i adopted this rule pretty early on that whenever
some uh some atrocity happens some active shooter
event or some terrorist event and i find myself
really feeling that kind of helplessness what
i do with that is i go buy the next thing i should
buy not the next thing i want to buy some entertainment
piece but that's when i go and i get that tourniquet
i get that class i get that cool fire trainer
you know i i get the thing that is less sexy
but it's more useful that's how i personally
respond to these kinds of events so not that
i wish that something terrible happens that you
have to respond to but if you find yourself you
know with that like what can i do then just invest
in your training Welcome to episode 30 of the
Frugal Firearms podcast, the podcast that is
going to make you a better shooter, whether you
like it or not. And the way we're going to do
that today is we're going to talk about a product
that has been honestly on our to -do list since
the show was conceptualized. In fact, before
that, because today is going to be a topic for
one of our favorite products. And actually, you
know what, Ken? Didn't we just, we did that just
in the last couple of shows, didn't we? So we're
really ticking them off. We are. This is an excellent
show. We're going to have Jan, who's going to
be on there talking about the Cool Fryer product
here in a moment. The CoolFire Trainer is something
that you guys may or may not be familiar with
and I want you to listen to the whole show because
you might think well that's an expensive item
but we're going to make the case why it's frugal
and why you really need this product if you're
very serious about your training or if you just
want to actually you know the other side of it
is you could be more casual about your training
because now you don't have to go to the range
you don't have to worry about safety and things
like that. Hey, before we get started today,
I wanted to just acknowledge the audience. Man,
you guys are killing it out there. I'm so proud
of the audience growth and the expansion of the
show, just probably based on word of mouth or,
you know, maybe it has something to do with the
quality of the content we put out there. Who
knows? But I wanted to welcome our new listeners
from places like Vietnam, Iraq, Bangladesh, Mexico,
Morocco, Pakistan, Argentina, the Ukraine. Paraguay,
Jordan, Kurdistan, and Syria of all places. So,
wow, those are places I really never expected
to show up in the map of our listenership. But,
you know, thank you guys from the bottom of our
hearts. All right, now we want to welcome to
the show Jan Sabo from CoolFire. And as I mentioned,
this has been a company that we've been chasing
for a very long time to get on the show because
it is, in my estimation personally, one of my
top value products. And we're going to really
dive into the value proposition here because
I think it takes some explaining to appreciate
what is available from CoolFire. But Jan, welcome
to the show. And let's just kind of start off
with a little bit of kind of tell the people
who don't know what CoolFire Trainer is just
a very basic explanation of what the system is,
how many different models you cover, and what
type of support people are getting in terms of
building their training. And then we'll kind
of go back and go through, you know, what your
history is and things like that. Excellent. Well,
Craig, Ken, thank you for having me. Like I said,
like you said, my name is Jan Sabo. I work at
Coolfire Trainer. We make the ultimate dry fire
training tool for your actual firearm. The reason
why I say that is that we make a conversion kit
that installs inside your firearm. In a pistol,
it replaces your barrel and your recoil spring
assembly. And in an AR -15 rifle, it replaces
the magazine. Well, actually not quite the magazine,
but the bolt carrier group. and then you charge
it up with co2 and each time you pull the trigger
the cool fire trainer system will cycle the action
of what's remaining of the action in your firearm
and thereby it gives you felt recoil it resets
your trigger it gives you a pretty realistic
sound if you're shooting indoors without hearing
protection and it just makes you take your gun
seriously in dry fire because each time you pull
the trigger the gun will respond the way it was
supposed to or in a simulated way so Why is that
better than what traditional people do when they
think of dry fire? Because everyone is encouraged,
who's been in the gun community for any period
of time, is encouraged to dry fire. But why is
yours that much better? And why is it worth the
cost of entry? We'll get to the cost of entry
later. So traditional dry fire versus cool fire
trainer dry fire. One of our customers summarized
it better than any of us ever did by coming up
with a hashtag that cool fire gives you semi
-automatic dry fire. That means that it's dry
fire because you're pulling the trigger on your
firearm without any ammunition. But the fire
round then cycles and resets itself for the next
shot. So that's hence the hashtag semi -automatic
dry fire. So traditional dry fire has been around
for at least a century, training with your fire
round so that you get used to handling it, you
get used to aligning the sights, you get used
to pulling the trigger without disturbing your
sight picture so you can feel where the break
is in the trigger. But with auto -loading firearms,
you then need to prepare the firearm for the
next shot. And with a semi -automatic pistol
or a semi -automatic rifle, that happens as the
action cycles. It resets the trigger. Plus you
get the felt recoil and so on and so forth in
live fire. In dry fire, you need to prepare the
action for the next shot yourself. And that's
where dry fire shows its limits. That if you
need to rack the slide of your pistol each time
you pull the trigger, The realism kind of evaporates
and you need to prep the gun for the next shot
by doing something that you wouldn't normally
do. We have a video of a very eager young lady
at a trade show who was shooting our cool fire
trainer in 1911. And each time she fires the
shot and the slide cycles and... Everything happens
as it's supposed to. She then proceeds to rack
the slide. And we kept telling her, don't do
that. You don't have to do that. And it was just,
oh, sorry, it's habit, it's habit. So unfortunately,
dry fire has its limitations. And that's where
Cool Fire Trainer really shines, that it gives
you semi -automatic dry fire with trigger resetting
recall each time. Let me, okay, I'm going to
follow up on that particular point that you just
made, which is that you had a person at a trade
show who had... I'm going to introduce this topic
to the listeners if you are not familiar with
the term training scar. What is a training scar?
That is a habit that you have developed over
time through whatever methodology that is not
something that you want to carry forward into
real life. So listeners have heard me talk before
in the Navy, we call it negative training. misinformation,
having them do the wrong thing. And in this case,
this girl, I'm surmising, a woman, was not under
any particular stress, yet she kept going to
rack the gun when it was not necessary. That's
a true statement, right, Jan? Yes, that's correct.
So could I infer that if she was in the moment
of ultimate need, that she may have done the
same thing with a real gun because that is her
training and she's going back to a very base
level of knowledge when you're under stress.
