh but he he got it i think i think i heard it i think if i remember right he said he i think i heard he got it for like $25. That sounds about right. Mid to late 70s. Yeah. That thing has slotted commies, by the way. So the serial number, I put the serial number into the Googles, and it came up dated back to Vietnam. Yep.

So I don't know much history, much on it but i mean i carried that thing uh it was my first pistol and i got it when i i actually went through my cpl class with it and i did some firearms training with it and uh yeah that was a fun gun to carry uh it's heavy uh i love it and now it's a safe queen i haven queen. I haven't fired it in I don't know how long, but it's still pretty solid, and I love it. I would love to, and it makes me want to get another 1911 because I would love to still carry one. But, man, I don't know. Maybe I'll carry that one one day just for the heck of it, for old nostalgia. I mean, you know, I admit that, like, you and I break on this.

Like, I'm not a collector when it comes to firearms. Firearms are very utilitarian for me. But I do have an emotional connection to the Kimber just because it's my first. You know, like, I couldn't – that thing and, you know, my late grandfather's 308 Winchester, I couldn't get rid of. I couldn't get rid of for any money. I don't care. Like offer me 20 acres of prime real estate. I don't care.

I can't part with them. I can never replace those farms because of the emotional connection I have. The Kimber I would let go for 20 acres of prime real estate in the middle of nowhere. If somebody wants to make me that offer, like we could do paperwork right here now. But my late grandfather's three-way winchester it's nothing special it's a ruger m77 but it's it's sentimental to me because in his literal will he wanted that into my hands so i'd have a connection to him what about 20 acres a pond, garden, like a project farm, like all the whole setup, like basically like Rick and Jane. And I'll let you come over once a year to shoot it.

I don't know, man. Conjugal visits on top of all that makes a strong argument. But no. No, I mean, I know exactly what you're saying because i got i mean i'm a gun collector i there are certain guns on my list that i still want uh and i eventually will probably get hopefully maybe one day i don't know nowadays with the freaking stupid gun laws that michigan's pushing down our throats uh but i there are a few guns I, I have an old Ithaca pump 16 gauge that my grandpa gave me and that thing. Yeah.

I understand that. Like it's, I have a little bit of old, like 16 gauge ammo. Uh, but yeah, or I have a Marlin, uh, 10 22 for my great uncle and, you know, a couple, a couple other guns and yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to let go, but yeah, going, going off of a gun that you could modify uh the question is is do you uh and to what extent and if you do or is it better just to build something new or buy something better uh and then the other thing too is i mean this can go with along with ars is like i mean one of my first ars that i ever built i still have and that thing

has been through so many different versions uh i mean current it's now currently a 16 inch version because of the you know awesome wonderful etf that we have uh so it's currently a 16 inch instead of a 10 and a half uh but it's gonna go back and uh but yeah i mean that's the thing is how often do you want to do it or is it just better like i said to build something different uh and then especially with the just the new technology with dots and lasers and if you want to get into the whole night vision thing and do you reap uh re uh what renovate a rifle and or repurpose a rifle to night vision or do you just build another one i mean i guess it all depends on like your budget it's all budget based too because it's like okay well i can take this platform and i can turn it around and make it do exactly what i want less money than

purchasing or building a whole another one but i i'm all for more guns the better so if you want to i push people to either buy or build uh another one which honestly that's probably what i'm gonna do i'm i've been the more i've been looking at it i'm like well i got all the parts pretty much to build a lower put together and pretty much all the parts to put a upper together um i'm missing only maybe a couple springs here and there but it's like well you know what instead of repurposing it again i'm gonna build another one and call it good and that's the thing is like the cz scorpion that i have uh i love it as uh like a like a truck gun or something like that and it's like okay well i'm gonna repurpose that one that's been kind of just like a range toy here and there but now since i've been getting kind of settled in what

i want to do with it because it's it's something that like i never knew i just kind of kept it in the safe didn't really do much with it because i had an idea of what i wanted to do i just didn't know exactly what i wanted uh but now that with the the nods and stuff like that, and I'm looking at another suppressor, um, I'll probably end up turning that one into like a little, like a sub gun. I mean, something, uh, it's small, compact, uh, throw it in a backpack, uh, suppress it and, uh, call it good, call it a day and set it up for some night vision. And, uh, it's going to be golden. Yeah. And then that's's that's kind of where that's i'm kind of on the see when it comes to like the night my kimber as a specific example like i'm i'm at this point i'm about to just take the crimson trays laser grips and chuck them in the trash

like i never use the silly things they're they're functionally freaking useless and i do have the original factory grips which are actually like so this also gets into this whole idea of like changing trends and everything but like the grips that came on this kimber you remember when there was a period of time and this is like kind of i don't want to say pre-plastic fantastic but like when you had changeable grips on firearms, probably 20 years ago now, the thing at the time was more rubber textured grips. You know what I'm saying? Like not having a super aggressive mechanical bond via a very aggressive texture, but it

was just to basically rubberize almost the grips. U-Go or not the U-Go? I think I know what you're talking about. I mean, they're... Yeah, but that's the factory grips on the TLE RL2, and I still have those. So I'm thinking about putting those back on. It's not like the G10 super aggressive grips, like what we both run on our CZs. It's more of a very smooth but rubberized grip.

