The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: You Can't Buy Competency
Episode Date: July 13, 2026http://www.mofpodcast.com/http://www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/https://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/p...hilrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcasthttps://twitter.com/themofpodcasthttps://www.cypresssurvivalist.org/Support the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, Nic Emricson, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*Rampant consumerism and Influencer Culture combine to convince you YOUR gear isn't good enough. Either the new Hotness just dropped, or your three month olf rifle build isn't the latest meta on the forums and YouTube, and now you have to uncork the money cannon to buy more stuff and add to your collection of disgarded tactical tupperware. Or do you? Where is the line between “Your stuff is fine, go train” and legitimately needing to upgrade?Matter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble at 7:30 PM Central on Thursdays . See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices. Intro and Outro Music by Phil Rabalais All rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creatorBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prepper-broadcasting-network--3295097/support.Support PBN and become a MEMBER of the PBN FAMILY! Free courses, Members only videos, reviews, and podcast! The Prepper's Medical Handbook Build Your Medical Cache – Welcome PBN FamilyJoin the Prepper Broadcasting Network for expert insights on #Survival, #Prepping, #SelfReliance, #OffGridLiving, #Homesteading, #Homestead building, #SelfSufficiency, #Permaculture, #OffGrid solutions, and #SHTF preparedness. With diverse hosts and shows, get practical tips to thrive independently – subscribe now!Newsletter – Welcome PBN FamilyGet Your Free Copy of 50 MUST READ BOOKS TO SURVIVE DOOMSDAYSupport PBN with a Donation
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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.
I am horribly unprepared, and my co-host did his absolute best to save me,
but I'm trying to, at the last minute, add banners that I have.
had on my phone. I just was running late so I didn't get a chance to put them on. So I'm adding
mine to yours and not deleting any of them. Good. I was chastised for that. Well, look, more than
once has Phil come in close to the wire because of, hey, man, life happens. He just comes in and starts
furiously download it, deleting all the banners that he thought were from last week without ever
reading them. That, that has happened a couple of times. Hey, man, you're trying to do your best, right?
Life, life does it sometimes, man.
Life just does it.
We finally got somebody to successfully ask us to restart the show by asking before we started.
So technically, you're welcome.
Yeah, we did promise Stewart.
We'd give it like three or four minutes, although we're known to BS for at least that long and do admin work.
So like, you know, it will, it will do its thing.
It will do the go.
I need a forklift.
Um, sorry I'm all out.
I know.
It's one of those things that like your neighbors don't tend to just have laying around.
So I think when I eventually get the county off their ass and allowing me to build my building, I'm probably going to have to buy a forklift.
Um, probably.
Yep.
I think that's the direction my life is heading.
Are you going to armor plate it?
Look, I'm not going to rule it out.
Oh, the audio listeners never get to fully appreciate the moments where one of it says something and the look on the other one's face says volumes.
I'm not ruling out armor plating on anything.
My wife wants me to tell you guys, I bought a bridge port this week.
Well, I haven't paid for it yet.
I'm paying for it tomorrow when it gets delivered.
We're going to find out if I have the equipment to unload it or not.
And how much does it weigh?
In live.
Duh, 2,685-ish pounds.
You could have bought a car and had an easier time, bud?
Yes, but a car, a car is not a world-class piece of machining history.
Okay, but your world-class piece of machining history is going to give you a hernia.
No.
No, if I try to lift it, it will legitimately kill me, which is why we have a pallet jack, a plan,
and potentially a skid loader with forks on it.
Hopefully a skid loader with forks on it.
We'll see.
Your plan is already making me nervous.
It should.
It's making me nervous because I know exactly how heavy these are
and how hard they are to move.
I've moved them before.
Just remember.
Gillian doesn't know what a bridgeport is.
Hold on.
I will pull up some pictures while we're talking.
Wait a second.
You might as well,
What does Rachel mean another hernia?
Oh, I've already had double hernia surgery because of my anvil, which I sold.
I got rid of the anvil.
So are you going to get rid of this if it gives your hernia?
No, no.
This is something that I will probably keep until the day I die or they put me in a home.
And then it becomes someone else's problem to figure I had to move it.
Yeah, probably my brother's kids.
Okay, I'll do admin work while you look for pictures of a bridge.
to explain to my wife the weird crap you're into. All right. Thar she blows. Did it share?
It did. Okay. So what you're seeing there is a manual milling machine that has a table travel about 12 by 24 and Z travel like 18 inches. Essentially what it is is a big piece of cast iron with some precision screws on it that allow me to control it and a big honkin motor up top.
which is pretty cool.
It'd be a lot cooler if it weighed about one-tenth as much.
If it weighed one-tenth as much, it would be one-one-hundredth as capable.
But you would be able to move them with a factor.
Look, metal working equipment is a function of mass and electrical horsepower.
I do understand this. I'm needling you because why wouldn't I?
Look, I can buy a very shitty tabletop mill any day of the week.
I can.
Every person that I know that has worked on one of those little tiny tabletop hobbyist mills will tell you the exact same thing.
They're junk.
No, no, no, no.
They are fine for a light hobbyist user.
I am not light and I'm only technically a hobbyist because it's happening at my house unpaid.
I will expect industrial performance out of any machine cooling I buy.
Stuart has given us the green light to start over, but all we did was BS for the first six minutes.
We did, and I lied to Stewart.
I did not let you do the admin work first.
Well, we're going to do it really, really quick.
You should become a patron.
The links in the show description.
You should buy merch.
That links in the show description.
And you should buy coffee, and that link is also in the show description.
And if you need to be reminded what those, what all those things are, just go in the show description.
All the links are there.
The description of what the full Tom Fulery we're talking about today is there.
I don't get enough credit for doing like really well put together show notes.
You do.
They're very nice.
Every time I've needed something from the show, instead of using my notes, I just use yours because they're better.
I mean, I put it you this way.
That was like my one little contribution to PBN was when.
we came into the show, I literally like shared all my base files with everybody and said,
hey, guys, do this for your show notes. Your listeners will appreciate it. Oh my gosh,
yes. It makes everything so much easier. There's nothing I despise more than like when I'm
watching a YouTube video, not necessarily even a podcast, but like a YouTube video where they'll be
like, yeah, the link is in the description to this, this tool that I use to do this hyper-specific
task. Like, great, because I can barely understand the words you're saying because your mic quality is
dog shit. And I go into that.
the description and there is no link or it's buried in like a text wall or it's there's no line
breaks or paragraph breaks yeah this this is like definitely first world problem to the 10th degree
oh and 100% is but i live in the first world it's also worth pointing out that like every time we've
i've talked to anybody who's been like hey how do i start a podcast i'm like the very first thing
you do is start getting organized write all this crap down make a plan you know and they and be like
Well, but what do I do?
What, what, what, this, what that?
I'm like, no, no, no.
Sit down and write everything down.
Honestly, the mic quality on cell phones nowadays is pretty top tier.
The first dozen episodes we record on this show almost 10 years ago was done with the earbuds that come with an iPhone.
