Honestly, there's a great geek factor here. I mean this thing's fun. I mean looking I'm gonna post when I post it to our social
Media about this I'm gonna include one of those
Animations of how my gun is moving and a lot of people are gonna look at that and go man you suck
Welcome to episode 10 that's number 10 of the
Google firearms podcast the podcast designed to help you get the most out of your shooting dollar and increase your enjoyment
And your proficiency and today we're gonna be talking about a way to improve proficiency
That you may not have considered in fact most people have not Ken. What are we gonna talk about today my friend?
We're gonna be talking about a product from Mantis
Which is basically going to help a person train
Not only at the range with live ambition, but also at home
And allow you to go through and practice a bunch of different things and tell you what you do well
What you do poorly what you need to improve upon and and it records that information
Which is what makes it a tremendous asset and did you say train at home?
I mean and do it in a safe manner. Did you I just hear you say that you did absolutely
It's that's one of the benefits of this it basically will capture
I think a third of a second or a quarter per second
Before you take a shot and it records probably thousands of data points during that during that quarter second or so of time
Telling you where you are on target
What's what's your motion before you start to pull the trigger?
What's your motion of your hand as you pull in a trigger and what's the motion of the handgun as you have completed pulling the trigger?
And all of those things could tell you what you're doing well what you're doing poorly
And there are a bunch of training videos that that it's linked directly into the application on your smartphone
Tells you how to improve it's a tremendous tool and to that point
We're gonna bring on Jake Hollenbeck from Mantis who is a representative for the company
Covers the Kansas and Oklahoma areas but he is also on the national circuit because he articulates the benefits a lot better than Ken and I do
Now why did we want to have Mantis on the show and how long have we been pursuing Mantis?
I will tell you listeners it's been a very long time and when I give Jake the microphone
He's gonna go through with this a little bit with you
But I've been a believer in training as a value proposition as the core and the fundamental of responsible and enjoyable shooting
If we were to talk about any other sport golf bowling you name it
You can go out and have fun on the golf course you can have fun at the bowling alley and you might be terrible you might suck completely
But when it comes to firearms there's another element and if you're a CCW holder and you're carrying in society
Just going out and having fun with your gun all of a sudden becomes a level of responsibility because you can miss all day long at the range
But when you get out into society and there are people around and there's a threat and you have to deal with the threat and avoid all the other innocence out there
Now training takes on a different level of importance
So how do you do that? How do you train and keep things affordable?
Ken I think we were talking before the show started about ammunition costs and cost of trainers
Tell us a little bit about your experience in that regard and I'll add a little bit from my own experience as well
Well from my perspective here sure I mean I've been shooting for well over 40 years
And I mean I remember when the price of a 22 long rifle was sub one penny you know and you could buy a box of 50 of them for nothing
You could buy an entire block of them for you know just less than $100 to get over 6,000 rounds you know it's just unbelievable
But everything has gone up in price and rather than just going out and plinking itself really you're trying to get more and more value
And that's something you learn with experience and a little bit of age that you want to make every shot count
And not only at the range when you're just generally speaking you know hitting a metal target or punching a hole in a piece of paper
But in the real world as Craig points out if you have a CCW you can still carry a weapons permit
You are responsible for every round that leaves your barrel of your handgun for example and where it goes
And the best way to do that is to be really well trained and this product that we're going to be talking about here today
The Mantis is a phenomenal tool which will allow you to get some training and tell you what you do well what you do poorly
And to do it at basically a whole lot less than tons and tons of hours at a range
Although I still think you should go and put as many hours at a real range with real ammo as possible
This product can also be used there so with that in mind
Exactly right yeah you can use so what does Mantis do?
Mantis analyzes everything from the draw stroke through the shot through the aiming process through the trigger pull
And then back to the holster depending on what elements you want to understand
It does so in ways that are easy to interpret it contains a lot of features that are almost frankly too numerous to go through today
But it allows you to see graphically what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong
So how does this compare to live training with a live coach?
Well as much as there you might think that they're not comparable I think in a lot of ways there are
And in fact in some ways the Mantis probably provides more information because if you're on a live range with a live trainer
And I'm not disparaging any of that I mean I personally paid to go to Taccom this year that was an expensive trip
So I definitely believe in live training
But when you consider that a range master or a trainer has to cover multiple students often at the same time
Is he going to notice small differences in your draw stroke?
Is he going to notice everything that's going on in terms of are you thumbing the gun too much?
Are you using too much or too little trigger finger?
Are you holding the gun too tight or too loose?
He might see those things
But the thing is this particular tool records faster I think than the human eye can basically grab it
Much faster
It really does
Yeah and with Jake you tell us a little bit about it from the technical perspective
You don't have to I'm an IT guy I like creating computer science you know been doing that for my whole life
So I love the technique getting down into the weeds but feel free to do whatever level you want
Well so at a base level we like to just call it a force multiplier for anything you're going to do and apply to your training
Okay so Craig you were talking about how do we compare this to in-person training?
You know are they going to catch everything you're doing?
