The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: New Year, Same Us

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

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Welcome back to the Matterfax podcast on the Prepar 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 Ravley, Andrew and Nick are on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Welcome back. Matter of Facts podcast is January 2nd. Me and Nick are back behind the mics. It's been two weeks. Two weeks. It feels like you. It feels like it's been more than two weeks. But, you know, we decided, I kind of decided, and I think I just bullied Nick into going along with it that we were going to take off during the Christmas, during the Christmas week.

To be fair, I had six Christmas parties, I think. I lost count. It was a long week. I was about saying that usually happens when you do a lot of partying, Nick. You forget how many times you partied. Or at least that's what used to happen to me back in the day. Anyway, so I see Jeff. I see Raggle Fraggle. Thank you guys for joining us. Let's see here.

Jeff already dropping this on us. I miss the last show, but I must point out, you miss Jingle all the way for Christmas movies. I'm drawing a blank on that one. Jingle all the way. Might have to watch that. Don't know it. Yeah. My wife probably does.

Also, he's saying, an extra sling is a perfectly valid reason to build another rifle. Agreed. Don't be the punchline. I actually could run one of rebel slings on that rifle. Do it. He does capitalism bad enough. The man will not take my money for a backpack,

even when I offer more than he wants. Nick, you might have roboted. Are you still with me? Yeah, you're good. Okay. Nick's, Nick's computer is misbehaving today. Maybe my internet's? I don't know.

I don't know. Anyway, Ragel's asking who put in for new NFA items today? Nick cannot and I did not. Because sad Illinois noises. Unless I get a Type 7 or a Curio and Relic license, unfortunately all of that stuff is off the table because Illinois says be sad. yes Illinois is a very very sad place it is we're trying to get out of here but you know it's one of those things money yeah well I mean I can make you a hell of a deal on a couch if you you and

Rachel just want to come crash in my place for a little bit I don't know that your floor can handle the weight of my hobbies I mean I know I live in the swamp but that's kind of a low blow man Broseph I've got like 1600 pounds of cast iron behind and to the left of me. Okay. So what I'm hearing is that you two move in, you two move down here and then you and me go find a shop to put all those things in. Could.

We could. With a little apartment in the back for when we want to stay up all my doing hood rat stuff. But it's so humid down there and it's so hot. You get used to it after a while, I don't think you do. Yeah, everybody tells her that and I don't believe it. either, but I keep saying that it's part of the contractual agreement to live down here. Morgan is also with us.

Thank you for joining us again. All right, admin work and then Tomfoolery, I guess. So if you are a patron, you already know how this works. A dollar a month lets you contribute to sociopathie, bad decisions, and poor behavior usually. And I really appreciate y'all supporting the show and supporting the two of us. I do capitalism badly, which is why I give y'all code M.O.F. a disaster coffee, you get you 5% off of really good coffee and bunker beans, which is all that goes in this cup, which by the way, this is what happens when you tell your wife one too many

times that if I drink a coffee pot, I can count it as a single cup. So this is what I got for Christmas. That's smart. She's looking after you, man. She's trying to moderate. It's honestly like one of the more adorable things that I've gotten for Christmas over the years. Because my wife always does like unexpected things for me. And when I saw, saw this, I was like, this is awesome. I have drank out of nothing but this since Christmas. That's fantastic. Yeah, I was going to take to work, but I'm too afraid of getting destroyed. Hmm. That's rough. Here's raggle, fraggle. How'd you do for Christmas? I got a new coffee cup. And I told my wife, and God bless her for listening for a change. So, like, I am hard to shop for, and I admit that. And I'm sure a lot of us are hard shop for from our spouses, not. because we don't want things but because we're adults and we buy things throughout the year like

it's like I can tell my wife all the time I'm like I'm an adult I make money I save money I spend money so if I want something I've already got it and if I don't want it it's because I can't afford it which by extension means she can't either yeah yeah unfortunately big kid wants tend to come with big kid price tags I mean you know my my wife knocked my stocking out of the park this year though old-fashioned mixers from a variety of locales, which are fucking delicious, by the way, dangerously. So she got me this apple, honey apple, old-fashioned mixer that went really good

with the holiday bourbon that they just brought out down the street from me. So, oh, man, that's going to be dangerous. It sounds legit. Almost as dangerous is that, oh, what was it? the um the maple knob creek that i only managed to get when i'm away from home they don't stock it anywhere around here for some stupid reason so i'm always on the lookout for it think my local liquor store has it well i got a bottle while i was up in michigan but they don't stock it down here for some reason so whenever i go away from home i look for a bottle and bring it out but that stuff

is extremely dangerous it's it's not like sugary sweet but it's maples sweet and Yeah. You can literally put that in the freezer or drink it straight and just get yourself annihilated accidentally. Blackberry brandy, man. It's for ice fishing. That'll do it too. Oh, last one not least.

If you like shirts, if you like merch, Southern Galas, and the show description. Support small business supports us. Now, Raggle-fraggle said he got a shotgun, a chainsaw, and spotting scope. God damn, dude. What shotgun? I'm curious. If the answer is not Beretta, I'm a little ashamed of you.

Well, Nick, don't play with my emotions, man. Spaz 12 with the folder. I'll allow a fronky. For the memes, I'll allow a fronky. I would also allow that, yeah. But I'm not going to lie. I'm very, very impressed with Berettas. Very, very impressed.

As budget line as the A300 is, I, I have been running it now for over half a year, and it is surprised me with how good it is. I thought I was going to have a little bit of buyer's remorse going with that instead of the 1301. And I do not. Not at all. The only thing I was not happy about, which I have fixed with a rat tail file, there was a wee bit of a burr underneath the back of the trigger guard that was rubbing. that one of my fingers so raw that it was given to me

a blister and I was bleeding in the middle of Trex class because it blew the blister open. That seems very unbreda. Right here. It ended up. Yeah. Oh, nice. Raggle with the A300.

That's what I'm saying. Fantastic. That's a good one. Yeah. That seems very unboretta. I haven't had any hotspots, rough spots, or anything on mine. I mean, look, I'm in manufacturing.

You've worked in Blue Collar Trades. Everybody has a bad day, man. All it takes is missing it once. And you know what? I had a rat tail file in the garage. Just two little passes with that. Hasn't been a problem since. Yeah.

I mean, everybody is familiar with the Monday morning and the Friday afternoon products that come out of the shop. Like, it's just- Exactly. It's unavoidable. Everybody has a bad day now and then. Yeah. All right. So we got a couple of things to cover. First of all is Nick went to talk about Rebel's Raider dropped gear for Christmas.

I actually did a little bit of promotion for Rebel on Christmas morning. Actually, yeah, I dropped on Christmas morning. If y'all don't subscribe to our Instagram, you probably should because it's goofy and lighthearted, fun. And occasionally you catch me in a mood where I'm ranting and raving about tankies, which can also be entertaining. But in this case, and even my daughter was surprised when she saw this because she was like, when did you shoot that? because she was in the house. So what I did, I had this epiphany of like, I have night vision and I have a mount to like take my phone, you know, the phone camera and nested it up behind the PBS 14. So I turned off all the lights in the house and like film myself first person shooter like splinter cell, you know, sneaking through the house until I got to the bag of Rebels Raider underneath the Christmas tree.

and then set it to music and drop that. But Rebels Raiders orders finally went out like they started going out the week before Christmas. I actually got mine a couple of days before. Yeah, I think I got mine a day or two after you got yours. Yep. And I'm not going to hold it up here for very long because this thing has a pair of level four plates in it. It's got some weight to it. You know, Rebel undersells this a little bit.