Do you, did you ever see Joe Rogan's initial podcast or listen to like the first three or four he put out?
I did not.
They were recorded on a shitty Lenovo laptop that he had.
had for the last 15 years.
I'm telling you, man, it does not take much.
It's the content at the end of the day.
It really makes the show.
Like, the technology is cool, but really and truly,
if you can hold a conversation to get your point across
and be a little bit entertaining in the process,
you got a show.
Yeah, I believe so.
I mean, it definitely helps that Joe was already
nationally level famous.
That does help things.
Like, I was definitely fighting from the bottom up.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
but you know what
All right
The point was never to beat Joe at his game
Hell no
That's a job
But I've already got a job
Mm-hmm
All right
I guess let's skip the mini topic
Because we've already BS for nine minutes
What?
Can you buy competency
Sometimes
Mm-hmm
No
Braining you have to pay for
Is one way to buy competency
Only if you're purchasing
that service from someone else.
Yeah, exactly.
Training can be self-led, training can be self-administered.
No, it absolutely can, but I do think we need to be honest about there is a way to buy competency.
And one of those ways is by hiring competent training staff.
Can you buy competency by spending money on gun stuff?
No.
No.
No.
Now, so.
Or radio stuff for that matter.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Let's put a pin in radio stuff for,
steward, yes, by training.
But that's not exactly what we're talking about.
Because there is this constant trend within this community and lots of communities where people want the thing.
Sure.
Because the thing lets them do the thing.
Okay.
There is to some extent a little bit of truth to that.
In that quality equipment, quality equipment, I'm saying.
the new hotness, not the super high-end stuff, but reasonably acceptable quality equipment
enables you to not be fighting the equipment while you're building competency.
Like you are never going to learn to be a world-class marksman shooting a Mosin.
You're just not.
A rack-grade mozan, you're absolutely not.
Now, you will have-developed some pretty good snipers on better quality.
Mosins with better quality ammunition.
They absolutely did.
But they were reasonably good quality equipment.
Yeah.
I think it's also worth pointing out that like, you're going to have a hell of a time learning to like in a dynamic situation, run a gun.
Run an AR do target acquisition, do target transition, get your shots on target.
Move between cover or just move from target to target from stand to stand while shooting.
those are all skill sets and it's a lot harder to do that if you're having a monkey fuck with the AR constantly because it just it double fed or failed to eject or you know you have to go find a cleaning rod to tap this round out or Christ forbid you friggin like it does something really unhinged like for again like shear a lug off the bolt or something crazy and it just puts the gun down like or shear the bolt in half at at the uh whatever that the shit I can't remember the name of the cross pin the cam pin.
Yeah, the campen.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Or let's not go to catastrophic.
Let's just say you got a screaming deal on some frigging no-name brand magazines, and they will not stop shoving two rounds into the chamber at the same time.
Or they will not present the round towards the chamber at the proper orientation, and you are constantly having a round get hung up on the feed ramps.
There are so many things out there.
Yes, Dr. Scary guy, Samo did use a moz.
He did, but it was an, it was an accurate mozun.
It was using marksman grade, match grade, equip ammunition.
Yep.
And it was his personal rifle that he not built, but tuned.
Yeah.
So that's why I specified you're not going to take a rack grade, Mosin, and do that.
But almost more important than all that, that boy had the skills to pay the bills.
He did.
And the average, the average individual, that's like comparing the average individual with a, with a cult python to Jerry Mitchellack with a cult python.
It doesn't matter that you both have a cult python.
The man has millions of reps.
And I do mean millions.
Yes.
Literally a mountain of brass in his backyard.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,
kind of the linchpinner of that we wanted to talk this show around was the idea that like,
we all need to stop trying to buy competency.
We all need to stop this, this urge to like go out and buy the world's best radio,
thinking that that's somehow going to make it to where I now know how to do things with that radio.
We need to stop this urge to go out, get a frigging, get our our box stock clock,
and dump literally everything but the freaking frame in the slide out of it
and fill full of race parts because we're trying to buy competency.
Instead of learning to tighten up the loose nut behind the trigger,
that is the cost for a lot of our accuracy issues,
a lot of our speed issues, and everything else.
Look, there is something to be said for things like trigger upgrades
once you get to a certain point of capability.
I like very light, very short reset triggers.
It does increase, it does decrease my split time shot to shot because you don't have as much movement that's required.
And because you don't have as much movement that's required, it takes out some of the potential for you to create additional inaccuracy through that extraneous movement.
No, that's fair.
I can understand that.
I'm actually the exact opposite because I took one pull on your trigger and put that damn thing down and said, nope, don't like it.
And don't keep it wrong.
I really love a really short trigger.
I do not like really light triggers.
I like two pound triggers on my pistols.
Hell no.
Not even on a rifle.
I love it.
Give me a rifle trigger.
Okay, like on an AR, about a five pound trigger.
I've got a three and a half pound trigger on my, on my bolt gun that still drop safe.
I think I have a two and a half.
on my geysley.
Yeah, but on handguns,
I mean,
other than putting a spring kit
into my double action only,
you know, J-frame,
I still run stock triggers on everything.
Those J-frame said like a 14-pound trigger pole,
didn't they?
Yeah,
now it has about a nine-pound trigger pole.
Look, I would,
this is one thing that I try to avoid
giving like novice shooters
that I'm teaching how to shoot.
I avoid giving them,
my guns that are built for me
because the triggers are so light.
We got to circle back around to
go for it.
Proud Texan,
can you buy gear that makes you competent?
If we're talking about like training aids and everything,
I mean, yeah,
you can make that argument because I'm constantly up,
up Nick's butt doing jumping jacks about how he needs to get a mantis.
I do.
But I'm also very quick to point out that that is,
just that is a training aid.
It doesn't make you any better unless you put in the work.
True.
It doesn't.
But what it can do is it can give you feedback closer to what a qualified instructor,
a capable instructor could give you without having to go to all the classes.
So it's not necessarily that you're buying being better.
You're just buying feedback in a different way.
That's, that's perfectly fair.
uh rimfire radio first time he's joined the show thanks for hanging out with us um raggle fraggle
going to introduce me to his tzc 527 with a set trigger it goes to ounces it goes to breathing
zero i can tell you right now i am probably not going to like that very much i just i'm not a super
i don't like super light triggers like every time i every time we've ever gotten to this discussion with me
and anybody else comparing guns.
They are always very surprised.
Like, I prefer a heavier trigger.
It's just a me thing.
Yeah.
What I don't like, I like, I like a heavier, I like triggers a little on the heavier side.
What I do not like, and it was my one most gigantic criticism of my CZ Scorpion when I got that,
was that it was a long, gritty trigger with a long, gritty reset.
That aggravates the crap out of me.
But when I, but when I dropped a timny into it, I actually,
put the heavier trigger spring into it because when I put the lighter one in, it was just way too
light, put the heavier one in, and I love it. It literally, the trigger is so short now.
You have to really pay attention or you will accidentally double it up.
Interesting. It's, it's very, very short. It runs. I mean, it's very direct. The reset is super
short, but I did for all those reasons, I wanted the five and a half pound trigger.