Really the best way to look at it as an additional tool to see things that A the naked eye can't see
And also to look at repetitive behaviors shot to shot to shot
You might have multiple failures in your fundamentals when it comes to shooting
And on one shot your instructor might see that and on the next shot he might see the other you know fundamental issue with whatever your grip
You know your grip your trigger press your stance whatever it is right
So the whole beauty of this thing is that it's constantly recording when you're linked up to the app what you're doing from shot to shot
And you can use it in whatever application you want just like you said Craig
Am I analyzing my holster draw? You know it'll break it all the way down from grip to pull to punch out to squeeze
It's going to break all that down you can heat map the motion itself so it's not just running this as a timer
And you can use it as a shot timer but it'll also heat map it so it'll show you what is your pattern look like on your draw stroke
Are you scooping in towards your chest? Are you kind of chicken-winging on the way out? Are you flopping over like it's Magnum PI?
It's going to be able to show you all of these things and you'll be able to overlay it from shot to shot so you actually know what's happening all the time
Now another force multiplier on this deal is yeah you're doing your dry presses at home right this is where you want to push your fundamentals
That's the whole idea of training is to improve your fundamentals you can do this at home dry you can take it out to the range with you and do this with live ammunition as well
So it's constantly in whatever setting you're in on whatever platform you're shooting at any target you're shooting at and any distance you're shooting at
It's recording all of this and it's giving you the feedback and it's tracking for you to go back and look and learn from it
And I want to add something to that it's not just the financial aspect of this which is you're not necessarily you can put tens of thousands of rounds on a Mantis
If you're doing a dry fire then obviously there's no additional cost I happen to be a very strong advocate and we have not got these guys on the pod yet but we will
Cool fire trainer I think that this is literally the perfect accompaniment to a cool fire trainer because then you're getting actual recoil in a safe environment in your house
And you're getting the feedback at the same time or you can use it live fire but I think the one of the things that is is not appreciated by people here is exactly what you said you can see the heat map and then you can look at
This is what I'm doing predominantly it'll give you a score and your score may be good or your score may be bad but then you can click on each shot
And it will show you in video a tutorial of what you're doing wrong and then you can start recognizing those problems go back and do the drill again and by the way I'm looking at the app as I'm talking there are an awful lot of drills that are already built into this
So you know what let's let's reset here just for a moment Jake you know again how long sir has it been since we were trying to have this conversation and how did we get there
Oh in fact I'm gonna interrupt you I'm gonna tell you how we got here the way we got here was the fact that I actually use one of your competitors products and at the time but this is a number of years ago someone I met at the shot show and I thought that their product was well at the time better than yours
So I bought their product but the problem was they didn't evolve the product and not only did they fail to evolve the part they well they probably because they failed to evolve the product they failed to stay in business
Some years later I came and looked at Mantis again and revisited it and I could not believe how much better the product was now the basic product is an accelerator a three dimensional accelerometer that communicates to an app that's not rocket science
The magic is what you put in the app and that's why I wanted to get you on the show so that was two shot shows ago I started talking to your reps then about a year ago you were identified to me and then last shot show I saw you or you were insanely busy running your booth with lots of people lined up to take a look at your products and test them out and but at that point you had just come out with I believe it's called the black beard. Is that correct.
So yes, yes, yes, essentially the black beard X which is our second evolution of the of the black beard itself and we were modeling basically the latest version of that and the prototypes that we got coming out later this year as well.
And that got us finally talking and here we are August, a year or so after we virtually met actually recording the podcast and I will tell you listeners just to be ethical about this matches did send us a sample for us to review.
And, you know, why do I mention that because all it could be constricted that we're doing this because they sent to you, they sent us a sample.
Not at all the case, not at all the case it's not at all the case, I would have, I would have bought this anyway and will be buying another one anyway, as well as yes so there's there's absolutely you know nothing to do with getting free stuff here that is material in our opinion, and, you know, honestly, reputation matter and I'm not in Ken is not endorsing a product that we don't strongly believe in.
And so to add to that from from our end as well. We beg our customers our users our influencers to say hey, if you do not believe in what this is doing. Do not support it.
There's, there's been plenty of that out there online so absolutely. I think a lot of Mantis fans would also understand this they follow closely on the socials, seeing a lot of things that have happened in the past as well.
We want to make sure that we are providing value to every shooter out there, so I can absolutely attest for you guys on that.
So understanding that that's kind of the fundamental of the company. Give us a little background on Mantis how how what was the inspiration, not just the technological aspects of it but but the inspiration for what the company is trying to deliver.
And I don't mean a product I mean in terms of capability, and then, and then a little bit about you how did you get involved in Mantis. Yeah, yes so Mantis was originally derived from three brothers who are all engineering graduates from BYU.
They saw a very large gap in the firearms owners training market and identified the need for positive remote training that wasn't a sort of exhausting video series or you needed to go to remote testing locations to qualify for things.
And with their engineering brains, they knew that there would be a way to have technology connected to a phone app to provide you feedback would be the best way to go.
And just this last I believe it was May was the 10 year anniversary of our flagship product the Mantis X shooting performance sensor.
We're on the now, I believe it is the second or third generation version of that product and it is, you know, it is our, our fundamental product or key product that we started with is the sensor the extent that you guys are talking about.
