The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: Make Time For Maintenance

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

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Welcome back to 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 Ravale, Andrew, Nick are on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back to Matter of Facts podcast, Phil and Nicker here. We've got I see two miscreants in the chat. So thanks to Raggle Fraggle and Dr. Scary Guy for joining us on time.

I was told before we started, I'm not allowed to start early anymore. Because someone got mad at me. Well, actually, someone got mad at her spouse. Yes. But I'm the one that caused it. Look, I was told that she needs the time before the show to watch shorts from other content creators. Like, I guess. I mean, wait the two minutes.

You know, my wife gives me the reason. that she hears me all the time and doesn't feel the need to listen to me for another hour and a half per week, which I mean, yeah, yeah, ragel. That I think he means that's fair. She watches our content creators, but I think it's fair that like she doesn't feel the need to listen to me again. Ah. Well, that happens.

Anyway, quick admin work, a listener question from Eric and then we'll get to topics. So, there are no patrons in the chat. right now, but there probably should be because they promote bad behavior. They do. And I appreciate them. They encourage wildly inappropriate night vision spending. Oh, yes. I think all of us have committed some act of financial malfeasance based on pure pressure

from the patron group. Yeah, but it's usually good financial malfeasance. It's not like blowing your money on lotto tickets and strippers. It's buying night vision goggles and nice shotguns. And I mean, to be fair, I'm pretty sure I've given. thereby the ultimate dad advice multiple times of if you have to finance it, you can't afford it yet, like leave it alone. So true, there is that.

Although that makes homeownership a real struggle. You know, the exception doesn't disprove the rule, though. It makes the rule. Yeah, pretty much. But if you have, you know, a couple hundred G sitting in a bank, don't you dare finance that shit. Just, you know. Well, what's the interest rate? Currently.

Yeah. Too damn high. is it okay I was going to say there is there is an argument to be said I realize it's not a financial episode but there is an argument to be made that if you have money invested or in the bank and it's earning a higher percentage return than you would pay on financing the money don't spend your money spend someone else's money because spending your money kind of kills some possible benefit but this is not the financial episode if you have that amount of money sitting aside you probably have a financial advisor who will tell you which one is

the better option. Yes. Someone you pay for financial advice, which is better than the free financial advice I'll give you. Yes. Anyway, code M-O-F a disaster coffee because I'm really bad at capitalism and I keep trying to give you bastards a break on your products. So don't forget the code. Get good coffee. I have to say, it is really good coffee. And I quite liked Uncle Randy's front porch. I think I'm going to have to order another like four or five bags of that. So in the name of full disclosure. Uncle Randy's front porch is one of my least favorite coffees we offer. Really? So hear me out. It's not bad. It's really good, actually. But it's, I'm not a medium roast person. I like more like a medium dark. Okay. And then there's something, there's something in then Mexican single origin that it just, it's good, taste amazing. It just does quite tick on my palate. Like my, my, my go-toes are always bare, blend, which is a medium dark, and uprising, which is the, it's, uh, uprising is the medium roast that is the coffee beans are aged in bourbon barrels.

Oh, I'm going to try that. It is exactly like it sounds. It's legitimately legit. Hmm. I'll have to try it. Maybe I'll get some of that along with the Randy's front porch. I recommend it. And as of the last time, we had to unfortunately increase prices.

because, you know, everything's going up from price coffee, not being in any exception to that. I, since I do a lot of the cost modeling for disaster coffee, like, I always try to maintain a certain profit margin so that we can stay solvent. It's business. If the price on a specific product, if the cost on a specific product goes up, I have to raise prices. But if it doesn't, I don't say, oh, here's an opportunity to raise the price a little bit. Spread the margin out. I say, no, let's keep the margin we have. It seems fair to the customers.

You know, none of us are buying 50 cows and humvees with the money we make off disaster coffee. None of us take paychecks out of the business. So I try to keep the prices as reasonable as possible. And what happened the last time I did the cost modeling was that the cost on uprising did not increase, but everything else did. So I was able to cost it or price it out at almost what I do the rest of the coffee in the store. And uprising used to be, I think, a buck to a buck 50, a bag more expensive. but because the coffee has arisen on and everything else has, now it costs what everything else does.

Nice. Which... That's pretty sweet. Which makes it an even better deal, because, I mean, the uprising is a really, really good coffee. Oh, Dr. Scary Guy, you have a patron member in the chat. Are you...

Oh, God, I'm drawn a blank. We did just get a new patron super recently within the last week or two. Are they in the signal chat? They are not. I'm waiting for them to download the app and then I can try to find them.

Get you all in the signal chat. I will make Eddie harass you. And by make, I mean, I will vaguely encourage him in your direction. Okay, Dr. Scary Guy first month or two. I'm going to have to reach out to me offline because I'm trying to connect faces with the names.

Yes. Or at the barely least get you in the signal chat because that shit is fun. Yes. You'll probably mute it after a couple of days because there are days when the signal chat is dead silent. And then there are days when you get off of work and there's 145 messages waiting for you. I once woke up slightly later than usual on a Saturday morning. And there were 95 messages that occurred from the time I went to bed to 515 in the morning.

Yes. They, they, they, they, I did not read them. That must have been a particularly energetic morning. I, I scanned for any tags. And I just blew. through them all. Yeah, it's got to be that way sometimes. But it's a good group to hang out with. Yeah, they're a lot of fun. One last tag. Merch of the Southern Gows. The links in the show description. We have shirts. We have coosies. We have other things. And if I can smooth talk Nick into, God, what was the thing I told you the other day? Like, you should contact the Brandons and have make it into a shirt. Was it was it the, uh, the Imperium scroll? I think it was. I think it was a purity seal that was imploring a coffee machine to make a stronger brew, which I think would be fantastic on the shirt. That is phenomenal. I mean, it appeals to both nerds of which there are many of us and coffee dorks of which there are many of us.

Ah. Raggle's asking in the chat, is there any way to directly support us cash flow-wise that is not Patreon? He doesn't like Patreon. I don't think we have anything else set up. So I don't. And they're, Phil could set up a beard-related only fans. I doubt Mrs. Rapley is going to accept that as a viable option. Well,

you know, she does get a vote. Actually, a veto, I think. It'd be more of a veto. Hard veto. Raggle, I'll do some,

I'll do some head scratching on it. But I mean, quite frankly, there's always, okay, so bear in mind, if you don't, if you don't like Patreon, and I don't blame you. That's fair enough. There's always the merch. And there's also down in the show description, there is an affiliate link for Amazon. Oh, yeah. You could use affiliate link. I forget we have that.

Which is something I probably don't promote near often enough, but I've got a few people that. I don't think I've heard you promote that since I've been on the show. Yeah. So, damn it, Phil, I will harass you to fix this. Do capitalism better again. Yes, we will have to do capitalism betterish. I try. I mean, truthfully, like, we're really blessed with the patrons supporting the show

so that, like, I don't have to chase ad revenue. I don't have to chase sponsors. I can just show up and goof off with my friends and have fun and do a show. Yep. And that sometimes it may, I don't want to say it makes me lazy, but, like, it frees me up from the really annoying part of podcasting where you have to keep the thing solvent. Yeah. You know what I mean?

It does. And like I've consistently said for the eight, nine, I started the show in 2013. Help me math. 12. No, it wasn't 2013. Damn it, Jim. I don't remember when you started 2014. About 10, call it 10 years.

I don't think it's been 10 years, but it's been quite a long time. I mean, we're 400-something episodes in. Neat. So, you know, at roughly one a week. So do the math, eight, nine years worth of shows. And something like that. We're at a point where like, I have not had to go chasing after people for money to keep the show running. Yeah, the patrons support it.

And as long as they do. If a quality company wanted to advertise and have us do a review on their gear, we would. It will be a extremely obvious. honest review of your gear. If I find a problem with it, I'm going to tell everyone. And when I do break Rebel shit, which I'm going to attempt, I will tell you guys how I broke it and why I broke it in a stupid way. But he told you it was lifetime warrantied. He did. And you know, looking at it, I got 10 years out of my last nylon plate carrier. This one's built sturdier and thicker nylon. So I don't have high hopes of destroying it anytime soon.

Yeah. Actually, I've turned down two potential sponsors in the last two years. Mm-hmm. Neither which I'll name. And there's no reason to do that. Out of courtesy. But let's just say that, like, one very obviously had no earthly idea what our brand was about. And the other one actually kind of did, but I didn't like their products. I don't like their marketing.

