When we came out with our first 1 to 10 FFP scope,
probably about two years ago, it was the lowest
price 1 to 10 FFP scope on the market by like
an order of magnitude. I think the next cheapest
one on the market was a SIG scope that cost $700,
also made in China, that was $700. Wow. Welcome
to Episode 19 of the Frugal Firearms Podcast,
the podcast that is here to serve your needs.
And by serve your needs, I mean keep money in
your pocket, allow you to enjoy the shooting
sports at a minimal cost. And by that, we don't
mean cheap. We mean value. We're here to expose
you to those products that maybe you've never
seen. Maybe you don't get to trade shows. You
don't get to range days. You don't get to see
these things on your friend's rifles. Maybe you
listen to a lot of other podcasts that talk about
all the Gucci stuff that you'd love to own someday.
But, you know, hey, you've got bills. You've
got to pay rent or mortgage. You've got to put
the kids through school. You've got car payments.
You know, maybe you live in California and you've
got ridiculous taxes and you have ridiculously
high gas prices. So in that vein, we're going
to bring on one of our favorite companies, Monstrum.
which I've promised you now for a couple shows.
I didn't tell you what company it was, but I
told you we were going to do an optics show,
and that is this show. So we have with us Gerald
Kim from Monstrum. Gerald, welcome to Frugal
Firearms Podcast, and the floor is yours, sir.
But give us a little short background on yourself,
how you became involved in Monstrum, and what
makes you guys different. All right, thank you,
Craig, and thank you, Ken, for hosting me. I
think there's a good alignment between the...
your podcast and what we try to do at Monstrum.
So to give you a little bit of color as to how
Monstrum was started. I mean, we started in 2009.
At the time I was living in China and my partner
and I had always been somewhat business minded
and we wanted to start a consumer products business.
We went to the Canton Fair together. The Canton
Fair is kind of a trade show for manufacturers
in China to present their products to buyers
from other countries. So we went there to research
a number of product lines with the intent on
starting a business. We investigated a few different
product lines and we eventually settled on Rifle
Scopes as our niche. To be clear, we were not
gun experts or optics experts at the time. It
was more of a market research -driven decision.
We both kind of thought guns were cool. We saw
we could make a little bit of money reselling
them, and that's how we started. We bought $30
,000 worth of rifle scopes, brought them back,
and we sold them mostly at gun shows and through
eBay. We didn't really know what we were doing.
We just kind of picked it up along the way. It
took us a few years to really hit our stride.
It was in 2012 when we first started selling
on Amazon, and that was kind of when we really
kind of picked up steam, and we haven't really
looked back since. So you said that you came
into the field without a lot of experience in
the area. Do you have a background in optics,
or was it just you learned it along the way by...
looking at what other people did and then found
better ways to do it? Yeah. Like I said, we had
no background in Optic, any of that. I mean,
we just bought some stuff and tried to resell
it. I mean, we're a lot different today as a
company than we were back then. I would say at
that time, we were buying a lot of stuff in China
and basically slapping our name on it and reselling
it. You know, it's like over the past 15 years,
we've learned a thing or two about manufacturing
and about how optics work. And I mean, we have
a full -time optics engineer on our staff, you
know, as well as our own industrial designers
on staff that build our own product line from
scratch. Everything we bring to market today
is originally designed and offers features and
benefits that other people don't. But yeah, back
then, like I said, it was more of a market research
driven decision. We didn't really know what we
were doing, but I mean, you got to start somewhere.
I think a lot of people don't know that. There's
a video out there on YouTube, and I don't remember
who posted it, but it is an excellent video.
And it talks about how a lot of the scopes that
are available on the retail market, particularly
the ones with overseas manufacturing, are really
the same scope repackaged in a different tube
in a different. form factor with a different
reticle or something like that but optically
they're the same thing and they're probably being
oem'd by just one or two companies and if you're
clean sheeting your designs i mean you know good
on you for that is that really a thing in optics
that a lot of oems aren't really the oem and
they're simply buying someone else's design and
then putting their own graphics on it and things
like that it certainly is that way uh to a certain
extent um i think it was more common say 10,
15 years ago when e -commerce and direct -to
-consumer, the direct -to -consumer model was
a lot less competitive. I mean, you could buy
something from the Canton Fair, turn around and
resell it in the US for a profit. It was pretty
straightforward to do. I think now it's... become
much more competitive. Now you have just hundreds
of players in the market where that really wouldn't
cut it today. When we come out with a product
today, we want to make sure that the product
either A, offers some type of functionality that
someone else does not offer, or B, we can sell
at a significantly lower price than everyone
else on the market. A lot of times a customer
will come to us and say, well, why can't you
produce this product? Vortex makes this product
or Primary Arms makes this product. Why can't
you come out with something like that? I think
my response to them will be, well, we don't want
to come out with that product because Vortex
already sells that product or so -and -so already
sells that product. And if we're going to come
out with the same product at the same price,
what's the point? I mean, you could just buy
it from Vortex. When we come out with something
today, we really want to offer something, some
form of added value to the customer, whether
it's price -wise or feature -wise, even if it's
just like stylistic elements, like making something
look cooler. Yeah, Craig and I have been involved
with firearms for more than 40 years. And I remember
back... you know in the early days when you know
we were inheriting firearms from our you know
our dads or our uncles or whatever it might be
a lot of the scopes that i have on some of my
older stuff they were made in the 50s 1950s 1960s
type of deal they were all you know fixed power
fine scope probably for their time but uh one
of the things i noted at starting around like
1989 or so when the when the wall fell in East
Germany and you had Germany begin to, then all
of a sudden we saw a whole bunch of these East
German optics companies start selling in the
West and also these Russian optics things that
started coming into the market in the late 1980s,
early 1990s. And it's like, wow, this is some
pretty decent stuff compared to the stuff that
I've been looking at, these 50s and 60s optics.
And it's only gotten better over time. As Craig
had mentioned, I had an opportunity to look through,
you know, I guess three or four of your scopes.