He doesn't talk about a lot of the little features in here that I really am a big fan of. I mean, the dude went so far as Velcro for your hoses, for your camelback or your radio. Dude, actually put a tail on the placard for throwing your cumberbun on that you can actually get a hold of with more than one finger. The damn thing's almost as wide as my hand. And he put tails on the plackard, on the cumber bun straps. that you can actually reasonably get a hold of and aren't tiny little pieces of nylon. Dude.

Fantastic. So I have to, I have to say, I went into this expecting after having spoken with him. I went into this expecting, good stitching. I went into this expecting like good quality. It's the little things I really wasn't.

expecting like have you okay you opened the play bag up and put your plates in right yeah have you try to take have you tried to take them back out it's a motherfucker he has the most tenacious god damn velcro i've ever felt on a plate carrier inside that play carrier it is not coming apart without a fist fight no the the material the materials do not feel budget no nothing about this thing feels budget i if if you told me this was a three hundred fifty dollar play carrier i I would not be shocked. It's, I am, I went, I guess what I'm saying is like, I went into this experience buying this plate carrier, expecting it to be three things.

First of all, was an enormous upgrade over the last two plate carriers I played with, one of which was a, an old condor. And the other was the Godforsaken thing I was issued in 2003 when I was in Iraq. So, yeah, reasonable expectation. I went into this expecting it to be like, well thought out, way, you know, like a modern plate carrier. And I think it is. Yeah, everything I've seen about it, everything I've handled so far, it is kind of what I went to this expecting.

It is very modern. It is very much, I don't want to say it's like, it's like all the others, because that kind of undersells it. But like, there's nothing here that makes me think to myself, wow, he missed the ball. He missed an opportunity. The thing I was hoping for that I wasn't fully prepared for was just the quality of materials. used it's not thin nylon it's no it's thick it's very durable the velcro is premium the velcro is very well stitched everything like nothing nothing about this so far makes me think that i'm going to be replacing this or taking it apart in the next several years it's no it's built

like a brick shit house and that's very impressive to me for for a company that like i understand that he kind of has i understand the rebel has the backer from heavywear for can i before but as a as a company rebels raiders is not that old and this is their second gear drop and this is not the product you expect from a company this new it's very well thought out i would agree um phil you know and i've mentioned on the podcast before i my prior plate carrier that i've been using for the last 10 years an aries armored derma you guys can see how absolutely faded to crap and beat up this thing is Yeah. Well loved.

The, yes, that is an accurate term. The stitching on Rebels carrier, it is all double line stitched at minimum. And just about everything on the derma is all single line stitched, which, to be fair, this was not the most expensive plate carrier at the time when I bought it. But it was extremely highly recommended. I've had this plate carrier for, like I said, 10 years. I've been running it an awful lot. It doesn't really show up on camera, but I've had the fishing line sew this thing back together

about eight or nine different times now. I'm going to hold my judgment on Rebel stitching because I will beat the crap out of this for the next 10 years. And we'll see how it holds up. But the line that they used to stitch this looks thicker than what was on the Dermah. originally what little bit that is left of it um it's got more passes of stitching than the derma had which i was really happy to see you know i i've not found anything on it i don't like

hell i was phil do you have trauma pads behind your plates mm-mm this thing if i can get it open good luck with that yeah i'm not going to be able to get it open on camera the uh there it is so level four ceramics with trauma pads behind them yeah is it a tight fit a little bit that's kind of what you want but instead of having a single pass of two inch velcro holding your plates in it's two passes a two inch velcro and it's a fist fight to get it back open oh yeah you're never going to have that come open unless you're really working for it no it is a it is a two-handed like bite your lip job you get that thing back open i do have a couple questions i have to go

through yeah morgan asked is he prior military he's a marine yep it's a thing with marines where there is no prior marine they're all marines whether they're still active or not and i love my jar heads like love them to death some of my favorite people some some of my favorite people are uncle Sam's misguided children. Yes, sir. Yeah, so like I said, I am super impressed with the Vicarian so far. I've been, I've been taking some time to like slowly put it together. I mean, y'all can't see it, thankfully, because I'm covering most of it, but like my entire

office is a fucking disaster area. Like, I've got a four by six game table that is covered with all my kid. I'm moving around. Yeah. Well, I mean, between, between Christmas. And Christmas insanity and my daughter being sick and then me being sick and then, you know, just between all the stuff that's gone on lately, I have had a limited amount of time to like full with this, try to put it together that how we set these vicarians up probably dictates some good pictures. So we're not doing this in front of the camera and like a more in-depth discussion at a later date because I haven't even like worn this thing more than three or four times to know if I. I like where everything is on it.

Like I told Nick, what I do is when I put together, whether it's a war belt or a chest rig or a plate carrier, I put it together, I put it on, I run dry fire drills, and within about five reps, I know if I'm going to rip it apart, redo it or not. I haven't even gotten that far. I have done some dry fire drills with mine. I have done some reload drills with mine. And I did a weightlifting workout in mine, just to feel how it moves on. my body. Not that really helps your workout at all. It kind of just gets in the way, but that's sort of the point. Moving your body in different ways that you're not necessarily thinking about

when you're putting everything together. And honestly, it is as comfortable as my derma was original, which is phenomenal because that was the most comfortable carrier I had tried up to that point. I had tried four or five. Yeah. Well, shock and all, this is by far more comfortable, more stable than the old condor was well yeah i mean did the condor have a back panel a solid back panel it did have a solid back panel it did not have a cumber button okay so there's part of your problem yeah it now i i will say i will say this much like comparing it to like what is it the iot tv or whatever was the issues back in o three which was literally a freaking vest that had plate bags in the front back of it yeah it's much more

what's the word I'm looking for here Nick it's much less in the way than that was I would agree with that it is it's much more ergonomic yes despite the fact that one but not for as long as you I hated it oh yeah there there was nothing nice or comfortable about them but I mean they were to be fair like the IOT tv was early early G what was better than no body armor yes but needless say even the guys that deployed in like 0506 we're already swapping those things out for better stuff so anyway much better than that

much better than the condor I am very impressed with it so far I just need some time with it to really figure it out and I have it even the apothecary is still in the bag I got mine out it's not set up yet I'm going through all my first aid kit deciding

exactly what's going to go in that and that's the next thing I need to do is I need to like take it out really take a good look at it and figure out like, because you and I've had this conversation. I don't do, I don't do this thing some people do where like I have a new piece of equipment. I take all the kit out of the old equipment, put in the new equipment. I don't do that.

I already have a pack that is set up for hiking. It's got an IFAC in it. It's going to stay together because it's still a hiking pack. I'm going to buy all new stuff for the apothecary. And if I decide to use this as a hiking kit, I'm just going to have two of them. So every kit is preloaded and ready to go. And I need to take a good look at this and make some, do some horse trading on like, okay, how much stuff do I fit in here?

What kind of stuff do I fit in here? I mean, I kind of have my own ideas. Morgan's got a good question. Do we run a dump pouch on my belt? Yes, I do. I have not up till now. but like I was telling Nick, right before the show, I'm actually going to be a retooling my old war belt

probably in the next few months, and I'm going to put a dump pouch on it for the first time. You know, the reason why I got into a dump pouch was honestly Ipsic and three gun. Because what I was doing was some of the guys running the IDPA and the Ipsic and the three gun were very much sticklers about mag retention. If you did a tactical reload and you dropped that magazine and there was a round in it, you were docked points.

Fair. So every magazine, and this may be a bit of a training scar for me, every magazine, regardless of its status, out of the gun into the dump pouch, new magazine into the gun. I mean, here's the thing, though, from what I was doing at the time made sense. And, you know, outside of the realm of like, Ipsic, IDPA, USPSA, and all that, like, from a combat perspective, I can't disagree with that because like, so here's my spiel about magazines. When you have a flag on your shoulder and you are under orders from the DOD, magazines are ostensibly basically disposable.