I think it's a bit deceptive. Like, remind me later and I'll tell you, and it'll make total complete sense who I'm talking. about and why I just waved him off. Ah, okay. I might remember who this was. Yeah. Like I said, I gave it some serious thought, but the more I looked into their products, I was just like, Phil, if there was no money involved, would you put your name on this?

And the answer was no. And at that moment, the answer was just no. Yeah, that's fair. But that being said, um, or listener question, eh? Listener question. Uh, Dr. Scary guy. I see your comment.

I'm not dignified with a response, and you can interpret that as you will. Yeah, listener question. So Eric reached out to us through Instagram and through this really interesting question in my lap yesterday, which I thought you and I could have a good spirited debate over. Sure. And I can't fit it into one of these old banners on the bottom of the screen. So like, bear with me here. He asked, so what's your opinion on the idea that we should,

discard Jefferson's enhancement of Blackstone's formula and going back to the original 10 to 1 risk ratio. We've seen how it's driving for a hundred to one ideal leads to too many murderers and dirty politicians walking free, making the rest of us question the value of the legal system as a whole. So Blackstone's formula, as best I recall and feel free to correct me, was basically like you want the burden of proof in your legal system to be such that, like, you would let, you would let 10 guilty people go for every one you would falsely imprison like that and it's i don't think that's like a hard ratio but it was more of a principle to follow it's it's a it's a principle based on biblical biblical allegory you know the tale of sodom and gamara if you

find one good man in the city yeah god won't destroy it and he couldn't find a good man um the you're right it is it is better that 10 guilty men go free than one in a man be in prison or be wrongfully convicted. And I get the sentiment behind that. I also get the sentiment behind. It's better that 100 guilty men go free than one innocent person be in prison. I get that. The problem with my problem with going away from that model is that I do not trust the government to do it correctly in either way.

I don't. Kamala Harris is a perfect example of it. She kept exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys that would have freed their clients to keep them in prison to work as slave labor for the state. I mean, that was our vice president. How long has it been since I brought up Ruby Ridge? I promised myself I wouldn't do it more than one, more than every six months. It has been.

a while. Okay. So do what, do, if I say the name, Lon Horiuchi, does that ring a bell? Yeah. The same legal system that we're discussing, not trusting to like take a person to test that very obviously broke the law in front of witnesses is the same one that investigated the government and determined that the government did no wrong when this man shot an unarmed woman holding a child. And, and then later, took pictures smiling in front of smoking corpses. Yes, that too. I do think I'm filing some kind of terms to mention Ruby Rich and Waco in the same episode. But no, no, no, no, new year, new chalkboard. I'm, you know, new year, Phil.

Yeah, exactly. Rebels got me. Yeah. The, hey, look, the government will always investigate itself and find that it did nothing wrong. Unless the section of the government that's being investigated isn't the current political party in power, which is what we're seeing going on with the Somali fraud case. That would never be investigated. We're a Democrat in office because it's happening in a lot of Democrat jurisdictions. Yes.

That we know of, probably a lot more than we don't. Oh, I'm sure it's happening in a lot of conservative districts too, but those are probably going to be the last ones to be investigated. Yeah. And I guess so here's here. Here's me being Solomon and cutting the baby in half. My issue is not whether the standard is 10 to 1 or 100 to 1. My issue is that kind of going back to what you said to start with, like, I don't know at this stage of my adulthood that I am not no longer jaded, that I'm now too far too jaded to believe that the government will in good faith attempt to discharge the law according to either of the. those standards.

Yeah. So, you know, to take the most weasily not answer the, not answer the court, answer the question with a question back to Eric, I just, I guess my first, my first thought is, is like, I don't know that it matters anymore. I understand his point of view. Like, if we, if we decrease the burden of proof, we would have fewer innocent people walk, fewer guilty people walk free, justice by that metric would be served more consistently. But you'd also have more innocent people in prison.

Well, that's one problem. But the other problem is that I still don't believe that the government will hold itself accountable. Especially not politicians. Yeah. So to Eric's point, yeah, we want to see the murderers and the rapists and everybody else in prison, but we also want to see the dirty politicians and the dirty cops in prison. And I have no faith that they will even if we revise Blackstone down to one to one. It doesn't matter.

The state will hold you and I. accountable for minor infractions and will exempt themselves from everything. So I don't believe that changing the standard matters much. We pretty much have undeniable proof that at the very least, the majority, a plurality of our politicians are implicated in child sexual abuse. I'll go with that. at a high enough level that it's a national security threat that we release that information. So or this administration.

So and per the last. Yes. The last said the same damn thing. And which is alarming, which is alarming, which tells you it's, it's every one of them. Or at least enough of them are implicated or should be or should be, I would say, shunned. for their ignoring of these crimes. Yes. So was that the best non-answer we could come up with?

It doesn't matter. I think that, no, but that's that, I think that is the answer, though. The answer is it does not matter what the formulation is, so long as the system is rigged in favor of the politically connected and wealthy, which it is. It heavily is. And it has been for a very long time. Yeah. So slight sidebar before we get to the real topic. So y'all know that in the patron chat, like, I have joked many times over the years about the fact that like I am unintentionally raising an angry little little libertarian, right?

Uh-huh. Like anybody that has children, any of you, even if you yourself are not a parent, you have children in your life some kind of way, nieces, nephews, cousins, something. and everyone's had that experience where you talk and you are 200% convinced they are not listening to what you're saying, right? Oh, they heard it all. But then they come back with something later on. You're like, oh, damn, you were filing everything I was saying away for later. So my daughter and I got into a discussion about the justice system recently. And she kind of like floated the idea out there because she can see she's got eyes.

She's smart kids. And she can see that there's obviously some malfeasance and some weighing of the scale one way or the other. And she asked me if I thought it was racially based. And I said, it's actually not racially based. It's class based. Oh, it's 100% class based. It just so happens that certain racial demographics do less well in this system. Yeah.

But I basically explained to her. I'm like, you know, if you take whatever statistics you're looking at and you stratify by income level, you'll see some. very strong trends. Yeah, the racial bias almost entirely disappears. Yeah. Or you take those outliers that kind of like they, they, so within statistics, if you have a trend line that is like all the dots are a perfect line, that's a really clear model. And if it's kind of like a cloud, but the meat of the cloud goes in a certain direction, like that's not as clear of a model. Like, you can kind of see this visually if you, if you visualize an XY plot and a scatter graph. You know what I'm saying? Yep. Well, what I explained to her was, I'm like, if you stratify what you're looking at by race, you get outliers on both sides to kind of make it look like a cloud that the middle part of it does this, but there's a cloud. But if you stratify by income level, it's damn, they're a perfect line. All the outliers disappear. They do. Yeah. Unfortunately, the worst you are doing, the less likely you are to get justice. Sorry.

Yeah. Well, and the really... The system's been slanted against you. And see, here's one of the conversations I've had with other people before. It's like a, it's one of those, like my mind goes to like, okay, how can we level the playing field out? And at the end of the day, I just don't know there's a way. I mean, you could, you could take the point of view of like there are no more private lawyers. Everything's public defenders. Everybody gets the same pool to pick from.

Yeah. You're still not going to get the best public defender. Yeah, but at least then you're removing the really wealthy person's ability to hire the top-flight team of lawyers to O.J. Simpson you out of the courtroom. But then instead, they're going to give a gift to their buddy that assigns the defense team and the prosecutor. And they're going to put the bad prosecutor on your case and the good defense on your case. Yeah. There's going to be a way to scam the system no matter what you do. But what is required to fix it is the people that have power currently being willing to have the system fixed.

You do understand that historically no one with power has ever willingly given it up with very, very few exceptions. Yeah. No, I fully understand that, which is why I don't think it will be fixed in our lifetime. I would see it. Because the only thing I see potential for is a violent balkanization of the United States. I mean, I think that's far more likely than things settling down and getting better. Sooner or later, yeah. But like I said, that was the little sidebar.

