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I don't think that you do what Microsoft does with their operating

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systems and turn the entire consumer base into the, or for that matter, the alpha tester.

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Welcome to episode 12 of the Fugal Firearms Podcast, the even dozen edition, the podcast

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designed to help you get the most for your money and enjoy shooting at the least possible cost

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and with the best possible products. And to that vein, today we're talking to the CEO of the ETS

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group, who is going to talk about magazines, something that all of us need and a lot of us

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get frustrated with when they don't work correctly or they wear out and they fail and they're the

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biggest failure point in a lot of the guns that are out there. And we're welcoming first to the

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show from our Northern Command today, up in the Communist centroid of Sacramento, California,

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Ken. Ken, say hello to our guests. Hello listeners. Yes, indeed. Yes, absolutely. I'm up here, you know,

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for Thanksgiving with the DeNing family. So right here, just a few miles away from Liberal Central

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there in Sacramento, California. Exactly. And hopefully not the origin point for the 40, I guess,

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eighth president. We're hoping that doesn't happen. Exactly. Even though this is not a political show,

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let's just keep that in mind. And okay, onto our guest. Our guest today, again, as I mentioned,

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is the CEO and creator of ETS, which are some of the best aftermarket magazines on the market.

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Welcome to the show, Mr. Eddie Loveday. Eddie, how are you today, sir? I'm good. Thanks for having me,

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guys. I'm excited to be here. Okay. So the first thing on my mind, and hopefully that of the

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listeners is what was the inspiration? You created the company, you told me. And why did you do that?

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Because, you know, making parts can be expensive when you're buying molds and stuff like that. And

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you're up against, you know, the mindset of, well, I have to have, you know, a metal magazine,

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because if I don't, it's crap. So what was your, yeah, what was your inspiration, sir?

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Well, yeah. So we faced a lot of that when we first got started. So back in, I guess,

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probably around 2012 is probably the timeframe. I have a long history in this industry. I've been

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on the retail side of things for a long time. I used to work for some distributors and sold some

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retail stuff, had stores. You know, one of the things that became kind of apparent to me

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over time was that the firearm space, particularly accessories, because that's where most of my money

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was made, got more and more crowded. Online revolution sort of came along, right? People

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sell on the internet. They sort of changed business in general. And that was no different

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for the fire ministry as well. So one day I sat down and I said, you know, I was looking at Amazon

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in particular, and what a huge sort of monster that thing has had become at that point even. And I

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started thinking to myself, you know, instead of competing with these guys, it would be a whole

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lot cooler if I was just a manufacturer and they were selling my stuff instead of me trying to

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compete with them. And so to be honest with you, that was what drove me down the path of looking

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at what can I do? And of course, I love the firearm industry. I believe in the firearm industry. I

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think it's very important to not just kind of where we are in our country, but the history of

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our country and hopefully where we're going in the future. So I wanted to stay in this industry.

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And so I had this crazy idea to start a company manufacturing. And I looked around and magazines

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were one of the things that I felt like there's not a lot of great options out there. And I felt

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like maybe we could do better. And when I say do better, that could be to make something cheaper.

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It could be to make it perform better. It could be to make it like in our case, they're clear,

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more visibility, whatever the case may be. So, you know, we kind of took that approach and I

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started looking at it. My father is a mechanical engineer.

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As am I. Me too.

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Yeah. Oh, okay. Great. So he's a mechanical engineer for Siemens in nuclear medicine. So I

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went to my, you know, my dad, I said, Hey, I got this crazy idea. I'm thinking about starting

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a manufacturing company, making, you know, magazines and various other things that I had

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ideas for. And he was, you know, he was like, are you sure you want to do that? Manufacturing is not

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easy. It's expensive and it's a long road. And I said, how hard can it be? Right. So that's kind

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of always been, you know, kind of the way I've been in my life. If anybody can do it, then I can

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do it is the way I feel about that. So we did. I started, we started Elite Tactical and dad helped

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with some engineering and some of the designs and I learned how to use CAD and, and SolidWorks and

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all this stuff. So it was kind of a self-taught thing over the course of a couple of years. And

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I spent about a year and a half becoming an expert on plastics, worked with some people over at BASF

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in sort of developing our polymer, which we have a patent on now for magazines. And so that's kind

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of how it started. So, you know, it started with an idea that maybe we could make a magazine that

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was better. You know, back then AR magazines were considered, first of all, inferior if they were

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plastic. This is kind of back when Magpul was still young and, and polymer magazines in general

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were sort of untested and untrue, you know. And so I looked at that and I said, well, you know,

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maybe we can make a better magazine that's not disposable. That is actually durable enough to

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sort of hold up over time and not just be tossed aside or crack or break or bend or whatever the

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case is. And so when I sat out with my list of requirements that I wanted out of the plastic

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that we were looking at, I had this long list of things that I wanted it to do. And like I said,

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I would find several that did seven out of the 10 things, but never found any that did all 10. So

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we found as close to the plastic as we could. Then we made some changes to it for like UV

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stability, for example, to make sure that the sun's UV rays doesn't degrade the plastic and

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all that kind of stuff. So we did that for about a year and a half. We got it where we wanted it.

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And then we made our first AR magazines. And that's kind of how the company was born. So,

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yeah, there was probably two or three years of work, so to speak, that went into that before we

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ever made our first product. And so that's kind of how it came to be. So for the entrepreneurs out

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there, and you can choose to answer this any way you want. I mean, again, I already keyed on it and

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you backed it up that getting into any kind of manufacturing like this can be a very expensive

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endeavor. I imagine your breakeven point was a few years down the road after you even started

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selling magazines and you're fighting the uphill battle of the perception that a polymer mag

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is, as you put it, a disposable item and maybe not worthy of buying in the first place. I mean,

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at what point did you say that, you know what, I'm succeeding here?

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Well, it's interesting because when we first started, again, I think one of the things we

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tried to do was to try and make a magazine. In my case, one of the things I wanted to do is make it

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more durable. And that means not breaking, not cracking, not all the things. It has to be creep

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resistant because they sit fully loaded, right? So creep is a phenomenon where basically the plastic

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molecules untangle themselves and rearrange themselves in a different form. So like the

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feedlifts, for example, on a magazine will spread over time if that stress limit is exceeded. So

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without trying to get too nerdy and all this, once we had the polymer there, I knew that it not only

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would it do what we needed it to do, but I knew that it would be superior in a lot of ways to a

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metal magazine, durability, longevity, corrosion, all these things. Now trying to convince the public

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at large of that is a different animal altogether. And I'm not going to even pretend to sit here and

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take credit for that because there's, you know, again, there's Magpul, there's other people out

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there. So I think it was just kind of a timing thing where they started to come around and really

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technology, when we talk about technology of materials, right? In this particular space,

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you know, the material that we use for our magazines didn't even exist seven years before

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we started using it. I think something like that for our first magazines. So, you know, again,

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you couldn't, in the 1980s, you couldn't make these magazines the way we make them now because

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the plastic simply just didn't exist and our technology wasn't there. So because I know a lot

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of people, when they think of plastics, they think of some of the cheaper plastics that break and

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crack or get yellowed over time and all those kinds of things. And there's, everybody's had

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experience with that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, we're at a place now where a lot of

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these plastics do very, very impressive. We've got plastics nowadays that are replacements for metal.

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They're all, I mean, I have plastics that are stronger than aircraft grade aluminum that are

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carbon fiber reinforced and all kinds of other things. So it's pretty wild stuff out there.

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And so, you know, getting into that, looking at that, trying to convince people that who aren't

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material scientists and aren't engineers is a whole different animal. And I think that,

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I think what happened to be completely honest here is you had sort of a perfect storm. You had

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plastics being where they were. You had an event that took place in 2012, which was Sandy Hook.

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When Sandy Hook shooting occurred, there was such a run on ARs and magazines at the time

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that the first thing you saw happen was every single metal GI magazine, which was the de facto

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magazine at the time, was gone. It was off the shelf. And so what happened was consumers had no

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choice but to buy our mag or buy a P mag or buy a Lancer magazine or whatever it was, whatever was

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left on the shelf at the time, which at the time was probably considered less desirable than the

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aluminum alternative, right? Of a GI magazine. And so people went out and they bought them.

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And I think what happened is they realized over time, hey, these things are pretty good.

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And they work and they're durable. And they're all the things that a lot of people probably

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thought they weren't. And so I think that that was the sort of the catalyst, if you will, with the

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lightning strike event that sort of thrust them into the, into the, into people's hands and,

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and let people kind of see what they were and sort of get comfortable with adopting them as a, as a

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normal thing for their gun. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the materials have gone up tremendously.