It's actually a really nice set of grips. The only reason I took them off is because I thought, you know, handguns need lasers, whatever. But when I look at that Surefire X200 and I think to myself, I'm like, is it really worth putting a freaking like a 3, 4, 500,000 lumen weapon light on this thing when it's basically a Safe queen range toy and I just can't justify that like I've got an x300 on my czp09 which is de facto like if I had to have a handgun to do serious things with that'd be what I would pick you know it's got a much more powerful light on it it's shoots much flatter than the 1911 does. It's got 21 round magazines.

It's 9mm instead of.45. Like, there's all kinds of reasons why I don't depend on the Kimber as a home defense firearm any longer. I don't want to say I've moved on, but, like... Because it might break. I mean, that is always an outside possibility. And like we've already talked about, if something goes wrong with this external extractor, the gun goes goes back to kimber and they're going to rip it apart and send it back like i will never unless you try to use it for self-defense and you die yeah but again it's never been unreliable and i've had enough rounds for a thing that i've had to change the main spring on it so it's or the recoil spring so it's it's it's got a lot of rounds on it, and it still runs great. But it's just one of those things where it's like

8 rounds of.45 ACP, 21 rounds of 9mm. There's a reason why I carry a double-stack 9mm for a carry gun, because I get 14, 15, or 16 rounds, depending on which magazine I'm running, in the gun. There's a reason why I have a PO-9 as my bedside gun, because I got 21 rounds of 9mm on tap. I can fix a lot of problems. So I just don't, it's one of those situations where it's like, I probably changed the grips, I can justify that, especially because I already have them. I don't think I would spend a lot of

time or effort or money further upgrading the firearm. Yes, yes, yes, Ben, stop. More stopping power. M-O-A-R, more stopping power. But in all seriousness. And then on the other hand, I've got an AK that has been extraordinarily ripped apart and modified. Again, at the time, I can't even say it was in vogue like the ak community is funny because there's there's this one school of thought where it's like everything has to be wood everything has to be com block parts you know and then you have me who has magpul furniture on

this thing which drives some people crazy especially because it's a saiga and most people say it's a Russian AK. Why didn't you spend the money to get somebody to really do a conversion on it, make it a fully correct, like, you know, AK-103 or whatever. But to my point, it's like, I didn't care. It's an AK. I put a Magpul fixed stock on it because I didn't like the folding stock they made. And because the factory stocks all have this kind of like this gooseneck feature to them where there's a hitch in the stock that positions the receiver higher up relative to your shoulder.

And the Magpul stock is very much a straight inline stock, which I think helps with recoil mitigation. You basically took a Russian and got its immigration papers and made it an American. Pretty much. I mean, I didn't quite like walk it over the border like what they are doing these days. But yeah, we did it the right way and immigrated it and got it some papers. We made it official. See, I was going to go, I want to go the other way around. And I mean, I bought a Palmetto State Armory AK just because I, one, can't afford a kalashnikov and two you can't really find

original kalashnikov i've seen unmolested saigas but you're gonna spend eight nine hundred bucks just you're gonna spend eight or nine hundred bucks before you send it to a gunsmith to get it you know get it torn apart rebuilt as a quote-unquote correct Right. So anyway, yeah, no, I agree. And that's the thing is, I've been looking at mine and actually, like, because I'm cheap in that aspect, I was like, how can I make this look like a Russian AK without actually making

it a spending the money? And Paul Metal State Armory, I love their AK. Like, it runs so freaking smooth and it runs great. Never had an issue with it yet uh but i'm gonna put some wood stock on it eventually and they make a wood kit for it i just i just like that wood i mean i've always been a fan boy of the woods the wood and uh i've also been a fan of the modernization uh look of it as well the rails and all the you know everything

like that and so i've always wanted two will i get two nah probably not uh but you know i can it wouldn't i wouldn't mind having a uh one with some wood and making it look uh pretty neat uh old school because uh in the coming future i need a ak and wood stock to hold on top of my head over my head and yell wolverines at the top of my lungs from a building top because that's coming around the corner very fast so yeah and that was the other thing i was thinking about that gun on top of just the furniture on it um do you know what the ultimac is i've heard of it okay so that's that, again, this is in current, and this is going to be a theme developing here, but like in current AK aftermarket part, you know, production, what's much more common is for people to have either a rear sight block replacement or something that hinges onto the hand guard that, you know, kind of sits on top of the rear sight block for you to mount a red dot in that position where it's closer to your eye further down the receiver towards you.