That was one of those moments of time where my daughter dropped, my daughter dropped something in my lap. And I'm like, oh, you adorable little porcupine you. Yeah, the interesting thing about it is if you, if you take. crime statistics and you break them down by what people, what the victims say occurred. So like, say the demographic of the person that assaulted them or did whatever crime. And then you take conviction rates and you break that down by racial groups. It's one to one. The people that are claimed to have done the crime are later found to have done the crime in the

descriptions fit most of the time. Yes, sometimes witnesses testimony is bad. Great. We have security footage and the security footage confirms a lot of things like that. But it's largely income based. And it's not because being poor causes people to commit crimes. It is that people that are in chronic situations of poverty are not raised in a way that discourages them from committing crimes and encourages other behavior. Yeah. It was like when I was growing up, there was there was rampant discouragement to do anything to jeopardize the good fortune that me and my family had.

And there was nothing but encouragement to further that where you see the opposite in a lot of impoverished communities. You see them dragging each other down constantly time and time again. the smart kid in the ghetto gets beaten on and picked on constantly. You know, you and I were talking to a friend of ours in the patron group who shall remain nameless unless he wants to out himself. Not too long ago about the fact that, like, you know, he grew up in a very challenging home situation. Let's call it that. Yeah.

And he's very upfront about the fact that like he had to cut ties with basically everybody he knew back then, family and friends included, because they all kind of wanted to drag him right back down to where they. they were and he got out and did better and did well for himself and has a beautiful family and a successful career and he works hard and he's handling business. But the people who were with him when he was in the gutter don't want him to do better. They want him to be just like them. So he's had to make a very hard decision, I'm sure, and say, y'all are not helping me be better. Crabbs in the bucket, man. Yep.

Comments, comments. God the comments might have the ultimate solution, just woodchipper. Some people just need to get fed into Mr. Chippy face first. I have said for a very long time, and I will continue to say it, there are people that do not create any net good for society that exist. Yes. My only question is, do we put them in face first so they have to see it coming or feet first, so the head's the last thing to go? Y'all can debate that. Jeff Jagg.

style points if they jump and do a twist. Excellent. Blackstone's formula assumes a fair judicial system. It does. So are our founding fathers, to be fair. Yeah, they did. Well, and our founding fathers also assumed a Christian nation. And also assumed that a founding moral structure that was going to stay the same, which didn't.

And also assumed that we had tar and feather public officials that did stupid stuff. Ah, they encouraged rebellion on multiple occasions. occasions. Yeah. Raggle, Fraggle, Lusius, Quintus,

Cincinnati, and George Washington, talking about very few people have ever given a power. It's funny that the list is so

short, it's memorizable. Now, here's the, here's the, noggin scratcher before we get to the topic.

Mm-hmm. Do you believe that the reason the list is so short is because people just, as a function of their being,

do not want to give up power when they have it. Or is that indicative of the type of person that goes to public service? Like the people who want to get into public service and have that power don't want to give it up. And then people like me who are like, I'm quite happy like living here, having a job, having hobbies and friends and like raising my family. I'm not concerned about being in the seat of power and reporting over other people. A person like me who would give up power doesn't want anything to do with it. I don't want the power. I think. The first difference we have to point out, Phil, is that going into public service is not going into power.

There's a lot of public service jobs. Wait, wait, wait, wait. It's not supposed to be. No, it's not. No, it's not. You got to use the word. It's supposed to be. Right.

But there is a big difference between the ideological 18-year-old or 17-year-old that signs up to the military to protect their country to do good for their people. there's a very big difference between the the high school kid that grows up, goes off, gets a lot, gets a lot of degree and becomes a public defender. No, no, I'm just saying any law degree and becomes a public defender because he wants to make sure that, you know, the public does get a good legal defense. There's a big difference between that and fucking J.B. Pritzker or all these other fat cat bullshit politicians that do nothing but enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else. There's a big difference. The kind of people that I think really go after power, there is an amount of narcissism required to seek public elected office. I think there's a bare minimum narcissism level there.

Yeah. Even the politicians that you in the comments are you listening, mine have voted for are still. Absolutely. You're going to tell me Trump isn't a narcissist? I voted for him three times. These are raging narcissists. He's one of the biggest ones.

I have ever met. I have ever not met. I've ever, I've ever listened to. But my God. So is Biden. Yeah. So is your local city council member.

Probably a narcissist. Definitely a Karen if they're on the city council. Whether it's a dude or a chick. You know exactly the person I'm talking about too. Yeah. If you know your city councilman. If you don't, you should. If you don't shame on you.

they have a lot of effect on your life. A ragel. I love Senator Kennedy, too, but trust me, if the man, if the man is in politics, he's got a little tinge of narcissism at a minimum. They have to. They have to. Otherwise, you would, there's some, putting yourself out there and claiming what you have to claim, what you have to claim in order to get elected, there's definitely some narcissism there. I mean, you know, one of the commenters brought up Bernie Sanders. Yeah.

He, he, I think he started off as a true believer. I do. I think he started off as a true believer communist. Yeah, but he got that book deal. But, but even a true believer, communist. Is in themselves a narcissist because they believe that they are better, better qualified to lord over the rules, the lives of the many because they are. are anointed and they are smarter than everyone else. Right.

Anyone who has ever rose into a seat of power in any communist or socialist society is an eye-bleeding narcissist because they believe that they know all however many 100 million people live in that country better than that person knows themselves. And that's what that's what's required to make decisions on the broad scale for that many people. Like my ultimate argument against statism is always Donald J. Trump doesn't know who the hell I am. He has no idea who I am. He knows nothing about me. He doesn't know my likes, my dislikes. He doesn't know my priorities. He doesn't know my internal philosophy. He does not

know who I am. Therefore, the decisions he should be allowed that have a direct input, input into my life should be extraordinarily limited. Because I myself know me better than anybody else does. And I should be able to make my own decisions. You sure. But Lord knows, that the whole, I mean, there's a level of narcissism that you have to have to be on a podcast. Yeah, except I'm still shocked that anybody actually wants to listen to me for any amount of time. So there's that you're entertaining. I mean, that's the nicest thing I've ever been called. Thanks, Nick.

You're welcome. All right. The name of the episode, a half an hour in, is make time for maintenance. Yes. Or else. What happens if you don't make time for maintenance, Nick? It makes time for itself. It makes time for itself.

So we've talked before about like home maintenance and auto maintenance, cars. I thought though, since I don't know how we got on the subject last episode, but we got on the subject of like firearms maintenance. I know what it was. It's when I was having a screaming rant about, about cosmoline. Yeah, you're right. It was. It was about the cosmoline. That's what brought it out.

I was screaming bloody murder about cosmoline. and the fact that it is like firearm cancer. Rust is not as annoying as cosmoline. It's easier to get rid of rust than cosmoline. Yes. It's very hard to chemically remove cosmoline. You can chemically remove rust very easily. I mean, you could always take the whole thing and just soak it in a tub of gasoline.

You can. My wife is very anti-tubs of open gasoline in the basement, though. I didn't say in the basement. I'm not a sadist. Well, it's cold. I'm not doing it outside. Why not? The freaking rifle ain't gonna get cold.

Yeah, but I will. Then throw it out there and then come back in by the fire and make sure that you don't have any gasoline on you when you get- Don't cross-contaminate fire. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, make time for maintenance or else.

So I thought we'd have a discussion about like our thoughts on firearms maintenance, cleaning and care. And then we'll progress into field gear and other things if time- energy allows. Absolutely. So starting with cleaning and care. So Phil, pre-range or post-range cleaning? Uh, always post. Always, always, always, always post. I do both, not necessarily cleaning, but inspection. Yeah. That's fair. If I'm making a dedicated range trip, not talking bump in the night, pulled the gun out. I'm not going to pull the bullet and check it. But before I go to the range, before I go to a training class, I will do as much of a disassembly as I can on the weapon, like basic field strip, if not total disassembly, depending on what it is and how recently it's been used.

And I'll just go through and inspect all the parts before I go. And then I do the same thing when I get back plus cleaning, because then I have refreshed my memory of number one, how it comes. part and goes together. I have relubricated everything, which is always a good decision. I have inspected the existing wear on components, and I have checked all of the tension on the screws, check the batteries, check the springs. And then when I come back, I have it in my head a fresh image of what it did look like. So I know what is now different if I see any differences. No, that's fair. I don't do pre-range. I don't strip a fire on pre-range. Pre-range about the most I will do is like so bear in mind that like my my pre-range checks is also the same checks I go through when I pull the fire amount for dry fire training or occasionally if I just have a half a day with nothing to do and nobody home and I just want to kill time. I'll just start pulling guns out of the safe and like get them on the bench. Make sure there's no rust. Make sure there's no crap. You know, just like give them a good. good once over if I haven't touched him in a while.