And I was just like. super impressed by the quality,
first focal plane, second focal plane, and just
the whole quality of the whole thing, the beast.
I mean, the thing is rock solid. I was just really
blown away by how much things have really improved
these last few years. And again, at a price point
that makes entry for the hobbyist or the person
who doesn't have a ton of money, basically our
core group, a whole lot easier to do than to
go out there and spend more for the optics than
you spent for the rifle for example oh well uh
yeah thank you for saying that product quality
is something we definitely uh focus on uh i mean
we've um you know like i said we've been in business
for about 15 years and we come out with new product
lines like multiple times a year i mean we probably
are at this point we're probably releasing on
average like three to four new uh rifle scope
lines uh every year and with with every line
we want you know we're trying to make incremental
over incremental improvements uh to the product
every time we we release it you know the improvements
might come just based on on customer feedback
or feedback we get from you know people that
we work with with respect to like offering certain
features or just making just improving things
from a quality standpoint, or they also might
come from a price standpoint where we just find
some way in the manufacturing process to just
save a couple dollars here or there. And doing
this iteratively over and over again for the
past 15 years, we've been able to make quite
a bit of progress since then. If you were to
look back at some of our older scopes, like say,
you know, from the 2010 to 2015 era, like maybe
one of them, I think Craig mentioned he had one
of our older scopes. Maybe that's a scope we
might not have been, like today, we're not quite
as proud of it as we are of some of the newer
stuff. If it had been a bad scope, I probably
would have never come up and talked to you at
last year's SHOT Show. Okay, well, I'm glad to
hear it. Yeah, I mean, our goal with every new
product line that we release is just to become
better and better with each product line. You've
raised the bar. There's no doubt about that.
One of the things you were talking about was
brands 20 years ago. Are there any brands that
used to be around 20 years ago, either the importer
or any of the optics companies that are probably
not with us today? And can you learn anything
from that? Yeah. I think it dovetails really
well with the Monstrum story and how we've grown
as a company. So if you look back 20 years ago,
I mean, there was an assault weapon ban in the
US that was lifted in 2004. And if you look at
gun ownership at that time. AR -15 sales in the
year 2005 was approximately 300 ,000 to 400 ,000
a year, versus you look at it today in 2024,
it's approximately 3 to 4 million per year. In
2005, there were approximately between 4 and
7 million Americans that owned AR -15s. Some
estimates put it at about 20 million Americans.
So over the past 20 years, the market has grown
significantly, and it really is kind of much
different than it was back then. In 2004, I think
the majority of people that owned guns, and especially
tactical guns, most of them were... primarily
like military and law enforcement or either that
or just really hardcore enthusiasts. Besides
like gun manufacturers themselves, which were
limited mainly to like a handful of like, kind
of like bigger brands, like, you know, like the
Colts and the Bushmasters of the world. In the
optics segment, it was really dominated by just
kind of a handful of companies. So companies
like Companies that you will have heard of, like
Trijicon, Aimpoint, Eotech, these were kind of
the biggest sellers of optics at that time. The
thing about these companies is they actually
make most of their sales and profits from military
contracts and from law enforcement contracts.
Those are the primary consumers of these optics.
I'm trying to say this kind of diplomatically,
but it makes it tricky for them to sell those
products to both, you know, through these government
contracts and then to turn around and sell them
to consumers as well. Is it tricky because of
technology transfer rules or is it because it's
just an economic reality that the two, like...
You know, someone buying a scope who has an institution
behind them and someone buying a scope that has
their own wallet behind them are two very different
markets. Exactly, exactly. I would say it's that
second thing. So to secure a government contract
and to sell to law enforcement, you know, these
products, you know, they are built to certain
specs and to certain qualities and they sell
at a price point that kind of reflects that.
You know, these optics cost, you know, thousands
of dollars. And it's a big ask to then to turn
around and sell this to an average consumer who's
putting it just on a gun that they've purchased
themselves. And that's, you know, they might
be putting that on a gun that they take to the
range. a few times a year or they take it out
every once in a while and they just want to have
it around for security reasons. So it's a big
ask for them to shell out that kind of money
when they may not need it built to those same
specifications. Right. They're not crawling around
in the dirt and under fire all the time. I mean,
most of the people that... are probably our listeners
they are those those range people who take it
to the range uh you know bench shooters or whatever
even even hunters who go out into the field but
again it's not you're not under fire you're not
uh you're not crawling down on the ground okay
you're probably not you're probably not in an
active firefight is you know the way you draw
your paycheck but at the same time i mean gerald's
products have a lifetime warranty and so you
know maybe we jump to that topic, Gerald. I mean,
why are you confident enough? And I'm going to
come back, by the way, to the import discussion,
because I think that's kind of the elephant in
the room that I think the people want to talk
about. But let's talk about the quality. I mean,
you have enough confidence in your products to
offer a lifetime warranty. And you and I have
already had conversations on the side about how
that works. you have to have a lot of confidence
in there. And, okay, I don't know where you draw
the line in terms of saying, well, this was kind
of abusive because you jumped out of a helicopter
50 feet above the ground. But at the same time,
how long did it take you maybe to grow into that
confidence? It took a few years. I mean, it was
kind of a leap from us. Originally, I think we
offered like a one -year warranty and then we
moved it to a two -year warranty. And then at
some point, maybe, Five or six years ago, we
finally decided to just convert it to a lifetime
warranty. Like I said, I've been doing this for
15 years and I have a lot of data. We sell hundreds
of thousands of products every single year. And
I know exactly how many of our products come
back as defective. And the number is very low,
anywhere between 1 % to 2%, I would say. are
returned due to some type of manufacturing defect.