However, none of that existed at the time I built this thing. So what was much more common back then was either to use the side accessory rails, and then you would get, I forget what, RS-regulate. You'd get an RS-regulate side piece, and you would mount your optic directly above the dust cover, which kind of brought its own problems in. Because now you had to space it just right, so you could still get the dust cover off without having to take off your optic mount. Although they were quick releases, so you could still get the dust cover off without having to take off your optic mount although they were quick releases so you could if you needed to but the other thing that was very common was the ultimac which was a gas tube replacement so you take your factory gas tube which is nothing but a piece of sheet metal that's just pinched in place between a clevis on one side and the gas the front gas block and the ultimac clamped to your barrel so it would act as

a gas block but it also acted as a solidly mounted optic rail and that's what i have on that firearm with a uh with a bushnell trs-25 little cheapo red dot sitting right on top of it it's kind of mounted like where you would think about a scout rifle having its LPV, its long eye relief scope mounted, you know, like it's, it's kind of way further away from the eye than what is traditionally used now. But I can tell you from having brought it to the range and made like perfectly respectable hundred yard hits on an eight inch plate, it works. Having the scope, having the red dot mounted that far away from the eye really doesn't hurt anything as far as usage it doesn't even make picking up the red picking up the dot in the window much

harder because if you just put your cheek on the stock and you you find the front sight post the dot is right there in your sight line but again it's what it's one it's one of these things of the current state of aftermarket for the ak nobody does that anymore because a lot of people cooked their optics doing it so the ultimax kind of fall in our favor and these other things are in use now right and i guess i mean that could kind of lead in a little bit into the changing trends of the gun industry and i mean that's the one thing that uh with ak's especially i guess we'll keep going down this rabbit hole is they like it's not it you can still mount it that far forward but that also was because back when when you started when you did that that was really the

only good mounting position for an optic or you got the mount that it can't you know it mounted on the side of your receiver because if you try to mount it on the the dust cover if you ever seen a ak-47 in slow motion there's a reason why there's like no dirt ever found in that freaking thing you shoot it and it rattles up completely apart and comes back together like a wizard but the what's nice though is like companies like jmac uh jmac customs and stuff who have like dedicated their career basically customizing the ak and making it better uh like they've made dust cover adaptions that actually are like picatinny rail that are mounted and they're bolted and like they they're secure enough to where they you can throw a red dot you can you can throw something on there and it'll keep the hero and you can shoot well and i was going to point out that even not just the aftermarket but even the uh even the firearms manufacturers and importers have caught on to this because

some of the century arm models i want to say might have been like the m85 or the m92 the the pap pistols the little it was basically a crank off without the stock was what they were importing for the longest while those actually have a dust cover that is hinged so it is permanently fixed to the firearm and when you push the button on the back of the dust cover like you would normally push it and just take the dust cover completely off the firearm in this this case, it hinges up and forward, but because it is permanently attached to the receiver, it's not like

precision marksman going to return to zero, but it's going to be close enough that you can legitimately use it. And a lot of the newer generation of the dust covers that have the Picatinny rails on them, there's some kind of a system to either shim them to make them fit a lot tighter,

or they have an additional attachment point to the front receiver. Like there have been efforts to make that more viable. But you're right, back in the day, like there were always those guys who would basically rivet a piece of pick rail onto the top of the dust cover. And I have a Saiga. pick rail onto the top of the dust cover and i have a saiga it's probably the best fit tightest ak import into the u.s arguably with the exception of like a poly a chinese polytech or something like saigas are very well regarded for their fit and finish and even that thing like you can you can twist that dust cover back and forth it was never meant to be an optics mounting point.

And even the side accessory rail that RS regularly kind of made their name making really high quality mounts for scopes and red dots that would position it above the dust cover, even that side mount was never meant by the Russians to be a precision optic mount. It was meant to be a mount for night vision. And even then, it was only meant to be combat effective up to like 50 yards. So like, there's nothing envisioned in the design of the AK. Bear in mind that this design

dates back to the 40s. You know, like, let's be realistic. And yeah, you can make the argument that the design of the AR dates back to like, what, the late 50s, early 60s? So like neither of these firearms were ever envisioned to be able to use the things that we use today. But an AK was never designed or built or made to mount precision optics to. So everything that people have done to try to do that has been working within the design parameters. And the Ultimac was one of those options. But after a whole bunch of guys burned up really expensive red dots, it kind of fell out of favor. I can't see myself taking that part off the firearm, though, because quite frankly, it works.

And if I burn up a cheap red dot, I just throw another one on. Who gives a damn? Run until it breaks, put another one on. It's a range toy. And by the way, anybody that's never tried it, get yourself an RPK drum for an AK and just go out to the range. And I swear, you can hear FUD brain cells self-destructing while you're mag-dumping a drum.

It's amazing fun. But if you get a drum, for God's sake, spend the money and get a Chinese, a Romanian, or a Russian drum. The Korean ones are trash, trash, trash. So anyway. Yeah, I mean, I guess kind of going off the trends and stuff of the gun industry, what's interesting is the whole red dot situation. You have yet to catch up on that.

But, yeah, the like RMR and everything like that, it's to me, it's a game changer. What's interesting is once you use it and then you're like, man, I wonder if I can shoot irons. So you go back, you know, you go back to shooting irons and, uh, test yourself a little bit, but, uh, but no, I hands down, there are certain things, you know, and the kind of, yeah, I mean, LPVOs, MPVOs, red dots. I mean, it's all purpose. It's all, what is the purpose of your build? What's, what's going on with your gun? Why do you want to do it? Uh, what? What are you using it for? Stuff like that.

So I really could care less why people do stuff. It's just like, well. But let's chase the rabbit that you started talking about, red dots on handguns. There is currently a raging debate about open emitter versus closed emitters on red dots. I think the whole. I think the industry is going closed. It's back and forth from what I'm seeing. Because hear me out. I don't think there's much more debate to be had about red dots on pistols.