Mm-hmm. Not the three and a half pound trigger. That's very fair.
I mean, it really, in my opinion, once you get below like an eight pound trigger compared to like a lot of the factories that are 12, 14, 16 pound, that's light enough that it's not going to be causing you extra problems.
And from there on down, it's down to personal preference, really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I feel like there's a lot of that's honestly like personal preference.
Like, yeah, you can make the argument that a match trigger in a match setting like potentially.
makes you a better shooter, but at the same time, it's not that it makes you a better shooter.
It removes potential variables from the equation, just like a match barrel does.
But the problem is, and you and I've had this conversation before about how my yardstick for what a good shooter is is perpetually screwed up by the number of really good shooters I know.
Oh, my gosh, yes.
And compared to most of them, I'm a ratbag bastard.
I can barely, I can barely know which end to point outrange.
And I'm happy to admit that.
I know a ton of people that out shoot me every day of the week, twice Sunday.
My freaking father is one of them.
Yeah, you and I, I think, both have a very skewed perspective on what is an average shooter.
Because, like, I am almost constantly around people that are at my own level or better.
Sounds like you're the same.
And when I go to competitions, it's always very tight because it's pretty rare that you'll get a guy that's not really dedicated to the hobby jumping into a competition.
without a considerable time investment beforehand.
But I guess all that to say, like,
I know people who can out shoot me with my own guns.
Yeah, that's fair.
There is no buying competency.
Beyond, like, you can,
you might be able to buy a slight advantage.
But at the end of the day,
the thing that separates,
like pick your five best F-class shooters at any competition.
The thing that separates the five of them,
is at that level, at that point,
it's not their brass prep,
it's not their reloading practices,
it's not the quality of their barrel,
it's not the quality of their grass,
glass,
it's not the quality of the rifle,
because they're all at 10010%
to get to that level.
Yes.
It comes down to skill,
their judgment on the day,
it comes down to like
the little things
that are beyond anybody's control,
which way the wind is blowing 800 yards down the range.
But all the thing you could spend,
money on at that level did no longer matters because true we used to I used to have this conversation
when I was in when I used to an auto cross with cars years and years ago before Piper was born
and I was never one of the guys that like went to state or did any really high high level
auto crossing because my car was in a class where it fit but it was kind of prepped to what I could
still tolerate to drive it on the street the guy who won my class every time I raced against
him and went to state and sometimes went to nationals, took the rulebook as, this is how I'm going
to prep this car to the bleeding edge of the limit.
Yeah.
And the problem was, you cannot go to state or go to nationals unless you were willing to do that.
But who wanted state or nationals wasn't the guy that spent the most money on the car.
Because that that, that's, that's the ticket price.
Yeah, that's the entry level.
That's just like you can't, you can't get in.
an F-class match without owning a rifle.
And having some damn good skills to back it up and, you know, doing some things.
Like there's a certain amount of, yes, money that has to be spent.
But to actually excel in any discipline, even if it's just recreational shooting,
just throwing money at the problem is not going to be enough.
Right.
I mean, you do have your consumables with any hobby and with anything like,
can you eventually wear out a radio?
Yeah, you probably can.
I never will.
I mean, if you buy wear out, you mean like run over with a car, possibly.
Well, yeah.
I mean, you can break it while doing the hobby.
But I mean, like my pistol barrel that I'm looking at replacing right now, I have scrubbed it out with everything I can think of to try and prove that that's letting in the barrel.
It is not.
I will try to get some better pictures to throw on the Patreon chat.
I've got a buddy of mine with an inspection camera nearby that I'm hoping to take this pistol with me towards and have him get some snapshots to the inside of the bore.
And you can see it is quite considerable amounts of pitting down in the lands and grooves, which is shocking to me out of a Smith and Weston barrel at less than 10,000 rounds.
I mean, it's almost there.
It's at 9,000 now.
Yeah.
But could also be a function of how, like, how hot of a load you're pushing.
I am running my projectiles at the same velocity and energy levels of a 147 HST.
So, I mean, they're cooking.
And a lot of times when I'm going to the range, I'm going to do two, 250 rounds of training somewhat rapidly.
Sometimes I'm doing like first shot from concealment drills.
Sometimes I'm doing random timer on my phone and then dump six targets.
two shots each.
The gun's getting hot.
I'm pushing heavy loads.
I'm pushing high velocity heavy loads.
And maybe I got a bad barrel with some defective material.
Or maybe you just wore it out.
Maybe I've just worn it out.
I mean, with the pistol, I used to shoot competitions.
I tried to change the barrel out like 10 or 15,000 rounds.
Yeah.
And that gun, the only original parts left are the mag release and the frame.
because I have worn out all the other parts.
I cracked a slide.
I burned out three barrels.
I wore through one of the recoil spring rods.
Apparently they were plastic when I first got that gun.
It's now to Austin just so I can't wear it out.
And I've worn out three spring kits.
Sounds about right.
You know, it's a lot of rounds to wear that thing out.
But it's all using factory stock components, except I got rid of that fucking plastic spring rod.
Because that just- Guide rod.
Yeah, that was dumb.
I put titanium one in, or tungsten one in.
Because that's what was in stock.
So I bought it.
Turns out, adding a little more weight to the front of the gun actually helped.
It does.
So I want to throw this up, because this was kind of my spiel on part of what might be driving this.
But I think it's fair to call out.
influencer culture. Oh my gosh, yes. There is, there is this thing where there is,
you're dead if you don't own thermals. There is this big group of people out there on the
internet and in, I don't want to call it the real world because they're not in real world.
They live in their own little world. And some people accuse me being an influencer and I'm
really not because nobody gives a shit what I think. And I'm not trying to sell you anything except
some far felt advice. So you, my financial decisions unsuccessfully for years now.
But, but, but that's not I'm trying to.
sell you stuff for my own benefit. I'm trying to sell you stuff for my amusement so that we can both be
financially crippled. Exactly. But, you know, like I do feel like influencer culture is responsible
for a lot of this. I feel like there's a group of people out there that are just part of their
business model to sell you stuff is to convince you that if you do not have this thing that they're
selling, which is not dissimilar from the thing they were selling a year ago made by a different
company that was also paying them to advertise it at the time, but not anymore. So that's why
they're selling this thing. And this is that.
This thing is the new hotness and this thing will keep from getting killed in the streets.
But this thing was made in the same factory in China as the other thing from the company that no longer pays their bills.
That's why they're selling you this thing that's better than that thing.
And so on and so forth.
And I mean, like, I'm not going to throw a shade at anybody.
But, like, you know, there's always so much like, you know, there's always so many estates in Ireland and freaking like raid shadow legends and Sonoran Desert Institute that you can try to hawk upon the gun community.
before I start looking at like, I get it, this is your job, and I get it, advertising is a thing,
and you got to make money to keep the bills paid.
I understand all that.
Comma, however, comma, I do feel like this gets people into this mind frame of I constantly
have to buy the new thing to stay even with everybody else.