When they are returned due to some type of defect,
it usually happens right off the bat. There's
something wrong with it and people realize it
right away. So it was not a big leap for us to
go from a one -year warranty to a lifetime warranty.
like i said i i have more data than everyone
else so uh i i was able to uh i i was able to
just confidently convert it to a lifetime warranty
and it really has not drastically altered the
the amount of returns that come that come back
uh i mean you mentioned people jumping out of
helicopters i mean most of my customers are not
uh they're they're not doing that so and nobody
wants to get a get a bad product and you know
have to go through the hassle of returning something
and getting it replaced uh you know i i know
that it's a it's a tremendous uh inconvenience
and people don't want to have to worry about
that so uh you know offering the lifetime warranty
it's it's it's more of something that's We're
just trying to communicate to consumers that
that's not something that you have to worry about
with our products. We really just want to put
people's minds at ease. We don't want you to
be concerned about getting something and having
it be defective and wasting your time installing
it and going out to the range and wasting the
ammo. I mean, I know how much of an inconvenience
that is. So we really offer it to just put people's
minds at ease. So how do you describe your typical
customer then? I mean, you said you have a lot
of data. So what kind of person typically goes
up to your booth? What kind of typical person
orders your stuff? I imagine you have some mix
of law enforcement and military and tactical
guys and hunters and long range shooters. Tell
me about, who's your target market? It's definitely
budget oriented customers. Fortunately for us,
I would say most people are budget oriented in
one respect or another. We tend to get a lot
of younger customers or people who are maybe
just getting into gun ownership for the first
time. And they want to test the waters without
- Breaking the bank. Yeah. Without dropping like
$5 ,000 on a rifle build. and you know beyond
that it's just kind of everyday people that they
really can't justify uh putting that amount of
money into equipment um you know i think you
guys mentioned it before but i mean there's a
huge segment of the market i mean they're just
people that enjoy shooting or owning guns or
keeping guns at their house for personal security
and that there's no um Yeah, there's no justification
for these people putting in $5 ,000 into a gun,
but they can justify it at, say, $500 or $1 ,000
for a gun. Right. So, I mean, you just mentioned
cost. So how has that cost of gun ownership over
the years changed? I mean, we used the number
before 20 years, so how has the cost of gun ownership
over the last 20 years changed? And how does
that relate to the sector you live in? Okay.
So, I mean, this is a very salient point. And
this is actually some of the... I remember this
number because it actually went into the reasoning
as to why we started the company and why we picked
this segment. At the time we started this company,
the average consumer spent about $1 ,000 on a
gun. And then they spent an average of $2 ,500
on... aftermarket accessories like like outfitting
that gun you know so if we put that number at
3500 for for the average ar -15 in you know 20
years ago today you know you can purchase a budget
ar -15 and outfit it with budget optics uh probably
kit it out you could have a ar -15 for under
500 so i mean this this uh kind of goes hand
in hand with uh the AR -15 sales and the AR -15
ownership numbers that I brought up earlier.
As the market has grown, it's brought a lot more
entrance into the market as far as AR -15 manufacturers,
accessory manufacturers, optics manufacturers.
When you have competition, that inevitably drives
prices down. Beyond that, it's enabled certain
economies of scale where we order a batch of
scopes. We can order in the thousands of units
at a time versus hundreds of units at a time.
This enables us to bring the per unit cost down.
The two factors as far as the size of the market
and the price of the end components, I mean,
they kind of go hand in hand and they kind of
feed off each other to build the kind of booming
market that we have today. Yeah, there's no doubt
that what I've seen, like in the rifle market
from the ARs from back, you know, 25, 30 years
ago or more, 35 years ago, you know, a lot of
them were built, the AR, which I guess, are we
supposed to be moving more to the American sporting
rifle? I think that's the new politically pro
2A way to say it. But anyway. But a lot of those
were done with like the original arm light handle
top. Remember the A1 top where the top of the
rifle was a handle? And then there were very
few options for you to be able to attach a scope
on the top of the handle. Colt, I think, made
some very modest optics that you could put up
there. But today, I never, never see that type
of thing on an AR build these days. Everything
now is flat top. Picatinny rails, whatever. M
lock. Yeah. M -Log, yeah. And it used to be just
a little bit above the receiver. Now those rails
run the whole length all the way from the gas
check at the front of the barrel. So you can
do all sorts of stuff people are putting on.
They're hanging on optics on the top, and they're
doing the 45 -degree angle offset ones for backup
iron sights or backup red dot for close -in work
stuff. And even in the handgun space. And, of
course, Craig and I started back in the day,
as they say. In the handguns perspective, we
never would have put, except for maybe some sort
of a target pistol, target revolver, hunting
revolver, you wouldn't put an optic on a pistol.
But now it's like, oh, no, no, no. Red dots on
pistols are almost becoming a standard. I mean,
they're starting to be sold that way. So the
whole movement toward optic accessories and changing
the way you shoot and aim and everything like
that to optics is... I don't know. It's interesting,
and I'm glad, particularly in the rifle space,
to do it. I'm a little less on board with it
in the pistol range because I'm an iron sights
guy. I'm not. I know you're not. Screw it. That's
where Greg and I go for a little bit. Red dot
all day long, man. Then it gives you target focus,
and if you have astigmatism, it just helps. But
that's my opinion, and this show is all about
opinions and not, yes. So that kind of brings
up another point here. I mean, the difference
between the gun accessory market, which I think
Ken is talking about, and the gun and gun parts
market. You had mentioned that earlier, Gerald.
Yes. So, I mean, I kind of wanted to bring up
this point because there's an interesting distinction
between the two. So a gun part is defined as
something that is kind of critical in the operation
of a gun. So something like a trigger or a barrel,
that's considered a gun part, versus a gun accessory
is something that is kind of optional. So if
you would say like a red dot, something can be
used with or without a red dot, or if you were
to say like a flashlight. So there's an interesting
provision in... in something called ITAR, which
is the piece of legislation that governs import
and export of weapons -related products. So gun
parts are not allowed to be imported from China.