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I mean, Craig and I were early adopters. I mean, Craig, you had one of the first gen one

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Glock 17s ever brought into the U S. I've been to gen, gen two. Yeah. But I mean,

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the gen ones are very rare and there's not, okay. Yeah. Well, yeah. I just remember you got that

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probably almost what? 38 years ago or something like that. A long time ago, about 87. I thought

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it was 37 years. It was pretty much as soon as they, as soon as they hit the U S market, I was like,

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oh my God, I have to own this. Right. Polymer. And you were like, wow, you know, plastic, you know,

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and, and the perception, public perception, I remember at the time of just people didn't trust

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them and they were invisible and, you know, it couldn't be found by metal detectors, all sorts of

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erroneous information going out there. And now of course, polymers are in many ways,

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uh, you know, the wave of the future, if nothing else. Um, I was, I also do classic cars and,

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and one of the things we do is auto body repair. That's kind of a fun hobby, sort of a thing.

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And a lot of cars today are glued together, glued together. Absolutely. You know, they're,

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you should see the cost of those glues by the way. Exactly. And then they're insane. Yeah. Yeah. And

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it's just basically, you know, no longer you tack welding things in place, you're gluing a car

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together. So yeah, all of these materials that, that were Frank, frankly not available is quite

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amazing. And, uh, the rigidity of the plastic, what I, what I really like the translucent aspect of it,

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that that's, that's great. I love to be able to look into the mag and see that how many rounds you

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got left. So, but you know, you know, what's funny about that is when I, you know, that, that phase

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that I was kind of telling you guys about where we were doing all the materials and trying to find

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a material that kind of met all the criteria that we needed, uh, being clear, wasn't, it wasn't on

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the list. Really? It turned out, no, it wasn't. I know I, whenever I tell this story, people,

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they find it to be a really a big surprise that we didn't set out to make a clear mag.

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The fundamental objective was to make a magazine that was affordable and durable and didn't break

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and didn't crack and didn't do all the things. And, uh, when we found this material and it turned out

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to be clear, cause they make it in opaque as well as, as transparent. And, and, uh, when we found

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the material, I was like, well, it's clear and that's cool. You know, I think people will like

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it. Um, but I, you know, I don't know how big of a deal it is. Um, and of course, like on AR mags

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and stuff like that, it's a little bit different because the mag, you know, half the mag hangs out

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of the firearm in pistols. I tell you what was interesting. One of the craziest things that's

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happened to me in my time with, with this ETS adventure is we, we sort of announced to the world

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that I believe it was shot show going into shot show of 2015. I believe it was that we were going

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to be making clear Glock magazines because we'd had some conversations about the whole thing.

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And someone said, Hey, if you really want to sell a bunch of magazines, if you could make a Glock

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magazine on a plastic that doesn't cost a fortune and works, then it would be very successful. And

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I'm like, yeah, how hard can that be in magazines for pistols have a different challenge altogether

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than rifle magazines or alternating feed magazines where the double stack tapers to a single stack.

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It's a, it's an intentional bind on the round stack and it's a huge amount of stress and all

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these things. And we can go into that if you guys want to, but at the end of the day, uh, making a

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pistol magazine out of plastic is much more difficult than making a rifle magazine out of

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plastic. And so when we announced that we were going to make those and they were clear, I didn't

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think anybody was going to care because they're in the, they're in the firearm. You don't really

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see them. They don't stick out. And it turns out that we posted a kind of a teaser going into

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the shot show. I think it was on Instagram or something like that. And immediately it got like

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seven or 800 comments and thousands and thousands of likes and all this stuff. And, um, and we were

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just really, really shocked at how, how much people responded to the idea of a clear pistol

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magazine. And I'll be honest with you guys again, after having used these magazines for years now,

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and I'm the one that, um, has the job of going to test them and shoot them, which kind of led to our

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speed loaders, by the way, and we could talk more about that, but yeah. And, uh, and so as I, as I'm

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the guy who has to go and there's been days where I've had to shoot 5,000 rounds in a day by myself

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and load them and do all the things and all that kind of stuff, which everybody says, that sounds

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like the greatest job in the world. And I promise like everything else in the world, it becomes work.

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It's a rough day with bloody fingers and all the stuff. That's right. But, but, but what I, what I,

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what I learned is that when we test a new magazine, we'll take, we'll take our magazines out to the,

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to the range. We'll test those. We'll also take OEM magazines, whatever that may be. So like,

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you know, like a Sig mag or a Glock mag or whatever it is. Well, after time of using those,

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I became very addicted to the convenience of having the visibility of seeing what's in the mag. So

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like, if I'm at the range and I've got 10 or 12 mags that on the table, I can tell from 10 feet

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away what, not only how many rounds are in the magazine, but what type of rounds are they ball,

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or are they, you know, are they defense load? What have we got? And after getting used to that for

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a while, like when I go take a factory magazine to the range, I, I just get frustrated because I'm

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like, I can't see in this and I don't like it. So I've gotten used to that. I know a lot of people

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think it's not a big deal and it's kind of like probably like some of the other conveniences that

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we've gotten used to in the world, like rain sensing windshield wipers. The first time I ever

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had that in a car, I thought, who needs this? Like how hard is it to reach up and turn on the

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windshield wiper? Right. But now that, now that I've had it, I don't want to buy a car that doesn't

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have, you know what I'm saying? So I kind of feel that way about the clear mags, but it was never

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an objective. It was just one of those things that kind of turned out to be that way. And now it's

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kind of the thing that we're known for, you know, so it's pretty, pretty crazy. When you went, you

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said you worked with BASF on, on the polymer development and, but you said you have the

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patent. So they didn't keep the patent on the thing they helped you with or you co-own the patent or,

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I mean, no, we, we, we got to, just so, just so we know. And again, without going too nerdy on this,

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cause now I'm an amateur patent attorney. I joke about that. But you are, but we, we, we have a

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patent on the material as it relates to ammunition magazines. So people use it. Actually this

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material is used in headlights on cars and some other medical stuff. So there are other industries

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that use it. It's because of its durability and because it's, it, because of its longevity and

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all the things. But because we pioneered how to use it and the design changes that were necessary

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to using it in magazines and all those kinds of things, the patent office did grant us a patent

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on this material again, as it relates to ammunition magazines. It's like a utility patent in that,

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in that context or something like that, I think. Right. And what it is there, I mean, again, this

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is a, this is something that unless you're a patent attorney, a lot of people don't know is that you

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can get a patent on something you didn't necessarily invent if you helped contribute to the development

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of said thing being used in a, an area or an art that it wasn't previously used in. So like, for

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example, for us, the material that we use is not as stiff as metal, for example. Right. So there was

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a lot of work that had to be done to make a magazine that was originally designed for metal

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and make it out of plastic because plastic is simply not as stiff, right? The stiffness is just

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not, the rigidity is not there. So it took a lot to get the magazines to work and do what we needed

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to do and all the other kinds of stuff. And so because of those things, we got a patent on

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materials as it relates to again, very specifically just ammunition magazines and that's it.

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So I have a two, I have a two-part follow-up to that. And first, first it has to do with

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the materials and the designs, and then it has to do with what, at least on your website is referred

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to as the ETS way. But the first part of the question goes to the, to the materials and without

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naming your competitors, you already named a couple already, but what distinguishes your products from

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your competition, quite frankly, and what makes you the, you know, the being frugal firearms podcast,

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we're interested in the value proposition of why would I spend my hard earned money on you

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and not somebody else? Yeah, that's a great question. It's, it's one of my favorite questions to

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answer because people will ask me these questions like, why should I buy your mag over insert random

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competitor here? And you know, I think there's a couple of things to this. Number one, when we

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first set out to do this, we tried to make them, we tried to, we tried to provide a strong value

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proposition to the consumer. And what does that mean? Well, that means a magazine that runs,

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right? So first of all, if a magazine doesn't work, it's worthless. So making a magazine run,

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and by the way, that's not nearly as easy as a lot of people think it is. It's very difficult.

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There's a lot of stuff to go wrong with magazines. They're very finicky. Like we make,

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we'll make 10,000 magazines in a day and we have to keep plus or minus 3000. So for all you people

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out there who know that's basically human hair in terms of the specs. And so it's not easy to make

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magazines. And that's why the real challenge in my opinion, comes from making a magazine that is good

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and affordable. It's one thing if we were making magazines like H&K does, and by the way, guys,

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I love H&K. So this is not a knock on them at all. But the reason, you know, one of the reasons

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their magazines cost $70 is because they're very meticulous and they scrap a whole bunch of stuff,

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right? And so that drives the cost up and consumers eventually pay for that. And so it's difficult.