You know, I have seen over the years, I've watched the acceleration of this on YouTube and on
Instagram and a bunch of the other social media platforms.
And the one thing I do see that I have to say I actively hate is if you don't own
this, you'll die.
Literally in the title.
If you don't have thermals, you'll die.
If you don't have nods, you'll die.
What if it's food?
If you don't have food, you will die.
That's different.
Sponsored by My Patriot Pantry Prepper Extreme Ultra food bag.
God damn.
Like, man, I get it, but still, like, it's, it's disingenuous. And a lot of the times they're not, they're not honest about the fact that it isn't entirely sponsored and paid for video.
There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a heterosexual marital dispute happening in the chat that I have to call out.
Also, SDI is not a scam.
SDI is not a scam.
It's also not as great as people make it out to be.
Yeah.
My issue is not with the SDI or people selling SDI so much as it is like I have never in history of this show ever recommended anything to anybody that I would have, mostly that I have not spent my own money on or things that I was willing to spend my own money on.
Like I just, it feels icky to recommend something just for a paycheck.
I personally, before you finish your thought, let me get it out.
Go for it.
So Raggle said hi to Rimfire Radio.
And then Rimfire asked, are you cheating on me?
The answer is yes.
Okay.
So in all fairness, in Rimfire Radio, I don't know where you're located, but
Raggle is literally like a hop skip and a jump away.
He's been to my house.
So like, he's seen where you sleep.
He knows where I sleep.
He knows where all the guns are stored.
He sat on my couch with me and my wife and hung out.
And, you know, he keeps trying to get me to join.
him in the pito van with the without the windows on it that has free ammo on the side i keep
telling him no not interested but he's really really you know he's really pushing for it hard so i might
have to get in the van at least once free whiskey and guns well i'm getting in the van bro if they're i'm
telling you if if a van pulls up outside of nick's house with free machine tools and ammo he's abducted
he's fucking gone i mean i'm a big guy if they want to put me somewhere it's going to take a minute i got some time i
figure i'll roll that dice uh if it's me it'd be it'd be free guns and cigar hars and whiskey i
am 10 out of 10 getting in the back of the van i'm going to get touched and appropriately it's
it's just going to happen that's fine or are they going to be surprised where they
really or are they going to be surprised where they realize i'm not fighting to get away i'm just mad
because i got lied to i wanted free guns and ammo yeah no anyway so yeah i mean i feel like
influencer culture drives a fair bit of this.
And I really wish you wouldn't.
I think influencer culture is a natural outgrowth of the algorithmic weaponization of YouTube.
Okay.
Of all the social media companies.
Because until they altered the algorithms to reflect clicks instead of posting time, instead of it being in reverse chronological order, they did it based on.
engagement. There was really no being an influencer. There was people that you followed,
and there wasn't that much money in doing those things. Like, if you look at like,
uh, nothing fancy back, back on his original channel. Good example. His stuff, the stuff he
promoted was stuff he paid for, tested, tried to break and couldn't. And that was years. And he was
pretty even keel. He would shit talk products just as much as he would promote them.
He would get that when he started getting products sent to him for testing,
they were some of the most realistic test to destruction and then reviews of,
yeah, I broke it, but I broke it abusing it and take that into account.
I'm not going to dime them out, but somebody did send me a product for a T&E years and years
and years ago.
Yeah. I was so unimpressed with it.
that when they started pestering me about, hey, when you're going to do your review?
I literally told them, I'm like, look, I'm not at all happy about your product.
I think it's crap.
So do you want me to do a fair review or do you want me to forget that this ever happened?
I'll review it.
Oh, no, I told him flat out.
I'm like, look, your product is crap.
It's not well thought out.
It's not well laid out.
It doesn't perform very well.
And the amount of money you're asking for it, I don't think it's worth it.
So if you want me to say all that on the internet,
I will happily, I will, I will take care of that for you.
But you probably want, you probably just want to act like you didn't send this to me and I'll forget it ever happened.
I still actually have that thing.
It's lying around someplace.
Remind me and I'll talk to you about it offline.
You should.
Send it to me.
I have no objections to reviewing it.
It's not that I have an objection to reviewing it.
It was more like I was so unhappy with the experience that I was like,
There's no point giving it attention.
No, there's really not.
And I don't think they sell it anymore.
I don't think that company exists anymore, which kind of lends credence to 100% of what I was feeling at the time.
Not all ideas are good ideas.
Anyway, so let's confront the question.
When is it time to upgrade?
Like, let's lay the land here.
You bought a thing.
the thing was not an immediate, gigantic piece of crap.
Let's say it at least worked.
Let's use my pistol that I'm having issues with as an example.
Perfect example.
Other than the trigger, I'm assuming it's like a box stock.
Yeah, I haven't even changed the sights.
Not even changed the sites.
Not change the barrel, not change the slide, nothing.
The only thing I changed was the trigger to make it to my personal preference.
And I knew that going into the purchase of the pistol.
Okay.
So when did I decide that this pistol needed an upgrade?
First of all, when did you decide to change the trigger because you did upgrade it immediately?
I decided to change that.
So I did not know anything about M&Ps before my wife bought hers.
Okay. My wife bought hers because that when we went to the gun range,
that is the only pistol that fit her hand comfortably.
That fair point.
And you know what?
Hey, perfect.
Pistols need to fit their user more than rifles.
There's really not as much margin for compensation based on technique when it comes to pistols.
And if they do not fit your hand well.
In going to the range with her and shooting hers is like, okay, I can see why you like this.
I tried out the different grip sizes that they had in the box.
This is actually a pretty decent pistol.
And the original trigger in it was okay.
It was considerably heavier than I prefer.
And I bought one.
I bought an M&P.
And I did not upgrade the trigger for like a year and a half, two years.
I waited a year and a half for two years and trained with it.
And from the sound of it, it wasn't a upgrade for more capability competency, whatever.
It was a pure personal preference.
It was a pure personal preference.
When I got the M&P, I looked around at different spring kits.
There wasn't a spring kit that went to the trigger weight that I wanted.
But Powder River Precision made a trigger kit that dropped into that gun at the trigger weight I wanted.
And it had a spring kit for one step down and a spring kit for one step up from the trigger weight I prefer.
And I said, you know what?
I'm going to try it and see if I like it.
I love it.
My wife tried it.
She loves it.
So going down that road of upgrading for personal preference, do you feel like there's a limit?
Yes, there's absolutely a limit.
I agree, but what's your limit?
So when it comes to aesthetics, how it looks, I don't think you've gained-
Please stop putting red-anadized shit on your ARs.
Look, I think red-anadized shit looks cool.
It's also dumb, and you have to pay away too much money.
to get that. Just buy the black shit and spray paint it with crylon red. Just do that.
It's like $14 for a can. If you want, man, I'm just disappointed. Well, I'm just saying,
like, if you like your gun red, I mean, look, bang for your buckwise, grab a can of
crylon metallic paint and just shoot that shit. Why not? I mean, there's, there, it's no different
than camoing your AR or camoing your shotgun. I need to camo my shotgun. Why? Because I think it looks
cool and it will cost me exactly zero dollars I have left over camo paint.