That's, I would say, the primary reason why gun
parts and guns and ammo, those are all manufactured,
for the most part, they're manufactured in the
U .S. Gun accessories, those can be imported
from China. So that is the reason why you see
that most of the gun accessories and gun optics,
they're actually manufactured in China. I believe
the statistic is something like 80 % of the rifle
scopes in the U .S. market are actually manufactured
in China. Really? Yes. Well, it's hard. We can't
really make glass here because of environmental
restrictions and stuff, right? I mean, I'm sure
it's much harder. I mean, it can definitely be
done. I mean, there are optics makers that manufacture
in the U .S. and that actually thrive in the
U .S., like the aforementioned companies we talked
about. Night Force Optics is one. I believe Leupold
manufactures here. I would say it is true that
in China, you can make riflescopes at a significantly
lower price than in the US. And that's why you
see kind of most of the consumer market has gravitated
there. So you then could maybe speak to the overall,
I guess, made in China versus made in USA perspective.
And I suppose maybe for the listeners, I mean,
If the reality is that 80 % of the scopes are
made in China, then that's just the market reality.
And there's not a lot a person can do about it.
They're not going to home grow their own scope.
But maybe why shouldn't they be stressed about
that, worried about it, think it's unpatriotic
or something like that? Well, it's true. We got
some... black and a lot of the time for being
made in China, but it is approximately 80 % of
the scopes in the US are made in China, including
very large companies like Vortex or Bushnell
or SIG. I mean, these are kind of the largest
players in the optics market. And they have lines
of products that are, the bulk of their consumer
line is uh, is made in China stuff. I mean, we
talked earlier about, um, you know, the, the
dilemma that, uh, companies like Eotech or, um,
uh, face in, you know, they make a very high
end product and it's very difficult to, to, for
that product to compete at that price in the
consumer market. The way companies like Vortex
have done it is they've, they've segmented, they've
segmented it. They like Vortex has a high end
line that's made in, in Japan. uh and then they
have like a low end line that's made in in china
but you know to to speak a little bit about uh
kind of the made in china versus uh made in the
us thing i mean there's a lot to be said there
uh i guess i mean from a business perspective
obviously when you outsource uh manufacturing
i mean there is a trade -off um you do you know
as as an american and you know as For America,
obviously, there's a loss of, say, thousands
of jobs, thousands of manufacturing jobs that
go to China that would otherwise be in the US.
But I would say the benefit of that is you also
receive a certain benefit of that. And the benefit
of that is that millions of people get access
to significantly cheaper products. And that kind
of ties into what I said earlier about the cost
of gun ownership kind of plummeting over the
past 20 years. So it's true there's a loss of
these jobs, but today there are millions of gun
owners that can buy a $100 scope versus the $2
,000 scopes that existed 20 years ago. And the
kind of second point I kind of wanted to make
about it is it kind of ties together with what
I was saying earlier about kind of the boom of
the gun industry. So, I mean, Craig, you and
I, we met at SHOT Show and you saw how many companies
are presenting at SHOT Show and how big the industry
is today. And, you know, all of these, you know,
and I mentioned before about, you know, the gun
ownership numbers and, you know, what the industry
was 20 years ago versus what it is today. You
know, all of these companies and businesses that
sprouted up, you know, around gun culture, many
of them did not exist 20 years ago. You know,
it's enabled kind of new brands and new categories
that just weren't there. Like your podcast, for
instance, this would not have been a thing 20
years ago. Oh, no. Oh, definitely not. Well,
I mean, frugal is a relative statement, but I
mean, it would have been really hard to substantiate,
you know, talking about these things. But beyond
that, I mean, there are tactical like training
companies, for instance, there are tactical.
coffee companies like like companies like black
rifle coffee and uh you know part of so many
things have become part of the zeitgeist as as
kind of as a result of the growth in the industry
and you know beyond that like with respect to
manufacturing jobs in particular i mentioned
earlier that gun parts and guns uh can due to
legislation can only be manufactured in the u
.s The growth of the market has enabled kind
of this thriving made in America gun industry
with respect to gun parts and guns. I mean, there
are many AR -15 manufacturers that are thriving
today that weren't 20 years ago. Companies like
Palmetto State Armory or, I mean, I can't even
keep track of all the AR -15 manufacturers that
are out there now. Even within accessories and
optics, I mean, there are made in the USA companies
that are thriving. Like Magpul was not what...
20 years ago, Magpul was not what Magpul is today.
And, you know, it's like they make budget accessories
and magazines in the USA. And I'll go one step
further. Even companies like Trijicon and Aimpoint,
I mean, they... It's true they've lost out a
little bit on the low end of the market, but
they are still thriving companies on the high
ends of the market. I haven't looked at their
financial statements, but I'm sure they are doing
multiples of what they were doing 20 years ago.
And that's kind of as a result of just the growth
of the entire market. Yeah, military and government
has no doubt been a large component of those
very high -end success stories that you have.
I mean, that is part of it. But I would say even
among consumers, just as you can buy a $500 AR
-15 today, I mean, you can also buy like a $20
,000 AR -15 today. That part of the market has
also been enabled by the growth in the market
as a whole. I mean, a lot of people buy our stuff
as an entry level kind of into the... into the
hobby or the lifestyle and a lot of these people
graduate to higher and higher levels of uh of
i guess gucci here we we walked the the uh the
the shot show and i it was like it seemed like
every other booth had a gold -plated ar of some
type i mean there were dozens of them that were
spread out across the floor and it got you just
eyes glassed over the first one or two you're
like oh that's kind of cool you know i'll take
a picture of it i mean i don't know who would
ever buy one of those things but it's kind of
cool to look at but then after the fifth seventh
tenth twelfth well you know you're like i get
whatever just walk by it too many of those things
going on but i wanted to i wanted to have something
i was thinking about coming hey craig and craig
and i have been friends for like 50 years And,
you know, back in high school or whatever it
was, I remember Craig grinding his own Newtonian
lens for his telescope, Newtonian telescope,
and how absolutely difficult that grinding of
that mirror was and how long it took to do. So
the creation of quality optics to get it functional
and focused was a huge deal. Oh, I could have
saved a lot of money by buying the damn thing.