I made my way into the scene, based on, I have a military background, a software background, and some customer service skills where I had previously worked in other software companies that I was able to reach out to Mantis coming up on two years ago and ask if there were any openings to be able to help out and, and as such have grown into the team and now do the Kansas and Oklahoma territories for sales and demos.
I work on the customer support technical support team. And I'm also on all of the, the big national shows. I think you called it the national circuit earlier with shot show and goals and all that, which I guess you're going to strike out on the road again here very soon with some more shows.
By the way, why don't you tell the listeners what shows you're going to in case they want to get a personal demo.
Oh yeah, absolutely. So, I'll be down at goals in Knoxville here. I think that's just in a couple weeks.
The gun owners America's leadership summit.
We do NRA every year. So if you're ever at the NRA annual meeting, I'll be there. Another large one we've got coming up is the Noggets the National Guard Association of United States that's out in Detroit this year.
And then we've got the Trigger con in Wichita, Kansas. That's a growing industry size show where last year was a good turnout this year, even more hype around it. So, you know, they've grown that into a larger venue, they've got a range day.
And then obviously a shot show and the great American outdoor show out in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So, lots of opportunities to be able to come out and get your hands on one of these systems see what's happening.
You can't get to any of those shows and understandable. I mean, a lot of them being industry shows that, you know, may not have the credentials to get in. What's the company policy if you buy something and it just doesn't work out for you as returnable?
Yes. So, we are value centered. That's the whole point here. So, we offer a 45-day guarantee. If you get it out there, you've used it for a month, you're thinking this may not apply correctly or you're having any issues that you can't seem to work through, absolutely let us know.
We cover the entire purchase cost. So, we ship for free. So, the only thing we ask is if you're going to return it or exchange it, you'll have to ship it back to us. But absolutely refund everything, total cost tax, all of it.
And is that how, now you mentioned that you reached out to Mantis looking for a position. Were you already a Mantis customer at the time?
I was, yes. So, I spent quite a bit of time on the socials. I watched quite a few, you know, YouTubers, Instagrammers, things like that. And I kept seeing Mantis coming up. So, I decided I would get my hands on one. And I did.
I started with the X3 and then just a couple months after that, knowing they were software heavy, they had really good values and goals, I decided that would be an ideal place to call a career and actually dig in for the long haul. And that's exactly where we're at.
Right. And in fact, I think that when I first was introduced to the product, I mean, there was such a buzz around, you know, this new type of product, except that there were other competitors in the space at the time, that there was a little bit of a fleshing out of, you know, what cream was going to rise to the top, essentially.
And I think that it's that rigor that people put into the app, particularly that, you know, that made you guys maybe the only game in town. Are there other competitors right now in this space? Or are you alone?
Well, as far as the accelerometer and gyroscopic sensors are concerned, there really isn't anyone else out there right now, at least on a commercial level. There's some military things out there that are close to similar. But realistically, we are the lone players in that field specifically.
The thing about this particular item is that, yes, we're talking about use of it on a handgun, but, you know, I am, although I'm not an archer, I understand you can do it in archery. If you're an air rifle person, which there's actually those air rifles are getting so darn good.
I myself, I'm probably going to pick up one of those just for rat control or something like that up at my mountain place. So there are other places where I plan to be able to utilize this from a training perspective.
And then I'd also like to talk to you about, you know, the training courses that I do for San Diego County gun owners.
Yeah, exactly. So Ken, I mean, do you want to enter into that now? I mean, you're a volunteer and that's all live range stuff. But then again, people are now, correct me if I'm wrong. People are paying a range fee. They're paying for ammunition there. And maybe a lot of these people, I don't know, haven't held a gun before.
A lot of them are true. I mean, we do something here in San Diego called shooting socials. And basically it's for people who want to learn how to fire a firearm and maybe have very little experience with it.
Might be the first time out on the range. We have mentors, which are people like myself show up. Usually there's about 18 to 20 of us. And we get assigned a one-on-one with an individual who may have zero to very little firearms experience.
And we, it's typically speaking nine millimeter of some type, some flavor. Most people bring a Glock or a SIG or one of the various flavors. You bring out, I bring out my personal firearm or firearms, sometimes plural.
You fire at least 50 rounds and you have them for a course of about two to two and a half hours. And basically you want it to be a fun experience with them.
But it's one-on-one where a mentor like myself will get assigned a person who comes in and never fired. You get a, obviously you go through all the safety thing, you know, always point the gun in the safe direction.
Always assume it's loaded. You know, we do all of the, all of the safety aspects of it. And then to bounce with it, we start off loading one round of ammunition and having a person work on stance and so forth and just take the first shot.
And over the course of the next, usually almost two hours, we'll fire a total of 50 rounds, which is not a lot for shooters like us, but you're dealing with people who are recoil averse and who don't know necessarily what they're doing.
I will be incorporating this Mantis product with that on one of my one or more of my firearms, just so I can sit there and go, okay, go ahead, take the shot. And yes, I'm going to see things with my eyes, but what I'm going to be able to do, and this will probably start next month or month after, I'm going to say, now let me show you what the computer, what the app on my smartphone showed you what to do, because it's going to snag that last, what is it, about a quarter second or so before you, the recoil goes up.