That is true for everybody. I think it was Jim
Cirillo who said, who made a statement that many
others have made that in stressful real life
situation, we've... we revert back to the baseline
of our training. And that was her training. I
think off camera, she told us that there was
a well -meaning uncle or boyfriend or somebody
like that who taught her how to dry fire. And
that's just what stuck. So kudos to her. She
saw the light with Cool Fight Trainer and eventually
just started shooting and really enjoyed herself.
This reminds me of an example. I mean, we all
remember the FBI shooting that happened probably
about 20, 30, 30 years ago or so. It was 40 years
ago. It was 1986. 1986, 40 years ago. In Miami
in 1996. Yeah, it's a famous, it's been studied,
studied many, many, many times. But one of the
things that the FBI agents did after the shooting
was they started to police up their brass. that
had hit the ground. And, you know, kind of like,
almost like zombies. Like, what do you do after
you shoot? Well, you collect your brass. And
it's like, no, this is, you don't do that in
a real situation, shooting situation. But, I
mean, it was just so ingrained and they were,
they had gone through such stress, that was their
go -to. Okay, the shooting's over, the situation's
over. Okay, pick up your brass. And that was
an example. I recall that that came up as a topic
even earlier in the Newhall shooting in 1972,
I think it was. So yes, rangism, that was Jeff
Cooper's term, rangism, the habits that you learn
at a shooting range or any other kind of negative
training in Navy speak or any other kind of training
scars may catch up with you. And therefore, the
best way to eliminate it is by preventing it
in the first place. Let's roll this back a little
bit. Tell us about... Not only the origins of
the CoolFire Trainer, maybe what the inspiration
for the product was, and perhaps how long it
took to develop and get to a commercial release,
but what was your personal involvement with the
company? When did you come on board? Why? Things
like that. Well, I came on board about 10 years
ago. Actually, it's either 10 years ago or two
years ago, depending on how we counted, because
I came on board on February 29th. And that only
happens once every four years. It was 2016, February
29th is when I joined the team. By then, Cool
Fire Trainer was pretty much already invented
and established. So we've just been refining
it ever since for the last 10 years. So my personal
history with Cool Fire Trainer is that I started
training with firearms in earnest. In about 2008,
my father was a military officer in Czechoslovakia,
so I grew up with my father's firearm and my
granddad's air rifle. But I really started training
in 2008 when I started training in a martial
art called Krav Maga. Oh, yeah, the Israeli,
yeah. One of the signature topics of Krav Maga
is disarming an attacker who's pointing a firearm
at you. And I realized that when I... took possession
of the firearm, I didn't really know what to
do next. So I thought it was important to learn
about the other side of things, which is how
to shoot firearms. So I then discovered Masada
Yub and took his training and eventually became
an instructor. But this was in New York City
when I discovered this stuff. So I got some training
in New Jersey, of all places, that was more accessible
than New York. Then moved to Washington, D .C.,
where I went to police academy to become a reserve
police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department
of Washington, D .C. And then my wife got a great
job offer in her hometown in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
So after just a few months of having a badge
as a reserve police officer, we moved to Tulsa.
And I thought, what am I going to do in Tulsa?
It's my wife's hometown. I don't know anybody.
I'm very interested in law enforcement and firearms
and all this kind of thing. And I discovered
that there was a company called Dvorak Instruments
and a sister company called Cool Fire Trainer
owned by my boss, Albert Dvorak, who invented
various technologies to do with simulated recoil.
And I thought, that's the company I want to work
for. So on February 29th, 2016, it was my first
day. Very good. 10 years. Excellent. So going
back to... The applicability of the product.
So the product used to be, I think what it was
initially introduced was only for pistols. But
now you have an AR -15 variant of it that will
cycle an AR -15. But tell the listeners, how
many guns right now are supported? And across,
let's say, you could say, well, Glock is one
thing, but it's not. It's many things. How many
different models and how often do you roll out
new ones? Yes. So we have recently introduced
a recall kit for the AR -15. We call it the sidekick
because of its construction and it kicks and
there's a vessel on the side of the rifle, which
I'll explain a little bit later. But before that,
we developed dozens of recall kits for pistols
and we kind of lost count. It's certainly more
than 180 different models. So there are various
Glocks, you know, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 22, 34,
35, you know, all the different Glocks, different
generations of Glocks. Smith & Wesson M &P family,
various SIGs, 226, 228, 229, 320, SIG 365. several
Taurus models, Beretta 92. There's just a whole
bunch of different models. And then when you
get into the world of 1911s and 2011s with the
different barrel lengths and different chamberings.
it it just explodes into into the hundreds so
we kind of stopped counting and we just say over
180 different models of pistols now let me also
give you the uh a brief story of cool fire itself
so cool fire trainer as i mentioned is the brainchild
of my boss whose name is albert dvorak and uh
it's really the third generation recall kit that
that he developed The first generation recall
kit came about in about 1998 or 1999 called the
Air Recall System, which was a tethered system
developed pretty much on the encouragement or
on commission from the FBI Academy. They were
looking for a simulated recall kit that was pneumatically
powered by air or nitrogen that would cycle the
action, reset the trigger, give you felt recoil,
disrupt your sight picture and so on. So Albert
developed the air recall system in the late 90s.
The FBI loved it. They use it to this day. And
a few years later, they said, oh, this is a fantastic
system, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it was
a self -contained system so it wouldn't be tethered,
so you could have full mobility in training where
you could run around your training area? so albert
developed a second generation recall system called
the tetherless recall system trs where the it's
powered by co2 and the co2 is housed in the magazine
of the pistol or of the rifle uh the it's a pretty
complex system it's it's kind of the rolls royce
of recall systems we we make it uh as under our
sister company named work instruments And these
recall kits cost in the thousands of dollars.
When you get a package with two magazines and
various accessories, you're looking at about
$3 ,500 and upwards. And there are recall kits
for many different law enforcement pistols and
rifles and the MP5 submachine gun and pump action
shotguns and so on. So where Cool Fire Trainer
came in in the mid, in 2015, 2016 time. We had
many would -be customers who contacted us and
said, hey, we saw your website and this technology
looks really good. How much is it? We gave them
the sticker shock, and they thought, well, I'll
just have to end up using Airsoft, I guess, because
I can't afford it. This is the question, is your
boss paying or is your wife paying? So if your
boss is paying, then that's where the Dvorak
Rebook has come in for agency use. Those are
the only two options? There's no other options
in life? In my house, it is, yes. If you have
other options, lucky you, but that's what it
comes down to. So Cool Fire Trainer was conceived
and designed and engineered, and now my... as
an affordable version of established recall technology
that's been used by the FBI and the U .S. Secret
Service and many law enforcement and military
units for a decade and a half before that point.