I mean, that mirror took me like a year to get.
it right longer i think it was it was brutal
i know i remember i remember it's like oh my
god is he ever going to be done with the damn
thing you you kept at it you know you and it
did work impressive actually and it's still it
sits in my garage yet today uh normally unused
uh it's it's it's a it was a great mirror i really
nailed it but it took a If I could have written
a check for it now, I probably would have done
that, honestly. So, okay, the scopes that you
exposed us to for the purposes of evaluation,
and by the way, listeners, Gerald did provide
us a couple scopes for evaluation, which is normal
in these kind of cases. Both of them were first
focal plane. Yes. In opposition to that, the
more common product on the market is the second
focal plane. Now, we know what those things are,
but I'm not going to guarantee that every one
of our listeners does. So could you give us a
very quick tutorial on the difference between
the two and why you would want one over the other?
So these are terms used for variable magnification
scopes. With a second focal plane scope, the
size of the reticle remains constant no matter
what the magnification is set to. Versus with
a first focal plane scope, the size of the reticle
will shrink or enlarge relative to the magnification
on the scope. Why does that matter? So typically
a reticle will have certain ranging information
on it, so it'll have hash marks. that are kind
of spaced at a certain, say, five MOA apart or
one MOA apart. In a first focal plane scope,
because the reticle enlarges and shrinks relative
to the magnification, that ranging information
within the reticle will be accurate no matter
what the magnification is. One MOA hash mark
will be one MOA regardless of the magnification,
whereas with a second focal plane scope, the
one MOA hash mark will be different depending
on what the magnification is set to. So if you're
using those hash marks for ranging information,
you will have to do some type of mental math
with a second focal plane scope. So second focal
plane scopes are less expensive to manufacture
than first focal plane? Is that what I'm understanding?
That's correct. So traditionally, second focal
plane scopes, it's quite a bit... And they've
been quite a bit less expensive than first focal
plane scopes. I probably did not do a good job
describing that, by the way. No, it's fine. If
you go to our YouTube channel, if you go to YouTube,
you'll probably get a much better explanation.
And it probably makes a lot more sense when you're
actually looking at the reticle with graphics
on it. But yes, traditionally, second focal plane
scopes have been significantly cheaper than first
focal plane scopes. Yeah, because my introduction
to scopes was a fixed power scope. A lot of those
50s and 60s scopes that were on all those rifles
and stuff that I started on, you know, it was
a six power, whatever it might be, whatever my
6x scope. And that was it. You looked in and
that was it. There was no zoom capability, no
magnification change available. But now it's
very, very, very common to see, you know, one
to six, one to 10 or. Or some of the ones that
we were looking at here went up to 18, even 25
power. Rather impressive from really long -range
work. Now, is Monstrum something that's focusing
more on the long -range rifle shooting? That
seems to be a popular sport, even that's reaching
down to those of us who are more in the frugal
end of things. People tend to want to reach out
5, 6, 700 yards, 1 ,000 yards, if you have that
ability, that range in your area that you can
actually do that sort of shooting. Yes. So, I
mean, we offer quite a few long -range scopes.
I mean, at this point, I mean, Monstrum as a
company, I mean, we offer, we have over 1 ,500
different SKUs. And we have scopes that range
from 1x all the way up to 36x and everything
in between. By the way, we still do offer fixed
magnification scopes, and those do still have
a place in the market. But we have offered long
-range scopes for quite some time now. I think
you received our most recent version of it, which
is the Beast series. But I mean, we've been making
long range scopes for the last 10 years. Greg
had an iteration of our G1 series, which is probably
over 10 years old at this point. We offer products
at this point for multiple categories, whether
it's for long range, whether it's for ARs, shotgun.
We have a number of shotgun accessories. Yeah,
we offer a little bit of everything. Well, you
have one product that we didn't really plan to
talk about, but I just want to kind of alert
people to it. There's a lot of magnifiers on
the market that are flip -up magnifiers, like
if you have an EOTech or something like that.
I mean, I'll tell you, I have an EOTech on one
of my guns. It is not mated with an EOTech magnifier.
It's mated with a SIG magnifier, and it works
out perfectly fine. You know, the height and
everything works. But you have a 2X magnifier
that actually goes in front of the optic. which
is completely unique because it's agnostic to
every you know what you put on the other side
of it i think and that's that's a very interesting
you know technological leap if you will that
i don't think anyone else has tried well yeah
so the story behind that product is so we actually
sell a full lineup of uh prism scopes and we're
probably we're probably the number one seller
of prism scopes uh on online and on Amazon. If
listeners are not familiar with what a prism
scope is, it's a fixed magnification scope that
uses a prism to refract light within the scope
rather than a series of lenses like a traditional
scope. And prism scopes tend to be much more
compact than regular scopes. But I mean, they
differ from a red dot in that, you know, a red
dot with something like an aim point, the red
dot has unlimited eye relief. So it doesn't,
you can position your head anywhere behind the
red dot and get a comfortable sight picture.
With a prism scope, a prism scope is more akin
to a rifle scope in that there is a fixed eye
relief. Your eye has to be positioned a certain
distance. behind the prism scope so with prism
scopes traditionally you haven't really been
able to use a magnifier with them because the
magnifier the traditional magnifiers that go
behind the optic they kind of um a there's not
enough space for them well they live in the space
of the eye box right i mean they live in the
space where you'd have to have your eye don't
they exactly that's that's one reason and then
b The magnifier has its own fixed eye relief.
So your eye has to be positioned a few inches
behind the magnifier. So when you put the magnifier
in place, even if you were to use that configuration,
you would have to reposition your head after
you put the magnifier in place. The forward magnifier,
we designed that to be used with... prism scopes
i mean it can also be used with the red dots
and with uh with regular scopes as well but you
can put that in front of your optic so uh you
know with a prism scope you can set up your prism
scope and uh set up with your given eye relief
on the prism scope and whether or not that that
magnifier is in place in the front of the prism
scope yeah your your eye relief on uh the the
prism scope will be the same and you know with
this device i mean you are able to turn a 1x
prism scope into 2x prism scope or a you know
3x prism scope into a 6x prism scope just gives
you a little bit more options uh you know for
your for your configuration and you mentioned
1500 skews That's just scopes? I mean, I know
you have scope covers, which are really cool.