Yeah. Check for rust. Check for degradation. Check for critter damage. I've had slings chewed on by mice on occasion. I'm fortunate I haven't had to deal with that. That's why I went to a safe from a gun locker. Ah.

But what I'm thinking is, is like, when I pull the firearm out and I'm about to take it the range, I don't strip it. I do as soon as I pull a firearm out, I immediately confirm condition of it because, like, I store all firearms in condition three, which for those unannointed, that's like full mag, safety off, empty chambers. All you got to do, it's like cruiser ready for a shotgun. It's literally pulled up out the rack, run the action one time, and you're hot, you're ready to go. Every firearm stays stored like that in the house.

And the idea is that the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to unload the firearm, confirm it's unloaded, and then if I'm going to take it to the range, I will usually go so far as to like, you know, eyeball through the barrel to make sure that I don't have anything weird going on there, and I shouldn't. I'll put a sprits of gun oil into the action. Yeah. Cycle it a couple times. Yeah, cycle it a few times.

Make sure that the safeties work. Make sure that it's dropping the hammer reliably. Make sure the disconnector is working. Like, I give it a quick pre-flight check, make sure everything's behaving it like it should, and then I stick in the bag and I go. When I get back, I strip it, take it all apart, clean it out really good, put it all back, together, check all the fasteners, check batteries. I do all that so that when the, and then I reloaded it in condition three and put it back in the safe so that when the gun goes back into the safe,

I have verified that it is ready to come out of the safe and go weapons hot to take care of business at any moment. So I don't feel, I guess like from that perspective, like I don't feel the need to do a full disassembly and everything on the firearm when I take it out to go to the range because I've done all that on the way back into the rack and it comes out of the rack ready to go. That makes sense. And the only time I've ever had an issue with a firearm that I could have saved myself by doing a pre-flight check, it was because I got a little bit lax. I had an issue years ago where one of my streamlights, the tape switch stopped working reliably.

And I thought I had like a pinch wire or something. Well, it turned out that the tail cap had actually backed off like a quarter turn. Sure. And it totally my fault. I got lazy and lax. hadn't been checking it and like I just I got lazy I stopped paying attention I didn't think it was backing off and once I realized that now part of my before it goes back into the safe checks for every single firearm is to just just gently just like give it'll give everyone

those tail caps a little much every single time even the streamline I carry my back pocket like I make it a point every so often of like you know just taking the tail cap and back it off and eat the turn and torque it back on it. make sure it's tight. No, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I've, I've never had a time where I've gotten to the range and my weapon has not function appropriately. I've never had that happen.

I think the reason why I do the checks I do before I go comes down to kind of what I do for a job. Tool and I is all about doing it, but being extremely detail oriented and being extremely thorough with your stuff because we don't get spare parts. most of the time. So your first shot is usually your only shot. So I go through and do those very similar pre-plight checks with all of my metrology tools at work, with the setup in my mill every day at work, with the setup

in my wire edm in the grinder, whatever I'm doing. It's, I think it's just how I look at things now. Yeah. A couple of good question. I was going to hit Jeff's first, but that's, we'll go with that one. Just because that's probably the quicker one to answer. Yeah. Force maintenance is several times more expensive and time consuming than optional maintenance.

Yes. 210%. Now back to Raggle. Do you believe a certain level of carbon fouling makes the rifle more accurate? I've heard prairie dog hunters that'll clean rifles every two to 500 rounds and shoot five shots after. So that's not carbon fouling. That's copper fouling in the rifle lands and groups. Yes.

But that being that being said, I am, I am not the world's greatest shot. I'm a mature enough man to admit that. Sure. In my day, I used to be in pretty regular contact with a nationally ranked F-class shooter years and years and years ago. Lost touch with them over the years, probably should try to look him up again. He was a cool guy. Another Army vet. But, you know, F-class, for those of you who aren't aware, is like, you take a 308 Winchester.

you shoot it out to a thousand yards at like, I think, 12 inch circles. It's a crazy freaking thing to compete in. But his supposition was always that the barrel will tell you what it wants. And even within the same manufacturer of barrels, you could buy two barrels, one right off the line behind the other. One of them is going to shoot its absolute best right out of the box, bare clean. And after you shoot a match, foul, shout, strip all the copper found back out of it, or it will shoot like crap. Yep. And they will even clean it midmatch if that group starts opening up.

The barrel will tell you what it wants. I, on the other hand, have a Ruger M77 that is a perfectly acceptable rifle. It does not shoot worth a shit when it's completely clean. I have that same problem with my Remington 730-odd-6. Yeah, I can put, look, I can clean. blocks minimum before the grouping closes up. So mine's not that bad. I mean,

now for the sake of comparison, like, I've gotten that rifle where it put, it had four rounds touching each other at 100 yards. So it can spit out a really, really accurate group. We like to play darts with ours at 300 yards at the range I used to go to a lot. But it will not,

it will not repeat that performance with a totally clean barrel. I'm going to put about five or six rounds through it. And you can, you can watch your first five rounds. are like, you know, about two, two and a half MOA and your next five are like this again. I am not smart enough to understand why that is, but I do know that the barrel made it very apparent to me, you don't like to be shot when you're freshly cleaned. It has to do with the tolerance on the rifling lands and grooves in comparison to the roughed-out

hole that was in the rifle barrel before it was. was it had the rifling cut and how well how sharp the rifling button or however they rifled it how well it cut those lines and groups yeah but that is that is still a function of like the barrel and i guess to a less degree the rest of the firearm it will if your if your accuracy is your ultimate goal and you pay a little bit of attention it will tell you what it wants and if you want peak accuracy, you're going to give the weapon what it's after. So I have noticed with my Remington 700, it shoots the best after about 20 to 30 rounds from there to about 600 rounds.

At 600, that group starts opening up like crazy again. Now, 600 rounds is a lot of 30 out six. It's a lot for a bolt gun. Well, it is a lot for a bolt gun. But, you know, when I was going up twice a month to a range with a 300-yard range and I was playing, you know, I would shoot 100 rounds, you go through that in a reasonable time period. But it's like Phil said, your barrel will tell you what it wants, what it needs. If you notice your load that performed perfectly well this range time now is not. try cleaning your barrel refow it and see what happens yeah now other than that um i will say there is

something to be said and phil get your opinion on this running your gun until it's dirty enough to fail i see a benefit in that i won't debate that but i won't do it i do it usually if i buy a new semi-auto because I want to know for my own sake I'm going to take it out of the box I'm going to clean the bejesus out of it get it real clean get it oiled up to my preference with my preferred lubricants

that's next on the list yeah and then I'm nice I'm going to shoot the absolute shit out of that thing until it starts to give me problems to know where the line is to know where the line is so

for whatever reason say say I've got a class or it's going to be a 500 round class and we've got a break for lunch. Do I need to clean it at 250 rounds at lunch break? Do I need to field strip it and check some things out? What do I need to do to it when if I'm in a situation with extended amounts of fire? And I guess from my perspective, like, I have a hard rule that I tear down and inspect a firearm every single time goes to the range. And like, I will tear down.

I will wipe it down. I'll usually take a little bit of my preferred fucking gun oil cleaning agent and like, you know, sprit the parts down, put it back together. I don't detail strip gun super often. I don't clean the barrels super often. I kind of pay attention to what the weapon's doing and let that be my, let that be my sign pose. But like, do you track round count in your weapons? Um, not super closely.

Not super closely. Like, just being perfectly honest, like, I track round count on, Like, I track round count only on my bolt gun and even that's still fairly loose. Like I basically track because I know how many rounds I put through it out of the two boxes I have loaded up that are like all hand loaded. But like the truth of matter is that my personal preference is tear the weapon down and let it tell me what it needs. If it looks really filthy in there, I'll go through with brass brushes and, you know, clean every last little bit of carbon out, scrape it off. do what I got to do. But for the most part, like, I don't, I don't subscribe to the basic training, clean it, make it shine before you turn it in.

You know, school of thought. I've seen too many firearms screwed up by overly enthusiastic cleaning. You can do that, yeah. When in my experience, the goal is get the dirt out, get the worst of the carbon out, loop it up, put it back together. And if the gun's still running well, I don't see a need to go get crazy about it. Now, I will say that while I am slightly lackadaiso about a level of cleaning I'm willing to go through, I am not lackadaiso about inspecting it. Because if there's wear patterns, if there's metal moving, if there's things peeing, I want to know about it immediately. Because that is a parts breakage at some point down the road.