So Cool Fire Trainer is optimized not only for
your budget, but also there are some other assumptions
that we make with Cool Fire Trainer. We assume
that you have one firearm, whether it's a pistol
or a rifle. and you want to train with that firearm
every day so you want to convert it for training
train with it with recoil and then when you're
done with two or three hundred rounds worth of
training then you want to convert it back to
live fire and uh you know load it up with live
ammo put it in holster and uh step out of your
front door with that with that gun loaded by
contrast the dvorak recall kits the the agency
solution uh the assumption there is that uh the
the end user can dedicate firearms for full -time
training duties. So take several firearms, paint
them blue, and semi -permanently convert them
with the recall kit. So, for example, things
like the ease of installation with CoolFire is
much, much easier than the Dvorak kits. So CoolFire
has been optimized not just for the... for the
budget of an individual, but also for the user
habits, the fact that you have your own gun,
the fact that you want to install it with under
a minute, uninstall it at the same time. You
want to use CO2 that's available from a supermarket
in the form of a soda maker tank that you can
buy wherever you get your weekly grocery shopping
and so on. So Cool Fire Trainer is what we call
an individual's training tool. The Dvorak recall
kits that preceded it are an institutional training
tool, both on the budget and also on just the
user case on multiple dimensions. And what you're
doing, again, you know, for the listeners is
the barrel is actually becomes the CO2. vessel
that is then slowly exhausted as you use the
gun through various shots. And then once it runs
down, because every time it expends some gas,
the pressure goes down. The thing you don't notice,
though, I want to point this out to people, is
initially when you're using it, you really don't
feel a difference in recoil until the barrel
is nearly fully exhausted of pressure. So it
isn't like the first shot feels different than
the second shot feels different than the third
shot. That's not the case. at least using my
example, which, you know, I want to stress, I
bought this on my own money for my Glock 17.
Cool Fire didn't send us anything. Years ago,
too. Yeah, years ago. You know, this was all
on my own dollar. And, you know, we didn't receive
any samples or anything like that. So this is
a completely unpaid endorsement. But we are endorsing
this very strongly. Thank you. The thing that
I think people need to understand is. All you're
doing here, Jan's talking about changing this
under a minute, is you're popping the slide off,
you're removing the barrel, at least for a Glock,
and probably most other striker -fired pistols.
You're removing the barrel, the recoil spring,
you're putting in a new barrel, which is, again,
the vessel used for the CO2, a different recoil
spring, and reassembling it. You're keeping the
same trigger. So if you've done trigger work
on the gun or if your particular scenario is
that you want to train with your particular trigger,
this allows that. It's the same sights. It's
the same grip. You're using the same holster.
The gun will weigh the same. And I also want
to bring up, you know, there's a few other advantages
that we'll go into later, but there's one thing
that people might want to be aware of is the
safety here. Is that you cannot look, because
now you have a barrel. quote unquote barrel that
has no chamber, you cannot load a live magazine
into the gun. Well, you can put a magazine into
the gun to get the weight up if you want to do
that, but you cannot insert a round. So this
is a completely safe option. And I really want
to, you know, weigh on the fact that now you
get to train at home. You get to train wherever
you want, because even though the gun for ATF
purposes is still a firearm, because it's still
the same frame, it is not. Yeah, it cannot fire
anything. So why don't you run with some of those
topics there, Jan? Yes, absolutely. So let me
go with both of those main themes. One is the
installation, the construction and the installation,
and the second one are the training benefits.
So how do you install a cool fire? What is it
and how do you install it? So in a pistol, it
is a replacement barrel and a replacement recoil
spring. And you can also use your pistol's magazine
for training purposes if you wish. So the way
that you install a cool fire trainer is you clear
the firearm, make sure that there's no ammunition
present. And then you would take apart your pistol
as if for cleaning. So you would take the slide
off of the frame and take the barrel and the
recoil spring assembly out of the slide. And
then you take your barrel and your recoil spring
and put them aside because you won't need them.
If you have any loaded magazines, put them aside.
preferably in a separate room to follow traditional
practice. And then you take the cool fire trainer
barrel and the cool fire trainer recoil spring
assembly, which features a slightly reduced power
recoil spring by just by a couple of pounds.
It's lighter than your live fire spring. And
you install the cool fire trainer barrel into
your slide. And then you install the slightly
reduced power recoil spring assembly into the
slide. and then reassemble the gun as you normally
would. There's typically one other step that
you need to push on the muzzle of the barrel
to seat it in place on blocks and similar pistols.
And then you take a CO2 tank. The most popular
one is a soda maker type tank that you can get
from your local supermarket that's typically
used with soda making machines where you can
basically add CO2 bubbles to tap water and then
add some kind of syrup. And then, hey, presto,
you have a homemade soda. So you can take the
same kind of CO2 tank that you've got in your
local supermarket and install our what we call
a fill device that allows you to then channel
that CO2 from that tank into the muzzle of the
cool fire barrel that is now in your pistol.
So the cool fire barrel is the reservoir, the
fuel tank that has about 850 PSI of CO2. That's
worth about a magazine's worth of shots. And
then each time you pull the trigger, the firearm
will cycle or the converted firearm will cycle.
So the operating cycle looks something like this.
When you pull the trigger, you release the sear.