Raggle has a question. So are we strictly, you know what? Let me drop that down. I'm going to
start it. You're going to finish your train and fly it. Yeah. So I have gotten to the point where
parts on my firearm are failing due to wear and use. All right. I need to spend either a
about
350 bucks
on a new barrel
and a new slide
because they no longer
make the barrel length
that I have
or I can spend an extra
$35
basically is what it comes down to
and buy an optic ready slide.
Now, I've finally gotten
a pair of glasses
apparently that allow me to shoot red dots.
I did not know this
until the MOF summer camp trip
and one of our patrons
let me shoot his red dot equipped
suppressed 22, which was the most fun 22 shooting I've ever done.
hilariously great.
Holocund 507, I believe it was on a mark 5 with a can.
Did it have the selectable radical or was just on or off?
He just had it on a dot so I don't know.
I didn't dick around with his optic.
If you're not super familiar with Holo Suns,
That's like the only difference between the 407 and 507 is the 407 has one radical.
The 507 usually has like three or four or something.
Yeah, but I digress.
Donut with no dot.
That's almost certainly a 507.
I don't know what he.
I don't know.
He just had his set on a dot whether or not it was the four or the five.
I don't know.
If it had the dot and the circle of death, 507.
It was just a dot that he had on.
So it could have been and he might have just had it disabled.
I mean, it was Chris's.
So he'll chime in in the patron chat, what it is.
is, but that was the first time I had looked through a red dot and not had it flared out to the point
of uselessness.
And I believe I very recently got these upgraded to a newer prescription.
And I have a better eye doctor now.
And I'm wondering if they were not fully compensating for my astigmatism with my old set of
glasses, which is why I could never get red dots to work for me.
Possibly.
So given that I now no longer have the limitation of my vision.
not allowing me to try red dots.
And the cost, the additional cost for me to get into one is only $35 over the amount of parts I need to buy anyway to maintain my equipment to allow me to potentially buy a red dot in the future.
I'm leaning towards buying an optics ready slide and a slightly longer barrel.
It's like a quarter inch longer barrel.
I don't know why Smith and Weston doesn't make the 4 inch MMP2.0 anymore.
They just don't.
reasons some for sale probably because they didn't sell very well they they had a 3.6 a 4 and a
i want to say 5 but now they have a 4 and a quarter instead of a 4 whatever it's probably
largely to make room for the optics ready slides is my guess and to deal with that extra mass a
little bit better maybe but i think if you get to the point where you're having
to repair or replace your equipment.
You have probably used your equipment enough to become competent, current, and capable with it.
That's all fair.
I will say that upgrading for personal preference, like, I'm not going to put any limits on as far as, like, when you start.
I am going to say that the moment you start to compromise, like, measurable performance.
Yeah.
That's when I have an issue with it.
If you want to put weird, cool guy stuff on your gun and it does not.
not make you shoot worse or it doesn't cause malfunctions.
Cool.
But like you and I have both seen a mountain of tactical TV bull crap at the range that
ends up making your gun run like shit.
Or just fucking yard sales off the gun halfway through a string of fire, which is just great.
That is suboptimal.
It's not great.
I mean, it's not doing the job.
Look, I had a benchmark of performance with my 5 inch XDM.
I was trying to attain with my 4-inch MMP 2.0.
Now, considerably different firearm,
but I should have been able to get close, right?
Different recoil profile, because it's different length of gun.
I was not able to get close,
and I believed that the reason for that was my having a different trigger.
So I tried the new trigger,
and I immediately dropped down into the range that I expected I should have been.
The triggers on those two guns were then almost identical.
So it could have,
could it have been a training scar coming from one platform into another?
Absolutely.
Potentially.
But for 75 bucks,
I was able to eliminate that issue.
Yeah.
And like,
I can't ever think of anything.
I've added some things to guns over the years that I have later pulled off,
mostly because,
like, as a perfect example,
like there was a time when I had my A.
K rigged up for a single point sling.
It's a great way to pop yourself in the dick with your own gun, by the way.
Yeah.
And I mean, bear in mind that I'd come from two point slings.
It was something I wanted to try running.
And after I got that out of my system, I took that sling mount off because single point slings are bunk.
And I put a two point sling back on it.
They do suck.
But that's one of like those very few things where like I put something on the gun and I later took it off.
because it no longer suited my need
or no longer work with the way I was running the gun
or it was just in the freaking way.
Like sometimes you put stuff on,
you take stuff off.
That involves grinding and hammering with AKs.
I'm like ARs.
But it's just one of those things where it's like,
those are some of the few times.
But my personal yardstick for like when
upgrade for personal preference
really ought to stop is when it starts causing the thing
to not work as well.
Yeah.
Now, to Rackles question.
So are we starting?
strictly sticking to farms or
we including gear and I'm going to include
gear quite happily.
Because just within the last
12 months, I retired
a very old, very well-worn
condor plate carrier.
That was a very cheap thing.
That was loaded with steel plates because
years and years ago,
ceramic was both very fragile and very
expensive. Yes. And I upgraded into
Rebel Raiders Vicarian,
which is a much better plate
carrier.
Oh my gosh.
More forward thinking, much better thought out.
Much more, much easier to integrate a lot of the equipment or everything that I have on it.
And I mean, I literally had stuff on the condor that was like zip tied to it.
I made one change to the vicarian.
One.
Do tell.
The only thing I changed is I added a, okay, so you know when you, okay, you haven't
bought a built computer lately.
Modular power supplies come with these little Velcro stretch.
The little like self-tie Velcro strip things.
Yeah, like a kick table minder.
Yeah, I added one of those to the front of my placard for my water bladder hose.
That's all I added to the vicarian.
I could see that.
Because, yeah, you can slip it through the shoulder thing.
But the problem was, is it was dropping down and it was wanting to dick about with my shotgun.
And I just needed that to stay out of the way.
So I just loop it up and then I just slipped that Velcro thing right over.
overtop it and that it stays where I need it to be.
Now, that's fair.
I have not modified mine.
I added the, um, the dangler pouch that you used that you hate that we, you and I talking
realized fairly quickly.
It's a torso length difference.
Yeah, because I, Nick, you're.
You are a hundred percent torso by volume, man.
Yeah.
Like, I think you're probably an inch taller than me or two.
Yeah, I am.
I'm five or two.
Yeah, I'm, uh, six one.
I think.
Yeah.
But I have.
several inches more torso than you do despite being okay so dude when we're sitting in a chair you are
actually taller than me yeah Andrew always you say that I looked like um adult size gimley accurate
because I am just all friggin torso and little bitty legs little bitty legs move pretty quick for
the little bitty legs yeah I mean I can charge up a hillside but I I am I will be the first to admit
I'm a very oddly proportioned person for being five
11 and having a little bit short legs, give you a perfect example.
My wife and I both used to have Mazda threes when we very first got married.
So every time we would switch, like she, we were on a road trip, she would get out, I would get in the driver's seat, we'd switch off.
We both drive the same car, right?