Oh, absolutely there. But that doesn't mean you throw the, you leave the stupid things all over the ground if you can retain them because it's. still a magazine. It's still a piece of fighting equipment. It's still worth keeping. And magazines in a dump pouch or a pocket don't get stepped on and ruined or fill full of sand. So there's, there's lots of well, you say that until you're belly dragging through a sandy gravel pit and then all your bags are full of sand anyway. They're less likely. Yeah. To get jacked up. So like there's good, I've definitely had mags lock up on me in a gravel pit. Yeah. There's definitely less. I mean,

There's definitely good incentive to have a dump pouch. I'd never got into them, though, because, like, when I was in uniform, I had these great big, big, big, huge cargo pockets on my legs. And it wasn't anything to just drop a mag in there. I mean, I was carrying my dump pouches with me. I'm sure you're familiar with military uniforms, lots of pockets. Lots of big cargo pockets. I got away from those pants when I would run three gun for two reasons. One, I was always blowing out the crotch on those damn things.

I could never keep a pair of them for more than a couple of weeks. They are. And number two, slightly stretchy, more athletic fitted pants surprisingly let you move easier and they're more comfortable. Turns out lowest bitter military uniforms suck compared to modern athletic wear. Well, there's a reason why my day to day, even if I'm like out hiking or in the woods, my day to day to day wear is like the wrangler um the work pants that have the zipper pockets up on the thighs and i don't run around bd u pants anymore there's a reason for that but also the reason why i'm probably going to wind i'm putting a dump pouch on my war belt because like you know things change

over time they do they do and i found now that i've started taking doing more shotgun classes The dump pouch works excellently for just throwing a shitload of shells on your belt. Fanny packs work really too. Fanny packs for shotguns work great. The class I ran with Andrew, I would dump a box of 25 shells into my dump pouch. I would throw a shotgun card on the two Velcroes on my shotgun and then two in my belt. And I was able to shoot without having to step off the firing line for quite a long time. I mean, that's, so let's see, 7, 7, 7 and 7, so 28 plus 25 plus the 7 in the gun, because we're ghost loading, because why would you not?

Why would you not? Right. So that's a not inconsiderable amount of lead, considering they're all three quarter ounces. Yeah. Anyway, so we kind of beat ourselves with a punch on this, but up. coming projects. I mean, Vicarian's being played with,

Apothecary is being played with, my war belt's getting an overhaul. I might do a fill. And so my own hiking bag. I need a camelback-ish style bag that

is not the ultra skinny girl runner no neck, narrow shoulder straps. I don't know if you ever notice on backpacks, Phil, but their shoulder straps are always about that fucking far apart. Yeah, they're made people without neck braw. Yeah, it sounds to me like either I got to wear a collared shirt or I got to wear or I got

to deal with chafing on my neck, which sucks. Or you just get like an H harness like from an Army surplus store and. Or the H harness that came with Rebels kit that we just got. I'm keeping that on standby in case I decided to run. the apothecary as a chest rig. Morgan, that's kind of the plan. I'm actually thinking what I might do is rig the H harness that came with the medical pouch with this old shotgun scabbard that I used to run a,

not a shotgun in, but a water bladder. And I've modified it to hold my 3-liter water bladder. I'm thinking that plus H harness plus maybe a couple other things to get some medical on there and a way to mount my 3-liter water bladder. cracking pulse to the outside, and we might be in very good shape. Well, I mean, you and I've had that conversation before about, you know, playing tactical Taylor because, like, I put you this way years and years and years and years ago when I was making almost a third of what I am now.

In order to make sure that I could actually, like, make field gear that was minimum mission capable, fit my needs. I got an old Vietnam era like AK chest rig where you got the four cells up front and the two grenade pockets on the sides. Yeah, I know the exact rig you're talking about. Yeah. And after an afternoon of sewing, let's see, I took all the wooden toggles off and replaced all that with Velcro. I made some little, little spacers to go in the bottom of the mag pockets that would prop up an AAR magazine just enough that it would like stand at the right level because they were originally made for AK pockets, which for AK mags,

which are a little bit taller. They are. I took one of the two grenade pockets, made into like a little admin pouch to hold some medical stuff. I took the other one, soda row stitching down the center of it, to make it into a twin pistol mag pouch. Oh.

And, you know, like tried to like ghetto, ghetto modify this thing into somewhat of a more modern rig. Yeah. I still have it and I still have it like, you know, hanging up in the closet with a whole bunch of other stuff. It still works.

I can pull the spacers out, throw AK mags in it. I can leave the spacers in and run AR mags. It's set up to run pistol mags for like ostensible like a Glock 19 size magazine. It's not going to fit like a really tall boy like my CZ P.09 will, but my carry gun, my CZ compact fits those perfect. Nice. And it was, I think, like a $15, dollar Vietnam era you know canvas

yeah rig and I want to say at one point I want to say at one point sportsman's choice had him for like 1399 if you bought anything else with them they would send it to you yeah Morgan's saying it's a militia handout to me it's just like it's the reason I did that it's the reason I built like you know the what Stewart calls the MERS

the man purse which is the the bag for the CZ for the CZ Scorpion and it's got four CZ Scorpion Mags, plus a whole IFAC, you know, sitting in there. Like, the reason I build stuff like that and the reason I encourage other people to do it is because, A, it teaches you skills. Yeah. Like the ability to think through how to modify garment, how to sew, how to, how to make things work. Because while I would love to say that there's always the ability to go out there on Amazon or eBay or, you know, go on to the wilds of the internet and order exactly what you have in. mind the flat fact the matter is one day we might be in a situation where you kind of need to

make your own shit it also makes you a little bit more diligent about your setup too because you really don't have the opportunity to take it apart easily and put it back together like a molly rig yeah molly rig you throw stuff on there okay great in 20 minutes you can reconfigure the whole thing which is nice but are you as diligent about the first time setup yeah well it also teach you all the skills you need to modify a piece of gear or repair a piece of gear yeah so yeah um so you and i've been talking about this i did not set out to be a milsurp collecting person but whoops so my father-in-law was breaking up his old gun collection and of the various firearms that were, you know, being like kind of floated to the, you know, the broad family, the, the, the three

daughters and their families, you know, husbands, kids and everybody else say, hey, like, all these are up for grabs, who wants what? I had told my wife, I'm like, I'm interested in, like, a couple of these things. And it was really like, you know, there's an old Marlon 22, a 22, uh, 202 semi-auto tube fed, beautiful old 22. Oh, yeah. It's like I told my wife, I'm like, I don't want anything he has that's modern because I have all the modern guns I want.

I like old, old stuff I can't go by anymore. Like this old Marlin that looks on the face of it, like it's from the 80s at the earliest, or at the most recent. Got an old 22 revolver from him. And I intend to use both those to like, you know, go planking with my wife and daughter,

teach my daughter's shoe. Absolutely. And one of the guns that came up was an old SKS that was not well liked. I have it on good authority from multiple family members that never really ran well, didn't feed well, didn't like sluggish gas system, all kinds of problems. I have two guesses for why. Don't beat me into the punchline. And basically the short version is everybody was kind of like, not interested.

So I told Gillian, I'm like, okay, put my hand up, put my name on it. I'll take it. And I promptly put it on my rifle, put it on my rifle rest and ripped it apart. figured out really fast why it wasn't running right because it was stuffed with cosmoline every goddamn time look it out listen but it's always cosmoling anything anybody you you know that has bought a com block weapon have you ever seen one that was not chalk full of fucking cosmoline this is my this is my second one paint scrapers worth out of the stocks so previous to this i had a side i still have it but i bought a side And, God, that thing didn't. That thing had a little cosmoline in it. Okay, like a little cause. Like, it was enough cosmeline.