Five years ago, ten years ago definitely, there was a ton of debate to be had. I, among other people, had a lot of worries about putting electronic things as my primary sighting system on a handgun. But I think at this point that market has become mature enough because of the Trijicon RMR and even because of the Holosuns, the 407s and 507s, like they take enough abuse that most people have gotten past the worry. But now the new debate is open emitter, closed emitter. the worry. But now the new debate is open emitter, closed emitter. And it's the same, I hear a lot of the same kind of discussion we had about red dots on pistols in the first place. The open emitter optics, the RMR, the 407, the 507, they are well-known commodities. They have a long track

record. I don't think anybody's going to debate with me that the RMR is the ultimate king on the block for reliability and durability. But the 407 and 507 are so close for less money that you can make a really good argument for those two. And then here come the closed emitter optics. I call them the mailboxes, because every one of them looks like a mailbox. That's the Aimpoint Acro,

Holocene AEMS. Help me out here, Andrew. The Steiner MPS. Steiner MPS. I don't know. I know what you're talking about. The the mailboxes they all look like a mailbox yeah yeah in a way they kind of do i mean it's interesting the the different sizes and stuff like that uh but uh no i there i having shot some closed emitter uh and open emitter uh and have done some research on both i mean both are

great i could definitely see uh i don't know i could definitely see having both i'm gonna i mean i have both uh and and both there's pros and cons in both and the biggest pro though of uh the closed emitter system is just the fact that it's nitrogen purged it doesn't really fog up and if you do drop it or i mean if you're training and you're in your you're putting it through some paces and you say you drop it in the mud or you drop it somewhere in the dirt or whatever have you that emitter is not going to get mucked up and blocked and then you're going to have to sit there and try to blow it out or try to knock the sand loose or whatever, what have you. So, yeah, you know, there's the pros for that.

But, I mean, and I'd say price, but really the price for both closed and open are really the same price. I mean, they're close enough. I mean, well, if you look at, like, the Trijicon, I mean, Trijicon, their new Arm Rhd and then the rcr i think it is uh i mean they're the same price so yeah i don't know i mean it's honestly it's just it's pick your poison i don't it's what you want i mean and a lot of it comes down to conceal carry too like so if you want if you want something more for open carry duty carry uh

i would go i would go closed emitter all day long open uh concealed carry uh the only reason i would say the only reason i would i'm i would kind of lean away from state i'd lean away from uh the closed emitter is just the profile uh you know, you have a big block of something that's on there. And so if you're not dressed accordingly or whatever, it could print a little bit worse than what an open emitter. But that being said, I know people who have closed emitters and they can still carry them just fine. They dress around it.

So I don't know. Again, it's to each their own. If you want to follow the trend and you want to jump on it, do it. Train with it. But I guess here's the question. Let's say, hypothetically, because the title of the episode was Keep Up or Not, you already have a gun. You already have a...

It doesn't matter. Concealed carry gun or an open carry gun gun it's got an open it's got an old school open emitter optic on it say it's a trijicon rmr it's been cooking along for five years haven't given me a lick of problems the only problem is it runs you got to unmount every now and then take the batteries out oh well get over it and then the closed emitter optics come out, do you take the optic off that you are familiar with, that you train with, that is a known commodity that you fully expect is going to soldier on as long as you keep taking remotely decent care of it? Or do you say, but the industry is moving towards closed emitters, maybe I should get a closed emitter optic? Like, that is the ultimate

question that I keep coming back to is, I built a firearm. I built a system of parts that all work together. Do I fudge with it or do I say it works? It works exactly the way it was designed to work. It worked. All these pieces do a thing that I put them together to do. Do I rip it apart just because the industry has moved on or do I say, no, leave that alone? Maybe the next firearm I'll play with a closed emitter, but do you go back and rip all the RMRs off and replace them with something else because the industry has moved on? No, I mean, and I haven't done that. I have a, my M&P, I have an M&P 9C that's milled for an RMR. I ran an RMR on it for a while uh i bought an sro and actually my rmr i took that off i put the sro on um i don't have a closed closed emitter um optic on that

pistol uh and i probably won't i probably will not i'll probably if anything i might if anything i might get the rmr hd and put that on there uh but my rmr i took off and i put it on my shotgun and it's especially since the rmr was never really meant for a pistol you know it was always meant for a rifle or something like that so with me with the whole aspect and that's the thing is like that's the one aspect of the rmr that i hated was the fact that you have to take it off to put a new battery in i'm more comfortable with taking it off to put the battery in and having it on my shotgun versus and yeah i you know it's still good to get out there and re-zero those slugs and stuff like that but i'm more i'm more comfortable with throwing it on my shotgun throwing it back on my shotgun retort you know uh torquing the everything

downwards in spec and all that stuff and then okay throwing it in the corner or put it back safe and say okay i can get out this weekend i can get out in two weeks and i can just i can throw a slug down range make sure it's on versus my carry gun pop gun, pop it off, put it back on. Now I'm like, okay, do I really want to trust it? And maybe, like, hopefully it's kept zero. Well, no, it's my carry gun. So that's why I swapped it to the SRO. It's just the top-loaded battery, larger window, and I really do like it.