And then that releases either your hammer that
then hits the firing pin or the striker, which
obviously has the firing pin tip. Under normal
circumstances in live fire, that firing pin would
impact a primer and ignite the propellant and
expel the projectile through the muzzle and so
on. In the case of cool fire, the firing pin
is going to impact what we call a striker, which
is capped by a polymer striker tip that I'll
explain a little later. And that striker hits
a ball bearing and that ball bearing jumps out
of the way. And this 850 PSI worth of CO2 pressure
will then rush past the ball bearing and extend
a telescoping piston. If you think of a typical
law enforcement telescoping baton, how it extends
out in multiple segments, that's kind of what
it looks like on a miniature scale. So that CO2
will extend that telescoping piston, and that's
what kicks the slide back. And by the time...
the slide is in the rearmost position and bounces
off of the back of the of the rails of the frame
that ball bearing valve is going to close the
whole system will depressurize there'll be a
puff of co2 and there'll be about 100 decibels
worth of with of audio report and then your recoil
spring is going to push the slide back into battery
and by doing that it will reset the trigger mechanism
for the next shot so that in a nutshell is the
operating cycle of the pistol And what I like
about it is the fact that the barrel is red,
and the fact is that it's obvious if you're looking
at it from the front or something, if you see
the red or from the side where the ejection port
would be, it's red. It tells you, oh, you know,
this might be my normal carry firearm, but right
now it's configured in the cool fire methodology
because you've been testing it or you're training
with it. Totally fine. The other thing I wanted
to mention is that what I think is really cool
is you don't have to disassemble the firearm
each and every time to recharge the CO2 in the
barrel. to get up to 850 PSI that Jan was mentioning
a moment ago. It's basically right down at the
muzzle. You just press that adapter right at
the muzzle, and boom, you goose it up again to
the full amount, so you're good for at least
another magazine's worth of test firing. And
that only takes a second or two. I mean, you
know, I think you say three seconds, Jan. Maybe
it depends on the barrel size, of course, because
the amount of gas you're pushing in. But, you
know, I think I have mine recharged in around
a second. Yes, the recharging is very convenient.
We have three configurations of CoolFire Trainer,
and it takes between five and 10 seconds to recharge.
And in that, I include how long it takes you
to reach for the CO2 tank from wherever. Okay,
there you are. The actual mating, you know, the
pressing of the CO2. fill device against the
muzzle takes about no more than three seconds
because the liquid CO2 is very runny and the
pressure will equalize very quickly. No more
than three seconds and you're basically up and
running. Now, thank you, Ken, for raising the
whole safety or revisiting the whole safety question.
Cool fire trainer. uh is the the pistol barrels
are made with some red element uh and and also
that there is there is a light lighting cut uh
that you can feel with your fingers so even if
it was pitch dark you could well most models
certainly the modern ones you could feel with
your fingertip that you have something other
than a live barrel in your pistol and of course
you can confirm it visually by looking at it
and then you can do a chamber check and you will
find that there is no longer a chamber because
the cool fire trainer barrel has that telescoping
piston, that miniature police baton that I was
talking about earlier. So there is no chamber
and there is nowhere for a round to go. So we
certainly don't encourage you to train with a
magazine loaded with live ammo, but if by some
accident you manage to put a magazine with live
ammo, the ammo has nowhere to go because there
is no chamber so uh one of the things that makes
cool fire trainer so compelling one ways of describing
why it's such a compelling product is that it's
a unique combination of realism where you have
a real firearm that behaves realistically because
it gives you realistic recoil with each trigger
pull and a you know 100 decibels of sound and
trigger reset and so on so you have a realistic
behavior of a real real gun And yet it is as
safe as it can be because there is no longer
a chamber present in the pistol. And in the case
of the AR -15 rifle, the chamber is plugged.
While cool fire trainer is installed in the rifle,
the chamber is plugged and therefore not available
for any other item to enter it. So that combination
of safety and realism combined with the economy
that we are yet to discuss, where it's less than
two cents per shot. These three things, realism,
safety, economy, would make it such a compelling
product to play with, to train with, to discuss,
and to buy and own. Let me go to one issue that
we actually talked about before in the preface
for the show. which was that there was a video
that was out on YouTube where a gentleman, you
know, we're not the only people to review your
product. There's been others. And there was a
gentleman who reviewed it, and he overall liked
the product. But I'm going to go back to this
term training scar. He implied that your trainer
might cause a, quote, training scar, end quote,
because the behavior of the recoil is a bit different
than a real gun. I will jump to the first. I
will give him credit for pointing it out. I think
that was good that he did his homework and found
out that, yes, in fact, it's different. And reasonably,
it makes sense that the piston you're talking
about, since you're not expelling a round that
weighs, let's say, between if it's nine millimeter,
between 115 and 147 grains out the front, plus
the gas behind it. You know, nothing's coming
out of the front of the gun. The gun doesn't
vent to the front. And we didn't mention that
already, but there's actually a laser attachment
you can put on the front of the quote -unquote
barrel so the gas goes elsewhere. So initially
the gun will have a very momentary tip downward,
not upward, but then it recoils back much more
substantially as a result of the slide going
full travel to the back. Now, is that going to
cause a, quote, training scar? I say not. And
here's my rationale. One is that people typically
don't train with recoil. And learning to discipline
your grip so that you can actually stay on target
for shots two through whatever is more important
than avoiding a difference in the type of recoil.
And I want to stress here, the gun recoils. Hard.
It isn't as hard as a real round, but it's pretty
damn close. And the other part is, if you want
to talk about a training scar, you mentioned
it right up front. A person who racks the gun
every time and then falls back into that bad
habit, if you're in a real stressful situation,
do you want to be racking out live rounds onto
the ground when you should be doing follow -up
shots? That's where the training scar is. yes
yes indeed a traditional dry fire where the gun
clicks and then you rack the slide a click has
meaning if you're shooting live fire and the
gun clicks you better do something, not just
rack the slide, but tap the magazine and possibly
change out the magazine and so on. But this review,
so Cool Fire Trainer is a very compelling and
popular product that we've had it reviewed many
times. This particular review, he coined the
phrase inverse recall, which sounds kind of science
-y, and he presented it as a gotcha that he found
something that's some kind of a dirty secret
and so on. So let me address that in a full -throated
way. uh as i mentioned cool fire trainer is a
third generation recall kit that uh is a it's
really a more affordable version of a recall
system that has been used by the likes of the
fbi and the secret service for decades And I
would submit to you that if there was something
of a training scar to be found, the FBI would
have found it because they've been at the forefront
of firearm training research for decades. So
if the FBI Academy is happy with it, I would
commend that to your comfort level. So that's
one thing. The other thing is more of a substantive
argument. So when you are shooting a firearm,
a pistol, When you are shooting a pistol, your
job is to obviously fire accurately, but then
you need to prep the pistol for the next shot.