I was able to take a can of brake cleaner and a can of ballastall and just, you know, and blast most of it out. It was fine. It was fine. It was really okay. This, son of a bitch, I had to go get, forget, pipe cleaners to get all the cosmolian out of every little nook and cranny. It was packed down in the fire control group, which thank God, it's easy.

I mean, on the S-K, on the SIGA, I literally just, like, took the whole fire control group out and just hosted out with carb cleaner. That fixed that problem. The S-K-S, you really don't want to disassemble the fire control group, but it pulls out fairly easily. The entire gas tube was filled with Cosmalade. The entire gas tube, the front side block that has a little bit of piston extension, that was also filled with Cosmalade. Every time. Oh, Jesus Christ. Phil, do you remember when.

Cabellas ran the deal where if you bought a case of Mosins, you got 10, 10 of the spam crates, not spam cans, 10 of the spam crates with it. No. Okay, this was like in the late 2000s and say 2009, maybe 2010. So me and my buddies were just getting into shooting at that point. And we were like 10 guns and 10 cases of ammo. yes please so we popped down to cabellas and we bought we bought it when we walked in like i was like you seriously you want this it's like yeah it's like they're still in the original packaging

it's like that's the point yeah we'll take it phil you want to guess what weight in cosmoline we pulled off those rifles before we disassembled them i don't know about a pound each almost almost a pound and a half each of Cosmoly. Just between, just after unwrapping the paper off of it, it was painted on there. Like, if you guys have ever been in an old shitty college apartment, how they painted over everything, switches, outlets, everything doesn't matter. They looked like that covered in Cosmaly. You couldn't tell where the stock ended and the barrel began.

Excellent. It was amazing. I've still got two of them. Oh, I keep having to go back and catch these comments. So Morgan, the Marlin, it's a model 990. Oh, nice. Not familiar with it, haven't even had a chance to, like, take it out to the garage and dissembled, try to clean, you know, just clean it, verify everything looks well. But like from running the action and the fact that that's been shot fairly recently, it seems like a nice little 22.

There's not a lot to go wrong with them. I mean, not really. And what goes wrong is the magazine spring and the tube goes bad? You pop a new one in your set. Yeah, it felt pretty good. Good. But anyway, so yeah, this poor thing was packed with Cosmoline. It had been converted over to Duck Bill magazines.

Now, listen to me, for anybody out there that has an SKS in original as delivered condition. And you think to yourself, wow, this thing would look so much nicer if it had to Duck Bill Matt, like a big old 30 or 20 round magazine on it please please please pick the nearest wall and run face first intuitive full speed now no no no no i will i will no no no no i will hear no bull crap about this is a time honored pastime but there's never been an sks converted duck bill magazines that ran worth a shit they all have trouble feeding they all have trouble freaking feeding they all have trouble freaking feeding they all have trouble feeding they all have trouble feeding none of the stupid things work well.

It aggravates the crap enemy, by the way, because an SKS is not exactly like a frontline com block weapon, but they're pretty freaking nice rifles. Like, they work well, they shoot very accurately, they feed well, and these people screw them up. I am fine with modifying a firearm. I've done it plenty,

but if you're going to modify it, make it better, not worse. Okay, but I do have one point of, one point of order there, Phil. This is my only point of order. I will allow you to be wrong. Go for it. What you got? Have those SKSs that you have, that that you know of that ran poorly with a duck billed magazine adapter?

Have you checked them for Cosmaline and the goddamn gas tube? Because I bet you you put that duck bill adapter on that, on that SK that you've got now. Now that it's clean, I bet it runs better than it did with it. So let me tell you what the problem is. Do you see this right here? I see that. This is not the magazine that was intended to be equipped on an SKS. It's true.

This is some TAPCO bull crap. Now, if I- Magazine engineering is hard, yes. Now, anybody who's never engineered your own firearm, and a lot of y'all haven't, but take my word on it, the magazine is one of the more difficult things to engineer correctly. Oh, my God, yes. as evidenced by the fact that most people that make make a new firearm use an existing magazine

because that's the hard part and if you have a good magazine most other things can be worked out like when um like when cz came out with the scorpion all of a sudden everybody wants to use scorpion mags you know why they're cheap and they work they just function why do you why do you think so many homebrew guns out there use glock mags because they're cheap and they work yeah this stupid thing was engineered by Bubba in a shed and it doesn't work. It doesn't lock up solidly. It doesn't feed correctly. It's junk.

Stop putting these in SKS's. Just stop it. I'm just saying that I think a lot of the reason why you see modified SKS suck is because the people that are modding the SKS don't know to clean them as thoroughly as need to be cleaned when they first got it. So they got it. It ran like crap. They're like, I'm going to mod it because worst case, it still runs like crap.

They mod it. It doesn't really get any worse, doesn't really get any better. And it's just a fun safe gun. And then they go buy an AR or an AK. Yes. Well, there's also the fact that it was in one of those that caught awful fiberglass folding stocks. Oh, that doesn't help either. No, it doesn't help.

Those stocks were never good. No, like there are folding stocks out there that have nice solid lockup and don't jiggle around. Like, those are okay, but. Morgan. So I live in South Louisiana, which isn't really redneck land, but it's Kunaz land. And that's kind of close. It's more swampy than redneck land. Yes, but I'm also like 20 minutes away from Mississippi.

So I'm familiar with where redneck land is. True. And yes, it could have been pro mag raggle, but it wasn't. It was tapco, which is just as bad. But anyway, all that being... There are some tapco mags that work. But none of these. Stop.

No. Bubbaing milserves. Anyway, but... You know what? I might convert that Mosin to a Yugo M.G barrel, just to mess with you. Okay, but it slightly annoys me less to do it to a Mosin because Mosins were pretty crappy rifles right out of the gate. Oh, yeah.

I mean, especially mine. I mean, mine's a late war. So I'm not even sure the heat treats okay. on it. Yeah. But after weeks of sourcing parts and frustration Oh,

it looks right again. It is right again. I am short a crossbolt slash recoil lug, which is important. I am just waiting for it to get shipped. Other than that, when I got this thing, it was

a barreled action, the that is the original gas tube and a cleaning rod and that was it so I sourced the stock I sourced a period correct surplus canvas sling I actually correctly sourced because with these canvas slings for these Chinese s gases there's actually two of them out there one of them has leather tabs in the end and one of them has these metal springs this was typical the later S-KS is. And this S-KS, based on the serial number, was manufactured like 1976.

So got the correct sling for it. It is a Chinese stock. So I'm trying not to mix and match. Bear in mind that these things were made in several different countries. I was to say, there's Chinese stocks and Chinese stocks. And I don't know if you have a picture for the fitment on that stock. So don't be even to the punchline. We'll talk about the stock here in a second.

as of today, that Chinese spiker bayonet showed up in the mailbox and the surplus cleaning kit, which is in the budstock. So at this point, I am short a cross-bolt recoil lug, and that's it. This thing is like, all together

ready to rock and roll. I converted back to a fixed box magazine and I haven't had a chance to get out to the range yet, but just running dummy rounds through it. It feeds perfect. now. Good. Well, the spring pressure is correct for the bolt for the bolts return spring.

Yeah. I don't know. My other gripe with like a lot of these, a lot of these double magazines is like, you know, the idea was that basically what you have to do to, what you have to do to replace them is you have to actually lock the bolt to the rear because the bolt on an SKS has these two rails that interface with the very top of the box magazine. To where, like, to remove the box magazine, you have to pull the bolt out of the weapon or at minimum lock it all the way to the rear. Otherwise, it'll, like the two rails on the bottom of the bolt will hold on to the magazine.