Now, does it hold up to the abuse that RMR does no I mean has it been dinged around yes and so and it's been holding on strong but that's kind of why I was thinking about well I really like the RMR and I really like the design and I really like the uh the abuse that RMR can take so with a carry gun I think I might go the RMR HD and throw it on there you get the RMR design and you get the top-loaded battery. Now, that being said, I do have my heart set on an RCR and getting the mailbox. So the RCR is

Trijicon's closed emitter? Okay. I'm going to Google that real quick because I feel like I am wrong. I mean, I don't have a dog in the fight because I haven't made the jump to red dots on pistols yet, but like... Yes, they are.

I'm not an early adopter on almost anything, and I'm probably going to wind up... I'm stuck between an RMR and like a Hollison 507. And I don't know. Like, the Trijicon is not that much more expensive than a 507. And on the one hand, the 507 is not exactly not durable. People have beat the hell out of the things. But at the same time, I know people who have shot the literal glass out of them. Like, shot them to destruction.

So it's one of those situations where it's like, of these two things, I think the RMR will outlive me. But the 507 is probably going to do everything I needed to do and then some, because the round counts I've heard from people I trust that say they finally broke a 507, it's just ludicrous. I mean, it's like professional firearms instructor shoots it at the range every weekend type of stuff, and I'm just not going to reproduce those round counts. Well, no, I mean, yeah, the 507 has been producing some good numbers.

I mean, I'm not knocking Holosun. I have, I don't know, a handful of Holosun products. But, you know, and that's the thing is they're doing something right. Whoever their freaking QA people are and, and like their engineers and stuff like that whatever they're doing they're doing it right it's china it's china crap but it's like it's good china crap i mean i i compare that to the sig romeo that i've shot before and i have the sig romeo is china crap and for some reason i don't i mean obviously they're not coming out of the same freaking uh child factory because the romeo sucks i hate the romeo with a passion it it has died it's been crap but the the hollow suns i

like i said i run a red dot i run a red dot on my ar and I've ran that thing. It's five years, maybe six. I don't remember now, uh, beat the crap out of it. It's fallen. It's banged on my truck. It's,

it's gone through the motions. And that thing is, it's, it's been great. Like how soon has been making really good stuff. I just, when it comes to certain things, I would almost, i just would rather i prefer

to just try to pay american and uh support american companies and uh especially a michigan based company like trigicon and so that's kind of why i lean towards trigicon quite a bit and granted i have an sro and i have an rmr i like i said i plan on buying i you know i've been kind of waiting to see like some of the new uh especially with the the new rcr and the rmr hd i just i kind of want them just to get out and get field tested and uh just some more people bang on them a little bit and stuff like that i'd want i want to see them more and the stuff i've been seeing out of them is very impressive and so yeah that's why i'm like you know what i'm gonna spend the money and i'll probably end up getting both of them down the road eventually but it's again i mean for your

pistol if i if i mean if it was me i'm happy i went with the r or the rmr route uh because at the time it was i couldn't find the r or the sro at all in stock and the rmr was it's i mean it's hands down one of the best the rmr pistol optics on the market and but with now with the s or now with the sro um or the rmr hd i mean heck i mean why not if you're gonna get the rmr you might as well get the hd i mean yeah it's a little bit more expensive but it's top load battery it's got the front facing sensor uh it's got a lot going for it and it's it's a heck of a freaking optic yeah trijicon i think trijicon really did a good job with it i wish they would have released this years ago but from talking to some people that i know that at trigicon uh it's just they had to

read basically redesign the rmr from the ground up because the fact that they had this design that worked awesome it was robust i mean you couldn't kill it and people wanted a top load battery well it's like the the electronics inside really don't call for a top load battery. Well, it's like the, the electronics inside really don't call for a top load battery. So we need to read, re-engineer this entire thing. And they did. And I have seen a lot of good things out of it and I cannot, and I, and it's, yeah, I wish I could get my hands on one right now, but unfortunately I can't, uh, down the road. Yes. It's hopefully within the next couple of months. So, so let's dovetail this into more of an AR-centric discussion. SPRs are cool, then CQB is cool.

Because I've seen, and you've been around ARs long enough, like I have, that you've probably seen this go back and forth several times, where there's been a period of time where everything from the gun industry to the manufacturers to social media to the influencers everybody was building sprs and recce rifles it was the hot thing everybody had to have one everybody wanted one and all of these tiny little red dot equipped cqb rifles just they weren't they weren't cool anymore and then the industry shifted and all of a sudden all these 18 and 20 inch guns with the the lpvos or the mid-power variable optics suddenly weren't cool anymore everybody wanted

a tiny little you know tiny little collapse down cqb gun and we're seeing this a lot kind of in tandem with the night vision game because now we're seeing the i call it the battle of the optic risers like everybody's trying to see how tall of an optic riser they can make before people just throw the BS flag and say, this is ridiculous. You know, like we went from what, 1.93 inches to 2.2 to 2.6. Now we're at 2.9 inch optic risers. You've got the, was it the Lerna and the Hydra? Like I jokingly said the other day and i it's only a little bit

joking but like if optic risers continue on their current trajectory that within five years you'll be able to hip fire and look through your optic like that's just that's the direct i think somebody already did that yeah but that's yeah so i did it as a meme joke but i'm being i'm being kind of serious because like the the industry went – I remember a time when the whole name of the game was get the optic as low down as possible, get as close to the barrel. You didn't want height of rebar. Height of rebar was a problem. Height of rebar exaggerated your holds and everything over distance. And mathematically speaking, it does.