The recoil goes off.
And after too, it gets both.
Yeah, so it's a third of a second. And that's an average based off of, you know, ballistic calculators, shot timers, you know, where we've sourced all that information, and also customer given input, right, as we built out the algorithms in the software over the years to grow.
But yes, it can, it's a third of a second. And then on the app itself, when you were talking about being able to see what happened with the shot and how those things happen, that third of a second is slowed down and then broken into portions of what the muzzle was doing, leading up to the trigger press, what the muzzle was doing during the trigger press.
And then finally, what did your recoil pattern look like when the shot was fired, right, so you can actually see all three of those stages in a third of a second, and it's just slowed way down so you can actually trace that to see specifically what the muzzle was doing.
And that's why I say it's much faster than a human eye, even a trained individual, you know, who can look there and watch they might see one thing you're doing wrong or something else.
But, man, this is a fantastic tool for for telling showing people what they're basically doing and and I have recommended for quite a few people that I've been mentoring in this program.
I go, you need to go out and get this thing here, and I literally pull it up and I'll text them a picture of it or something else.
This is what you need to buy. And you need to take this thing home and then you can practice with it.
So I'm sorry, go ahead, Ken. No, that's basically it. I mean, it's a great tool. I've been highly recommended it for at least the last almost a year on it anyway.
So as a follow up to that, then, Jake, so what let's let's talk value for a second here. And by the way, I also want to get to the point about what your typical customer looks like.
So covering the covering the value proposition first, what kind of price range are we talking about? Either you can give me MSRP or street or if they happen to be the same.
Yeah, so we essentially have three three different levels here to be able to get in and start learning.
OK, so we've got the X two, which is a dry fire only unit for pistol and rifle.
Those start at ninety nine dollars. The next step up there for pistol and rifle is the X three.
And that does live fire analysis and dry fire analysis.
And then finally, our creme de la creme, the biggest package we offer is two hundred fifty dollars for the X ten elite. And that is the system that covers pistol, rifle, shotgun, archery, the holster draw analysis and the live recoil meter.
And and that covers anything you want to put it on. So that is pistol, rifle, shotgun, archery, live fire, dry fire, any target, any distance, any any setup.
It's truly universal. So individual listeners have their own preferred calibers and rounds that they shoot and they can run the calculation in their own mind about how fast you're going to go through two hundred and fifty dollars in ammunition.
And remember that this thing, once the initial investment is done, this thing keeps going and going and going.
And you can put tens of thousands of rounds through this in a simulated fashion, actually learn what you're doing wrong, actually get better, actually be a safer shooter.
And honestly, there's a great geek factor here. I mean, this thing's fun.
I mean, looking I'm going to post when I post to our social media about this, I'm going to include one of those animations of how my gun is moving.
And a lot of people are going to look at that and go, man, you suck.
But but but when when you look at the granularity of how sensitive it is and what it's feeding back, I mean, it's just helping me get better.
And I mean, two hundred and fifty dollars is honestly nothing. I have mine on a cool with a cool fire.
I mentioned that already. The cool fire trainer cost a lot more than this thing did.
And and by the way, Jake, I'm angry. Well, not with you, but maybe with Mantis, because the day before we decide to put this show out, you guys introduce a new product.
You know, actually, I just got the email yesterday. I mean, boy, you talk about bad timing.
Tell us about the is the Tor X or Tor X or the Tor X.
Yep. So it's a it's a collaboration with Steiner and Steiner already had the the mini tour.
So not a crap, not a crap company, by the way, Steiner.
Oh, not a company top of the line.
As soon as we heard about this collaboration, I was I was already hitting hitting the email being like, hey, so how hooked up are we here?
Can I get an NPS from these guys finally? Or what's happening here?
Because I think Steiner makes some of the finest optics equipment in the game.
They do. They do. Period. Yeah. But no. So the the Tor X, essentially, there was this idea of needing to integrate the Mantis X sensor technology into everyday carry items.
And this was really the first dream baby iteration of that idea was let's try it on Steiner's tour, which is probably the most reliable point of impact laser site out there.
And being able to put our Mantis X 10 sensor inside of that unit so that you get all of this availability readiness training in something you would everyday carry.
It's not super practical right now to have the X 10 mounted on the base of your magazine on your everyday carry, you know, things like that.
But the whole point of the Tor X was to start pushing that boundary a little bit, giving people something that they can train with that you could carry every day.
And also, you know, just point of impact lasers in general, they're a great dry fire training aid to begin with as well.
You can see movements, you can see shake, you always know you're on target.
So that's not something you have to be concerned about when you're training with your Mantis X.
So they just kind of came together and in a great way. And we are really excited about that launch.
Is that product currently available or is it pre-production?
It is available. So it came out in limited units and I'm not entirely sure if we even have any in stock right now.
They launched yesterday with the Tor X and I believe we're already out.
But yes, as I noticed, yes.
But we expected that to go quickly.