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Yeah, it's difficult to try and make something that you want to sell for $15 or $20 or whatever

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it is and have a high level of quality control, have a high level of tolerancing and all the things

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that make a magazine a good magazine. It's those two things. I'm talking about quality and function

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and affordability are at odds with each other, right? And everywhere you go, it's a tug of war

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constantly in the factory between trying to make it as good as you can make it and also trying to

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keep it affordable so that consumers can buy them. And so I think what sets us apart is we sort of

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have pioneered clear magazines, especially when it comes to pistols. We have a new line of magazines

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out now, which are hybrids, which sort of incorporate steel and polymer. We can talk more

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about some of those things, which make those unique. And we've already won two awards this

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year for those. And so I think what sets us apart is we have a very strong value proposition because

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our Mac, we have carbon smoke line now. I don't know if you guys have seen that. And so basically

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what we did, just so you guys know, is we took our magazines, we made them a little darker.

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What did that do? Well, that hid visual blemishes. So it made our scrap go way down

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and that made them more affordable. And that's why carbon smokes are cheaper than the clears.

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A lot of people are like, why is carbon smoke cheaper than clear? Well, it's cheaper because

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we don't have to scrap as much because the visual blemishes are not noticeable.

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I thought it was because of a compound in there that helped either the durability or the stability

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or whatever the case might be, that it just happened to add smoke to the matrix as opposed

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to being clear. I thought it was purely an engineering decision, not a business driven

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decision, if you will. So what happened was we sat there and looked at where the industry

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was going. And when I say industry, I'm speaking specifically to our little corner of it, which

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is magazines. And after 2020 and 2021, when sales were crazy and COVID happened and all the stuff,

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we knew that the economy was probably heading in a bad direction. We knew that consumers were going

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to have a hard time. People's wallets were going to get tighter, just like where we are right now.

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I felt like there's a lot of people struggling out there to put food on the table and to pay

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the rent, so to speak. And when that happens, what does it mean for us? Well, it means that

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if you're struggling to pay your bills, you probably don't have 20 bucks or 40 bucks to

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go spend on firearm accessories. So we felt that that was probably the way things were heading.

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So what we did was we tried to look for ways to try and increase the value proposition for

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the consumer. And so what we found was that by adding some more smoke colorant to the plastic

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mix and darkening the plastic, that a lot of the visual blemishes that we experience when we're

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molding these things kind of just disappear. And when that does that, the scrap rate goes way down.

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And when the scrap rate goes way down, then things get cheaper. And when they get cheaper,

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we can pass those savings on to the consumer. And again, just trying to make an even stronger

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value proposition for people. That's great. I love that. Yeah. You're not really detracting

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it all from the ability to be translucent to the extent that you want to know basically how many

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rounds you got left. And no, that's great. No, I think that's fantastic. So now the second part of

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my two-part question, explain to people who haven't read your website, because quite frankly,

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most people probably haven't. What's the ETS way? What's that about? Well, I think I've sort of

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touched on a little bit, but I think that if I had to really sum it up in a way that's not pre-written

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and rehearsed, if you will, is basically as an owner of the company and one of the designers

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and engineers and all the things that go into this and being in charge of manufacturing,

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you know, we're a medium-sized company. And so that means I wear a lot of hats, just like I'm

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sure a lot of people that listen do, and everybody sort of gets that. But I think our focus is,

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if we can't bring something to the table that is a benefit for the consumer, for the customer,

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we're not going to do it. We don't want to make a product that everybody else is making just to make

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one and try and sell it. Because I think that's a losing recipe. I think consumers eventually see

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through that. I think that they get tired of people throwing a bunch of stuff at them that is

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either subpar or just another of the same thing that everybody else is making. So we try really

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hard when we look at a project to take a step back, try and get outside the normal scope and

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the box that everybody else is in, traditionally speaking, and try and look for new ways, whether

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that be in materials or processes or ways to manufacture things. And we can, again, we can

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talk about that with the hybrids that haven't been done before. And we try and look at ways to do that

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to bring more value. And again, that can be in the form of less cost, higher performance, both,

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whatever it is. But really, I think that what we really stick to is two things that are just

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fundamentally important to us as a company. Number one is firearms are an intrinsic part of this

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country and the history and the freedoms that we enjoy. And I'm one of those guys that think

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nothing should be illegal, period. It doesn't matter. We should all have fully automatic

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machine guns. They shouldn't be illegal for responsible, law-abiding people. And so that's

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kind of my take. My take is kind of a no holds barred. I don't think any regulations are lawful.

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I think that we're going to see a lot of these magazine capacity limits and some of these other

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things overturned, but that's kind of our position. And it's an unapologetic position. And I think

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that, so guns are fundamental to us. And I think that our approach to trying to make them better

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for people is sort of what drives us to try and make, again, a better product, a different product

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than what everybody else has. And that's where you saw the clear mags and the durable magazine.

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And just to kind of give you guys a perspective, when we first came out with our first AR mag,

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most people make their AR mags out of glass nylon, right? Glass reinforced

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nylon. It's a very common material. If you take one of those magazines and you load it with 30

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rounds and you drop it from say four or five feet on concrete on the feedlifts, almost every magazine

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that's made out of glass nylon will break. It'll crack almost the first time. And if it does it

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the first time, it will certainly do it the second time. And I know this because I've done

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hundreds and hundreds of these tests. And so our magazine and our material, just to give you some

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perspective that kind of maybe means something to people, we take them out 20 foot up on the

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mezzanine in the factory and we'll drop them on concrete from 20 feet fully loaded and they won't

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break. And that's a different level of durability. That's why we offer a lifetime warranty on every

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magazine, on everything we make. And a lot of our, to my knowledge, I don't think any of our

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competitors offer a lifetime warranty on a magazine because like I said, most people view magazines

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as a disposable item. If it breaks, you just throw it away and get a new one. And one of the things

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we were trying to do, just speaking to trying to add value, is trying to make something that people

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could buy and not have to worry about it again. And if they do break it, I had a guy call in when

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we first started up and said, I was trying to break your magazine. And finally we did. And I was like,

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how'd you break it? He said, well, I had my son pitch it at the retaining wall, like a baseball.

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And I was like, well, that's pretty cool. He said, so after two hours of him and his buddy trying to

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break it, they gave it to their kid and he finally broke it. And I gave him a new one anyway, because

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we offer a lifetime warranty. It doesn't matter, but he was so impressed with that. And those are

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the categories. I mean, that's deliberate abuse. I mean, no, yeah. Okay. I mean, you know, the whole

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wide ruptured out of a helicopter at 10,000 feet. I mean, come on. So, well, that being the case,

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I suppose that if you have that kind of confidence in your product, I mean, was there a time when

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maybe, you know, you got a lot of returns while you're trying to figure it out and then it got

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better. And let me cite an example. And this isn't based on a defect, but it's an observation I made.

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When I was back in a freer state, like back at the shot show and stuff like that, I was able to look

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at some of like your 10 round magazines that are okay in California. And then like the Omega,

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the Omega magazine. And I noticed the way they stack is different. And I didn't know if, for

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example, the reason that, for example, you make a 10 round magazine and the way to get there is,

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it appeared to me, and I could be wrong, that you thicken the walls on the side so that they didn't,

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the stacking was, let's say, less efficient. And that way you also maybe gained some strength,

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as opposed to the Omega that stacked more like you'd maybe you'd see in an AR magazine.

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And maybe that's a way to mitigate, you know, people abusing it or something like that,

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just through design elements.

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Yeah, those are great questions. And these are some of the things, I love these questions,

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because sometimes when you're on the inside looking out versus the other way around, you

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sort of take for granted, right? Some of the things that we know and some of the design choices

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and things that we do. To answer the question about the 10 rounders, the stack that's in the

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10 rounders, we didn't make the whole wall thicker, we made the rib that runs up the side of the wall

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thicker. And we did that basically to control the stack. And so basically what we did for,

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to sort of simplify this, is we took a double stack magazine and we turned it into a single stack.

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And we did that to take up space so that it would be a 10 round magazine and be compliant

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with, for example, California or a restricted state.

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It's kind of stack and a half really, in a way.

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Yeah, that's what I was going to say. There are ones that are stack and a half. And let me give

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you an example. So we have a 17 and a 19, 10 rounder. And by the way, those 10 round models

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are still some of our best sellers. I mean, I think they're literally like seven or eight or

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nine on our best selling list. So they're very, very popular magazines. But basically the Glock

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19 magazine is a shorter magazine, right? Because it's made to go in the compact Glock. And so that

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stack is a stack and a half, because we had to have a little bit more slack, so to speak, right?