So you need to recover from whatever movement
the gun wants to do. The bullet is going to fly
out of the muzzle following the path of least
resistance, and the firearm is going to do what
it wants to do, pivot around the fulcrum of the
webbing of your hand and do a muzzle flip and
all that kind of stuff. Your job is to minimize
the movement of the gun by gripping the gun hard.
So with CoolFire Trainer, you get what you correctly
described. I call it a J -curve recoil pattern.
There is an initial muzzle dip, but then the
muzzle flips up after that. By the way, this
happens with blank pistols. If you look up a
slow motion video of a blank firing pistol on
YouTube, you will find that it does exactly the
same thing. If you're using a red dot optic,
you won't even notice that it's going on. This
particular reviewer was using a gas pedal where
he was pressing with his left thumb and I guess
relying on it so much that that initial muzzle
dip kind of threw him off. But even whether you
have a gas pedal or not, your job is to minimize
the movement of the gun by gripping it effectively
with your... all the right muscles and maximizing
the friction side to side and making sure that
you're not jerking the gun, making sure that
you're not pulling the gun to the left or to
the right because you have too much or too little
finger on the trigger. So you are using the same
muscles in the same way to minimize the movement
of the gun, whether it's a straightforward muzzle
flip in live fire or the J -curve pattern with
Cool Fire Trainer. And if you find that you notice
the muzzle dip with your eyes or that you notice
it because you grip the gun loosely, I would
actually submit that the gun is telling you to
try harder. So let me develop that just a little
bit. If you feel that the gun is dipping down,
that's because you're holding it too loosely
and you need to go eat some Wheaties and go to
the gym and develop some grip strength. and uh
uh i got that quote from bill jeans of gunsight
i'll go eat some movies and control the muzzle
uh movement more effectively by gripping the
gun harder so that's that point the second point
if some elite shooters and i don't think i ever
i've i've ever managed to do this is they manage
to shoot with not only both eyes open but they
manage not to blink throughout the entire recall
cycle and they can see what the muzzle is doing
and they can see the muzzle flipping up in live
fire and supposedly the muzzle dipping initially
with cool fire and then and lifting up if you
can see that if you truly can perceive that with
your eyes then my my hat off to you you are one
of the point one percent of shooters at peak
concentration at your optimal caffeination level
so if you see cool fire trainer muzzle dipping
That's cool fire trainer telling you, well done,
you were paying attention as well as anyone possibly
can. So I would say go out there and look for
that muzzle dip. Because if you can see it, that
means that you hit it out of the park. You're
paying attention. Yeah, that's it. So that's
my response to this inverse recall. To summarize,
cool fire trainer is simulated recall, but it's
the best dry fire. training tool out there and
it will not replace your live fire uh entirely
of course you need to go to the range we suggest
once a month to confirm your zero to make sure
that your gun is lubricated to make sure that
you know your hollow points are feeding up the
the feed ramp of your barrel that they're not
getting stuck to make sure that your recoil spring
hasn't gone too soft or or any matter of mechanical
questions you may have about your gun but cool
fire trainer can replace a lot of your live fire
by simulating it very, very effectively. And
if the FBI Academy, the Secret Service, and literally
world champion pistol shooters in IDPA and USPSA
train with it and like it, I submit to you that
there is value for you to take a look at it and
seriously consider getting it. So that brings
us to a question that I had, which is what if
you are a trainer? I mean, you're talking extensively
about training yourself. And again, I want to
stress for the listeners. You're doing training
in your own house. You're doing it at an acceptable
noise level that's not going to get anybody upset
with you. Well, OK, my dog doesn't like it, but
my dog doesn't like any. My dog doesn't like
any snappy noises, but that's another story.
The fact that you're able to run drills in your
house and have that realistic environment that
isn't a square range, either outdoors or inside.
But if you're a trainer. What sort of advantages
does CoolFire provide you to be able to diagnose
people who perhaps have plateaued or you're trying
to diagnose a specific problem and you don't
want to incur the cost, the per round cost, which
by the way, I checked. Right now, 9mm, the cheapest
stuff I can find on AmmoSeek .com, and by the
way, shout out to AmmoSeek .com, my favorite
place to price ammunition, was 23 .2 cents a
round. And you said it's about two cents a round.
So you're saving, I think you're saving more
than that. I think you're talking about maybe
a penny a round when you're talking about refilling
bottles. And if you have a large bottle, it's
even going to be less than that. But what are
the advantages for trainers in terms of using
this to help diagnose people who need help? Indeed.
I went to the Rangemaster Conference some years
ago. I think it was about five years ago. One
of the trainers, whose name will come to me in
a few moments, he had an excellent presentation
on how to diagnose shooter errors using dry fire
equipment, including CoolFi Trainer. One of the
things that CoolFi Trainer allows a trainer to
do is communicate and coach a shooter off range.
So in a classroom where they are not wearing
sunscreen, there are no bugs, there's nothing
bothering them. Not wearing eye protection, not
wearing hearing protection that distorts just
the way that you interact with people. You don't
have to yell at them and so on and so forth.
And the trainer can observe the student manipulate
the gun and manipulate the trigger and reset
the trigger and so on up close from like come
up real close without worrying about the muzzle
flash. You can even... We don't fully endorse
this, but if you really want to diagnose, you
can even stand in front of the gun and get what's
called a reverse sight picture, where your student
is looking down the sights, the rear sight in
the back, the front sight in the front. As a
trainer, you could stand in front of the firearm
and look at the front sight first in the notch
of the rear sight, which for you is actually...
farther front, and see if they're muzzle dipping,
if they're milking the trigger, if they're moving
the gun left, right, up, down, or whichever way.
So a cool fire trainer allows you to, once again,
see how the trainee is manipulating a real gun
that behaves realistically in a safe and comfortable
environment where you can communicate to them
with that individual without any barriers. And
it's actually their firearm, which is what I
love about it. It's your grip. It's your gun.
It's your sights. You know, if you've got an
optic on the back of it or you don't, you run
iron sights like me. You know, it is your gun.
And the other thing is, I mean, we talked about
the cost of keeping things down. I mean, yeah.
So we're talking less than a quarter around for
9mm. You got to toss in your time and mileage
to the range. You know, gas is over $6 a gallon
here right now in California. Got to help us.