I happen to like those very much. But you've
got a whole bunch of other different things that
go along with the scope. So how many actual scopes
are you currently in your line? Just the opticals.
Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, the 1500 SKUs encompass
all different types of product categories. You
know, beyond scopes, it's like we're also probably
the number one seller of scope rings, scope mounts,
accessory rails, probably a bunch of other things
on Amazon. The scopes themselves, I mean, we
probably have kind of lost track at this point.
Some of them are like kind of older product lines.
But I mean, we have over 250 scope SKUs. at this
point but i mean i that number might be a little
bit i might be inflating that number a little
bit because a lot of them are say uh they might
be radical variations where it's like we have
a given scope but we offer it with like four
different radicals yeah mill dot versus yeah
exactly versus moa or yeah whatever the person
is is it the computer aided design or something
that's it seems to me there's a lot of challenges
in dividing in designing a new optic from a clean
sheet of paper. I mean, even though the standards
and the methodologies are already, you know,
have been known for many years, but it used to
be the LPVOs, which means low power variable
optic for those who don't know, were pretty much
limited to one to four power. And even whether
or not they were a true 1X when they were zoomed
all the way out was kind of questionable. You
sent us a sample of a 1 to 10, and that was inconceivable
not that many years ago. And when you look at
the flatness of the optical plane, the fact that
it doesn't have a lot of barrel distortion and
all these other artifacts, chromatic aberrations
and things like that, that used to be problematic
in scopes, quote, unquote, back in the day. And
by back in the day, I mean under 10 years ago.
Now I've been swept aside. And is it just because
of the increases in computational power to be
able to do good design? In full transparency,
I'm probably not the best person to ask this
question. We do have an optics engineer on staff
whose job it is to actually design the optical
systems. But, I mean, there are a lot of things
that... at play when designing something like
a 1 to 10 scope. I mean, a lot of it is just
manufacturing processes. It takes an incredible
amount of precision in order to make something,
you make an optical system look good at both
1x and at 10x. From a manufacturing point of
view, it's a challenge. And I know that when
we first started making them, we would get a
lot of the scopes just during the manufacturing
process. They ended up just not passing muster.
I don't know all the technical details as to
why that is, but it was a challenge to bring
those products to market. And when we did bring
them to market, it's one thing to actually bring
these to market, but it's another thing to bring
them to market at a budget price that's going
to be palatable to most consumers. When we came
out with our first 1 to 10 FFP scope, probably
about two years ago, it was the lowest price
1 to 10 FFP scope on the market by like an order
of magnitude. I think the next cheapest one on
the market was... a sig scope that cost 700 also
made in china that was 700 wow so i um I'm glad
that you brought it up because it was a challenge
to bring that to market. What kind of trade -offs
are there then if you're talking about like,
okay, so you have to think about durability.
You have to think about price point. You have
to think about the weight of the object, like
what people are willing to actually, I mean,
maybe there's a misperception too that like,
well, it's heavy, therefore it's quality or it's
light, so it must be bad. And what drives the
cost at the manufacturing level of making these
decisions? And then you have to scale that, obviously,
to the retail price point. Every design faces
trade -offs. And sort of what are those trade
-offs and how do you decide which way to go?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things at play.
I mean, first of all, I mean, I do have to give
credit to our optics engineer. I mean, he's kind
of a genius at making these decisions. And as
I said before, it's not just about making decisions.
It's not just about building a 1 to 10x scope.
It's about building a 1 to 10x scope at the correct
price. I mean, there are trade -offs with respect
to lens quality. Lens quality and lens coatings
are a huge factor in cost. So like with a scope
lens, Just dipping it in some type of coating
solution, just dipping it in some type of coating
that will reduce the glare and that will have
better light transmission. Just treating that,
like one treatment of a certain type of chemical
can cost, say, like... you know up to up to 20
and you know like a 20 treatment of of a lens
might translate to like you know a 50 60 increase
in in the um retail price of a product so you
know our our optics engineer i mean he is in
charge of deciding like which which treatments
and which processes get implemented that are
going to be able to be implemented at the correct
price With something like light transmission,
there's a very subtle difference between a scope
that has, say, like 90 % light transmission versus
something that has 95 % transmission. And it
might cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars
more to get from, say, 90 % to 95%. So at some
point, we... And there's a diminishing return
beyond a certain point. I mean, we like our scopes
to be functional and we want the site picture
to look good and look clear and we want our customer
to be happy with the product. But at a certain
point... You know, there's a cutoff where it's,
you know, we have to decide it's good enough
and we don't want to invest the extra, say, $20,
$50 for it to get from, say, like 90 % transmission
to 95 % transmission. It's like because the reality
is they're not going to realize any kind of functional
difference between the two in most day -to -day
situations. so yeah i mean these are the trade
-offs that you kind of have to think about when
you're um you're bringing a product to market
that at our price point at the price point we
want to bring it up Craig is an audiophile, and
you did your thesis, I think, Craig, on some
audio stuff, and you know more about audio than
I'll ever know in my whole life. I can't hear
the difference between Craig's multi -thousand
-dollar speaker set and the $20 set. I can't
hear the difference. I'm sorry. I do have a hearing
loss. I admit that. Well, that's your answer,
right? Well, yeah, to a certain degree. It's
like, it doesn't make the difference. I mean,
so I can't, I can't justify it. I mean, okay,
in optics and in audio and in cars, right? We've
talked about cars before. I mean, I feel nuances
in cars that you're, I wouldn't say you're immune
to, but you don't care about. And to me, it would
drive me insane if some of those nuances were
manifest in a car or an audio system that I could
hear. It would just, I'd like rather listen to
nothing. So, you know, as far as scopes go, you
know am i going to say well i'd rather not look
through a monstrum scope and it has to be some
xyz expensive brand no well hell if they're both
made in the same country you know, perhaps in
the same factory or at least the glass originated
in the same place, maybe I don't need to spend
the money. So I think, Gerald, you had some comments
about, you know, the direct, I mean, you know,
you talked a lot about prices and hitting the
price point because otherwise you're not in the
game. The direct -to -consumer model versus the,
you know, the distributor wholesale model. I
think earlier you did ask us like, oh, what differentiates
Monstrum as a company? And I, I would say that
that's one of the kind of the key differentiators
that really kind of set us apart and put us on
the trajectory that we've been on for the past
15 years. 20 years ago, the landscape for optics
was quite a bit different. But I mean, there
were a handful of like made in China companies
like, you know, Vortex had just started their
made in China line. And you did have companies
like Burris and Bushnell, who primarily manufactured
out of China. But yeah, one of the key differentiators
between, say, our company and a company like
that is that we sell direct to consumer. So with
us. We basically buy straight from the Scope
factory. And then once it's in our hands, we
sell directly to the consumers. So we're cutting
out a couple of different layers of middlemen.