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To fit the 10 round in that space on this Glock 17, 10 rounder. It is truly a single stack.

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They're vertical. They're basically 100% vertical because we had enough space to do that.

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There's not a benefit performance wise to either one. A single stack magazine will always run more

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reliably than a double stack magazine. It's just the nature of just like a 10 round magazine will

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always be more reliable than a 30 round magazine because physics, less weight, less moving parts,

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less pieces and all those things. So that being said, the stack that you see in the Omega magazine

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is a true double stack. We call it, it's a single feed. So it tapers to a single feed,

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a single presentation, right? Where the round is up against both feed lips and it centers in the

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magazine and then the firearm strips that round off and that's how it's presented to the weapon.

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So that is the standard de facto, if you will, for most pistol magazines. You're seeing a new

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trend though. The new trend now, I was actually had a meeting about this last week. We were looking

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at the trends for some of the sales out there. And amazingly, I believe that six of the top 10

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selling pistols for the first two quarters of this year are micro carries, right? So we're talking

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SIG 365s, we're talking Hellcats, we're talking all those things. And so that's the new trend.

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And basically that's a double stack with a little bit of a single stack over top of it

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to try and save some space where the mechanics like the trigger bar and all the things that

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are up in the firearm are. And that's sort of the point. It just allows them to have a thinner form

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factor on the frame of the firearm. And so that's the new trend, but they still function largely

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the same as a double stack basically magazine. And that's the trend. That's how they fit more

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rounds. They're really a double stack magazine with a thin frame and all that kind of stuff.

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So there's a lot of different configurations. A GLOT 43X, for example, is a stack and a half.

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I call it, it's a wide single stack magazine, which is why some companies out there have made

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like 15 round flush fit magazines for those because they basically removed the plastic and

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made thinner walls and took up that space. So there's a lot of different configurations

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for magazines and the way that those stacks are set up is sometimes it has as much to do with

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the gun they're going in as it does the actual firearm itself. But to answer your question,

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have we learned along the way? Have there been any aha moments or any big lessons, so to speak?

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I think the biggest one that we ever came across was the magazines were performing pretty

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flawlessly for the first thousand or 2000 rounds. And we found that after a certain amount of time

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and rounds that they would start to get sluggish. And when I say sluggish, the stack would not

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advance sometimes as quickly as it needed to to keep up with the firearm or sometimes they

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wouldn't advance at all. And what we found out was that what happens is during the gases,

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in the way that most pistols work, of course, with the Browning action is you have a lot of

372
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:56,720
that gas going back into that area. And in that gas is a lot of carbon. And as you guys probably

373
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,480
know, carbon is one of the hardest things on earth. It's stuff diamonds are made out of.

374
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:06,640
And so carbon actually will embed itself with the pressure of the rounds, especially on the walls.

375
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:11,040
Over time, the carbon embeds in the plastic. And when it does that, the plastic starts to become

376
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:17,440
more like a sandpaper and not a nice, lubricous material like it is when it's brand new. And so

377
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:21,360
we really had to come up with a way to try and prevent this phenomenon from happening. Or what

378
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:27,520
we had was after a few thousand rounds, they could become real hit or miss in terms of reliability.

379
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:34,240
So what we did, and it was a very simple solution, which surprised us, is we put oil

380
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:39,680
inside the magazine and putting oil. A lot of people see that in the magazine. They think,

381
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:44,640
oh, they put oil in the magazine to kind of lube the magazine. And yes, that's sort of true,

382
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:51,120
but not really. What happens is the oil catches a lot of those contaminants and it prevents them

383
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:56,560
from being embedded in the wall. It just moves around and slides around and doesn't do the thing

384
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:01,840
that we just talked about where it becomes kind of like a sandpaper. And so that was one of the big

385
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:08,160
moments where we took a magazine that after a few thousand rounds may not be as reliable as steel.

386
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:13,760
And by the way, a fun side note, I was at Shot Show, I don't remember what year it was, probably 2019

387
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:19,520
or 2018. I don't remember now. And a couple of engineers from Glock from Austria came up to the

388
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,880
booth and they wanted to talk to me. And they were very excited to talk to another, for lack of a

389
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:29,040
better term, magazine nerd. And we had some conversations about the stacks and they said,

390
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,080
do you know why the stack is a stack and a half? And I said, well, you've got to have slack in the

391
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,440
back of the rounds to keep the tips up. Otherwise the tips will fall down and it won't feed the

392
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,360
weapon. And he got so excited. He was like, oh my gosh, you're probably one of only a handful of

393
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,800
people in the world that understand this and know what's going on with this. And so we had a good

394
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:47,920
conversation, but they told me that the steel lining inside of Glock magazines was heat treated

395
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:53,440
and hardened. And I didn't know that previously. He said, you know why? And I said, no, why? And

396
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:57,920
he said, because if they didn't heat treat and harden the steel, the carbon would do the same

397
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:02,320
thing to the steel. It would embed in the steel and it would create so much friction that they

398
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:07,120
would stop running after they got dirty. And so that goes to show you some of the stresses,

399
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:11,760
the level of stresses and some of the things we're talking about is that even steel has to be hardened

400
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,960
in order to make this thing run right and make it run well and reliable and all these kinds of

401
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:22,000
things. So magazines are very, very complex little things. And honestly, most of the time

402
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:26,400
they're probably the number one cause of failures in a lot of modern firearms because, you know,

403
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:32,160
modern firearms have gotten very, very good. So, oh, in our experience, there's no doubt about it.

404
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:37,680
I mean, pretty much anybody who goes to the range has bet your life magazines. These magazines are

405
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:43,200
the ones that will carry with me and bet my life on if need the situation arises. Then I have these

406
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:50,960
kind of secondary magazines were almost flawlessly all the time, very occasionally a failure to feed.

407
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,560
And then you got the ones just like, well, I don't want to throw it away, but I don't really want to

408
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:59,520
throw it anywhere. Right. Well, that's the only proverbial we have. We have the carry bags, right?

409
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:05,040
And then we have range mags is what we talk about. Right. And I think a lot of consumers,

410
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,720
a lot of gun people feel the same way. They've got, like you just said, they've got the ones

411
00:36:08,720 --> 00:36:12,560
kind of like your different ammos, right? You got your range ammo and you've got your defense ammo.

412
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:17,120
And those are two different things. Right. And that's sort of what led us down the path

413
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:23,600
of going to the hybrids, you know, is trying to take, we took everything we learned for 10 years

414
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:30,880
on magazines from materials to the stresses to what makes the magazine unreliable or very reliable.

415
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:36,080
And we tried to say, if money were no issue and we were going to make the best magazine in the

416
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:38,960
world, what would it be? And that's kind of a little bit of the approach we took there

417
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:44,720
with those. And we started looking at the high stress areas. It's preferable to have steel.

418
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:49,680
The rest of the areas, it's not preferable to have steel from a weight perspective and

419
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:55,680
from a visibility perspective. And so we went down that path and that's kind of where the hybrid is,

420
00:36:56,240 --> 00:37:01,120
is literally, you know, at the, at the risk of sounding, you know, silly, it's the best of both

421
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,600
worlds. Yeah. For the consumers who don't know what the hybrid you're talking about, it is the

422
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:12,160
Omega line. And I, when I had the opportunity, you know, trying to load that, I mean, we're going to

423
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,600
talk speed loaders in a couple of minutes. I don't want to forget that, but just trying to,

424
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:20,960
just loading one by hand, I noticed how much easier it was to get the rounds into the Omega

425
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:26,960
magazine than the standard magazine because you know, the lubricity of, and probably to

426
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:33,280
read the hardness of the feed lips. And I also did have the opportunity to do my own little informal

427
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:38,000
and formal drop testing and stuff like that and found that, yeah, you're right. They wouldn't fail.