But now the industry is all like the higher your optic the more upright your head posture is faster you come upon target it's better for cqb like from here to 25 yards away no one cares what the offset is and it's all really good arguments but i guess my point is like i've seen the industry go from these two extremes and everything in the middle and it always seems like the industry is always looking for the next thing to make cool to sell more guns to people. But then I have to ask, if you have an SPR, like I have one sitting in my room,

it's got an 18-inch barrel, it's got an LPVO, it's got a really, really nice trigger on it, by the way. And as soon as I can get back out to my range and I can do some groups with it it looks like it's going to be about a one maybe a one and a half moa rifle like it's it does pretty okay for itself with an off the rack barrel and i can't see the industry convincing me sprs aren't cool anymore hack it up make it a cqb gun like don't know, but I know when I have both, why not have both?

But I guess that's what I'm kind of pointing out is that the trend, these trends in the industry tend to be cyclical at a certain point. You know, one, I, I feel like what turned, I, I see now that more and more people are looking back at 16 inch and 18 inch

rifles and pulling back from the 10 and a half, the 11 and a half, the 12.5s, I think a lot of that's honestly because of the pistol brace fight that's going on in the courts right now. Like, that has done a lot to stifle sub-16-inch barrel ARs, and so as a result, people are saying, well, if I can't have a 10.5-inch barrel, I might as well have a 16, 18, or 20 and make an SPR. Like, it seems like the industry is flexing around that issue. To me, at least.

I mean, well, I mean, it's... You try to, I mean, the law-abiding citizens, they try to stay at law-abiding as long as they can until they just can't anymore. And, I mean, that's just kind of with mine. I mean, I had a 10.5-inch AR-15 and it ran great. But with the crap going on, I was not going to freaking spend the $200 or apply for a free tax stamp because that's not free. You gave up so much of your freaking information, even more than anything,

anything more than just the normal NFA. But, no, the fact that, I mean, I turned mine into, I put a 16-inch barrel on it. I have my red dot currently on it. But now that the, we'll see. I doubt they'll give up. The government never gives up. But they kind of, it feels like the pistol brace kind of got, is getting pushed away. They're accepting that slap on the hand and that defeat until they decide to do something even worse to give the middle finger to the people.

But I'm looking at, you know, basically putting my 10 and a half inch back together. Am I going to strip down middle finger to the people. Uh, but, uh, I'm looking at re you know, basically put my 10 and a half inch back together. Am I going to strip down the 16 inch? No, I'm not. I'm going to fricking put the, I have enough parts, like I said, to finish out the 10 and a half and redo that one. Uh, a LPVO is probably going to go on my, uh, on that one. And it might, even with a 45 degree offset red dot something that uh is purpose built and but that's again uh your spr you're building it for a purpose and it's it's to fill a niche it's to fill something i mean a 10 and a half inch even though it's great they're great going through buildings uh but a and more it's a lot better than a 16 inch especially if you want to

add a suppressor on top of that uh but if you want to reach out and touch somebody uh or something uh 16 inch that goes a little bit further there's a little bit more oomph in there but uh so yeah i don't know i that's where like the whole industry and like sprs are cool i didn't build an spr because the industry was doing it i built an spr because i like to go coyote hunting or deer hunting and i wanted something that can uh that has a little bit more kick behind it than a uh a ten and a half inch five five six like that's why i built my rifle it wasn't because of the industry so you know that for if somebody who sits there and is like oh i did it because the industry said so, dude, you should – if they told you – going back to the whole, if your friend told you to go jump off the bridge or they went and did it, would you go do it too? And it's like, no.

But that's the thing. That's what's wrong with the freaking industry is people are too – they're on YouTube way too much. And they're looking at this stuff like saying oh man i need this i need this granite you know what i watched grantham on his 1301 and he basically is the reason why i bought the 1301 did i do research like a mother effer freaking trying to get going between that and the benelium 4 hell yeah i did i freaking did a crap ton of research but that dude turned me on to the 1301 so you know and but it wasn't like the whole industry, you know, it's just a YouTuber who had some good, a really good video on a shotgun. And it got me, it got the gears turning and it's like, okay, what do I want?

Can I turn this into a purpose built, basically a purpose built shotgun? Well, yeah, because at the time I was looking for a home defense shotgun and I didn't have one. So that was like, that filled that niche so i don't know it's just the industry's fun it's it's but at the same time it's annoying because like it's cool to see what's out there but don't do stuff just because freaking the industry told you to. Do it because it serves a purpose. And do it because you want to. Don't freaking just do it. I mean, I don't know. I think the key word there was that you purchase and build a firearm to a purpose.