Absolutely. Now, so that's like that, to me, like cleaning and care really comes down to like instead of like hard fast rules about. do this to make the weapon, you know, clean enough. You can put it away. I'm very much like that when it comes to what condition I put the firearm away, only because when it comes out, I'm, I store every firearm as if the next time it comes out of the safe, it's going to be to protect my wife and daughter.

Sure. That's fair. They all go away in the same condition so that they all come out in the same condition. I don't have to start thinking about how did I store this one? How did I put this one away? They're all, they all baseline the same way. Right. With a couple exceptions.

Obviously, my carry gun, my carry guns condition one. As it should be. Yeah, I mean, hammer down on the half cock notch because it's a double action, single action. But like, the carry guns, condition one, revolvers are obviously condition one because you've got a full cylinder. It's all the way loaded. There's no sense in having an empty cylinder. Not on the modern revolver. Yeah.

But everything in the house that's a semi-auto, the bolt action, they're all conditioned three. They got full magazines and empty chambers. there's a comment I want to see my reflection on my gun or else I'm carrying it I mean that's fair not my thing I don't I don't own pretty guns

If you are cleaning it appropriately that's not a problem I will say I did spend an afternoon in the garage smoking a cigar and hand polishing up my Ruger GP 100 it's not like polished to a high shine in everything like chrome or like nickel plated but you've seen a GPU you've seen like a stainless GP 100 right like yeah they're

not really one of my coworkers one of my coworkers daily carries one it's a choice I polished it up enough that like you could legitimately shave in parts of it like it's it's prettier than it has any right to be which also makes it hell on earth to clean after I've taken taking it home from the range. It would be. Yeah. But it sure is pretty. Go to cleaning kit. So let let's start with the age old debate. How do you feel about boar snakes? I love them. Why do you think some people are so like about boar snakes? Because they are not using them for their intended purpose when they tried them. That is what I think. Explain. I think the appropriate. use case for boar snakes is all right in the class getting a little bit of following quick rip it through the bore a couple of times field cleaning kits sort of things yeah i think that

there are a lot of people that make too much to do about the steel cable at the core of boar snakes scouring your barrel your barrel is taking far more wear and i shouldn't say that your barrel should be taking far more wear and tear from the bullets being fired down it than a steel cable brushing against it occasionally. Yeah. The one thing I've always heard is that like, well, what if it leaves a chunk of the boarsnake in the barrel and the next time you fire around, it bulges your barrel? Like, I've, I've yet to see a confirmed case where any of these horror stories of boarsnakes actually took place. I have had a boar snake break off halfway through my barrel and been a real bitch to get it out. Yes, but that wasn't like, oh.

it deposited a it's not like it was a romulan ship and it cloaked itself in your barrel and you couldn't see it it was pretty obvious it was really obvious that that boar snake was going out it was going to be the last range trip with that boar snake when it finally broke but i have had the brass bristles in the cleaning brushes be left behind in the bore of my rifle and that's going to do a hell of a lot more than a small piece of nylon cordage. Yeah. Now, you visually inspect your barrel after you clean it or you should.

Should. And hey, you see something in there. Air gun out of your compressor, blast through it. Is it gone? Yes. Is there damage?

No. Good to go. You're fine. Jeff Jagg, because you can't use a boar snake to force a squib out is the one I was told. I mean, that's fair. But I don't,

that's not a knock against the boar snake. That's just using the, that's like trying to ice skate uphill. It's the wrong tool for the wrong job. It is. And, and, you know, I have had squid rounds in my pistols that have been no issue to get out. I've had squid browns in a rifle that took buying a solid brass rod and beating the bejesus out of it to get out. Look, yeah. There are some tools that will not do all jobs.

More. Ragle, hold that thought for just, just a minute. I have a personal favorite cleaner that should sponsor me. If your answer is not Hoppies number nine, you have a terrible sense of smell. It's not hobbies number nine. But anyway, I'm disappointed in you. That's okay. I've been a disappointment before.

Guy that comments said, Squibs kind of spooky. So we were talking about this in the patron group just today. Squibs are not, what's the beeping noise? I know it's not a fire. My dehumidifier filter needs to be cleaned. Oh. It happens once a month that happened to occur in the middle of the show this time. Outstanding.

I didn't know if that was going to do it. So yeah, squibs are not the worst thing. It's hang fires that are the scariest damn failure on earth. Yes. And anyone that has never experienced that like, so anybody that's ever played with like, you know, an old black powder gun knows that like there's a, there's dead. there's enough time between hammer dropping and boom for you to like be conscious of it right oh yeah especially at flintlock but that's not a thing usually with smokeless powder well

i it is i had a hangfire that hung so long i had time to start to say the words what the hell i got about to the word the and then it popped and it like i to this day as the single scary experience I've ever had shooting firearms. Yeah, it's not something that happens often with modern ammunition. Thankfully, it is when you, it is when you first start reloading and you do dumb things. Oh, well, yeah. Wait. What'd you do?

So at the time, I had a hard line about like, after I would wet tumble brass, I would let it, I had a process for making sure it was totally dry inside. and out and I would always let it sit out for 24 hours before I'd reload it. Sure. Let all the moisture evaporate out of it, right? Well, this one time I got in a hurry and said, I mean, it's been four or five hours. I'm sure it's fine. No, it wasn't fine. But you know what happened?

I've had some brass stay wet for like 72 hours. Well, in the summer in Louisiana, when it's like 90 degrees in your garage. That would dry it quick. Yes. Unfortunately, four hours was definitely not in enough time. And I loaded that stuff up and I learned that wet clumpy powder does really weird things. Yeah. It burns super weird.

Yeah. Also, not only did I have a hang fire, but something weird happened with that gun. And I actually had powder splatterback like pepper my face around my eye pro. Huh. Best I can figure is like, you know, because the powder didn't burn. Well, but we're talking about a revolver. So you got a cylinder gap. The only thing I can figure is I had some kind of way, something splattered back into my face because I felt like peppering all over my face when I rounded off.

Anyway, weird experience. I don't recommend it. Yeah, don't get your gunpowder wet. Yeah, keep your powder dry, yada, yada, y'all. Anyway, Ragwell asked about foaming boar cleaner. So I'm going to say I am a ballastole faithful. I like Hoppies nine. I mean, not hating on you.

Not you disappointed. It is what is for sale at the local farm and hardware store from the time I can remember until today. I can get it whenever I walk in. It's been my go-to and it's never done me wrong. I have five cans of aerosol ballastol under my gun cleaning shelf. I buy that stuff at least a couple of cans a year and I stay stocked at all times. It is like the makers of Ballastol, if you would like to support the podcast, I will happily accept a sponsorship from you bunch of bastards. I will attend cleaning guns with it.

I have spent a ton of money on y'all's products over the year. You should at least throw me like, you know, cleaning mat or something for my trouble. But I like it because it's a cleaner. It's a lubricant. It's a leather and a wood conditioner. Like you can literally take a gun made any time in the last 200 years and just hose the things. thing down from one end to the other, it will hurt literally nothing. And not the aerosol.

You can also buy Ballastol in these 16 ounce cans of unpressurized. I'm told that if you take that and you water it down, I forget exactly the ratio, but it's what Ballastall recommends for cleaning black powder fouling. Interesting. So like it do much black powder at all. My brother does that. I don't do any. I don't do any, but that's what they recommend.

like if you have like you know a bunch of powder fowling and everything in your carbon fouling yeah that's what they recommend for black pack for neutralizing black powder because you know that if you leave black powder yeah yeah so it's good for neutralizing that huh well that's good to know i'm told that in mind if i ever buy if i well when i finish the air 18 70 1850 whatever we called whatever it is it has a project name i need to get some different 3d printer filament i think we talk talked about that last time, too. We did.

I will eventually finish that. But, yeah, Ballastall is my go-to. I have my preference. I'm not really hung up on what kind of cleaner you use. I might even really hung up on what kind of cleaning kit. I will say that, like, I believe when it comes to a cleaning kit for firearms that you have a variety of options, like, I have nylon brushes. I have brass brushes. The brass brushes are a little aggressive, but sometimes you got to get a little aggressive.