Well, it does the same thing with all these replaceable duckbell magazines. So technically, you have to lock the bolt to the rear in order to be able to drop the magazine out. But most of these magazines don't correctly hit the bolt hold open. So when the magazine runs dry, the bolt slams forward. You can't pull the mac up. You can't, yeah, you literally have to like hold the frigate bolt to the rear and try to jimmy the mags out. It's the dumbest thing on earth versus the way an SKS was built to run, which is, you know, mags empty, pull to open stripper clips. Well, yeah, bolt slabs to the rear and stops, stripper clip through the top, pull the bolt to let a rock and then ten more rounds, you're ready to go.

Were you able to source stripper clips for it? I've got 30 of them. That's not a bad number. I actually found 10 in my father-in-law's, he had a huge crate of ammo that I've been. Nice. I've been parting out with the, you know, because like, yeah, as the family has been saying, that's the gun I want, that's the gun I want, whatever ammo went to those guns, went with, yeah, that went with those guns.

Yeah, as it should be, what good is a gun without bullets? Yeah. But as I was going through all that, I found a pack of 10 stripper clubs and then I ordered 20 more. Nice. And I have a type 56 band, uh, bandalier. on a word you might as well now what you got to do is find the stolengrad match near you or come up and shoot the stallingrad match with me next next year and i'm i'm just in february i'm just guessing that an sk s runs a foul of absolutely zero of illinois stupid laws it's actually in wisconsin

where the match is that i that i that i like to go to but it's held in february regardless of the weather because stalingrad the battle was held regardless of Godless of the weather. You do know that I don't own any clothing warm enough for Wisconsin in February. You're not that much different size-wise than me, Phil. I can set you up. I've got some Carhart gear. You'll be fine.

This is alarming, but I'll take an under consideration. Anyway. The last match I shot there, it was minus 25 and blowing snow. And so, yeah, it was a good time. me and ragel live like an hour away from each other and he i think he and i are feeling the same thing about like oof negative 20 the guy organizing the match got up in full original uh russian surplus uniforms of the period including the big heavy overcoat he was sweating he was too warm

oh that that just makes my heart hurt it was fun but anyway so yeah that's been the that's been the project I've been working on most recently is trying to bring this old SKS back to life and it's it is coming along

and other than that is the thing that I did start working on fell off the wagon because the holidays and getting sick and you've been working on and that's both of us fighting the battle of the bulge yes sir you've been really dedicated to it and i'm proud of you for that i've been hitting it pretty hard uh we were able to take advantage of some of the sales online on a little bit exercise equipment i got myself a squat rack smith machine whatever you want to call it one of

the relatively cheap amazon ones uh guru or whatever it was like it was on a deal for like i want to say 800 bucks for almost 300 pounds of weights, a bar, a bench, the rack, and all that. And I find I am a lot more likely to use workout equipment if I don't have to go somewhere else to do so. Now, I know not everybody is blessed with as much space in my ranch house basement as I am, but I had enough room to stick that on the other side of my bar because, of course, I live in Illinois, my basement has a bar. But I've been hitting that pretty hard pretty much every day.

I'm not seeing any weight loss, but I shouldn't be at this point, given that I'm focusing on strength training. By you? Yeah. I told my wife the other day that the holidays are over is time to put down the snacks and get back to the walking and really the only thing, like, I don't know if you can hear it. I am still fighting congestion. You do sound terrible.

You sound like me in the fall. Yeah, well, I'll put it you this way. Whatever I caught from my daughter, the day after Christmas, that evening, I started, I started feeling bad. And the next morning, now, like, you and I might have talked about this. I don't nap during the day. Once I wake up in the morning, I am like, I am up and I'm moving until bedtime. I slept on and off most of that day. Sure.

couldn't stay awake. I mean, I'd be sitting in my recliner and just gna off out of nowhere. So like, whatever got a hold of me was viral and it just flattened me.

And I'm still dealing with the cough, the congestion, the phlegm, and it's, but it was like, it's on my wife. I'm like,

we got to get back at it, even if I got a cough and hack all the way through it. So, yeah. But I, man, I get it. I am closing.

I am like, you know, between 250 and 260. And that's just two freaking heavy for me being 5 foot 11 so I'm I'm fortunate in the fact that like I don't have to work too hard to maintain my muscle mass like I just I have one of those bodies that does the opposite thing where it's like it's not the it's not the holding on a muscle I have the problem with it's all the fluff that comes with it sure your body naturally wants to create calories

yeah and look there are different body types and there are people that have weight more that are more predisposed to weight gain i'll say that yeah um it it but it all comes down to calories in calories out and if you can't decrease because like of your hypoglycemia you can't really decrease your calories in too much you need to increase your calories out that's the only way to go yeah and the truth the matter is that you know like walking in the evenings and some basic exercise doesn't know a lot

I needed as much for the cardio as I do any other reason sure so I mean that's just going to be a thing we got to get back on it and it's a it's in both me and my wife's best

interest but during the holidays and with illness and with just crap you know we fall off the wagon a little bit so we got to get back at it I made a very deliberate decision when we got all the components finally in because it shipped in like 27 boxes.

It was stupid. Nice. The, got it all in here. I made a very deliberate decision that I was not going to go as extreme as my personality wants to do. When I first took up weightlifting when I was in high school, I got into it pretty big because I'm actually okay at this. I'm going to do just this. And Phil, I know you get those temptations just as bad as I do,

but I lock myself into 30 minutes of either cardio or weightlifting a day. I get as much done as I can in 30 minutes, not including warm up stretches and cool down stretches because that shit is not optional, especially for guys like you and me who are over the age of 30. Yeah, especially when you're over the age of 40. Hey, stretching only gets more important the older you get. Because if it lowers your chance of injury, it lowers your late, your latent muscle soreness and your muscle soreness the next day, and you just feel better afterwards.

But my wife is correct, Phil. You need to try some throat coat too with honey. So I won't say no. I will say that in my experience, like throat coat works better if you have a dry tickle. and I don't have a dry tickle type of cough. The honey helps. The honey might help. But all of my coughing is just 100% post nasal drip down the back of the throat,

piles up in the brawl gill tubes, and I got to cough it out. You know what I found out? My whole head is a mucous factory. The hot tea, if you breathe in the vapor off the hot tea, that helps that as well. Maybe it's an excuse to drink more hot coffee. Yes. It can't. As long as you're inhaling the vapors, I would say.

Challenge accepted. Inhale the vapors of the hot tea or the hot coffee. Babe, it's medicinal. It is medicinal coffee. It's medicinal for your coworkers as well because you're less likely to apply apprentice motivation to your coworkers. Percussive maintenance. Yes.

Yeah. You know, Phil, I mean, I don't know how big. I don't know if you have room in your house or exercise devices. do you so then you are you are looking at the body weight fitness yeah and that is your key and that's a lot of what i've done in the past and i mean it it works it's just it seems like when it comes to like us and us and our fitness routine we do pretty good at for a while and then we just crash head first into a wall and that wall is always somebody gets sick sure kind of hell breaks loose and you know we're spending every friggin' spare minute dealing with crap it's just it's

always something have you tried yoga uh yes i actually used to do it with my daughter because you can do that even when you're ill and it actually does help because it gets everything moving in your body gets your body moving around gets the blood flowing better you know i i'm not one to buy into all the hippie-dippy bullshit but i mean just moving a little bit in controlled slow forms like yoga does i think it helps yeah well i will say that like i try to make it a point and it it sounds like the low's hanging fruit and it really is but i mean even low-hanging fruit helps but like i try to make a point of like park at further away from the door at work so i have to walk across a whole parking lot to get to the office go up and down the stairs instead of taking

the elevator like you know i i try because you know i've had this conversation like so much of my job involves sitting in a sitting in a computer chair in front of a computer and it's either typing into a spreadsheet building code in the frigging database it's always something and i try to plan moments in my day where i'm going to have to get up and walk around even if it's just like i could call somebody on teams to have a conversation with them or i could just go up or down a floor and talk to them in person it's just it's any excuse to get up out of my desk and go walk hey man the the any study that's ever been done on desk-based work and chair-based work will tell you it's absolutely horrible for you and you need to get up and move around at least every

half hour and those those little habits man they add up a ton they had up a ton you know do you have a like an app on your phone that'll track your steps i do actually i'm yeah i wear an apple watch but yeah okay okay do an experiment for me it's gonna suck do this experiment for me do a week where you don't do that and a week where you do and compare the physical activity difference i bet you it's more than double i i hate to say it i can't like i really cannot because half the reason I get up and walk around isn't even for the exercise. It is purely because, like, my back and my hips start hurting after a while if I sit too long. So I get- Then don't bother.