And Steiner has already said once we're fully ramped up and ready to go, you know, inventory concerns are a thing of the past.
So going back to the question about who your typical customer is, I mean, you could differentiate that too between this is what we think should be our typical customer.
And this is what is our typical customer, because they may not be the same thing.
Because, I mean, Ken articulated the idea that probably the people who benefit the most are maybe the newest shooters.
You know, if you tell them they're just getting it.
I mean, they may not have bought a gun yet and you're not tell them to put a $250 accessory on the gun.
That's going to be maybe a hard sell.
Even if it is the right thing to do.
So give us a little insight on that.
I mean, and for again, for our listeners who are value focused because that is the centrist of this program, you know, give them the sales pitch.
Why should they spend the money?
I've already done that.
But, you know, you do it.
Well, realistically, right.
The value is in the fact of the longevity.
Like you said, right.
We call it a force multiplier.
You can apply it to whatever you want to do, whatever your training is, live, dry, situational, whatever.
It's always going to be able to show you these things that are happening now.
Initially, our largest consumer base was new gun owners.
Right. We want people that wanted affordable training that they could have always around the clock.
And then as the software grew, so did our customer base.
That's when we started seeing experienced shooters, professional shooters, military and law enforcement who want to be able to at affordable level, stay honed in and continue to push the fundamentals and keep them sharp.
That's when we really started bringing them into the fold.
And then that customer base really started expanding quite a bit when we started doing other types of affiliations.
Right. So we've really jumped into NRA instructors, USCCA, card holding members, military and law enforcement.
Like I said, really just started pushing us out there further and further and further.
And now I don't think you'd be able to realistically identify our largest customer base and what you could identify them as just because we have so many everyday folks out there wanting to use this product every day for dry fire and live fire training.
Is that then how you I mean, I'm going to go back to your previous competitor, your previous competitor used one guy as the judge of what you're doing right, what you're doing wrong.
And I imagine though that you have a lot of people providing or at least a pool of people providing inputs to this is what breaking your wrist looks like.
This is what using too much trigger finger looks like.
How do you integrate the expert inputs into the software?
Right. So essentially we started just matching data to very popular training techniques and methods.
Things that are already widely acceptable that people wanted to use for beginners and fundamental basics.
Right. So when we talk about why we've grown and why we've continued to see success and continued to grow is is all based off of the work that we put into the software, which by the way is free.
We don't charge anything for any of our apps ever. There's no sign up fees. There's no monthlies.
So when we're talking value, that that's another large addition is we're not a subscriber based like some of our current competitors are.
So as we get the shooting data back and input from professionals and trainers alike out there in the real world who see these techniques and issues, then we're able to match all of that movement data, all that vibration data into the highest likelihood of what is happening shot to shot.
So it's all based around the kind of the age old pie chart of if you're seeing the muzzle go right during the shot, you might be healing or you might be using too much trigger finger.
Or if you're shooting high and left, then maybe you're over gripping or you're using too little trigger finger, things like that.
And we just continue to mature those algorithms and into the software.
And that's how we become even more precise and more accurate with our with our feedback.
And you've teamed now with Steiner on the Tor product.
I seem to recall that you also have worked on laser Academy and incorporating that product as well.
You now also have the Blackbeard product, which is rifle centric.
It's essentially an X 10 in a magazine, I believe format for the AR platform.
Exactly. Are there any other types of products or opportunities that you're looking forward to integrate with?
Oh, yeah. Yes. So probably our number one request right now, Craig, is we love our Blackbeard.
How do I get this in my pistol? Right.
You use cool fire trainer because you wanted that capability of rapid restrike.
You didn't want to have to constantly recock your pistol while you're doing dry fire training.
And you may not have a double action pistol to train with or it may not be your everyday carry, whatever the case is.
So our number one request right now is how do we get a Blackbeard in our handguns?
So that is a majority of our development right now is figuring that out.
And then secondly is, hey, we love our Blackbeard and the feedback it's giving us.
How do I get it in something that isn't in AR 15?
So we we currently have the AR 15 and the MCX out right now available.
It's the bulk carrier group and the magazine that runs those systems.
And then here by the end of the year, we're looking to launch the AR 10, the Scar Light, the Scar Heavy, the AK 47.
And we'll have an MP5 version out here shortly as well.
So that is where all of our development is right now.
And we're really excited for everyone to get their hands on those.
You made me laugh with the AK comments.
It's like, I mean, there's so many memes out there about AKs and like, why would you bother trying to be accurate?
Never mind. I don't want to offend our AK.
They run in all circumstances. That's the thing you can say about an AK.
You can open it up, take a handful of dirt, throw it inside it, close it up and it'll work.
It's amazing. In that regard, it's amazing.
It is. And no disrespect to Mikhail Klyushnikov and none whatsoever.
How often do you update the software?
Yeah. So right now, our core focus is essentially on the MantisX pistol rifle app and the Laser Academy.
Those get updates monthly. And then our secondary applications.
And I shouldn't even say secondary because that's not fair.
But shotgun and archery, they probably get quarterly treatment, if not a little bit sooner than that.
So really, you're looking at constant software updates and again, always free, always ready.