There's time at the range. You got to fill out
the paperwork. Yeah, I've been here a hundred
times, but yeah, I'm going to sign it. If I shoot
myself in my foot, it's my own problem. You know,
you get all that. And then the cost associated
range, you know, they provide a service and it's
not an inexpensive thing. It's something we should
do, as you point out, yeah, on about once a month
would be optimal. But a lot of us don't have
that ability to do that even weekly. It would
be too much of our budget. And we are frugal
firearms here. So this really does point to the
frugal aspect of it and to keep the price down
while keeping your skills and your training up
at the lowest possible cost. So, yes, there is
an investment to be made with this product. If
you look at it over time and what you're gaining
in your skills, I think the value proposition
is absolutely there. Okay, so Ken, you brought
it up. I mean, you said that there's an investment
there. Okay, what are we talking about, Jan,
for an investment in this? And what's the trade
space against live ammo? Because if we're talking
about a case of ammunition for $230 plus tax,
plus the time to go get it, plus any paperwork.
that is necessary and not counting in. Now you're
going to use it at a range that maybe it takes
you an hour to drive to the range. And what is
your time worth and what is the gas worth and
everything else? How much does it cost to get
into your systems and how quickly do you pay
that back? Yeah. So cool fire trainer is an investment.
It's, but it's a good investment. So let me break
that down. Cool fire trainer will cost you several
hundred dollars, almost the cost of your firearm.
If let's say that you have a Glock 17 or a Glock
19, cool fire trainer will come pretty close
to that, depending on the package that you're
getting and the accessories. And we frequently
get people saying, hey, I could just buy another
gun for that. Well, that's true. But what will
you do with that firearm? You need to train with
it. You need to get a holster with it for it.
You need to perhaps get an optic, change the
sights and so on and so forth. CoolFi Trainer
allows you to train with your existing firearm,
presumably your favorite firearm because you
bought it and you want to train with it, at a
cost of about less than two cents per shot. And
if you're using refillable CO2 or big cylinder
tanks, then it can be as little as a fraction
of a cent of CO2. So the acquisition cost is...
between about 350 and 450 dollars depending on
on what kind of laser you're getting and if you're
getting any accessories uh but the the fact that
you get to train with your firearm any anytime
and anywhere where you have visual and audio
privacy is is is priceless i mean we uh we have
a video that we want to expand on this theme
of uh while you make while you're baking a frozen
pizza okay if you have a 20 minute time slot
anywhere in your time schedule you come home
from work and you know the kids roll out of the
car they're saying daddy mommy i'm hungry you
know they you Open the fridge, open the freezer,
get that frozen pizza out, put it in the oven.
And you have about 20 minutes of dead time where
you can just play with your phone or, you know,
kill time. Or you can say, I have 20 minutes.
I can go to my home office, close the door. You
don't want the kids to walk in on you. Take that
pistol out of your holster. Render it safe, unload
it, convert it with CoolFi Trainer in less than
a minute, charge it up with CO2 in, you know,
5 to 10 seconds. And you can easily do a 100
or 200 repetition workout. And when you hear
that beep on that timer from the kitchen, holster
the firearm, go to the kitchen, pull that pizza
out of the oven. And while the pizza is cooling
down, you can convert CoolFi back to live, you
know, take it out of your gun, convert it back
to live fire. And in that 20 minutes of what
would have been dead time, doom scrolling on
your Facebook, on your phone, you can do the
same thing before you leave the house in the
morning. So this is really the value of Cool
Fire Trainer, that you can train anywhere and
anytime where you have privacy, where you can
be in the room by yourself without anybody being
freaked out by seeing gunplay, safe gunplay,
but nevertheless. And get your reps in, get your
reps in using, pulling your pistol out of your
holster, clearing your garments, whatever business
suit or whatever, whatever clothes you're wearing
that day, you can practice the morning of with
your setup. And that's what makes Cool Fire Trainer
priceless. Then let's talk about then the complimentary
systems and the integration with those, because
anyone who's listened to this show more than
a couple of times knows that. ken and i are all
about the mantis x10 elite system and uh also
they're like their laser training or laser academy
training system to me personally i think that
the combination of cool fire with the mantis
x10 elite is the best training option available
short of live fire in fact arguably in some cases
better than live fire because the type of feedback
that you get and the availability, like you said,
to get it in your home office or your garage
or your backyard or wherever. What do you have
to say about those complementary systems? And
are there others besides Mantis that you work
with? Yes, CoolFire Trainer has many fans and
we have many industry friends and admirers because
it is such a compatible product that can synergize
with other products. So let me just reset that.
CoolFire Trainer converts your firearm for simulated
recoil and you can use an optional laser. So
that creates compatibilities with other products.
So if you have laser targets. whether they are
standalone battery -operated targets or whether
they're camera -based targets like the Mantis
Laser Academy, then many of them, certainly the
good ones, will work with the CoolFi Trainer
Laser. So that is a huge plus. Our laser means
that it's compatible with the target. Then the
Mantis X device that you mentioned, that is,
for listeners who are not familiar, I'm not a
technician, but my understanding is that it's,
and I have one, I have used them. It's essentially
a gyroscope that will scan, monitor, sensor the
movements of your gun just prior to the shot
fired during the actual operation of the trigger
and just after you fired the shot. So you will
get a reading of how stable. Your hold was on
your gun. And which way were you moving the gun?
Were you dipping the muzzle because of anticipation?
Were you milking the trigger left or right? You
know, did you control any kind of muzzle movement
effectively? This comes back to using the same
muscles as you would in live fire and gripping
the gun hard. So the Mantis X device is very
complimentary, and we are actually a dealer of
Mantis X because the three products, your pistol,
Cool Fire Trainer, and the Mantis X, give you
a very synergistic, a very wholesome training
experience. And I'm going to point out to people,
too, that the Mantis software, which is core
to the experience with the Mantis X10 Elite,
and I am pushing that particular model. They
do have other Mantis X models. It's worth just
going for the X10 Elite, in my opinion, does
have a CO2 setting. So you can tell it that.
OK, this is not dry fire. This is not live fire.