Sometimes that purpose is legitimately just because it makes me happy. Like your AK. You want an AK ak you're a collector the purpose of the ak is to be an ak and that's all it has to be but you build a firearm you you assemble a collection of parts with a mission in mind that i wanted to do this thing it's like the same discussion you and i had about my 10 and5-inch AR pistol. When I originally built that, it was built to be a truck gun. It was built to fit in a very specific spot on a Toyota Tacoma, and it had to be no longer than X, or it was not going to fit.

So it had a self-in-arms folder, and it had a 10 and a half inch barrel. It was a very small AR and it fit in the space it needed to. Comma, however, I don't feel like it was ever the perfect truck gun because, you know, like 5.56 out of 10 and a half inch barrel is A, concussive and loud as hell, and second of all, not exactly ballistically optimum. Like, I understand, basically, below a certain amount, every inch you cut off the barrel, you're basically losing 100 yards of terminal effectiveness with an AR-15, because, like, 5.56 just, it lives and dies by muzzle velocity.

The slower you start out, the faster you hit a point at which that little 55 or 62 or whatever grain bullet doesn't do anything anymore. It doesn't do what it should do. It needs to be moving fast to really do what it does. And I was reaching that point where the distances I kind of envisioned using this firearm in compared to the sheer noise and concussion of a 10.5 inch AR, it just didn't make sense anymore. So I made the decision instead to get a CZ Scorpion, which is three full inches shorter on the barrel, can fire with the stock folded. I don't even know how many inches shorter was like folded up total versus the 10 and a half inch ar pistol but it was substantially smaller as far as

the receiver length and everything the ar pistol was always going to be basically stay in the truck the scorpion is small enough to fit into a small backpack it's just it is like as a as a firearm that fit a very specific niche for me where it was a truck gun it was the the gun to take on trips it was something that i could very low-key nonchalant move from the vehicle to a hotel room without alarming a bunch of people because it's sitting in a rifle bag or it's sitting in something that looks like a rifle bag. It fit that niche so much better than a 10.5-inch AR pistol did that I eventually ripped the AR pistol apart and built a 16-inch carbine right about the time I got into night vision.

Because all of a sudden, that made a lot more sense. And the other thing it provoked was it allowed me to take the 18-inch kind of all-purpose rifle that was really trying to be half of an SPR and half of a general-purpose rifle, and it let me push that more to put a cleaner, lighter trigger on it and a bipod and really push more into the SPR role. I'm still back and forth, honestly, of changing out the lpvo to something like a 2 to 10 give me a little bit more magnification than a 6x i don't know i'm not sold on that idea sixes 6x does what i needed to do at the ranges i shoot at it'd be nice to have a little bit more but i can live

without it so that's a debate i'm having with myself which is the very next bullet point but the point is is that by putting another firearm in the lineup that really fit the truck gun better, in my opinion, or fit my uses better in that lane, it allowed the 10.5-inch pistol to become a general-purpose rifle, and it allowed the 18-inch rifle to become an SPR, and kind of like each one of those firearms really fit better into its lane all of a sudden. and kind of like each one of those firearms really fit better into its lane all of a sudden. As opposed to me veering back and forth between this idea that, well, SPRs aren't cool anymore, so I don't want that anymore.

It's like, no, the SPR, like you said, you go coyote hunt with yours. For me, the SPR is I want to be able to, you know, dot eyes at a couple hundred yards. That SPR will do it. The 16-inch rifle with a 3 MOA red dot is going to struggle a little bit with that. It's just the idea that, like, if you build your firearms to a purpose, unless that purpose no longer makes sense, the firearm doesn't necessarily have to be torn apart and changed. Unless you think of something that fits their

use better like buying scorpion instead of a 10.5 inch ar pistol which i know is still a conversation i take crap from the mof patrons all the time about because they all think that i should have stuck with a 10 with the 10.5 inch pistol but scorpions are a vibe so since we've been talking about this eternal bar fight about optics i've seen the gun industry go the direction i have on this 16-inch rifle where it's like red dots and magnifiers all day long every day i've seen the industry say throw the magnifier in the trash it's just extra weight which it is it's about eight nine ounces if i recall correctly it is a big chunk of extra weight that if you're not going to use it

there's no point having it i've seen the industry push lpvos as the or specifically an illuminated reticle lpvo as the goldilocks like turn the illumination up and it's a, it's a red dot. It does everything a red dot does, which it doesn't at one X or you get magnification. And then I've seen people say that, you know, to have that one X, you compromise the mag, the top end of the magnification, your barrel with an MPVO, give up the one X, have a two to 10 or something like that. I've seen the industry go in so many different directions as far as what is like the one optic to rule them all. And I continue to giggle and sneer at this idea that there is ever going to be one decision, one optic to rule them all. No one optic, no one optic can rule them all. And if anybody disagrees with that, I direct you directly towards the DOD. The Department of Defense has,

regrettably, I hate to admit it, near limitless budgets. If you think toilet seats cost $3,000 and hammers cost $1,500, I got news for you, they don't. But that's just a creative way to make a slush fund out of everything. So the DOD has near limitless funds. If they wanted Vortex or Trijicon or any optic manufacturer to make them one optic that was going to fit on every firearm and do everything perfectly, they would have, and they don't. You have ACOGs, you have variable zoom optics, you have all different optics for all different uses across the DoD, and they have the money to spec out the one optic to rule them all, and they don't.