And all of that is constantly pushed.
You know, new drills, new courses to take, better, more detailed feedback and reading of the data.
We've got more and more algorithms.
There are shot detection modes for however you're shooting.
When I say you can put it on anything or shoot however you want.
The CoolFire Trainer, we've got a CO2 mode to detect CO2 better.
Dry Fire Mag or SIRT pistols, we've got algorithms on the app to better detect on those.
So really, we're constantly pushing all the data that we get back.
Yeah. And let me give, I'm just going to read down a list here.
This is a long list, but bear with me. You can do holster draw analysis.
It has a recoil meter, it has drills for open training, a shot timer, a part timer, a shoot or no shoot scenario,
the Mantis X benchmark series, a 20 second benchmark, a timed benchmark, an endurance drill,
a compressed surprised break drill that has to do with, it's a beeper and it's going to tell you when to take the shot,
but it's going to vary the amount of time it tells you to take the shot and you stay on target.
And it shows you your reaction time.
Primary hand only, support hand only, reload drills.
Now reload, that must have been really hard to code. Wasn't that, Jake?
I mean, to get a reload drill put into a device that can only measure three dimensional motion in time.
Yeah, it has two sensors in it, right? It's gyroscopic and the Accelerometer can also detect vibration.
So the reload drills, as an example, took tons of data of having it mounted on different pistols, et cetera,
to look for a range of specific vibrations.
So, you know, while we're talking about that, the way the technology was set up,
if you have your X10 running right now on your pistol and you've got it set for dry fire mode,
as soon as you slap a mag in or rack the slide, it's not going to count that as a shot
because it's not within the specific range that a trigger press should be.
But as soon as you level up and take a shot, the algorithms know immediately,
oh, that was a shot registered because it was in this specific threshold of motion and vibration.
So if you can kind of picture that process, multiply it across all the drills you just read off,
that would give you an idea of how much software work and algorithm work has gone into coding on this application
to really read all of this raw data.
It's something along the lines of like 250 data points a second is what the sensor is sending back to the app for the app to read.
And I didn't finish the list. I just stopped. You know, cadence drills.
I mean, here's another one. Hostage rescue?
Yes. That was so hard.
How did you code? I haven't even tried this one yet. You coded hostage rescue.
So, I mean, and remember, guys, this isn't a video game.
You know, you're using your actual gun in a safe environment and you're using an app that is, again, you know,
as Jake has made very clear, is aware of motion and time and putting those things together in order to come up with answers.
The courses in here include just the introductory course, basic and advanced marksmanship, elite marksmanship,
basic combat, advanced combat and elite combat and double action diligence.
So tell us about I want to hear about the hostage rescue thing and the double action diligence.
OK, so the hostage rescue, first of all, is a it's a drill that's pushing your time and pushing your ultimate stability.
Right. When we think about rescue or rescuing a hostage or taking that key shot in a high tense moment,
it shortens the time frame on you and it really tightens in on the amount of time you can get out of your holster,
get on target and press without too much movement to what would, you know, be too risky.
Right. So to really answer you, the the owners, the coders, everyone in engineering has a great sense of humor.
And kind of every year for April Fool's Day, we release a fun new drill or course or, you know, something else as an additive.
So double action diligence. Dad was actually a release of Father's Day this year.
That was, you know, we always talk about older dads and grandpas that might be running revolvers or double action pistols
because that's, you know, the pinnacle of pistol design. And so that's kind of where the whole the whole idea for that came from was let's let's make something for the double action guys out there and release it on Father's Day, maybe acronym dad.
Some of the courses you can't see right now, Craig, are we've got one called the Gecko 45.
So once you kind of complete all these courses, first of all, we will send you a patch for free saying hey, congrats.
Good job on the completion. We'll send you a free Velcro patch you can put on the patch wall or your range bag show off to your friends.
But as you complete those more courses become available based on your progress through the courses.
So I did not know that. So Big Brother or at least Mantis is watching your progress.
We want to push it right. We let the company is is training a million shooters a year.
And that's what we want to do is push people to drink. That was my next boy.
Are we simpatico here or what? I was going to ask you about that.
Where where what was the genesis of that? Because that's a very aggressive goal.
That's a very aggressive goal. Yeah. Was this one of these Friday nights sit around and imagine our next drill and, you know, also imagine what our what our mission and our vision statement is that we're going to train a million people a year.
Well, it it was it was a lofty goal, but you want big goals to accomplish big things. Right.
And and when you go back to the founding or the idea behind the sensor in the first place, it was it was looking at raw statistics of what's available right now.
And and for all the gun owners that are out there, roughly 60 percent of them have some type of formal training.
And of that formal training, a majority of it is in proper handling and proper storage. You know, there's there's very little going on or a small percentage of gun owners out there who who have some real use case scenario training or tactical training or something along the lines.
So so really, the whole idea was to say, hey, how do we get training readily available for folks at a at a fair cost around the clock? And that was really a big part of it was, well, if this is the real deal and it's not a gimmick, then we should be able to do a million people a year.
So that's that's kind of really what happened there. Yeah, it's it's an impressive goal.