You do. I have ballastol. I have the silicon impregnated, you know, towels. I've got a whole stack of just old t-shirts I use for all kinds of stuff. I've got boar snakes and I've got cleaning rods. I've got all this stuff. And nine times out of ten, I go and look at the firearm, tear it apart and say, what do I need to make this clean enough?

I have a basic cleaning kit that I, that lives in my range bag. it is a couple of boar snakes in my three most common calibers it is a number of brushes just a couple of nylon brushes because usually at the range you don't need something as abrasive as a brass brush you could give it a light scrub i got a little dropper sealed bottle of hoppies nine i got a little dropper bottle of whatever whatever oil has been in that thing for the last 10 years because i do most of my gun cleaning at home and most of that Either is REM oil or honestly 1030. Ain't nothing wrong with using, you know, light grade motor oil. I used to talk to people that were 30 because that's what's in the garage. I used to talk to guys that were emphatic about like literally they just take keep a cord of mobile one full synthetic 10 W30. That was what they used for gun oil. You know, one of my coworkers I've talked about him before, he does a lot of cowboy action sports shooting.

He does a lot of thousand yard matches with black powders. him and Eddie would probably get along real well. He swears by. Honestly, it would not surprise me if they've shot against each other. In fact, I should send his picture to Eddie and see if he knows him. That would be hilarious if they do know each other. I mean, he swears by automatic transmission fluid cut 50-50 with 10w30. I've heard that before.

That's all he uses. I mean, at the end of the day, like, Louvre. lubricant is lubricant within certain boundaries. I'm sure there's some stuff that's like 10% better than other stuff, but like having, having an appropriate amount of the wrong kind of oil is still 10 times better than having no oil on a firearm. Agreed. All that being said, I had a thought. Oh, I know what I was thinking.

Beyond just the cleaning, what are kinds of tools do you keep like in your range bag or on your bench or they're not? Maybe they're maintenance tools. are not strictly cleaning. I got a couple. In my range bag lives a inch pound screwdriver. Is it the wheeler

one? I got one that I picked up as a competition prize. It's a vortex kit. Okay. I mean, ostensibly, they're probably pretty similar. It's probably the exact same one just with a vortex label on it

and I didn't have to pay for it. So go. me. That lives in my range bag. I usually keep if if I have a firearm that has anything Allen key on it, I keep the appropriate Allen keys usually in the range bag that goes with that firearm. I also keep a foot pound torque wrench nearby, not at the range because usually that's muzzle devices or barrel tensioning or something like that.

Yeah. But inch pound. Yeah. Torqu wrench is the way to go. Yeah. I don't ragel, you should have bought it. Inchpound torque wrenches are the best for mounting optics. Yeah, especially scopes.

You wouldn't believe how fast you can jack a scope up by torquing those screws a little bit too hard. Or even just unintentionally stripping screws. Having the correct bit for the screw you're using, like, yes, there is a difference in size of flathead screw bits. So I was going to say, like, in addition to an inch pound torque wrench, I also have a Winchester branded, like, set of, it's the single driver and all the bits, but it's a gun-specific screwdriver set. And there are no bullcrap. Hollow ground screwdrivers. And there are no bullcrap like 10 different flathead sizes. And they're all a little bit different.

And if you're a revolver owner, I am not, Bill is. I am. Those are phenomenally important. Let me tell you something. If you ever, ever hope to have the side plate off of a J-frame or a Smith & Wesson without breaking something or tearing up the finish on that gun, thou shalt invest in 10 screwdrivers of varying size differences because you will use every last one of them for one of those screws. And they must be hollow ground. Yes. And hollow ground for those not aware just means that like normal, a cheap screwdriver in profile is kind of shaped like a broadhead and a hollow ground one it will actually fit all the way down in the bottom of the screw.

So you have a better chance of breaking it loose without breaking the head off. You can tell if it's a hollow ground screwdriver blade because you'll see a little arc instead of just a straight line coming down the side of the screwdriver. But yeah, that Winchester brand screwdriver set, I've actually, over the years, I've actually boogered up a couple of those heads just because like some of these, especially, especially, especially revolvers. They're the worst ones. But some of these things, like, they're tiny little flathead screws and they are torched in there by gorillas. And like, even with a lot of them have locktide applied to at the factory. Yeah.

And even with the perfect size screwdriver head, you're still going to twist that bastard 10 degrees just breaking it loose. Like, I hate to say tools become expendable at a certain point, but they almost do. Well, especially at small flathead screwdrivers, there's a very fine line. between ductal enough to withstand the snap of loosening a screw and the flex of tightening a screw and hard enough to not deform but not snap it's a very fine line to hit and they would rather err on the side of it deforming slightly because it's still a usable tool than it breaking off and boogering up your gun because then you're going to bitch yeah and the only other thing

I can think of that is like a staple on my bench. I mean, other than like an AR-15 well, AR-15 armor's tool that's kind of a no-brainer if you're an AR guy especially if you build them. Bench block is really helpful for like

pounding pins and everything out, having something to support your part while you beat something out of it or into it. But the O-Hinger thing is a really good punch set with steel and brass punches. Always, good decision.

And the next thing I will add is a as a site tool if you shoot a lot of pistols. Site vice. Site tool is actually the one thing I don't own. Oh, dude, I bought a really nice one. And it has, it has been so nice. To be fair, I don't spend a lot of time footsing around with sites on hand, especially on handguns. I will go so far as to take like those brass punches I was just talking about.

And like, if I can convince myself, that the gun is consistently shooting like left or right. And it's not just me being a moron because everyone's had that experience where, okay, some of y'all out there have had this experience and still insist it's the gun and not you. But there's a moment where the gun is shooting consistently right or left. And it has nothing to do with the side says everything to do with the loosen up behind the trigger. But if I can convince myself,

I am 10 out of 10, not the problem this time. I'll take a brass punch, chalk up the slide in a pad, advice and I'll just give it like a little little tap one direction to the other notate that in like you know a little range card I keep with the gun and the next I'm going to take it out I'll go and say okay I moved the sites did did the point of impact change but once I get once I get a handgun pretty close I'm not going to keep fooling with it like I'm going to I'm going to say that that's not what I have it for hmm you're talking about for installing sites some of some pistols in order to

do a full complete disassembly, you must remove the rear site. Because there's a plunger that's held in by the rear site. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, that my eyes pick up extremely well. I shoot much better with that site. I put that site on all of my guns. Raggo's asking which model. I'm assuming MMP 2.0C I know for sure does. XDM also required the rear site to be removed to change some parts. Yeah, that's just freaking annoying. It is, it's not as much of a problem because they don't have a, they don't have a press. in site they have a set screw and dovetail site so it's very easy to get them in and out but it's

also so much easier to not mar up your gun or mar up your sites or break your sites when you have a really nice tool that you just crank the handle and it walks right out yeah that's fair i mean it's one of those things that's like on my list but i just i'm not going to use it super often not for changing handgun sides. I have had to replace every single part in my XDM except for the plastic receiver, the plastic frame of the gun. I have shot it apart on numerous occasions. I shot it so much I broke the slide. I shot two barrels out.

I shot out every spring in it, including the trigger springs, and I broke a trigger. Overachiever. And I cracked a firing pin. Overachiever. It was. Well, that was my competition gun. I was shooting like 7 to 10,000 rounds of 9 mil a year. And that was the only gun I was shooting them out of.

I will say this much. Not like a site pusher, but like I literally just did buy a magnomatic, the AK SKS site tool, because you are 110% not adjusting the windage on an SKS or an AK without that tool or one similar to it. Jeff, yes, impressive, but I was also a single man with an income and no mortgage. Income, no mortgage. And no life to question the volume of lead I was ingesting. And no spouse who you want to spend time with more than you wanted to shoot. Yeah, and I had a range that I could go to for free and a multi-stage.

reloading press that I got for almost nothing. Oh, you just had the whole deck stacked against you then. Bro, I would throw on an episode of SG1 on a Saturday morning, crank out a thousand rounds, and then go shoot them on Sunday. It was wild. You would have been a very dangerous friend to have at that point in my way. Oh, yeah, I was. I got so many friends into shooting, so much money.

Man, you'd have got me into a lot of trouble with my wife. Oh, yes. But yeah, that's about all I can think of as far as like cleaning stuff, tools. Oh, I said earlier a bend of vice. Yeah. Vice is good. Or just a big old cast iron bastard and some soft brass or nylon jaws to put on it. I mean, look, dude, I've got like an old school, like a craftsman, like the old school craftsman, you know, vice, it's nothing special sitting.