This is the gun been modified with CO2. And it
accommodates that and still gives you valuable
feedback. So you don't it isn't one flavor fits
all. You can tell the Mantis system how you set
the gun up so that it gives you the right level
of feedback. yes yes indeed and one of the good
things about the mantis x system which again
we sell on our website because we're a dealer
is that you can put it on your pistol or you
can put it on your ar -15 rifle and i would submit
to you that your own rifle with a cool fire trainer
that gives you the felt recoil that gives you
the audio report that gives you the trigger reset
with the mantis system is just about as good
a training as you can get without shooting live
ammo so there are some There are some training
options where Mantis have incorporated their
sensor technology into a non -firearm, which
is basically a clicking non -gun, certainly has
its uses. But if you wish to train with your
firearm with recoil and get the same kind of
sensor readings on the Mantis app, then the Mantis
10 Elite in combination with your real firearm
and with Coolfire Trainer is the way to go. That's
just as good as it gets. That's cutting edge.
So you have competitors, maybe without naming
them directly. There are other companies that
have what sounds to me like maybe systems that
were like your original one that was meant for
institutional use that are tethered to an external
CO2 bottle or things like that. Why are you the
leader in this industry or in this segment of
this industry above and beyond your competitors?
And don't forget to mention price because I've
looked at some of those competitors and they
cost more than yours and they don't give you
the experience of using your actual gun. Indeed,
yes. Well, we have two kinds of competitors,
as you mentioned, the institutional ones and
the individual ones. So the institutional competitors,
really our closest competitor is our own sister
company, Lvorak Instruments, that makes those
recall kits for institutional users like police
departments and military units. The Israeli Defense
Force is a heavy user and so on. But the price
tag is for, we shared this joke earlier before
we went on air, it's for when your boss is paying
rather than when your wife is paying. So that's
our nearest competitor, our own sister company
for recall kits that are intended really for
an institution that can dedicate a firearm to
training that has a permanent facility and so
on. The other types of competitors that we have
are various dry fire tools, some of which are
actually compatible and complementary, such as
the Mantis X that we just discussed. But there
are other training tools that are competitors
because they may be cheaper, but they are also
more limited in their value added and their scope.
For example, you have a class of laser cartridges
that insert into the chamber of your pistol.
This is pretty old technology. It's going on,
I think, at least 15 years. It was very innovative
when it came out. But you go back to the limitations
of dry fire, that with a striker fired pistol
like a Glock, you get one click and then you
have to rack the slide again. So Cool Fire Trainer
gives you a laser hit, but also that recoil and
the trigger reset for multiple shots, at least
a magazine's worth of shots. That's the CO2 capacity
of a typical barrel. There are other... competing
products that are basically non -firearms where
it's some kind of a replica it's a non uh it
looks like a pistol but it but it isn't uh it
can be airsoft based or some kind of a trigger
resetting clicking tool they have that place
if you uh want to store the firearm in in a place
that is not very secure like for example in your
desk drawer at work or something like that or
if you want to train in a non -permissive environment
where there are absolutely no firearms allowed
ever like a school in some jurisdictions but
uh absent those two conditions the the haphazard
storage or the less secure storage and uh and
the non -permissive training environments training
with your firearm and with recoil is Just second
to none. It really is something that you need
to feel to appreciate if you haven't felt it
before. Many people tell us, oh, yeah, well,
Airsoft does the same thing. It gives you a gun
that reciprocates the slide and recalls. You
know, it doesn't. Come visit us at a trade show.
And the NRA trade show is coming up next week.
Visit us at booth 705 if you're around. And try
it out. We've had the same reaction from airsoft
people so many times where they say, wow, you
know, I have like, I'm an airsofter. I grew up
with airsoft. I have the top of the range airsoft
guns, but this thing recoils three or four times
harder than the best airsoft that I have. And
there's just no comparison. What other types
of drills can you do with a cool fire installed,
like training for malfunctions, stuff like that,
that you otherwise maybe couldn't do? Like, I
really don't care for training for malfunctions
on a live range with live ammunition unless I'm
maybe putting a snap cap in to see do I have
a flinch response. But I kind of prefer not doing
that. And I think that CoolFire probably offers
some opportunities to, again, you know, train
at home or wherever, but maybe do some certain
types of drills safer than you would otherwise
be doing with live ammunition. Yes, indeed. So
CoolFi Trainer converts a real firearm, your
real firearm, to behave realistically, cycle
the action with each trigger pull. Because it
does that, you can interrupt that operating cycle
in various ways and get a pretty realistic response.
So to take the malfunction clearance drills,
there are four malfunctions clearance drills
that have some kind of an immediate clearance.
procedure that will clear the gun for the next
shot. So very early on in 2016 or 17, we, and
I was deep into this, we didn't rest until we
found ways of replicating all four of these malfunctions
with cool fire. And if you look at our YouTube
channel, I think we still have some of those
old videos out there. So if you take a stovepipe
malfunction, which is formerly known as a failure
to eject, You can replicate the same thing with
cool fire training. You simply take a dummy round
or an empty casing and peel the slide back and
put the dummy round or the casing against the
breech face and let it close on the barrel and
then start the drill. So whether you like to
rack the slide to release the round and feed
the next one in the chamber, as would happen
in live fire, or sweep across the top of the
pistol and sweep the... the unejected casing
out of the way. It works the same way with cool
fire as it does with live fire. And then you
can just continue firing because that's when
the firing pin will actually reach the activation
striker in our system and give you the cycling.
The next malfunction, failure to fire. That's
when you get a click instead of a bang, either
because you have an empty chamber or because
your ammunition is bad. Typically, the primer
is too hard or there's something wrong with it.