So I counter this idea with the idea that, like, what you really probably ought to do, and then I'm going to shut up and let Andrew talk because he looks bored, is we have to get away from this idea that, like, there's ever going to be one optic to rule them all or one choice to rule them all, and we have to say, what makes sense in your use case? And that's what you ought to be concerned about. And not let the industry try to convince us that any one of these objects is going to work 100% of the time, 100% of cases, because they don't. Disagree with me?

Try to go precision shooting at 500 yards with a red dot. Let me know how it works. I mean, the industry has only went all over the place on it because there is no such thing as the perfect, like one thing to rule them all. And I mean, that's the thing is again, what is the purpose of the firearm?

And what are you doing with it? Are you getting, are you doing something that's meant for like CQB and close quarters or a truck gun? Yeah, I'm not going to put a freaking LPVO on it. Is it something that is meant to reach out and be pretty close? But yet I want to, if I do have to get up close to something, all right, I'll throw a scope on it with maybe a 45 degree offset red dot, or reflex sight rather

and so, it's whatever, it's the gun history, like I said, do whatever literally, there are so many products out there, you could build one of everything you wanted if you had the money to do it then do it if you didn't have the money to do it and you're kind of restricted like most americans then i mean depending on if you if it's especially if it's like an ar platform or an ar 10 platform, build one lower, build a couple uppers,

have an upper that's dedicated for long range, have a, have an upper that's dedicated for, for a lot shorter, build them out. Like that's the thing is you don't have to, you don't have to subscribe and be planted to one aisle of thinking, branch out a little bit.

And build something with a scope. Build something with that. And I guess that's where I. That's where I'm always kind of like well. Yeah I'm a gun collector. But I'm also like. Because I think a purpose. A 16 inch scoped rifle.

There's a need for it. I think something in a bolt action i think that's needed okay i want one i need a you know shotgun that's needed okay a 10 and a half inch yeah that's needed okay like i think they all serve a purpose so that so just buy them or build one whatever like if you if you're on a budget save up and do it save up and buy it uh set it up i that's the thing is i don't know i just get frustrated when people are like well i don't know if i want to do this or this well what what are you going to do well i want to you know it's one of those things it's like i've

heard so i heard so i've heard people go well i want to get a rifle i want to build a rifle so when i go out west i'll come all right when are you you gonna go well i don't know all right what are you gonna hunt next year i'll probably stick in sticking uh in the state hunt some whitetail what's your furthest distance 150 yards it's like all right well you don't really need this big ass scope and you don't need this gun that can shoot 2 000 yards like you know like you don't really need this big-ass scope, and you don't need this gun that can shoot 2,000 yards. Like, you know, like, you don't need this freaking, like, and then, but yeah, do you want it? Cool, get it. I'm not going to tell you not to get it.

But if you're trying to decide between two rifles, and one is because, oh, I'm going to go out west someday. Well, if you had to choose between the two, which one are you going to use the most? So, that's where I lean, if you had to choose between the two, which one are you going to use the most? So that's where I lean if you had to choose between two. So I don't know. I say get them all. And that's, I mean, that should be a T-shirt. Just like hashtag get them all or something. Dude, we need to get it.

We need a T-shirt that is a cartoon version of you holding a pokeball open with a bunch of rifles in it saying gotta catch them all gotta get gotta get them now we just need like a professional you gotta catch them all you're probably you're if you say gotta catch them all you're probably gonna get sued so gotta get them all okay or collect them all no i just need get them all now i just need a professional illustrator to turn all my ideas into things. Because if I draw, it's going to look like a four-year-old drew it with crayons. Which won't be that far off. Monkey banging a coconut?

Yeah, pretty much. All the artistic skills in my family are segregated to my wife and daughter. I got none of them. Wrapping up the show. If you can get it, if you have to choose, choose wisely. I mean, choose what you're going to use and utilize the most and what's going to serve your purpose the best. But if you can get both of them, get both of them,

because I say get freaking everything. Get a cruiser or missile if you freaking can if you can do it yeah like but at the same time it you know if you have to choose what best fits your uh your plan and just to tag on to the end as we wrap this up like yes get something that fits your needs but be very, very careful against mission creep. Because many of Fire Em has been made functionally useless because it started out to do this one thing, and then you added this thing to make it do something else, and this other thing to do something else,

and then before you know it, you have the mall ninja meme, where you have a scope and three red dots and backup iron sights and like, you know, 15,000 freaking accessories on this one rifle and it weighs 20 pounds and it doesn't do anything well because you tried to make it do everything. Just stop. Make your firearms, make all of your gear work for a purpose to fit a need that you reasonably have and you will find yourself spending far less time and money unmucking things you've mucked up or you'll have a really interesting eclectic collection of stuff to make people wonder what form of you know autism you have which we all do occasionally but matter Fact's podcast heading out the door.

Talk to you in another week. Prepper Camp is coming up in September. And I would say you should go get tickets. But if you haven't gotten it by now, then you're just not paying attention to us and you're ignoring this too. So, bye everybody. Bye. We'll be right back. Thank you.