That's bolted to my bench. and I just made a pair of I took and cut a pair of blocks out of MDF and then like glued shimstock into the back of them to where they'd fit the jaws and stay perfectly level and rubber bands secure them to the jaws that's why those are my pads

I see and CEMLed some nylon yeah yeah because I'm a fancy ass you're a fancy ass and I'm a woodworker so I had wood lying around but I mean something is simple is that just anything to keep those those jaws from marring your firearm but like a good bench vise is and not okay in addition to a bench vice a rifle rest rifle rest is nice if you're an a rr shooter

and not a bolt action shooter uh there are magwell blocks yep i was going to say the blocks that pin into your upper and lower receiver for holding on them for working on them fantastic worth every penny and they're cheap i will say that if you're an AR builder, that magazine block is, they're not expensive. And God, do they make things so much nicer? Just be able to chalk that up, chalk that up in a vice. You build your lower. You stab it down.

You know, pin your upper onto it. And then you just go to town. The only thing I don't do with that is that when it comes time to torque in the barrel nut and torque in the muzzle, the muzzle, the muzzle device because I don't like the idea of putting all that torque into the quick takedown pins. It's I'll separate the upper and lower and I'll chuck the upper directly into that paded vice. Have I got something for you, Phil? All right.

So you do a lot of, your ARs are pretty much all flat tops, right? Yes, they are both flat tops. I took a piece of inch and a quarter delarin and I just mill the slot into the top of that that fits that picatinny rail. and then you put that pinned in lower on there. You clamp it between those two pieces of delrin. Now you don't have rotational pressure on your locating lugs and your takedown pins. Now you just have lateral pressure compressing the aluminum. So you don't have to worry about deflecting those at all.

It's fantastic. Overachiever. Let me know if you want one. I'll send you one. We would have to have a conversation because I like arrow, precision's enhanced uppers and they are not. Have you ever played with one? Yeah, I have one.

Okay. But you know that they're not exactly the same as a mill spec. They're not, but they're close enough. They're close enough that like if I throw a 20,000's extra clearance in there, it's not going to matter. Yeah. But I'm just saying like for anybody hasn't played with them. Like when you get to the where the barrel nut would be, things get really different really

quickly. They do. Raggle's got a good. one, kind of one by four to fit in the magwell and has used that for years. Great idea. Yeah. Also, frankly, I mean, mine lives in my cleaning bench because sometimes it's just really useful to just stab that thing down in there and then now it's all hands free.

But the rifle rest comes in really handy for like, you know, like it's coming really handy while I was building this SKS. It's coming really handy for messing my bulk gun. It's coming really handy for messing with my, uh, my barata shotgun, quite frankly. Anything that means you don't have to have a third hand. Yeah. And also just the ability to like, it'd be one thing to say like put a towel out or a clean mat, just lay the firearm down outside.

But it's something totally different to be able to position it this way, upside down, on its side, wherever. And like have the ability to lock it in. Yeah. That just, it makes things a lot simpler, especially when you're not cleaning, but you're actually like applying torque and force. I actually went as far as, and I haven't used it in years,

haven't had to. But I actually, I drilled out two holes in my rifle rest, and I have threaded inserts that are attached into the top of my workbench so that I can literally take two quarter inch Allen head bolts and bolt that rifle rest down to the bench top. That's a great idea. I like that. I might still have idea. I also have the, if I think about it, I'll take pictures for you. I actually did the same thing with, let's see, my case tremor and several other. tools where like normally you'd have to have a hand on to make sure it doesn't walk around and I just

screwed the wood screwed them down to um larger wooden bases and then put in threaded inserts throughout the bench so I can literally screw any of these things down to my reloading bench and they stay put while I'm using them. So I actually went to using a drill press drill press for my case trimmer and I just made up a micrometer stop on the top of my case trimmer so that I can just go bump. Done. So I actually it gets them within like two thousand of each other. It's fantastic. I actually use a world's finest trimmer chucked up in an old craftsman corded drill and it works fine for that. But I only use that for my 556 when it comes to like my three away Winchester when it comes to any of my revolver brass.

I still trim all that by hand. Like with the old school like the lineman hand trimmer. It takes longer. But I mean the three away Winchester, I'm not really shooting in volume. well that's exactly it and the revolver brass i'm going to trim it one time just to like level set it make it all the same length and then after that i'm going to split the i'm going to split the necks on it before i it ever becomes a problem again i never actually run into a nine mill case stretching long enough that i needed to trim it nine mill no but i do and this is this is something i disagree with a bunch of reloaders about for years i i will stand on business to the day i die you need to trim your revolver brass.

I believe that. One time, because here's the thing of it. You know how you've, have you a reloader for revolvers? Yeah, I had a Smith and Weston 686 stainless. Okay, so you're aware that you're not taper, you're not, oh, God in heaven, why am I drawing a blank on this?

The carbon following ring that you did at the end of the cylinder? No, no, no, crimping. It's not a, It's not a taper crimp use on revolver. It's a roll crimp. It's a roll crimp. So that roll cramp. To prevent bullet setback, yeah, or creep out forward.

Now, in my experience, that roll crimp is a lot less forgiving. Yeah. In terms of like, if you, if you under crimp it, it does nothing. And if you over crimp it, it really does mess with the, you know, with the, the bullet leaving the case. Absolutely does. And the roll crimp, the degree to which you roll crimp around is, you know, is dictated by how tall the brass is and where you set the dye.

So if all of your revolver brass is the exact same height, you'll get a very consistent roll crimp. And if your brass is a little long, a little short and all kinds of shit, then you're going to get a really inconsistent crimp. Now, that's not a big problem with a taper crimp on 9 mil, because close enough is close enough when it comes to a taper crimp. You're really just trying to take the bell mouth out. It's more, it's more, it's more particular.

It's a, the tolerance is a little closer when you're, role crimping in my experience. So what I tell everybody is is that, and also, most people don't realize this, but are you aware that even though there is a set factory spec, there's a Sammy spec for like overall length of the case, there's actually two different length cases you'll encounter for 37 and 44 Magnum, and they are wildly different. No, I, you know, I had a 357 and I mostly shot 357 and 38th out of it. I had an opportunity at a 44, and I might take a stab at that in a little while again.

So this applies to both. Have you ever seen or heard of the Hornity FTX line of bullets? Heard of, not having any experience with. Okay. So the Hornity FtX was specifically loaded for use in like a lever action, right? Or a tube magazine. And it has a- Yeah, I do recall it being more like a cowboy action bullet, wasn't it? Yes. but it has a polymer tip so that when you go like tipped primer, they don't, they don't do sloaty things.

But here's the thing most people aren't aware of, and you only deal with this if you reload once fired brass, which I do, and that's how I learned this, the hard way. The brass for 3 to 7 and 44 Magnum used for the Hornity FtX bullets, Hornity specifically cuts it about 30,000 shorter than Sammy's spec, because it has to be shorter to interface with the, the candle lure on that bullet. Really?

Yes. Now, here's the thing. If you get some of that brass and it's not hard to figure out, it will say Hornity on the head stamp, and when you go to measure it, it's going to be noticeably shorter than the same respect for your case length. But if you get any of it and you want to reload Hornady's FTX bullets, it's fine.

It's perfect. It's already the right length. But if you look in a hornetty's, order to D manual and you look at those FTX bullets, it will specifically have a note in there that says you must trim the brass to this spec to load these bullets in this case. And that's how I learned about it. Because I, when I started getting once fired brass, I didn't realize that. And I started loading 3-57 magin bullets. And then I noticed when I had a bunch of these things lined up, I'm like, why are some of these cases shorter than others? Because there were some where I could see the cantiller. Yeah. You could see it. It was standing proud of the case. The case was that much noticeably shorter.

And I was like, what? What's going on here? Like, there's no way on earth. I did that because I wasn't trimming the brass at the time. Everybody had always told me you don't trim pistol brass. So then I started researching and figured that out. And from that moment forward, I measure all my revolver brass when I first take it in from the range. Anything that is too short goes in the trash cam.

everything gets trimmed to a consistent length. If it's more, I don't remember what the spec is. I've got written down on one of my reloading journals. I think it's like 5,000 is too short. If it's more than, if it's shorter than that below what my, what length I'm looking for, I can't it. That's fair. But that now means all the brass that I've shot once, I've verified it's the right length. I've trimmed it one time.