With the traditional retail model, first you'll
have the Scope factory. And then oftentimes you'll
have a buyer that buys for the Scope brand. Once
the scope is in the hands of the scope brand,
they'll sell to a distributor. And then that
distributor will then be responsible for getting
the scopes in the hands of the retailers, which
could be all the brick and mortar stores and
all the different websites and all the different
gun shops out there. And then from there, it
is sold to the end consumer. So in that model,
you have maybe four or five different layers
of middlemen, and each person along the way marks
it up a certain percent to make it worth their
while. So the truth is, I mean, there are a handful
of factories in China that are really good at
making scopes or optics. Everybody pretty much
knows each other and kind of knows what prices
people are paying. You know, a scope that we,
the price that we're paying for a scope in China
is not that dissimilar to some of the traditional
companies that source from China. But, you know,
by cutting out, you know, these layers of middlemen,
you know, we're actually able to sell at a significantly
lower price. And, you know, you can see that
reflected in the price of our products compared
to, say, something like, say, a Vortex or, say,
a Burris. Okay. One of the things I'm curious
about, I was brought up with, when I finally
did get the, you know, variable scopes and so
forth, MOA was what I was taught. learned with
uh and versus mildot um i'm curious you know
what the percentage of people who go for for
an moa scope versus a mildot scope and also if
you sell on other markets like europe and stuff
like that does it is it the same ratio over there
or or over there is it all mildot and over here
it's all moa or you know vice versa what have
you found so i mean i prefer moa just because
it's easier to remember uh just the math makes
more sense like so with moa like one one moa
at 100 yards is one inch and then you can just
kind of figure it out from there with mildot
it's uh you do have to juggle a few numbers around
but uh for some reason the um i don't know about
the history of it or whatever. For some reason,
the precision rifle market, in the precision
rifle market and the precision rifle crowd, they
tend to prefer mil versus MOA. Well, that's what
they're taught. Yeah, maybe that's what they
learn on, I guess. I mean, maybe it's more commonly
used in the military, I think. I'm not sure the
exact nature of it, but from... Monstrum, from
a business perspective, I would say the sales
between the two models are pretty similar between
the two. It might vary a little bit from model
to model, like a longer range scope versus like
a mid -range scope or an LPVO. But I mean, we
offer both just depending on your preference.
It really doesn't cost us that much more to design
a second reticle and spin up two variants of
a product. We don't really sell in countries
outside the U .S. The U .S., as a consumer market,
the U .S. pretty much dwarfs the rest of the
world combined. I figured we did. I mean, we're
the only ones that just let everyday people just
buy as many guns as they want. Okay, exactly.
And you can never have too many. As for the tariffs,
are the tariffs, the recent tariffs and the threats
of tariffs and the saber rattling on tariffs,
is that impacting you? Yeah, that is definitely
impacting us. It is something I've thought about
quite a bit. And I understand kind of the reasoning
for implementing tariffs from a political perspective.
and using it as a negotiating tool. I will say,
just to be perfectly clear, it's like we as the
importer and as the brand, we are the one that
pays the tariffs. So when a 30 % tariff is implemented,
it's like we pay that as a duty. And ultimately...
But isn't that paid against the wholesale cost,
not the retail cost? I mean, it's paid against
the cost at the time of importation. So 30 %
retail, Or 30 % tariff, if that was the number,
just to use that number. Yeah. It wouldn't translate
to 30 % on the retail side. It would translate
to somewhat less on the retail side because it
was paid against the wholesale importation cost,
correct? Yeah, that's correct. 30 % tariff is
something that we'll adjust. I mean, as long
as it's applied equally to everybody, we will
adjust our business practices accordingly to
deal with it. For a while there, they were charging,
I think, 150 % tariffs. That would have a significant
impact on us. It's all part of the game. It's
all part of the game of getting to where you
want to be, right? So, I mean, I guess, yeah,
I mean, I try not to worry too much about it.
I mean, ultimately, I mean, whether, you know,
the tariff situation is kind of out of my hands.
Whatever the tariff rate is, we just kind of
try to roll with the punches. So what's next
for Monstrum? I mean, upcoming products, upcoming
either new directions, new technologies you're
approaching, you know, what's going to continue
to differentiate you in your space as, you know,
you expect that other people are going to find
your economies of scale and try to catch up to,
you know, the volume that you're doing and things
like that. How do you stay in the lead? I mean,
we are constantly branching into kind of new
categories. One thing that's new for us is pistol
red dots. We've never really gotten into pistol
red dots before. And unfortunately, we've neglected
it for far too long. I believe I mentioned before,
we don't want to enter a market and just become...
We wouldn't enter a market and just offer the
same thing at the same price as, say, a Holosun
or a Vortex. Because if we did that, why bother?