428
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:43,520
In fact, the only magazine I've ever had personally fail was a Glock factory magazine. And it's

429
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:50,160
because the polymer, I think just aged out and split on the back and it was done. So, but along

430
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:56,000
the lines of, well, kind of a two-part question, it's sort of how do you develop like the inspiration

431
00:37:56,000 --> 00:38:00,160
for new products, how you develop them and then how do you vet them and test them before you get

432
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:05,680
them out there? I mean, is it, I don't think that you do what Microsoft does with their operating

433
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:13,840
systems and turn the entire consumer base into the, or for that matter, the alpha tester. But I think,

434
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:20,000
I mean, do you have professional teams that do this for you, either competition or in-house and

435
00:38:20,720 --> 00:38:26,320
you know, how do you, when do you decide it's time to add new SKUs? You know, because the

436
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:30,880
opportunity space says that there's something that not being addressed in the market that you can do

437
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:39,440
better. Right, right. That's a great question. So first of all, when we try to identify products,

438
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:45,440
I think that that process, we, to a certain extent have sort of found our niche, if you will,

439
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:52,320
in the market space, which is magazines. And so we look around at magazines or firearms that come

440
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:58,000
out, firearms that have been out. And we look at, you know, for us, you know, mostly it's a numbers

441
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:04,240
game in terms of, I'll give you a great example. Scorpion CZ, we make magazines for the Scorpion

442
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:12,560
CZ. I think we have for that, for that particular gun, I think we have 30 and 40 rounders. Okay.

443
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:18,720
And the reason we did that is because so many people contacted us when those guns came out and

444
00:39:18,720 --> 00:39:22,320
said, Hey, I've got these factory CZ magazine again. I'm not knocking them. I love the gun. It's

445
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:27,840
one of my favorite guns to shoot. But they said, you know, I stored it in my safe and then I came

446
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:32,960
back, it was loaded and one of the feet lifts broke off of it and the round shot out everywhere and

447
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:36,720
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a story we kept hearing over and over and over again. And honestly,

448
00:39:36,720 --> 00:39:41,040
it's not a shocking story because I think what a lot of people do is they want to make a clear

449
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:46,000
magazine. And a lot of people who don't know, and haven't done all the diligence like we did back in

450
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:51,280
the day, they just make it out of a polycarbonate or something like that. And so what happens is

451
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:56,000
that cold creep thing we talked about earlier. If you overstress it, eventually it'll lead to

452
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,920
rupturing and it just breaks off, it cracks off. And so that's what was happening with a lot of

453
00:39:59,920 --> 00:40:04,640
those factory CZ magazines when they were first released is the feel of the break off. And so we

454
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,640
had a ton of people asking us for magazines. And so I said, yeah, this is a need that needs to be

455
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:13,920
addressed. And so, so we did. So we made the magazines for that. And that was, that was a

456
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:19,680
good example of I saw something that was deficient and it needed to be fixed. And so we did. There

457
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:24,240
were other cases where they come out with a magazine, for example, the SIG 320, and there's

458
00:40:24,240 --> 00:40:29,760
nothing wrong with a factory SIG 320 magazine. They're just expensive. They're 50 bucks, right?

459
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:34,560
So we said, well, you know, let's, let's come out with a magazine that hopefully people can afford.

460
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:41,680
And so we have magazines. Actually, I think this week we're shipping the first Omega SIG 320, which

461
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:45,200
we're pretty excited about. So that's going to be shipping out, I think tomorrow or Wednesday.

462
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:49,680
So those will be going out. But the point is the whole point of that was to make a magazine again,

463
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:55,920
that is as reliable as an OEM magazine, but at a far less cost. In this case, it'll be $20 instead

464
00:40:55,920 --> 00:41:03,440
of $50. And you also have the visibility of, of the ETS polymer, right? So I think it's kind of a

465
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:08,000
win-win there. I mean, we're excited about that for those guys. Now, the second part of your question

466
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:15,440
is testing, right? And development. So that is, you know, one of the things we utilize a lot

467
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:19,840
for prototyping and stuff is 3D printing, right? So we'll, we'll come up with a concept. We'll do

468
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:24,960
a design. We'll 3D print it. It takes about 12 hours. We have a part that is not good enough to

469
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:29,600
go through a lot of testing, but we have a part that's good enough to go through very, very initial

470
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:33,200
testing. So we'll make sure that it fits. We'll make sure that it works. And you can shoot a couple

471
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:37,840
hundred rounds through a 3D printed magazine, for example, or whatever it is. So it's kind of a

472
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:42,480
proof of concept, if you will. And then from there, once we feel good about that, then it's time to

473
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:46,640
spend the real money. And now you're talking injection molds and tools or stamping tools

474
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:51,520
or whatever it is. And that's where, you know, I tell people that to bring a new magazine to market

475
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:56,480
from the time you look at design work, the testing to tooling and all the things, it's a minimum of a

476
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:02,800
half a million dollars and more realistically, probably like $750,000. Okay. Is, is, is roughly

477
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:07,440
what you're looking at by the time you do all the testing and all the design work and the

478
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,240
engineering and then the tooling, because the tools themselves are very, very, you know,

479
00:42:10,240 --> 00:42:16,240
an injection mold tool for magazine is probably close to a quarter million dollars. So that's

480
00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:21,360
just for the tooling. So it's an expensive endeavor if you do it right. And it takes a lot of testing

481
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:28,160
and a big part of that cost is testing. And so what we do is we do a ton of testing in-house.

482
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:34,640
And when we feel good about what we're seeing, then we'll let people outside the company,

483
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:39,920
which will be some of our partners on shooting teams, professional shooters, some other military

484
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:44,000
people and things like that. A lot of law enforcement friends that we have at training

485
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:48,320
facilities like FLETC and stuff like that. So we'll give them to them and say, Hey,

486
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,640
go do what you do with them and let us know what you see. And that's a really good thing

487
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:56,720
because no matter how good you are, and no matter how much time you spend in a quote unquote lab or

488
00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:02,160
a controlled environment, you will never be able to sort of replicate everything that it'll see in

489
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:07,600
the real world. So yeah, that's a big part of the testing is letting other people get their hands on

490
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:12,400
them and go out. Like for example, a lot of people shoot out in the desert as sand, as you guys can

491
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:18,880
imagine. Right. Sand is a killer for magazines for the reasons. And so again, getting them out in

492
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:22,080
those different environments, we send them all over the country. We have partners that help us

493
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:27,200
do all that stuff. And it's actually a pretty fun process because we've gotten to know a lot of those

494
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:34,080
guys through the years and gals and getting their feedback is really invaluable to sort of the

495
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:40,480
final part of that, if you will. There's a couple of partners that you haven't engaged yet out here

496
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:46,320
on the left coast who would love to see some of the 10 round magazines come our way for testing

497
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:52,080
because, hey, who in the other States wants to test a 10 rounder? Nobody wants to do that. They

498
00:43:52,080 --> 00:44:00,800
want the full capacity is not the reduced capacity that we have. Yeah. We definitely would be into

499
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:04,640
providing that. Well, the good thing is I know a guy that can get you guys hooked up with this.

500
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:08,080
And we love that too. Again, as we, as we meet people, this, this is kind of the way that this

501
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:13,280
goes, right? We we'll get to know people and they'll offer to do this. And typically what I find is

502
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:19,040
the people who offer to do it, they really like it. You know, they like not only being a part of it,

503
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:23,680
but getting to help with, with finding problems potentially before they become real problems and

504
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:28,080
getting to give feedback. People feel they have skin in it. And it's a process that, that we enjoy.

505
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:32,240
It's one of my favorite parts as, as one of the guys who helps design these things is interacting

506
00:44:32,240 --> 00:44:36,400
with, with our, our people. It's one of my favorite parts of this whole thing. You know,

507
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,480
I was just going to say one of the things is, I mean, you, you earlier talked about, you know,

508
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:47,760
putting 5,000 rounds, you know, in a single day. Sadly we are frugal for our arms. I don't think

509
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:52,800
I've ever put more than, you know, five or 600 out in a day. You know, I'm just like, yeah,

510
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:57,040
we're just going to claim to do it. You know, that's, that's the thing to, you know,

511
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:04,560
me, the personal me, I don't do that. I don't go shoot five rounds a day. And, and you know,

512
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:08,560
back in 2020, when all that stuff hit, there was times where we had to, I was having to call in

513
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:13,360
favors at, at Shadow Roll and other places just to get enough ammunition for our testing, right?

514
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:18,240
When, when ammunition was short, because we have very specific protocols that we follow for testing.