Because I can tell you right now, it's, I have had friends and coworkers that have done that experiment. And they have found that their activity level is at least double. When they make the excuse to go just that little bit. farther. Instead of getting water in like the sink in the bathroom, they walk across the building to go to the break room to get water out of the sink. And that increased their activity a ton more than people would believe. Yeah. I don't know. It's just got to make some good decisions and start getting the weight back under control. You got to build the small healthy habits. And that's the key. If you can if you can do something, what is it? Habit building. Take

four weeks of consistency. I think it was. Sounds about right. If you do something every day for four weeks, you've established a habit. So if you can establish that habit of just an extra 20 minutes of activity a day, 15, 20 minutes, half hour, whatever you have room for in your day, you build that healthy habit in.

You're just going to default to doing it after a month or two. Heck, after three, four months, you're not even going to think about it. It's just going to be. the thing you do after whatever after dinner after work um i get home from work and the first thing i do is i walk in put my lunchbox away throw on my gym shorts and go down and work out now it's not a consideration in my head of if i'm going to do it of if i feel like doing it's just no after work we go work out at the same time every day i think it needs to happen it does do we want to tackle this last little topic

or no. I don't think it's going to take more than 20 minutes a half hour. Let's go for it. Let's go for it. All right. So this has been making the rounds in like the gun spaces recently. And FRTs and super

safeties and for everybody does know, those are like Google it for God's sakes. Come on, guys. Like catch up a little bit. It's simulated fallout. Yeah, I don't even like calling it that. What it does it, what a force reset trigger literally does is that as the bolt

slams as the bolt slams backwards, if it pushes the trigger forwards. Here's the thing. Largely. Most people out here that have shot really crappy ARs have felt trigger slap.

Yeah. It's kind of intentional trigger slap. It is intentional, very aggressive trigger slap. So it causes your, it causes the trigger to push your finger forward and then as the bolt comes back forward it goes back in a battery it takes that pressure away so this doesn't this is not full auto because it's not if you just pin that trigger to the rear and don't let it come forward the gun will stop yeah

what it does do is it means that if you get just the right amount of pressure on there you can pull that trigger a whole heck of a lot faster than otherwise you can unless your last name is mitchellack yeah that guy's spooky fast even with double action revolvers. Yes. But the question has been coming up recently of, like, is this like a slide fire or, you know, is this like another range toy?

Is this another bump stock? Or is there a legitimate purpose for these things? For like the prepared citizen for the person's interested in home defense, for the people that are kind of in the same mindset we are. Phil? you were in the military. I was not. Briefly, yes. What is the purpose of full auto fire in the military? So one of two, almost like you read the banners. I did not. I'm reading the chats. Oh. So there, I am unprepared. There were two primary purposes for full auto, whether you're talking, or not, not full auto, let's call it select fire.

Sure. Because whether you're talking about like three round bursts on emce, seeing a two or you're talking about full automatic on an a one or an a four you're talking about full like burst out of a uh an m249 or an m 240 gp medium machine gun like select fire full auto has two primary purposes one is you're being assaulted you need to break contact i need to put all the lead into the air right now and make you put your head down so that me and my guys can break contact and get out of you get off the x get out of the killbox yeah Absolutely. That's one. Two is to initiate an assault with overwhelming force. In other words, like we have five guys. We're about to assault a group bigger than us or smaller than us. And for the initial kickoff of that firefight, I need, again, all the lead in the air to make you either put your head down so that we can advance on your position or scatter or do something dumb. That's the entire purpose of select fire slash full auto. in the military it serves no other purpose you like even once you are into extremely close

contact like cqb you're still not going to be using slight fire terribly often because it's an ammo hog not argue there's a there's a third use what you got early modern chinese wave attacks defense from such okay if you have a wildly target rich environment in an open area of engagement, say World War I style trench attacks, that's another, I would say, justifiable use of full auto or burst or select fire. Yep. Supressive fire. Yeah.

Basically of what it is. I mean, if you have a, to bring it to video game terms, a Zerg rush style attack where you have a wall, a human wall coming towards you and you need to put all of the bullets into them as fast as possible. That's what it's there for. But I agree with that with a couple of caveats.

Sure. That only hmm. So I'm going to echo what Jeff Jag is saying here is that its use cases limited. Because in the scenario you're talking about, it only works under two

conditions and that is either that you're dealing with a bipod or a tripod amount weapon where you can like very tightly control the elevation and you can put all the lead into kind of a line chest height knee knee cap to nipple height yeah or you're at such a close range that even with the gun doing this you're still going to get kneecap to nipples because if you're talking about a human wave attack free hand or like shooting off your elbows from say 150 200 yards out to foxhole position you're right

back in the situation where you're better off semi-automatic. Aimed fire, yes. So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's kind of my, my, my, my, my spiel. And like I told Nick, like, I, I spent a brief stint as a sawgunner for my platoon, which anybody, anybody that's never played with an M249, like, it sounds a lot cooler than it is. They jam a shocking amount.

They jam a lot. They weigh a lot. They don't play very nice. And the, the, we're going to get to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to get to the downsides here. I had the good fortune of shooting a 249 at a machine gun shoot. Pass. In the future, I would pass on that.

Yeah. If you gave me one, I would not say no, because, duh, but the RPK was more fun. Yeah. So like that, that's kind of my thing, is that within the, within those narrow, confines as far as usage. Yes, full auto select fire is an enormous force multiplier in a fight. It is an enormous help. It is arguably the only way with any reasonable size force to be able to put

enough lead into the air to break contact and get off, you know, get out of the killbox. Sure. If you're ambushed. But there is a reason why. And I don't, there's at least a couple of guys. guys in the chat right now that I know also served. So, like, they can back me up on this or tell me I'm full of it. But, like, my experience is that other than those rare experiences

or other than those rare experiences in training where we use full auto, you almost never use it, really in uniform. It's got a narrow use case where it's really useful. And everything outside of the use case, you're either putting rounds out that you're accountable for that could hit that could cause collateral damage or you're wasting ammo so like to me like there's their downsides involved to the use of select fire full auto or an frt or super safety as well you are getting more lead into the air but for those reasons i just listed more air more led into the air can be a problem and here's the other big problem um nick what do you consider to be a combat load for an AR-15.

How many, how many, how many, how many, how many rounds? I usually ran six when I was doing, yeah, I ran six mags on my body and then one in the gun. So, I was doing the competitions to, so, 210 rounds? Yeah, something like that. 210, I've heard 240, not uncommon. The guys I know that served in active combat would, would have about that same plus another five to six mags in their buddy pack on their back for everybody else to get

mags from because you can't reach mags in your own backpack those mags are for your friends and the mags and your friends backpacks are for you okay but six mags on the front of your plate carrier right two hundred and ten well three on the plate carrier three on the belt two to three on the belt one in the gun typically but stick with me on this sure so magazines you know they're they're they're they're about yay big they're fairly flat you can put a bunch of them in a small space they're fairly lightweight have you ever seen a friggin bucket of ammo for a saw it's a it's a it's a lunchbox full of ammo it is it weighs it's usually in 200 plus round belts and it weighs a shitload and there is no convenient way to

carry it there's a reason why every single military that she's vehicle mounted i said carried not Not mounted. Being mounted is the only acceptable way to run to carry machine guns, in my opinion. That shit is heavy. There's a reason why every single military that has fielded an intermediate or a full power cartridge in a drum magazine has eventually reverted back to stick mags because the stupid things take up a ton of space and weight. They are not convenient to carry.