There's no point in us replicating what they
did because they already did it, so you may as
well just buy it from them. We're currently working
on pistol red dots. They're going to be a fraction
of the price at what you can buy from our competitors.
um you know these days you can probably buy a
pretty decent pistol red dot for 150 200 um you
know we want to come in at maybe uh half the
price of that or less uh we have a couple uh
new pistol red dots that will probably be launching
within the next month or two so that will keep
us occupied for a bit yeah i mean we'll just
do what we've always done we just just incrementally
just improve our quality and uh just incrementally
don't watch new product lines little by little
can you say anything about the color uh of reticles
in terms of i used to always be red and then
um and then a lot of companies including yours
came out with green and i think some went to
blue and i don't know at what point it becomes
eye candy or whether these you know different
colors actually have functional benefits i think
green does because for one thing It's in a different
part of the spectrum where your eye actually
tends to have its primary focus. I know the story
of the old Ray -Ban aviators. They had kind of
a greenish tint. And one time I talked to a Ray
-Ban engineer about that. They said, well, that's
because your eye primarily focuses in that part
of the spectrum. That's why they put the green
tint in the lens. So, you know, any comments
on that? Or is it just a case of... I can put
any color in there or is there really a functional
benefit? My understanding of the red versus the
green comes more from the market perspective.
Just seeing which one sells more and which one
sells best and how much does it cost to... To
get green versus red. My understanding of it,
though, from my perspective, is that green is
easier to see in daylight than red. With respect
to red dots, we're going to start with red. We'll
take things one step at a time. We're going to
start with red and just kind of go from there.
But if we can deliver green at an attractive
price, we'll do that also. I mean, if people
decide they want... purple or orange uh and the
the sales numbers justify it like we can make
that too but we'll start with red and then maybe
move to green and then what footprints you can
do rmsc or mos or do you know what footprints
yet uh yeah well i mean we're going to start
with rmr and then uh an rmsc i i don't want to
promise too much a lot of this stuff is in the
pipeline i don't know if it's coming out three
months or three years so uh okay well but uh
i can say with uh authority that uh an rmr and
rmsc version are coming uh coming to the market
soon as we're recording it this uh this is uh
prime day or this is the shopping holiday that
amazon invented several years ago so this is
one of our busiest uh this is one of our busiest
weeks of the year this year they've actually
expanded it to a four -day event first first
they invented the holiday and called it prime
day and then uh several years later they they
moved it to a two -day event this year they're
trying out a four -day event yeah we're we're
kind of juggling all these promotions and making
sure everything's in stock right now. Yeah, I've
already dropped hundreds of dollars today. I
already know about it, yeah. Any closing comments
for you there, Gerald? This has been an entertaining
show, and I want to really emphasize that we
wouldn't bring you on if we didn't like your
products. Well, I'm glad to hear it. Thanks for
having me, and it was nice chatting with you.
Absolutely. There you go. Well, we'd like to
thank Gerald Kim. He's the CEO of Monstrum. He
came on today and talked to us about the value
proposition of some of the optics that are available
and how far superior, in my opinion anyway, they
are to things that were available even just a
few years ago. I was very, very impressed by
the quality of the scopes that we've been able
to review here, and I'm looking forward to spending
a lot more range time with some of them, actually.
So with that, Craig, I mean... Very impressed
by his presentation. And again, the number of
products that he has available, the number of
SKUs he has available, just great stuff. I think
this dovetails really nicely with the show that
we did with Ryan from ATN, where we talked about
the digital scope space in both thermal and night
vision scopes. This is a more traditional optics
company, obviously a lower price point, even
though there's a vast difference in cost between
them they're both value companies because they
both live in the space uh and occupy that you
know top of the hill in terms of value in both
traditional optics and in you know for people
who need night vision or low light uh we know
now we've covered both of those and i'm still
looking to get uh eotech on at some point because
eotech's technology is somewhat different than
everyone else's in the holographic um uh, optic
space. And, and I think that they have a valid,
uh, uh, story to tell. And you might think, you
know, EOTech value. Well, you know what? I kind
of think they are because their stuff is so unique
and to me so good. And you could have, I don't
know, a whole conversation about their whole
challenge that they had at some point and, and
the point of aim shifting. Well, I want to get
them on and let them tell that story quite honestly.
So anyway, for. You guys who have not listened
to those past shows, go back and listen to them.
I mean, as I mentioned last time, they're kind
of timeless shows. We don't do stuff that's so
specific in time that they don't have applicability.
The medical show that we did, the storage show
that we did, the show about CCW Safe, all that
stuff is absolutely as relevant now as the day
we recorded it. So website, frugalfirearmspodcast
.com. That's the clearinghouse for taking you
to where all of our episodes are located. It's
got the links to the Facebook page, the Twitter
page. Oops, I'm sorry. It should be the X page.
Has links to Instagram as well as links to our
email. If you'd like to be on the show, please
reach out to us. If you have questions, definitely
do that as well. But what's the most important
thing you can do? Like, subscribe, tell your
friends, do those things because it helps us
help you. absolutely what are we here to do ken
we are here to bring and show you the value proposition
of the shooting sports and enjoyment so craig
um what are you doing this weekend This weekend,
Ken, I am going to be featured on ESPN Radio
out of St. Louis on the Big 550 KTRS. And we're
going to be doing one of their shows with a gentleman
named Dan Young, who is known for the Outdoor
Call radio show for KTRS. It's called KTRS Outdoors.
And that is going to be live on Sunday evening
for any listeners either in the St. Louis area
or who pull up their feed after the show. Excellent.
I'm glad to see that you're expanding our listeners
across the nation. Well done. Thanks very much
for listening, folks. See you next time. Bye
-bye. grinding his own Newtonian telescope lens
and how difficult that process was. Is that your
phone, Ken? Yeah, I can't kill it in the background.
I apologize. Chuck it into the room or something.
Go ahead and start that part over again. It was
ringing over you talking. Sorry about that.