515
00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:22,400
And if we don't put the rounds through it, we can't check that box, right? It doesn't matter

516
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,320
if you run 90% of the rounds through it. If we don't check the proverbial boxes, they say,

517
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:32,240
then, then that thing is not ready to move on to the next phase. And so, so yeah, that's a,

518
00:45:32,240 --> 00:45:37,360
that's a thing. And, and, and I get where you're coming from. And now sadly, I don't,

519
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:44,000
other than testing guns, I don't do much recreational shooting anymore. I used to a lot and now I just

520
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:50,480
don't. Well, you run a company. I mean, you've got things to do. And, you know, and you're a father

521
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:54,640
and things like that. I mean, all that stuff uses up time. Do you have, I don't know whether you do

522
00:45:54,640 --> 00:46:01,680
or not, you know, contracts or, or you supply either, you know, various militaries or law

523
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:08,080
enforcement, you know, professional organizations that are not just competitor type. Oh, yeah. Yeah,

524
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:14,640
absolutely. We, we, we, we do not have a contract, like an actual military wide contract. What we do

525
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:20,080
is we supply several smaller units because their purchasing is at their discretion, right? And

526
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:24,400
we've supplied stuff like, here's a great example. You talk about, you know, the clear and the see

527
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:29,120
through and stuff, the treasury department, like our magazines, because they have two loadouts,

528
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:33,680
uh, one for the ground when they're transporting on the ground, uh, which is full metal jacket.

529
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:38,240
And then when they are in the air, uh, they have frangible rounds, right? So they actually have

530
00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:42,240
clear magazines so they can see which ones they're grabbing and going out of the locker, so to speak,

531
00:46:42,240 --> 00:46:46,640
before they leave. Um, it's another, it's another thing with training facilities and stuff like

532
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:51,520
that. Having a clear magazine is just another added layer of safety. Uh, when you have certain

533
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:55,840
requirements like that, like round counts are another good example, like a correction facilities

534
00:46:55,840 --> 00:47:00,400
or stuff like that. Um, uh, law enforcement agencies, a lot of those guys have to do a round

535
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:04,240
count at the end of a shift. And so normally for them, that meant they had to unload the magazine,

536
00:47:04,240 --> 00:47:08,080
count the rounds and then load it back, which sort of sucks. As you guys know, from doing the whole

537
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,680
loading thing. Um, so having a clear magazine, they don't have to do that. They can look at the

538
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:15,200
magazine, count them in the magazine and don't have to go through the act of unloading and

539
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:19,920
reloading the rounds. So, um, so those kinds of things, but yes, we, we do supply various law

540
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:25,200
enforcement agencies and we do supply, uh, various, uh, units and some other stuff like that. Uh,

541
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:30,720
around, uh, we have not won any major contracts yet. That's a very difficult thing and it takes,

542
00:47:30,720 --> 00:47:35,360
you know, tens and tens of years. And so, you know, it's, it's one of the things we hope for

543
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:40,880
one day, but I work for the, you know, I work for the Navy. I understand the government. I, I,

544
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:46,000
then you get it. Absolutely. Right. So you talked about loaders. So talk about the speed. Yeah.

545
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,000
I mean, that's, that's the product. I'm not sure whether I owned your speed loader first or some of

546
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:56,080
your mags. I don't recall, but it's such a different product. Obviously they're complimentary

547
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:02,720
products, but it's so damn good. And you know, I, to me, it's just the leader in that industry, but,

548
00:48:02,720 --> 00:48:06,880
but, you know, I have a couple, you know, for different calibers, uh, talk about that a little

549
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:12,720
bit. Okay. Well, first of all, I love hearing the compliments. Um, that's one of the, one of my

550
00:48:12,720 --> 00:48:15,520
favorite things in the world is to hear somebody say that they're using the product and they love

551
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:21,600
it. And it makes their life, you know, better, easier, whatever. Um, so basically the way this

552
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:26,800
came about, again, I'm the guy that has to, well, I used to be the only guy now we have a team of

553
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:31,360
guys, but I have to go shoot bags and test them. And that means some long days, um, and some sore

554
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:37,040
fingers and all the things that go with it. And so I, I'm not afraid to mention competitors. I used

555
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:44,640
to use a, a, a mag Lula up Lula, um, which I tell people now is a good product. Yeah. Um, and I, I

556
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:49,600
and I, I consider it to be more of a thumb saver, not really a speed loader, cause you still pick

557
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:54,640
up each round and load it individually, but still a good product nonetheless. Um, and I used it and

558
00:48:54,640 --> 00:49:00,640
I just, you know, I got, I just, it just took so long. And so I'll give you an example, uh, a week

559
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:04,240
or two ago, I had to go test a magazine. And it was some of the final rounds of testing for some

560
00:49:04,240 --> 00:49:08,480
of the first off for the SIG mags and all that stuff. And I had to go run 2000 rounds through one

561
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:14,560
mag in a day. Um, and I went and did that and it took me 40 minutes. And most people, you know,

562
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:18,160
again, if you shoot with any regularity and you load your mags on stuff, you would know that

563
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:23,120
shoot 2000 rounds by yourself in one magazine where you don't have 20 magazines that you went

564
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:28,720
preloaded with would take a lot longer than, you know, 30 or 40 minutes. And that's no, yeah,

565
00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:32,560
exactly. And that's kind of the deal. So, you know, I can, I can blaze through this stuff and

566
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,840
get my work done in a much faster time. So that's kind of how it came to be. That's kind of what

567
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:40,240
drove me down that path. You know, when you start talking about the mechanics of it, um,

568
00:49:40,240 --> 00:49:44,960
the rifle loader is fairly simple. The rifle loader, um, which I, our rifle loader is really cool

569
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:52,880
because it works with a lot of different calibers. Um, it goes down to a nine millimeter. It'll do

570
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:57,520
five, five, six. It does most in between. It goes up to an AK 47. So you can load seven, six, two

571
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:01,920
rounds. So it works with a ton of different calibers and a ton of different platforms. And

572
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,680
a lot of people don't know that. I think as far as I know, we're the only people that make a

573
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:10,720
speed loader that is sort of a universal speed loader for rifles that works with most stuff.

574
00:50:10,720 --> 00:50:14,880
And so that's, that's exciting. It's fast and it's easy. And then the pistol loader is a little bit

575
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:20,960
different animal because of the way that it has to load. So in looking at it, the way that a round

576
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,920
is stripped out of a feed lip and then hits a feed ramp and a gun goes up into the chamber.

577
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:31,200
That's sort of the motion, if you will. So the high behind the load, the idea behind the loader

578
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:37,120
was that idea in reverse. And that's what we did. And it took, again, I know it looks simple. If

579
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:42,480
you look at it and look down in it, it took me months and months of tweaking angles and changing

580
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:47,200
angles and multiple angles and all these things to try and get it right. Um, and then once I got it

581
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:54,080
right, I was working on a Glock magazine. Uh, then the, then the challenge was to try and make it

582
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:59,360
work with different magazines. And then I realized something that was even more difficult, which was

583
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:03,520
that the shapes of projectiles and all these animals are different. So you would have one

584
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:08,160
ammo that would work really, really well. And then one ammo that wouldn't load at all. We've gotten

585
00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:12,240
it down to where it's pretty good. It works with most amos. There's a few weird ones out there,

586
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,640
but it works with most amos. It works with most magazines. There's a few that we have a list of

587
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:20,880
that it does. It's not compatible because the feed lips are too long. Um, but for the most part,

588
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:25,040
if you guys haven't seen it for the listeners that are listening, uh, you know, you scoop up

589
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:29,920
10 rounds at a time, uh, put your magazine in the thing. And then you, you basically push 10 rounds

590
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:34,160
in at a time and it doesn't, it doesn't hurt the magazine. And, uh, it's super, super fast. I,

591
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:39,200
I did a race one time, a video with some of my friends and my brother and they had, one of them

592
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:44,560
had a Lula. One of them was loading by hand and I had my speed loader and it took me just under nine

593
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:50,400
minutes to load a thousand rounds. And the next closest was the Lula and he had loaded 180. And

594
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:55,680
then the guy that loaded by hand and loaded 135. So that gives you some perspective as to how much

595
00:51:55,680 --> 00:52:02,240
faster our speed loader is than really anything else on the market. So let's, let's talk future

596
00:52:02,240 --> 00:52:10,640
products. Is there anything that no, our listeners have not signed NDAs, but is there, is, is there

597
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:14,720
anything that we're looking for in your futures that you'll either, you know, specific products

598
00:52:14,720 --> 00:52:19,760
or categorically, maybe you're looking at, at some areas that, you know, your experience indicates

599
00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:24,560
are underserved or you just see the opportunity space where, you know what, we have an idea that

600
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:30,000
nobody else has. Well, you know, I think that in the immediate future, you know, we spent two years

601
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:36,080
that the, uh, the Omega magazine that we developed, we spent, we spent largely, maybe two and a half

602
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:41,520
years now, I guess, um, developing that technology. We have several patents pending on that. And so

603
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:45,840
we kind of put our eggs in that basket, if you will, because we feel that those are the future

604
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:51,520
of not just our company, but also, um, I think there, I think that you'll, I think that if we

605
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:56,320
have this conversation, or at least my hope is that 10 years from now, people will see how good

606
00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:02,640
these magazines are. And, um, we have talks with several large gun manufacturers for OEMing for

607
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:07,600
them that we're in talks with and things like that. So, you know, at the end of the day, I think that

608
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:12,400
those magazines are better than just your typical steel magazines because we've, so one really cool

609
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:18,000
aspect of them, one of the most time consuming and expensive parts of making a steel magazine is,

610
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:22,480
um, welding the seam up the back of them. And then you have to grind it flat, right? Um, and when you

611
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,440
do that, it heats up and then they warp and then you have to straighten them. And then you got to

612
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:29,920
send them out for heat. It's a, it's a time consuming process. The stamping machine can

613
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:35,520
stamp them out every few seconds, but the process of welding and grinding is a 30 second process.