I would get in the seat after she just got out and my feet do not touch the pedals and my head was against this, the headrest like this.
Yeah.
So work all that out in your head.
am four inches taller than Gillian is.
But when I get in the seat after her and the same way in her Jeep, when I get in the
Jeep, my feet don't touch the pedals. I have to like scoot.
I have to drop the seat down and scoot it all the way forward.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes, Raggle is a perfect description.
I am adult-sized Gimley.
I am built like a dwarf.
Yes.
Just a very tall dwarf.
But anyway, but for that reason, I can put a dangler pouch on the bottom of my plate carrier
and it does not impinge on my waist at all.
it actually covers my belly button.
And by the way, this is with large sappy plates because I was debating on whether I needed
larges or mediums because the last time I had ceramic plates, I was enlisted and it was like
the early 2000s.
It's been a long time.
And I was literally measuring myself and like looking at the plates and I'm like, damn,
I almost need something bigger than a large sapy.
Yeah, you technically were a large sappy.
I wear a medium.
Yeah.
And it's almost too big on me.
Yeah, and a large is just barely.
Like the age old from from collarbone to like bottom of like bottom of my breastbone and from nipple to nipple, that is a large sapy on me.
Yeah. I just have a huge torso for a person my height.
But anyway, so like that's the only thing I've added to the Bicarium, but the reason I upgraded from that to that was because that thing legitimately had been supplanted by almost 10 years.
of plate carrier design.
The steel plates had been
supplanted by a decade
of development in ceramic plates that were
now very affordable and
a hell of a lot less fragile than the old ones
were. So there were lots of good
reasons to
bounce from one piece of gear to the other.
I recently upgraded out of
the GMRS radios that I was using
to a set of Beofing
UE 5R minis because the 5R
mini gives me AM bands
and it's a fully unlocked hand radio.
can do all kinds of things
that I couldn't do with the GMRS.
I still have to learn how to use it.
I still have to put in the work,
but it has capabilities that I can make use of
because I put it in work.
So like I think that this whole conversation
isn't just guns.
It's guns, ammo gear,
hell, cars, hobbies.
You could argue about milling machines even.
I mean,
I very easily,
there was another milling machine for sale
where I bought the one that I have
that was about five times the price.
It is five times the machine.
I neither need nor could power that machine.
I can't power the one I bought.
That's going to be an interesting thing to deal with.
We'll figure it out.
No, no, it's fine.
I mean, like my house can power it.
Well, technically my house can't power it.
I have to buy a phase converter.
I've got to figure out how that works.
But I had a very interesting conversation with Stewart
about the economics of wire.
So he gave me some pretty good feedback.
But when your gear fails due to wear and tear and use, like your condor was failing, like my M&P barrel is failing, now is the time to consider whether or not replacing it with like for like or allowing for a slight upgrade to get you better performance or more options to perform with is worthwhile.
or to your banner point, finding the limits.
Yeah, once you've hit the limit of your gear,
okay, now it's the time to think about better gear.
Yeah, but,
but the gear you have is very likely better than you are.
Oh, my God, yes.
I'm going to tell you that,
and I've been around this with a lot of different hobbies
and a lot of different, a lot of different, like,
cultures or subcultures,
but like very often the gear you have is capable of shooting better than you are the gear you have
look going out and buying the new hotness pair of running shoes is not going to turn you into usane bolt
nope the shoes you have if they're not literally causing injuries are probably perfectly acceptable
and you should get your chunky butt out there and run a lot more the gear you have is probably better than you are
it is a bit of a bitter pill to swallow sometimes to admit that the thing that's causing
the problem is me.
That's why I jokingly call referred to the loose nut behind the trigger.
I'm the loose nut behind the trigger.
Yeah.
You know,
this,
I mean,
we,
we see it all the time at the range when you,
when you're a fairly,
when you get to be the point where you're the,
the shooter in your friend group where you're pretty good and your buddy
bite has a rifle and he's just pissing,
moaning and bitching about the rifle.
And you pick it up.
He keeps shooting low left.
Yeah,
he constantly,
I don't understand.
No matter how much I,
I adjust to shoot slow left and three rounds into the site and you're,
you're ringing bullseys at 300 yards.
And then he's just throwing a bitch fit.
I mean,
I had to deal with this with my uncles.
A bunch of my uncles got into shooting ARs back in the day before PICA went through
and they've all gotten rid of them.
But we were shooting at like 25 yards and they were not able to hit a pie plate size
target.
And they were saying, well, the sites must be off.
So I was like, tell you what, give me your rifle.
Paying for a shot hit.
All right, give me your rifle.
Paying for a shot hit.
Every single one of them.
So it's not the rifle.
It was never the rifle.
You guys are not doing, do not have proper site picture.
And then we started working on site picture and biomechanics.
To be fair, up in Kentucky, you and I had a little moment where I was turning the dials on the scope.
And you were like, let me have a couple of shots.
Yeah.
Well, I think part of your, the issue you were having was.
Number one, the bench and the chairs were not quite suited to the height you were trying to shoot that rifle off of with the tripod.
Especially because you were so hunched over that thing.
Especially shooting downhill at the angle we were.
I almost wanted to stand up.
I almost did stand up several times.
You did.
But.
Jim, I'm not entirely sure about the legality of having a threaded pistol barrel in my state right now.
just going to be straight up with you.
I'm fairly certain it is illegal for me to have a threaded pistol barrel in my state.
We'll find out.
That's because your state is run by idiots.
My state is run by idiots.
And that idiot, he's prepping for a presidential run.
He's been popping that Ozympic real hard boys and girls.
So I hope you're ready for J.B.
I hope he gets brittle bone syndrome and falls, trips on a cheeseburger and shatters his pelvis.
If he does not, if he does not have a.
heart attack in the relatively near future, there's no justice.
I mean, that man, that man has lived like medical, like medical problems are not a thing for
way too long.
I mean, you know, hopefully he's got some good old blockages that are just waiting to run,
lose.
You know, I really sound like a jerk when I'm at wish ill upon people.
And I used to be a good kind.
You just wished consequences of his own actions upon him.
That's not being a jerk.
That's just saying reality will get you eventually.
But I'm not saying.
out loud the things that were in my head because they
are pushing NC17 rated and this is a family show.
You know, my problem is
I, okay, I
disciplined myself, I try really hard
in honor of my Catholic
upbringing and my parents trying to raise a good Christian
boy. I try really, really
hard not to wish ill on people.
But I also
have reached a point at 43 years old where I am so
sick to death of people taking from other
people that which is not theirs to take then now i'm just like okay now i hope you now i hope
something bad happens to you because you're just a you're just a horrible human being and i don't
feel bad about that anymore jim jim you're not wrong uh state of illinois is definitely looking at a
shit kicking with vermonties in the supreme court i'm pretty sure fills a little less a little less
optimistic than i am but i think i think i want to feel happy for a little bit i think a
shit kicking is
generous. I think they're going to get
a three-quarter
impulse P-P slap, and then
they're going to come back to Illinois and figure out how
to rewrite a lot of fuck with people more.