And I like what you said, though, about, you know, you have to aim high to to achieve high. In fact, right. You know, even if you achieve 75 percent of your goal, that's that's still tremendous when you when you set your goals high enough.
What kind of testimonials do you have?
Or I mean, I think that you guys support competitive shooting teams and things like that. But for those out there who may not be in the set of believers, do you have testimonials from people who have, you know, turned I wouldn't say darkness in today?
You know, maybe not. Or maybe that good or at least refine things and learn stuff they would have otherwise never learned.
Yeah. So so really, I think one of our one of our the biggest things that speaks about our feedback in our training is is a more recent case, but really shows on a grand scale what it's capable of.
We have recently just gotten back just around January, actually, during Shot Show, the Marine Corps had been testing out the Blackbeard X for about a year. And as of right now, any recruit going through Parris Island is actually using the Blackbeard X on Grass Week and the data that they have provided us.
First of all, we all know the Marine Corps doesn't really struggle producing shooters, right? That's that's actually what they're known for. But they would typically have 75 to 80 percent qualification first time around.
So they do a good job with their instruction. They have what's called Grass Week. So you all go out, lay in the grass for a week, dry fire your rifles before you even get to go to the range and try and qualify or zero.
We have replaced Grass Week with the Blackbeard X and every pool of trainees using Blackbeard X in Grass Week that goes to live fire has qualified.
So we have taken the Marine Corps from 85 percent qualification at the high end to 100 percent qualification and have cut down training on that by two days.
So we're getting recruits through dry week, two days faster and having all of them qualify as they go through. Very few moves are made in this company without kind of the not blessing, but certainly consultation of the whole.
They really believe in their employees. They hire people that want input from the top to the bottom.
So so really there's nothing out there right now that is really kind of bubbling or churning other than we need more. We know we need more available models and we want to continue to push that software and grow that.
And when you start thinking about as an engineer, I keep going back to the motion time analysis because that's where my mind is at.
How many other areas could this not shooting? How many other areas could this be useful in? I mean, I could probably given, you know, a beer in two hours give you a pretty good long list of things that this might be applicable to.
Yeah, maybe your markets that are just I mean, you're busy enough. I get it. You're busy enough developing and perfecting the product you've got.
But there's probably a lot more opportunity space out there.
We tend to think a ton and when we're looking at, you know, growth, essentially the sensors are they're looking at you, right?
The the X 10 doesn't care what you're shooting at or how far away it is. So, you know, another version of this might be OK.
Well, we've got all of your fundamentals and everything you're doing to send that round correctly. But where's that round landing?
Right. So for that, you would need something like the laser academy or something along those lines.
So so there's growth there as far as the technology is concerned and things we want to see moving forward.
There's some kind of standard electronics consumer things that we're really trying to push.
You know, we'd rather be USBC. We'd rather be waterproof, maybe a little bit more durable aluminum shell, things like that. Right.
So we're looking into those. But right now we're young. We're young in the industry.
Tenure sounds like a long time for a lot of consumers, but it's not it's not when you're, you know, not when you're in here with Winchester and Ruger and Remington and HK.
I mean, all these companies have been around for, you know, decades and decades, centuries for some.
So right. And the electronics continue to get bigger or bigger, they get smaller, better, useless power.
And yeah, I get it. Yep. Exactly.
What are the funny stories or anecdotes or things like that you'd like to share?
So one I do like to bring up is our CEO, Austin Algier.
He is one of the three brothers and his profile picture on our chat board is the very first inception of what the Mantis X was going to be.
And it's actually just him shooting a Glock with a hacked Android cell phone rubber banded to his Glock.
Like, that's really where this came from, was they're like, hold on, we could just hack this Android and basically rubber band and zip tie it to a pistol and see if there's any way possible if this is, you know, if this is attainable, if it's something we can do.
So I always thought it was hilarious because, you know, as a new guy, when I came to the company and saw it, I was like, dude, is that is that a phone rubber banded to a gun? What's happening here?
So being able to hear that, that that's where it came from. I was like, wow, that's actually really cool. I love that.
That is great. I mean, you look at like when John Moses Browning came up with the machine gun, you know, or his version of it.
And and he basically took a Winchester lever action and he put a he put a piece of metal out in front of the barrel and the spring to actuate the lever back and forth.
And people laughed that he took it and he showed it to it. And he got the thing to fire quote automatic as an automatic fire.
And that's when the 18 was 1896 Colt potato digger came out, which was this gun that cocked back and forth. And, you know, it was basically digging a hole because that was based on the lever action Winchester.
So the fully automatic lever gun that the lever gun. Yeah, that's awesome.
Reading about the signer looks great. Do you have anything that has a light and a laser built in so it'll have your product built with a light and a laser. So, Tim, that is that is like what everyone at work wanted.
Right. We're like, can we put this in like a stream light or a sure fire or an absolutely no disrespect to Steiner.
Right. Because obviously it's Steiner. But I think really the whole idea here was to prove concept that a we could get all the sensor to function the same way in a hardened piece of equipment that is designed for everyday use.