And this only makes even remotely decent sense if you can distribute the ammo. across an entire squad. Like, I'm going to carry a couple of these drums, but I'm going to give you a drum in your buddy pack, and my buddy's going to have a drum, and his buddy's going to have a drum, because in a firefight, I need all your ammo, and you really need me laid down the lead.

Yeah. But when we're talking about a prepared citizen, a single person, you are not going to have four of these freaking drums tied to your chest rig. It is just not going to happen. It is a stupid premise. Agreed. Now, I thought about it.

this though if if we wanted to have that discussion of like kind of the middle ground that makes some kind of sense I would suggest this put an FRT in your weapon I don't like the two positions say super safeties I don't really like the super safety at all like I I love Hoffman tactical I love everything does I don't like the design of the super safety for one reason one reason only because the semi auto function is in the middle of if you get the three positions position super safeties, you got to slide that super safety halfway over to get to the semi-auto setting and all the way over is full auto. There is an opportunity there for unintentional super-safing.

And I think that much like an M-16, much like most other weapons systems, as long as you have the option to go back to semi-automatic as well as force reset, now we're we're in a position where we can have that capability, but not be forced to use it all the time. I think at that moment, if you wanted to tell me like, hey, Phil, I think this has a use, I would say, okay, get a Magpull D60, stuff into the weapon. When that is done, you drop it and you go back to regular 30 round max. Yeah, I could see that. Have you ever tried to wield an AR with a D60 or worse, the 150 dual snail drums? You're talking about like the big beta, the old school beta CMAGs.

Yeah. You ever, you ever try those? I have not, but I cannot imagine they are any heavier than an M249 with a with a lunchbox on the bottom of it. They're not. But what they, what they do is they make the weapon entirely unwieldy if you are not in a prone shooting position, in my opinion. Now, I'm a pretty big guy, Phil. I'm six foot tall like I'm 225 right now I don't have a problem carrying the weight of an AR with a 150 mag in it I've done it just at a range fucking around it's not an issue where it becomes an issue is target acquisition and changing from target to target to target we actually had a not a three gun match but a carbine match a jungle run

that they did, where you are walking through the path and you are shooting at targets as they pop up in the woods. The guys that were shooting the bigger mags almost all placed in the bottom half of that. Believing bull. Because number one, the guys that were really good aren't running those, which should tell you something. And the guys that were okay normally that did try to run them

were much slower due to the added weight and awkwardness of the magazine. So within engineering, there's a thing called the polar moment of inertia, which basically means like if you have a lever and you have 10 pounds of weight and you put it way over here right by the pivot point, it does not have a huge impact on how fast that lever will pivot around pivot point. But if you put the 10 pounds all the way out here on the edge, now it has a lot of impact. It's the same weight because it's further away.

from the pivot point, it has a higher moment of inertia. Absolutely. It's the reason why sports cars tend to have as light of crash bars and bumpers as humanly possible because they try to centralize all the weight towards the middle of the vehicle, which makes that vehicle much more nimble feeling, even if it weighs exactly the same. Yeah, the weight is balanced more appropriately. Now, Phil, Stan Egg mag, it's about a pound, right?

Fully loaded. Fully loaded. Air 1530 rounder. I'll go with that. I would call 454 grams. So about a pound. So your D60 is two pounds and most of that is now located below your Magwell and in a big round drum. The 150 is not two pounds.

It's like four pounds. Five pounds. Yeah, it's plastics. The plastics not that much weight, but it's a lot of weight. and lead and brass and that's not located below your gun that's now located off to either side of your gun it it changes the dynamics of the weight of the weapon quite a lot yeah like said not not to be any of that just suggesting that like if we if we go through if we go through this exercise kind of with and admittedly like my kind of base principles are baked in from carrying us

saw around 25 years ago. You know, if we're primarily considering this something to deal with anti-ambush, break contact and retreat, or if we're dealing with this for like an initiation of an assault, then really and truly you only need force reset and a high-capacity magazine once. You get most of your benefit from that initial burst where you get all in the air. and after that i agree i i think you can almost get the same benefit out of a light short reset competition style trigger um i'm thinking do a mag dump do a mag dump with a standard mill spec trigger and then do a mag dump with a geysley ssae short reset trigger i i guarantee you the mag dump with the

the short reset triggers faster once you're used to it. Yeah. I guess kind of my thought process, though, is that, like, in the name of full disclosure, I don't own anything with a forced reset trigger. Me either. Or a super safety. Haven't really felt the need personally. Because my stump that I have always defended very vigorously, whenever someone gets in

discussion about, like, we should have A or we should have B. And I had this exact same conversation with people years ago about like, well, you need train for a faster reload because you know less time on the gun blah blah blah and my point of view always was like yeah but in combat they don't teach soldiers like how to have a sub half second magazine change they teach you to be behind cover because that's more important now they teach you to cover your buddy so that when he's reloading you're laying down fire like there's there's all these different soldiering skills that are much more important than speed and when we talk about When I look at FRTs and super

safeties, I kind of fall back on the idea of like, okay, but there's all these soldiering skills that most of which can be covered by fairly good rifle basics and a semi-automatic trigger and you can get most of the same bang for your buck without these

things. And everything I've talked about to this point has been kind of from the guys of like trying to mimic a military capability which works in a squad. And I just, I don't want to take the hardline stance and say, like, these don't work for civilians or these aren't, these are, these are, these don't provide a capability. I just don't see the capability being near as pertinent or as important as a whole bunch of other things.

I would say that in my opinion, if you are choosing between a forced reset trigger or a super safety or a, a true. full auto and any other core prep, your money is better spent elsewhere. Unless your fundamentals are locked down. And by that I mean your marksmanship. By that I mean your tactics, your communication, your food and your water and your medical. And by medical, I mean your gear and your training are on lock. Because look, anytime a study has been done, most civilian involved shootings do not involve a mag change. Nope. They don't.

They flat out do not involve a mag change. The ones that do tend to involve a mag change due to a failure either of the gun, the ammo, or the magazine. You've heard Clint Smith's his whole spiel on this, right?

Probably, but remind me. He was quoting off he was quoting off police shooting statistics. and said that, you know, back when, like, all these departments carried, like, six shot K frames, basically, and L frames. Sure. The average gunfight lasted 5.2 rounds, and it was at a distance of, like, it was at an average distance of, like, I think it was 15 feet. Okay.

And then when all these departments upgraded to Glock 19s, guess what happened? The average range for the fight stayed exactly the same, and the average number of rounds fired was like two rounds less. and a Glock 19 carries in the magazine. So in other words, and he said it flat out, he's like, so what happened is when they had six shot K frames, they shot till the gun

ran dry, and that's when they stopped. And when we gave them Glock 19s, they shot till the magazine ran dry. Then they stopped. Well, you know, there is something to be said for panic fire, which does occur with law enforcement. It occurs

with the military. It will occur with civilians too well and even if you don't call a panic fire like there's a look if somebody's shooting at me i'm going to shoot until my mags empty and then i'm going to reload look if it's a two-way range it's no longer counting bullets yeah that was you shoot until the incoming rounds have stopped for a while and that's the point you shoot till the threat stops so whether i got six rounds in the gun or 15 rounds in the gun i'm going to continue shooting until i run out and have to reload or until you're not trying to hurt me anymore right and and if i have 15 rounds in the gun versus six the natural pause point is different yeah now you will be judged partially on that

by people who know fuck all about defensive shooting unfortunately you know they're I'm not ever going to tell someone to carry a gun with less rounds in it because there is a point of diminishing in returns for weight in ergonomics. There is. There is also a point of diminishing returns for having two few bullets in your gun. Because targets don't stand there. Hostels don't stand there like a paper target on a seven-yard pistol range. They don't.