Probably. Because the
Supreme Court has no appetite for saying,
I said thou shalt
not in French. Well, the problem
is just partially how the system
functions. I mean, they cannot
just without a case being brought to them go,
no, you're continuing to not listen
to me. That's just not how
functions. It should agree. I agree, but I don't think that's what's wrong with the system since we've
deferred. No, we have powerly Supreme Court justices. It's still not the problem. I think that until
the people who write these laws can be held individually, criminally liable, nothing changes.
Like, as long as they get to hide behind their office and, oh, we didn't realize it was illegal,
nothing will ever change. I think the minute one of these people- It was constitutional when we
I have said over and over and over.
If Phil could wave a magic wand and insert one law into the books,
it would be that if you sign your name on a law and it is later found to be grossly unconstitutional,
you are barred from public service for life, you lose your pension, you have to pay back the taxpayers.
Every penny you got while you were in that position,
I wanted to be financially, personally, individually,
ruminous for your life.
The best thing about that means there would be no legislation, which is fantastic.
And that's my point.
I hope there's no legislation.
I hope legislators are so terrified of doing anything for fear they might lose their
fricking their little fiefdoms in this country.
I hope to guide it deadlocks every legislature because it means finally they will think
long and hard before they sign another law that
screws us out of something that we shouldn't be screwed
out of. Unfortunately, it can't be
retroactive. Unfortunately, it can't be retroactive.
And also, there's no way they're going to vote for it.
So I get to live with that little, that little wet dream
for the rest of my life.
Mm-hmm.
We had a topic.
We did some of it.
We did most of it.
Before Nick got me screaming about politicians for the 14th time
this month.
Look, it's nice.
It's nice to have you scream about politicians.
Bruh, I just, I really think I could fix the whole system or at least have some fun with it before it burns to the ground.
That's all.
You'd like to think so.
I mean, look, as much as I like the cool guy race gear as the next guy, I really do.
It looks cool.
I think it would be fun to have.
But doesn't beat training.
85% of the people that show up to a.
a match, I will
beat, and I will be running a mostly
stock gun. The only thing I
will have upgraded is the trigger.
Yep. And you can apply that
to anything. You can
go grab a handful of guys
off the street, throw in one of my radios, throw me
one of my radios, see who can do who stuff
with it. Right. Take any one of these
firearms, put it in the hands of someone who's never
fired before, put it in my hands. I'm going to
out shoot, I'm going to out shoot you with it, almost
certainly. And
almost all of the guys that are beating me,
They also have the cool race guy gun shit.
But they also put it in more work.
The other difference, they have three times my ammo budget.
And back to what I said earlier about the fact that, like, I happily admit my dad can
out shoot me.
My dad is also a training, a range officer and a training officer at the range that I go to all
the time.
And he's out there shooting.
I mean, for a while, he was out there shooting twice a week.
Right.
He's retired.
He's got a friggin' Dylan at his house.
He literally has nothing better to do than.
spend my inheritance on freaking gunpowder and bullets and go to the gun range and go to the gun range and goof off with his friends and shoot for an afternoon.
I mean, at a certain point, the differences in our age, the differences in how steady our hands are, the differences in our eyesight are irrelevant to the fact that I am like, one of the reasons why I've started going through range officer training is just to get me out there more often because it's going to almost force me to.
go out there and shoot more often.
Yeah.
But my dad
goes out there so much more often than I do, like
by virtue of sheer round count,
he's a better shooter than I am.
And it's really hard to
justify like age, natural
ability, gun, you know, money spent
that can overcome a person
who shoots 10 times as much as
you do.
They're almost going to be better than you by accident.
I have told this story a lot.
The worst
I have ever been beaten in a pistol match was by an 11-year-old girl shooting a full-size-45.
You weren't mad, were you?
Nope.
Well, I was incredibly impressed, and I was startled when her dad told me what kind of round count she goes through in a week.
She is, I believe, qualified this year for the next.
next round of U.S. Olympic women's pistol shooting.
Nice.
So I feel much better about losing to that 11-year-old.
Kind of like when I used to autocross and I would always get my doors blown off by the guy that goes to state every year and goes to nationals most of the time.
I will never feel bad by losing to a future Olympian.
Yeah.
In the situation I was in, we were all fighting over second place.
Because like the gap between second third.
and fourth was usually like 10th or maybe a half a second on a 45 to 60 second track.
So pretty tight.
The gap between second and first was five seconds.
Kerry,
Coughlin,
if he's even so out there still racing,
just would take the lug nuts off your freaking car.
Oh, yeah.
But I digress.
Look,
you see that a lot and a lot in a bunch of amateur or semi-professional competitions.
You'll have you'll have one or two guys that they probably could actually make it as a pro.
And then there's the rest of you that are that are dogging it out chasing them.
Yeah.
Just out there out there to have fun.
There were times where I would show up to these small little local IDPA or Ipsic or three gun matches.
And there would be five team guys.
I'm like, okay, I'm aiming for sixth.
Sixth is my goal today.
Unless it's fine.
Five team guys can't shoot worth shit.
That was usually not the case.
If they showed up together all in the same uniforms with all of their,
with all of their branding logos for their sponsors on them.
Usually, yeah, they would show up for like,
different kind of team.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Occasionally you would get like team Remington that would show up at the local IDPA match.
And I was like, you're probably going to be fighting from the bottom.
I'm going to lose.
And I felt fine about it because those guys weekly ammo budget was my yearly ammo budget.
Yeah.
I mean, at the end of the day, like training, round count, reps.
It's just really hard to overcome that with dumping.
Mountain biking.
How many times you've been down that run?
Anything.
So I guess that I get, I guess like what I wanted the listeners to try to get out of this is,
if you already have a thing,
whether it's a firearm or radio,
a piece of gear or whatever,
please for the love of God,
just go use it.
Yeah,
absolutely.
I don't run around in the neighborhood
with my plate carrier on
because I might get the police called on me.
The neighbors would definitely look at me
funnier than they already do,
but I still throw it on to do dry fire reps.
I still do dry fire reps.
I'm trying to get out to the range to live fire reps.
I'm working on getting my range to allow us to do
three gun style training in one of our bays.
I make a point of fired at my radio most days on the way to and from work just so I can
practice doing call signs and practice.
Here's a thing.
When it's a mobile radio in your vehicle, knowing how to navigate around without
looking at the faceplate is a skill set.
Yeah.
Building that muscle memory.
Teaching my thumb, where, you know, where's the button to switch channel A, channel B,
where the volume buttons like being able to.
navigate that radio to a minimal degree without having to look at it is a thing.
It's been a hot minute now, but there was a point at which I had to refresh my memory and
how to program a new repeater through the faceplate because I was someplace when I found out
there was a repeater close by.
Fortunately, I keep the instructions in the center console of the truck, so they were right
there, but it's just, it's looking for every opportunity to practice with your gear while
simultaneously accepting that the gear is probably not the thing immediately holding you back.
And if it is the thing holding you back, then it's usually pretty obvious.
Like when you have pitting in your barrel or when you have a plate carrier that is like five to seven years out of date at, you know, with compared to modern technology.