614
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:40,080
So it's, it's quite a bottleneck. It's very expensive. The robotics to do a weld on them is

615
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:44,640
like, you know, half a million to a million dollars. So it's just a very expensive and time

616
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:48,560
consuming process. So when we made these, when we looked at making the hybrids, one of the big

617
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:54,720
challenges was if we made the metal part welded, like all the other metal magazines out there,

618
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:59,520
it would have been so cost prohibitive that it would have cost, it basically would have been the

619
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:03,200
cost of two magazines. You've been paying for a metal magazine and a plastic magazine at the same

620
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:09,200
time. And we knew that that's not what consumers are looking for. Right. So the answer was this

621
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:13,360
joint that we came up with. And if you have one of those in your hands or you guys look at it,

622
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:18,000
you could see sort of that we call it the Omega joint because it looks sort of like an Omega.

623
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:24,080
Well, we don't because we're in California, but I will, but I will tell you, but I know what you're,

624
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:27,760
I know what you're talking about. It's this essentially it's like a key for the listeners.

625
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:32,080
It's like a keyed fit basically. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's almost like a dovetail, right?

626
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:35,760
A dovetail joint on woodworking or something like that. So basically we use the strength of the

627
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:40,560
metal instead of plastic to sort of form the joint. And then we flow plastic in and around that.

628
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:43,840
And it's sort of, we call it a poly weld for lack of a better term. I don't even know if that's

629
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:49,600
trademarked or not, but we call it a poly weld joint instead of a weld. And, and we, we, we made

630
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:54,480
all the stresses on the plastic compressive stresses because plastic is about 30% stronger

631
00:54:54,480 --> 00:55:00,400
under compression than it is under tinsel. So it excels at that and we used it for that and we

632
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,600
designed it around that. And so that's one of the things, you know, when I talk about some of the

633
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:08,560
things we kind of pioneer, it's not always a material in this particular case for the Omega

634
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:13,600
magazines. It was, how do we make this without the cost of welding and all the processes and all that

635
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:18,240
stuff? Because then what are we, again, what are we bringing to the table? And so this was the answer

636
00:55:18,240 --> 00:55:22,480
and I, you know, I'm proud of it. It was a, it was clever. We've won two awards for innovative,

637
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:26,160
you know, accessory of the year and all this other kind of stuff. So it's something that we're

638
00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:32,960
excited about. And I think in the future, this is going to be a new sort of a new bar for what

639
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:37,760
a pistol magazine could be. It can be more affordable. It can be a see-through. It can be

640
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:42,400
all the things you want. It's lighter. Our magazines weigh a third of what an all steel magazine weighs.

641
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:48,800
So there's a lot of, a lot of upside to it. And as far as, you know, like specific products

642
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:55,040
that we're coming out with, we are working on a 15 round flush fit for a Glott 43X, which a lot of

643
00:55:55,040 --> 00:56:00,800
our cut, like that's our most requested product. And this, this technology is what allows us to do

644
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:04,480
that. You couldn't do that in plastic before that just, we would not, if you tried to make a

645
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:09,440
magazine out of plastic, that was 30,000 stick, it would be like a wet noodle. It would kind of be

646
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:14,480
bendy and flop around and all this stuff. So with this technology, it allows us to make magazines

647
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:19,760
that we previously could not make out of all plastic. And it allows us to target some of the

648
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:24,160
firearms that are new, like the micro carries, as well as some of the oldies, like the Berettas,

649
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:29,760
like a good example is a Beretta. You can't, the Beretta M9, you can't make a pistol magazine for

650
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:33,360
that out of all plastic. It simply will not be strong enough. Now that we have this technology

651
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:39,600
with the steel in it, we can. And so that right now is where our focus is. And over the next year

652
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:47,040
or two, our goal is to try and roll out as many of these as we can that makes sense and try and,

653
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:51,840
you know, make something for everybody, you know. Outstanding. So finishing out here a little bit,

654
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:57,920
you know, do you have any funny closer type stories, things like that, little anecdotes or

655
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:01,840
stuff like that. And the other thing I also wanted to do was, you know, give you the opportunity to

656
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:07,440
talk about your website or other events that you're, you know, whether they be conventions

657
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:11,440
or shoots or things like that, that you're going to be attending where people could come get hands

658
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:17,680
on the product. Well, you know, a funny story. I'm not the funniest guy in the world, but I'm

659
00:57:17,680 --> 00:57:23,840
trying to think of anything that might be, you know, firearm industry related. That would be

660
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:29,600
appropriate for this conversation. It is a clean show, right? Yeah, no, I know. I know it is.

661
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:37,520
And so, you know, there's nothing that really comes. And I thought about this before we kind

662
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:43,120
of got into this and I just couldn't really come up with something. So I'll leave the comedian stuff

663
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:48,320
for the comedians. But, you know, when it kind of where we're at, I mean, I'm talking about in terms

664
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:51,600
of people coming out and meeting us or seeing us and all that kind of stuff, you know, I'm a very,

665
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:55,040
I'm a very private person. So I'll be, so this is the first podcast I've ever done.

666
00:57:55,680 --> 00:58:00,720
A lot of people, it is, it absolutely is. Do you know what I was going to tell you? You know,

667
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:06,320
I was going to tell you off air. I was going to tell you, you know, off air that you, I mean,

668
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:11,280
having now listened to you, you're extremely efficient at this. I mean, you're really good

669
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:17,600
at this and you should probably, I mean, ours is the best podcast in the firearms industry, bar none,

670
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:24,480
in my opinion. And we're honored that you, I guess, having not done this before, you know,

671
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:28,640
granted us the opportunity because it was, you know, the listeners don't know this. I've been

672
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:35,120
talking to your subordinates about doing this for almost two years now. So, yeah, it's been a while

673
00:58:35,120 --> 00:58:39,520
and I'm, yeah, I'm glad that we got, we finally got to do it for those of you that don't know,

674
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:44,480
we were going to do this last week and we had some really bad wind storms and it blew a tree over on

675
00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:49,040
my house. Literally the day that we were supposed to do this. So I had to reschedule for this week,

676
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:53,840
which is Thanksgiving week, but, well, I can see that I can see in the video feed, I can see your

677
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:59,760
ceiling. So it looks like it didn't hit that part of the house. There's not a tree branch coming

678
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:04,400
through that. Luckily it wasn't too bad. And we got everything cleaned up from that. We, I'm in

679
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:08,960
Tennessee for people that don't know, again, I probably should have mentioned this. We're a

680
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:13,760
Tennessee based company. We do have some customer service girls that are owned by the company.

681
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:17,360
We have some customer service girls that are up in South Bend, Indiana. And a lot of people say,

682
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:22,240
why do you all have two locations? The answer to that question is my business partner, Jim,

683
00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:27,680
is he's in South Bend, Indiana. So he sort of took that responsibility while I'm doing

684
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:33,360
the manufacturing and the design and stuff like that. He sort of heads up the sales aspect,

685
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:36,880
customer service and all that kind of stuff. I had a background a long time ago in customer

686
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:40,560
service as well. That was one of our, you know, I probably should have mentioned that one of our,

687
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:46,960
you know, core of tenants of our company is we always take care of customers because I'm a firm

688
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:51,040
believer that no matter what kind of mistakes we make, and we're not perfect guys, as you know,

689
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:56,240
like everybody, you know, we try our best to not let a bad magazine out the door. But if you happen

690
00:59:56,240 --> 01:00:01,440
to get one, give us a call and we'll replace it or do whatever you want us to do. We always take care

691
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:07,520
of the customers because, you know, we're here for them basically. And I think a lot of times in

692
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:12,320
today's world, it's sort of lost, right? You know, picking up the phone, if you call us for customer

693
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:16,080
service, you're going to talk to a girl in South Bend, Indiana, and she's going to take care of

694
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:19,840
you. She's going to get you whatever you need. That's what we do. We don't ask questions and we

695
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:23,600
don't try and give people our time. We just want to make sure they have what they need and that

696
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:27,840
they're taken care of. But all that being said, we're in Tennessee. The manufacturing is done

697
01:00:27,840 --> 01:00:33,520
here in Tennessee. Every part is made in Tennessee. Everything we make is made in the USA. And we're

698
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:41,360
proud of that. And again, I'm a very private person. So this is my first podcast. I don't speak

699
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:45,120
publicly a lot to people, not because I don't do it. Again, I think you guys can tell I would talk

700
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:50,240
about our business and the things that I'm excited about. I could do this all day long, but I don't

701
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:54,640
really do it because I don't like people. I'm not on Facebook. I don't do those kinds of things.