They're going to move. you're going to be moving, you're going to need to apply judicious marksmanship when you can and sometimes probably suppressing fire. Yeah. I mean, look at the videos that people break, two, three guys breaking into a house. And the homeowner happens to be armed and happens to be somewhat ready for that. Guess what? They shoot until everybody leaves the house.

Mm-hmm. you know i mean i can i can dump a 15 round pistol mag extremely rapidly i'm sure phil can as well and oh man yeah i mean jeff's kind of right on the target sounds like the moment you stopped to check if the threads neutralize is right about the same time you stop to reload you know that i have i have often wondered to myself and i've talked to to this with a few different firearms instructors if doing those fun mag dumps at the range isn't creating a training scar and i've often wondered if doing set double tap and triple tap drills isn't creating a training scar i don't know what the right answer is to that so i won't

say the right answer but the answer is everything you do can create a training scar if you continue to train the same thing over and over and over, which is why my, my comment, like laypersons, because I'm not a firearms instructor, but it's what I take myself, my common advice to everybody is is train something different every time you go. Don't train differently. So in other words, like, you know, like if you reload a certain way, reload that certain way. If you do gun handling a certain way, properly, hopefully, but do it the same way every way. Nick and I were talking earlier about the fact that, like, I've got a chess rig and I've got a play carrier. They're both set up with the same things in the same spots.

Yeah, as close as possible. Yeah. So, like, I know I've fixed blades right here, comms are up here, magazines right here. Like, I don't have to think about, oh, I'm wearing the wrong rig. Everything's in a different place. Like, you have to train with some consistency, but when it comes to drills, I don't recommend you train the same thing every time because repetition works both. ways. Maybe what we should try, and I know a lot of guys that do this is when you go to the

range, go with the buddy and do, say, threat drills, have your buddy call down or threat down or clear after a semi-random number of rounds. Ooh, here's a thought. Shot timer. except don't wait for the beep to start shooting set the shot timer so that after like x amount of seconds at a random interval it'll beep so you hit the button you start shooting on the target and when you hear the beep you stop or you hit start have a buddy call threat and then at the beep you stop because perhaps you get halfway through presentation beep all right we got to stop

either that or i'll tell you useful i'll tell you a really fun drill and it seems like just goofing around bull crap but it's really fun and it's really useful you and a buddy work a plate rack back and forth like um one of the little poppers where like when you when you shoot it flips to your buddy side yeah race tree i'm going to tell you right now that is a hell of a thing because you are you are shooting targets in real time and when he pops one back to you the way at least we do it is is that you have to shoot the highest

the top target. So when you get when you're in when you're focused on shoot the next target and one gets popped up above you, you have to stop to transition. Reengage and then go back and it's like it's this constant your Oudaloup is constantly cycling through

looking for I'm trying to hit this target but I have to be aware of those up there because if that happens I have to stop. I have to engage up here it's just my whole thing is is that train something different every time and try to find ways to force you to do stuff other than shoot yeah force yourself to think along with the training i mean if you're a complete nerd like i am try to do multiple try to do multiplication tables while you're shooting you'd be shocked how fast you start pulling rounds left right and center because you're not thinking about oh i got to squeeze the trigger and i have to control my

breathing. You know, you're thinking about like what's five times seven while you're trying to put rounds on target. If you can find a range that'll let you do it, do pushups. Or do a do a couple burpees and then try to shoot your string. I don't recommend that the local public range though the lookage funding. It depends on the range. Um, my local public range, if you have their holster certification, you can do stuff like that. But they, but you have to rent out three lanes when you do. Oh, Jesus. You got one to you left and one of your right of you.

It's just their rules. My local range is run by fudds. Yeah. Mostly nice people, but still fudge. Mine is run by mostly sandbox tactical timies. So. No, they're the fun kind. Don't let you do stuff like holster training and stuff like that.

You know, they're guys that are trying to do modern training and less fuddly duddly stuff, but their concealed carry instructors all carry 1911s and outside the waistband holsters, weather. Yeah. Barbecue guns. Yeah. They sure look pretty and half of them are kimbers.

Like, you're judging my shooting, sir? My gun works through the entire 21 round string. Yeah, that's just painful because my first gun is a 1911 made by Kimber. Hey, look, if they are treated appropriately and if you break them inappropriately, they're fine. There, they're fine. But my M&P 2.0C, I pulled it out of the box and I ran 500 rounds through it with zero malfunctions. I always say, like, I love my Kimber, but I would never on earth hang up one of my, hang up one of my C's.

CZs and carry the Kimber. It is, it is, it is an accurate gun. It is fun to shoot. It is nowhere near as reliable or forgiving as my CZs are a nine millimeter. Not even close. Jeff makes a good point when you win a gun fight because your opponent's gun is rusted shut. Ouch.

Hey man. A win's a win. Or even if you run away. Or gunked up with Cosmoline. Well, that too. That's, you know, That's just another point in the do your maintenance. Yeah.

Are you cleaning your guns on a regular schedule, even if you haven't been out to the range lately? Spiders build cobwebs. That might actually be a good topic for next week. Sure. Gun maintenance. Just do your maintenance in general. It'll probably be a good one. Yeah.

I'm sure we can make some hay out of that. But we do need to wrap this up. It is like $8.55 at night. And it is Friday night, which means. I had to stay up late tonight and edit this thing. I'm going to bed in 15 minutes. Have fun with that. I do appreciate you sticking with me to do this on a Friday night, though, because

like, you know, yesterday was New Year's Day. I was out of town visiting family, and I'm glad we're getting back on the horn, though. I enjoy doing the podcast, but I'm not going to lie. I do too. I was kind of glad. First of all, I was glad to take the time off with my family, but also with me, catch in the cold or whatever god awful thing i did i would you had a hard time oh dude i couldn't i couldn't keep my stuff to care for five minutes last week so we would have been taking the week off

regardless got to take care of your health first yeah about that you got nothing i just don't like to be reminded of it anyway matter of facts podcast going to go out the door we might talk about general maintenance vehicle maintenance maybe weapons maintenance next week or we'll figure out something completely different. Stuff just happens. Raggle-fraggle. Didn't we do general maintenance not that long ago? No, I think we did basic home maintenance. I think

we probably did vehicle and home maintenance. We might have done vehicle at the same time. We could do kit maintenance. Ooh, kit and firearm maintenance. I like that. And for those of you that haven't, change your goddamn smoke detector batteries, or at least a month after daylight savings time.

I need a beeping noise to play during this show now. no don't that drives me fucking crazy i got up at the three in the morning two days before daylight savings time because one of my smoke detectors did that are you gonna i cannot sleep through that are you going to bobbing your mosen i might i've been thinking about it for a long time i do have that black powder rifle from eddie that i've been doing more playing around with uh okay then i might I might play smoke detector beep. All right, that's fair.

For that episode, for when I finally get that done, I am waiting on some hardened nozzles for my 3D printer so I can try some carbon fiber polymer. We might do a full synthetic plastic fantastic job on that thing. We'll see. Sounds like fun. All right. Matter of fact, going out the door.

Good night, everybody. stay out of trouble, stay in touch. If you're not going to stay out of trouble, at least be good at getting back out of trouble. Talk to y'all in a week. Bye. Good night. I'm going to be

a lot of B. B. B. B. B. B. B.

B. B. B. B. B. You know, I'm going to be. You're going to be.