Like you, when your gear is not allowing you to do the thing that you're trying to.
trainee is trying to push through, that's when it's time to upgrade.
Yep. I agree.
But you are not going to overcome a lack of training or a lack of reps by throwing money at the problem.
You know, I think there is one area or that's not as true.
Convinced me.
Optics.
Red dots are a cheat code to shooting rifles better.
I assume they must be for pistols as well.
But using iron sights is more difficult than shooting with a dot.
It is.
Fair.
It is.
That is one place where I think you can buy an easier time getting capable.
But you still have to put the reps in.
You still have to put the reps in because the red dot is not going.
I would venture to say, and I might, there might be some disagreement on this,
but I would venture to say that if you take two guys and one of them is,
put in a ton of reps with a red dot and the air guys put in a ton of reps with open
sites they're going to shoot pretty close together probably the guy with the red dot might
edge the guy of the open sides just a hair but they are both going to blow the doors off the guy
that hasn't put the reps in oh absolutely but if the guy with the red two of them the guy that
was really good with irons he's going to be pretty good with dots too and the guy that's really good
with dots is going to struggle with irons you will and actually i've actually talked to a lot of people who've
gone had that experience of being very competent shooters with iron sites and moved to red dots and
they struggle with that transition like it is a different way of shooting it is a different way of
shooting but i think that if you are capable with iron sights you can learn a red dot quicker
than you can if you only ever trained on red dots and are trying to learn irons that's fair
i just because the muscle memory of the presentation is really where people struggle with a dot
And if you've already mastered a rapid and consistent presentation, it is a very easy transition.
But even take presentation off the table, take drawn from a holster off the table, let's talk about just flat range, slow shooting.
The guy that has the more consistent trigger press, the guy that has a more consistent grip is going to out shoot the guy that has the red dot and the trash technique.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I mean, while I agree, red dots can give you,
can't him be an advantage over iron sights,
I'm still going to say that the training is ultimately what's going to determine who's more competent with the weapon or with the piece of gear.
Yeah, definitely.
And I will happily admit that, like, you know, I have bared my scars to you and said part of the reason why my shooting has been like, in my opinion, so trashy is just lack of, lack of reps.
Yeah.
I have had a lot of life go on.
billion we I have not been going out to the range like I would like to be for about the last 12 months
and I can tell even just dry firing I've lost so much of those skills things that I I still
can out shoot the average person yeah I can even out shoot an above average person but I'm not up to
my I'm not up to the level I used to be at now I can get that back but that's not that's not
that's not that's not firing a parts candidate any of my
guns that is I just got to do the work exactly okay so is there anything else to chuck
in here because I mean I feel like we beat the point home I don't I don't want people to fall
into this this constant and you know we barely we only skimmed over this idea of buying the new
hotness like if you have a red dot on your pistol the new red dot that just came out is probably
not is probably not going to do as much good for your shooting as the same amount of money spent on
munition and therefore reps.
Agreed.
Like if you have a thing and the thing is working and the thing is not stopping you from putting in reps,
then replacing the thing with a newer,
better thing is probably not going to do as much good as more reps would.
Oh, definitely.
It's the same conversation.
You know, I had about Night Mission recently because you were like, you were needling me the other day,
ass about how I should upgrade to duels and then sell you my PBS 14.
And I was kind of like, I like my PBS 14.
It does exactly what I want to do.
It gives it great capabilities.
It does.
Awesome tube in it.
And frankly, I've played with Andrews duels.
They're cool, but it's not cool enough to me to justify unloading my PBS 14 and then having to take that money plus another 50% of what I spent on it to get into a set of duels.
Yeah, that's not going to give me 50% more whatever.
Yeah.
But likewise, it's the same conversation, the exact same interest balance in you and I had when we both bought A300 instead of 1301s.
Yeah, I was able to buy the A300, two or three cases of ammo, a training class, and driving to Michigan and hanging out with Andrew for a weekend.
Yep.
Plus additional ammo, I think.
And I spent more on my A300 than you did, but I'm also putting my buddy, he's kids through college.
So it's kind of hard to hackle with price over that.
I got a, I get a hell of a deal on my guns because I swap favors.
But I guess my point is like, I got the A300, I don't know, three cases of ammo, slings, red dot, red dot mount for less than the price of the 1301.
The light that I threw on it was out of my parts bin.
Yeah.
Slept over from another gun.
Quality light.
Streamlight.
Still taking an ass whipping and working every day.
but yeah i think at the end of the day like that is the thing that i really hope everybody takes
take some credence in is to like look at look at the thing you have and if you just want to
upgrade it for your own personal amusement because you just like to play tactical legos like go
ignore all this bull crap just go forth and do great things have fun it's your money capitalism's
a beautiful thing do what you want with it steward it's largely doing custom engraving on guns for
people yeah that's that's what it is i've got i've got fixtures set up that if you've got a
1911 a Glock and M&P
the hell
what is it the XDM XDS
I can do that stuff
I'm not bored I'm hearing
strange things going on upstairs I think my dog
is going nuts
he does that occasionally
we gotta wrap this up anyway
I yeah
well I mean it's late over here
it's late over there we beat this topic
to absolute pole
I have to play with large cast iron
tomorrow. I have to go
I have an entire weekend of
starting my career as a range officer ahead of May.
And that's largely to make the patrons
have a place to shoot this summer.
I mean, that will potentially be a side benefit if I can get all this
done in time for next summer. It's certainly one of the
reason, certainly the thing that like pushed me over the edge, but
I'm not going to lie. A lot of the reason why I finally just bit the bullet inside to
start doing this was because it's going to force me to go out there.
and shoot more and apparently I need to be forced.
Nice.
Okay.
Matter of fact is going to go out the door.
If you liked this topic, I'm glad you liked it.
And if you hated it, you should send hate mail and put hate mail in the subject so I know to delete it and or ignore it.
Good.
Whether I or I might share it with Nick if it's hilarious, but if it's just snarky and mean
spirited, I'll probably delete it or do it.
I mean, I like snarky and mean spirited as much as the next guy.
Well, yeah, but it has to be like hilariously snor.
Oh, yeah. It's got to be worth my time.
Why even bother?
Yeah. So like, get some puns in there at least.
Definitely. Like pick on Nick for being autistic.
Pick on me for being shaped like a dwarf. Have fun with it. Do what you do.
And if you would like to another topic, actually, someone emailed me recently.
They had an idea for a topic. I'll share it with you after this. I don't know if we're going to bite it off yet, but it's something to add to the MOF list.
I like it. But if you have a topic request, get that to us.
There's MWF.com, Instagram.
I would say Facebook, but honestly, I'm about to just stop streaming to it because, like, nobody ever goes there.
And they do when YouTube breaks.
Yeah, there is that.
I just, I'd never go to YouTube.
I never go to Facebook anymore.
But anyway, Matter of fact, it's going to go to the door.
Good night, everybody.
Go get your reps in.
Stop spending money on stupid stuff.
Talk to y'all on a week.
Bye.
Good night.