702
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:58,160
I don't like people knowing my business and all that stuff. So I'm a very private person.

703
01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:03,680
And I feel like in some ways, through the years, we've been in business now for 10 years. And I

704
01:01:03,680 --> 01:01:09,200
feel like in some ways it may have sort of done us a little bit of a disservice because I think a

705
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:12,640
lot of people in the industry don't know who we are. And when I say that, meaning who are the

706
01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:17,760
people right behind the company, so to speak. Because I think more than in a lot of other

707
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:24,080
spaces, I think consumers and people want to know who are they doing business with, who is the

708
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:28,400
company, who are the people behind the company, and all that kind of stuff. And I think it's important.

709
01:01:29,040 --> 01:01:35,200
So that's one of the things why I wanted to get out and let people get to know me and let them

710
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:42,880
get to know us a little bit as a company. And that's kind of what led to where we are right now.

711
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:49,040
Absolutely right. We're honored that you took the time to talk to us because I really have enjoyed

712
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:54,400
and learned quite a bit just from what you've been talking about, particularly about the carbon,

713
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:59,280
literally fouling or embedding itself both in steel, which I would never have considered,

714
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:03,840
but into the plastic makes a lot of sense. So I've learned quite a bit just by listening to it.

715
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:10,880
I'll add that Ken and I were talking before the show. It's kind of like, how are we going to turn

716
01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:17,920
an episode about magazines into an interesting show? I mean, because I was, well, I'm not kidding.

717
01:02:17,920 --> 01:02:21,760
I was just kind of like, listen, I try to think about that every day. How do we make it more

718
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:27,600
interesting for people? This has been honestly one of our easiest episodes to date. And I mean,

719
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:32,400
if you're familiar, I follow Formula One. Okay. And do you know what broke Formula One in the

720
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:36,800
United States? I mean, it's been around forever. I used to watch it literally in the eighties.

721
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:44,320
What broke it was Netflix with Drive to Survive. And do you know why? It's because they made it

722
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:48,960
personal. They put instead of just a helmet and a color of a car, you know, the red car with the

723
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:54,480
guy with the red helmet or something like that. Now it's people. And you've done that today.

724
01:02:54,480 --> 01:03:00,560
You've put a, well, not a face because we're not on YouTube. So this isn't video. You've put a voice

725
01:03:00,560 --> 01:03:07,760
to the company and the people are going to be able to relate to. Well, I love that. And on a side note,

726
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:14,400
just so you know, I used to race cars as an amateur hobby. And I love Formula One too. I

727
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:20,560
follow all of it, have for 20 years. And I used, like I said, I used to race Vipers and Corvettes

728
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:24,640
back before I had children. And my wife told me it was too dangerous to do that anymore.

729
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:32,080
So I love cars. I love fast stuff. Like besides guns, cars are probably my other love,

730
01:03:32,080 --> 01:03:36,720
if you want to call it that, as far as hobbies and stuff go. So it's something that I have a

731
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:43,120
real passion. I love that stuff. I love, I truly, truly love cars and firearms. So that's me.

732
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:48,560
Greg and I both have good classic cars ourselves. But the one I drive every day is my Audi S6,

733
01:03:48,560 --> 01:03:56,320
but that's another story. So, Hey, thank you Eddie for joining us again. Actually really legitimately

734
01:03:56,320 --> 01:04:00,880
honored to have, to convince you, because I imagine you've had other requests for podcasts,

735
01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:05,600
but for some reason ours resonated with you. And I think it, I think it was the right move. So

736
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:10,400
thank you for joining us today. And Ken, any closing comments for Eddie?

737
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:17,200
No, Eddie, just a real pleasure, real joy. Very much enjoy your products and we'll try to take

738
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:22,400
a look at some of the more California friendly ones as time goes on. So I very much appreciate

739
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:25,920
your time. Thank you. Yeah, guys. I appreciate you guys. Thank you.

740
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:32,000
I thought we were headed down the path to a, man, this is going to be a hard podcast to make

741
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:38,640
interesting. And boy, was I wrong. That was a lot of fun. And I learned a lot and being an engineer

742
01:04:38,640 --> 01:04:43,840
myself, I'm going to catch up to this guy at Shot Show and learn some more and talk nuts and bolts

743
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:50,320
and chemistry and stuff like that. So, another topic that I wanted to bring forward. Oh, by the

744
01:04:50,320 --> 01:04:55,920
way, oh, first off, first off, a new website, change the website. It is now very easy for people

745
01:04:55,920 --> 01:05:02,480
to remember frugalfirearmspodcast.com. That's it. No more going to other faces and things like that.

746
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:08,320
All the contact information is still there. frugalfirearmspodcast.gmail.com. If you want to

747
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:15,840
put in any comments, we do obviously survive on things like ratings. So particularly if you are

748
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:22,400
using Apple podcasts as the distribution network for you, that's where about three quarters of our

749
01:05:22,400 --> 01:05:27,840
stuff comes through Apple podcasts. Definitely. Please leave us a rating because that helps us

750
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:33,040
throughout. And then also suggestions. If you guys have suggestions on things you'd like us to talk

751
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:37,680
about, feel free to let us know. Yeah. And the, and the email is there for that. And you know,

752
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:42,640
the website is a very simple one, but it, it should be like, I didn't throw a bunch of stuff in there

753
01:05:42,640 --> 01:05:48,080
that we didn't need. It has the links to our social media. It has the links to all our episodes. It

754
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:55,520
has the links to our email address, but Thanksgiving is upon us. And you know, I've seen a lot of stuff

755
01:05:55,520 --> 01:06:00,400
on social media. It's kind of unfortunate where people who didn't get what they wanted in the

756
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:06,640
most recent election, um, kind of don't feel connected to their family anymore. And that's,

757
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:11,360
that's a mistake. I think because yeah, you're, you're going to live. Yeah. You will live to

758
01:06:11,360 --> 01:06:15,840
regret that. I mean, these are, so even if somebody in family doesn't agree with you,

759
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:21,120
you know, their family, so treat them, treat them with respect, invite them to the table.

760
01:06:21,840 --> 01:06:26,720
Uh, you share a common history, uh, and you need to celebrate that. And this is the time of year

761
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:31,120
to do that. Yeah. And take a history lesson too, because I don't mean that that sounds

762
01:06:31,120 --> 01:06:36,320
disrespectful. I didn't mean it that way. Take the history lesson that shows, you know, the

763
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:42,160
founding fathers, the early Congress, things like that, they had disagreements just as vigorous as

764
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:50,000
what we have now, but they would also get together and pray for some cases hours before entering a

765
01:06:50,000 --> 01:06:55,840
session. And they found the common space to get along. And that's the thing that you need to do

766
01:06:55,840 --> 01:07:01,520
as a family. Um, you know, don't let your, you know, don't be braggadocious about the fact that

767
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:05,840
if you're on the winning side and, and don't be overly depressed or despondent if you're on the

768
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:12,080
losing side, because it's an ebb and flow process, isn't it? Yeah. But, but, but the one thing

769
01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:17,280
that doesn't swing back and forth, it only once swings one direction is time. So don't let time

770
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:22,000
get away from you and enjoy your family. So anything else, Ken? Nope. With that, I think

771
01:07:22,000 --> 01:07:48,400
we can just close out. Yeah. Lucky number 13 coming up next. So thank you all for joining us. Good evening, everyone.

772
01:07:48,400 --> 01:07:53,520
Now you're ready for the ones with the big audiences. I mean, not Joe Rogan yet. Not yet Joe Rogan.

773
01:07:53,520 --> 01:08:23,440
Yeah. Well, I know, Joe, I actually know Joe. Come on, man.