And B, and this is me just being honest about what I think I don't know if this is factual from Steiner anything but the point and click laser site systems are really, I mean, it's not something that is desired or used regularly anymore.
So I think this was maybe another way for signer to help generate some excitement around the tour and be able to prove that we can put our sensors in everyday equipment items to actually start adding to the sort of everyday carry had better data tracking on what you're doing to start looking for more outlets in the future.
So I love my tour X. I got mine about a month ago. I've been using the absolute crap out of it. And I use it more in my X 10 just because, you know, I like being able to visually confirm.
Hey, I'm directly on. I don't need to worry about site picture as much things like that. And I can start pushing myself on fundamentals more.
And you can really correlate all of kind of like the old school. There's some old school training tricks out there of constant on lasers where, you know, if you're jerking, you know, if you're pushing, you know, if you're pulling, I don't have to look at the app to see those things.
Now, I can see that shot to shot without having to go back to the app every time and continue to refine the small parts of what I'm doing so I can focus better on things like my holster draw.
Or if I'm doing strong hand or both hands, things like that to start pushing my training that next step instead of just focusing on really the super basic fundamentals.
So it does a little bit of all of that. And and I think since we're seeing success with the tour X right out of the gate right now, hopefully we'll start seeing more integration options in the future with more than, you know, just Steiner.
But we want to continue to prove that this is a reliable concept and something that you can add to everyday items. And I think that you touched on something that reminded me of why I put the cool fire trainer on, which is, you know, I'm looking for the most realistic scenario I can.
And having the gun recoil to me makes a lot more sense than, you know, the dry fire, you know, come off the gun every time I could see where using a cert or something like that would would also make a lot of sense.
But I would like to a black beard that would fit in the pistol that would give you that entire, you know, front to back experience, I think would would also be fantastic.
So I hope to see that someday, too.
Yeah, yep. And and you guys will see that a lot, I think a lot sooner than you think. We've been developing it for some time now. You know, it's been a couple years and we are making some serious strides.
The last prototype I saw a couple days ago on the team chat boards was insane. I don't think I would divulge too much detail just because I don't know what the final product is going to look like.
But I can tell you where it's at right now is awesome. And I cannot wait to get one myself.
That's great. Well, maybe something to look at the next shot show. Hopefully it will be out by then.
Yeah. Just to cap off, I would like to express, you know, my personal thanks and being invited on and finally being able to make it through the episode and being able to get together and have a good conversation with you guys.
And then Brian also for for any of your listeners, Mantis is wide open. So any questions, concerns, comments, you can go to the website. We've got contact information everywhere there. We're on just about every social media platform that's out there.
Check it out. Look at it. Consider it. And, you know, when you're ready to take the jump, let us know. We're always going to be here for you.
Yeah, Jake, I just really want to appreciate that you're able to come on and talk to us about it. Again, it's a product that we have had an opportunity to utilize and one which I am recommending to my newbies. Definitely.
Both Ken and I have experience with this and we're both, like I said, very, very strong advocates. So, Jake, thanks for your time, sir. Appreciate it.
Oh, I loved it. Thank you guys so much.
All right. Good night.
Yeah, so today, really, really glad that we were able to have Mantis come on with Jake and Jake to share a little bit about the company history, as well as some of the capabilities of this Mantis X that we Craig and I have been able to use.
It's something which I highly recommend, not only for shooters who have plenty of experience, but newbie shooters as well. Actually, in particular, newbie shooters who are trying to get better.
And the large to do it in the privacy of your own home, for example, so you don't have to use live fire, but also at the range. So it's a and and do what save money in the process because you're not.
Yeah, you're not needlessly throwing tens of thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of rounds or both down the range in a vain effort to improve.
Exactly. I mean, with rounds, you know, you can spend upwards of 25 cents or more per round. Plus, there's range time and it gets expensive. It's an expensive hobby, but it's also a perishable skill.
And this is one of the few, few tools that are out commercially available. That is something that's going to really help you. So once again, thanks so much for Jake coming on and describing it.
I've got I've got high hopes for what they're going to be doing in the future. It's a great product and it's a great company. So and and you said perishable.
And that's I think we'll close out on that note. We we we do not want your skills to perish or when we don't want the show to perish either.
I mean, the shows the show is in no danger of perishing, but but perishable skill of what the what the users did not see is that initially we started this recording and I didn't hit the record button.
So we had we lost about the first 10 minutes. So even doing podcasting is a perishable skill for those who are interested.
And we now have our aggregator has moved to campsite.bio. So we are now at HTTPS campsite one word dot bio as in BIO slash frugal firearms podcast.
And we can also always be reached at frugal firearms podcast at gmail.com.
What do we need? We need you to subscribe, like and comment and your whatever your preferred podcast aggregator is. And why do we want that?
Ken? Well, we want to become more widely known. There's no doubt about that. And we're also very interested in hearing what you would like to hear about.
And maybe we can have some upcoming shows. So send in your suggestions as well. So looking forward to that. Exactly. All right.
Thanks for your time, folks, and we'll see you next time. Good night.
See, Ken, this is why you need to watch the video and make and double check me to make sure that that recording button is showing up.