I've cleaned it. It's ready to lock and load. I never have to play. I never have to worry about it again. and this cool thing about revolvers is that it's really easy to reclaim the brass. So it is. Semay autos, it can be a mess sometimes.

Yeah, that's a really long-winded story. But, you know, for anybody, for anybody, it's a good piece in. For anybody out there that's not in the know,

let's say I was very surprised. So I try to pass that along to other people who might be in the same boat. Anyway. I know, I know an elderly lady. that has a Smith and Wesson 6644 Magnum 6-inch blude original in the box. Yeah. Does she want to adopt an adult?

No. No, but she might be willing to sell it to me if I can convince myself it's a reasonable price to try liking revolvers again. I've failed every time so far. A blued Model 66 and 44 Magnum? About what vintage? Six inch. About what vintage? Well, given her husband's age and when he was buying all of his guns, I'm guessing 70s, 60s to 70s.

But man, he's got a pair of match cult peacemakers that have never been fired either in his collection. I'm just debating if that gun is worth drive New Illinois for. I mean, she, if I don't buy it and she hasn't sold it. it yet. She would probably be willing to mail it to an FFL to sell it to you. Hmm.

Well, we might talk, Turkey later. She also has a 460 Weatherby Magnum she's been trying to sell, and I just cannot, I cannot buy that. Why not? I've shot it. And? It is upsetting to shoot.

You're a big boy. You like recoil. I like recoiling rifle. Yeah, I do. It's a safari weight. Ultra light? 460 Weatherby. Yes. Have you shot one? No.

It's like shooting an unbreaked 50, Cal, man. Sounds fun. It's fun the first time. It is not fun the third. And neither is buying the rounds or the reloading dyes because you have to custom order them. Yeah. It's not a standard stock die.

No, but now I know what to encourage you to buy to really piss Rachel off. The 460? Now, there's other things I would get before I got that. I'd probably pick up a 4570 lever action because... Oh, that's almost pedestrian by comparison. It is. It is.

But it's one of those, like, my brother already shoots 4570. He's got all the reloading dies. Oh, man. Raggle, if you run across a 44 auto-man, the pistol. Let us know. Phil, have you ever shot a 44 Auto Mag? No.

It is fantastically terrible. I cannot even in tone to you how disinterested I am. Oh, dude, it's a semi-auto 44 Magnum. I know what it is. I have no interest in what to have They also made it in 30 carbine.

I don't like awful guns. they annoy me. But dude, it's, it is, it is like a beautiful disaster. Peak 80s TV cop drama, peak gun. I will admit, when I saw it on the dirty hairy movie, I think it was the fourth or the 14th one, I don't remember which. I was momentarily very intrigued.

And then I learned about it. And I was like, oh, that sounds awful. It is. It's got awful. One of a guy I used to go shooting with occasionally, he had it in 30 carbine and 44, Magnum. The 30 carbine one is a riot of a good time. What are you redefining as a riot of a good time?

So we were doing a lot of steel plate popping at the time. And it would sometimes make the steel plates bounce right back up and you could do double taps on a pop down target. It doesn't seem like as much of an accomplishment because I've done that with my 3.7. Yeah, but this was at like, 70 yards. Okay, I haven't done that at 70 yards. It's a slapping little round out of a pistol. I was about saying at 25 yards. I could do that at my my local range. Yeah, you can do that with 357 if you got a lot flowed. And it's like 154 grain at like 1,250, 13-hift per second.

It's got a little bit of zap to it. Yeah, I missed I missed out on a on a what was it? one of the one of the conversion uh dragonovs guy had one in 30 aught six that was originally made in 30 aught six not a conversion but hey that that was that was a lot of money and guns sitting there oh yeah now actually i was just thinking to myself i actually have a i have low data for a 125 grain bullet in 3 to 7 magnum and the low data says is it supposed to do like 1900. I would try it. I haven't tried it yet,

but I kind of want to load a few just to ride the lightning. With that with that 357 that I bought, I got all of the guys pissing hot hand loads. My God, some of those hand loads, he'd be going through and be like, you know, and some of them were just, we're wad cutters that he loaded. it to max for no reason at all.

You and I've had this conversation. My experience loading 327 Magnum is that I actually managed to load. That is the only load I've ever like run out of nerve before I got to max charge. 300 win mag. No, no. You can scare the bejesus side of yourself loading 300 win mag. It wasn't scaring myself. That was the problem.

It was the ringing noise I was hearing through my ear pro when the, for coming from the frame. Yeah, that's a problem. Because you see, I had load data from Hornity, and that's what I started loading from. And I kept going hotter and hotter and hotter and got to Max. And I was like, oh, this is a hell of a lot of fun. You know, fireballed this freaking big with a, with a, you know, the flaming don't, the traditional flaming donut coming out of the front of this four inch, you know, magnum was beautiful. The fire coming out of the solar gap. I have a picture someplace that is like peak gun, photography.

photography. Nice. And it was beautiful. And then I found other low data that was like, oh, according to this, I could go another six tenths of a grain hotter. So I started pushing the limit and I got four tenths of a grain hotter than what I was previously. And then the, the frame started making this weird ringing noise when I would shoot it. So I backed it back down to where I was before. That's probably smart. I mean, you got to remember with revolvers, there are A variety of strength of frames in the same caliber of revolver. Yeah. It was Hodgton's data, though, that made me start questioning myself.

Hornity's data, in my experience, is actually pretty much like on the money, maybe even a little bit conservative. But here's the frightening part before we walk this one out. That low data that I haven't tried yet for 3-7, the 125-grain bullet at 19-hurt feet per second, that's Hodgton data. I don't have data for that powder, for that bullet weight in the Hornity manual.

No, you won't. So there's this part of me like, I kind of really want to try it because it's... Start low and work your way up. Well, I mean, let's do the... You know the rules? My go-to round for 38 special is like 125, at like, 800 and some feet per second.

Like it's not it's not a burn in the house down round. It's not a defense round. It's a training round. It's training round. Like I can shoot it in my little, my little 15 ounce J frame 60, 70 rounds before my hand starts to make me question my life decision. But more than twice that speed. Should be fun. Sounds terrifying, but I might try it.

Anyway, we might have to save the rest of this topic for another night. We're an hour and a half in. Now, I don't know what we're going to talk about next week. We did float the idea of doing kind of a show and tell on our plate carrier, showing like how we've set them up to this point and this and the other. But I'm going to have to, I'm going to put a pin in it if I get to do some dry fire over the weekend to confirm the way I currently have it set up. And if that works, and if it does, I'll let you know by the beginning of next week, like if that might be the direction we go. I am still tweaking things on mine.

and I need to acquire a new hydration pouch for mine yet. Okay, so you want to pun it a little further out we'll do something else? Yeah, I'm still playing around with a few things. I mean, I can talk through what I intend to do with it and what I intend to do with that Harness because I'm thinking that H harness actually might replace my Alice Harness that I use for my belt

due to my lack of ass. Yes, you do have that genetic predisposition we've talked about. I do. It's a terrible curse. belts require suspenders. We'll bat it around and figure out something. I mean, at some point, I think that I think a discussion about how we set up those vicarians would be useful for everybody else just to kind of like understand the process and the thought process and like how to actually put all that together. Because like while Rebel has done a phenomenal job putting everything in a bag, they're still integrating all the stuff together and making it work with you and your body and your lack of ass and making it work with your belt and all the rest of your field gear and making it work.

with you. Yeah. Making it work with you is the hardest part. Yeah. Raggle, fraggle, talking about maintaining kid and envy, you know,

we might actually do that next week. We can do that next week. We only got through about half the topic because we submitted too much time goobbering around talking about libertarianism and crooked politicians. Now, now,

crooked politicians, that's like they're all crooked. Yeah, I know. Anyway, So we'll go ahead and punt us out of the door. I guess we'll pick up the rest of this topic in a week and talk through like maintaining our field gear, maintaining clothing, boots, night vision, and pretty much anything else Nick and I can figure out in the next six and a half days. Boots, nylon, night vision, and body armor.

There is maintenance to your body armor. Yep. All right. Matter of fact, going out of the door. Good night, everybody, take care of yourselves. Be good. and Dr. Scary guy, I'm going to reach out to you and try to figure out who you are because I saw a notification on my phone just a second ago while we were in the show and I just need to connect the dots on like who you are. But in any case, good night or bye.

Talk to y'all in a week. Bye. Tonight.