So the way that you can simulate that with CoolFire
Trainer is by taking, and this will vary from
gun to gun, but you can take a piece of debris
that's just the right size and put it between
the back of the CoolFire barrel and the breech
phase. And what you will, in fact, create is
a little gap. So when you pull the trigger, the
firing pin will protrude beyond the breech face,
but it will not reach what it needs to reach
in our system to activate the recoil. So you
will get a click, just like you would if you
put a dummy around in your magazine and live
fire, put the mag in and feed it in the chamber,
pull the trigger, get a click. And the way you
clear it... traditionally in live fire is you
tap and rack tap the magazine and rack the slide
or smash and rip as some instructors call it
the same thing works with cool fire when you
tap the magazine smash it and as you rack the
slide that piece of debris will fall out and
now the breech face will uh will go fully into
into battery and you can then fire the next shot
so that's your failure to fire drill The double
feed malfunction or failure to extract, that's
when there are two cartridges trying to occupy
the same chamber. Typically, when you fire a
round and the extractor slips over the remove
the casing and the casing is still in the barrel,
but the slide is trying to feed a new round into
the chamber. So in live fire, the way you would
resolve that is typically you would do tap rack
and it will not resolve it. So you then proceed
to remove the magazine. rack the slide several
times to get that casing out of the chamber,
reinsert the mag, rack the slide, and then continue
firing as necessary. With Cool Fire Trainer,
the way that you can replicate that is you simply
take an empty magazine for your pistol, and you
take a dummy round, and you put the dummy round
in the magazine. And when you fire a shot, that
dummy round will get stuck between that no man's
land space, between the magazine, and the bottom
of the cool fire trainer mechanism and the same
behavior will follow that if you tap the magazine
and rack the slide it will not resolve the problem
you will be forced to remove the magazine at
which point the the dummy round will typically
roll out and then you come you proceed to complete
the drill rack the slide several times reinsert
the mag rack the slide again and fire a shot
by the way if you have an empty magazine if you
rack the slide it will lock back so we provide
magazine inserts with cool fire trainer this
is the tap rack training aid for those who are
familiar it's essentially a a little baby follower
that pushes the magazine's follower down and
prevents slide long so if you have one of these
tap rack training aid inserts in your magazine
and put a dummy around on top of it you can perform
the uh the double feed malfunction drill And
furthermore, you cannot reliably replicate a
double feed malfunction in live fire on the range
if you're a trainer and you want to set it up
for your student. But with Cool Fire Trainer,
you can do what I call the dog bowl drill. So
imagine you have a dog bowl and you put a couple
of mags in. One is an empty mag with the insert.
It gives you the continuous shooting. And another
magazine has the dummy round. And you close your
eyes and you shuffle the mags in the dog bowl
and you pick a magazine. Half the time you will
get the double feed malfunction and the other
half the time you will get continuous shooting.
So you can train yourself to deal with a malfunction
that is a surprise to you when it happens. And
that is uniquely a cool fire benefit. That doesn't
happen even in live fire, certainly not reliably.
Yeah, I'd like to talk about some of the accessories
like the rapid fill adapter and the extend a
shot and also the simulator for the PC. You can
talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, that'd
be great. So a cool fire trainer is an engine
that converts your firearm for what we call semi
-automatic dry fire. And it's compatible with
various accessories that further enhance its
utility. As I mentioned, the barrel of the cool
fire trainer barrel is the reservoir, the fuel
tank for CO2. So if you have a decent sized pistol,
like a Glock 17 or a 5 -inch 1911, then the internal
volume of that barrel is how many shots you will
have powered by CO2. So you get typically a magazine's
worth of shots, like 17 and Glock 17 or 20 or
even 25 in a 1911 or 2011. But if you have a
small pistol, like a Sig 365, you might get about
10 or 12 shots, which is about a mag's worth,
but it may be a little disappointing. We call
that a California magazine's worth. Yes, yes,
indeed. I used to live in New York City, so that's
still above the seven rounds that you get in
NYC. So if you want to extend the capacity of
this native fuel tank that you have constrained
by the volume of the barrel, you can get what
we call capacity extenders. There are two flavors.
One is called the rapid fill adapter, and the
other one is called an extender shot. So the
extender shot is essentially a mock suppressor.
And it adds about four inches to the length of
your gun. It really does look like a suppressor.
We actually provided it for some movie makers
to use in some movies or perhaps TV shows in
a suppressor scene. And that screws into the
barrel and it essentially extends the volume
capacity of the barrel to... by another 40 shots
so combined with the barrel you get a total of
50 60 sometimes 70 shots so you fill your pistol
uh with cool fire trainer and it takes about
five seconds and you have more than a box of
ammunition in the gun and you can be very very
productive with your training the rapid fill
adapter is uh is a shortened version that adds
about one and three quarter inches to the length
of your pistol so if you started with a glock
19 you might end up with a something that looks
like a glock 34. And if you have an open front
holster, you can then put your pistol in the
holster and simply lift the gun just a little
bit higher when you're drawing because the gun
is now a little bit longer. And you get the same
volume extension by about 40 shots in addition
to whatever shots you had in the barrel. So typically
about 50, 60, sometimes 70 shots per fill. So
if you want to look cool like James Bond and,
you know, use the extender shot that looks like
the mock suppressor. And on a more serious point,
many people are actually taking advantage of
the new rules on suppressor acquisition. So if
you want to train with your pistol and see what
it would be like to draw it from a pistol, maybe
from a shoulder holster, then the extender shot,
mock suppressor, cool fire trainer, capacity
extender will allow you to train that way. But
for most people, the rapid fill adapter, is more
convenient because it makes your pistol only
one and three quarter inches longer and it's
just easier to manage with holster draws and
reholstering. These are the capacity extenders.
I think that the rapid -fill adapter is actually
the one I should be getting. We don't know when
or if we're going to get suppressors in California,
but it also probably has a more analogous feel
to the gun because you're not putting the weight
out front, so the balance isn't going to be too
affected. And I do like the idea of adding that
to my G17 because I don't have that product yet,
so I definitely want to get that. I did notice
on your accessories that you can do it with and
without lasers. Do all of the products work with
and without lasers? Yes, yes, they do. But let
me reassure you on the weight and the center
of gravity of your pistol. So our mock suppressor,
the extender shot, it looks like a suppressor,
but it is very, very lightweight because we hollow
it out as much as we can to maximize the internal
volume for CO2. So the center of gravity of your
pistol will not change with either one. So if
you want to be romantic and get that James Bond
suppressor, then go right ahead. It's fine. You'll
train in the privacy of your home. and you can
treat yourself. Well, I'll put something out
there for people, too, that if you want to use
the extended shot, then a product that we saw
at SHOT Show made by ORPAZ, that's O -R -P -A
-Z holsters, they had the first, what I thought
was good quality, viable, suppressor -focused
pistol holster out there. you know maybe it's
time for an upgrade on your holster too and go
with the or pods and then made it with your gun
and the extended shot but you're also going to
talk about now i think your new simulator that
you have yes indeed so uh lasers and simulators
so We make simulated recoil kits for pistols
and about 180 different models and you can either
have a what we call a muzzle laser that screws
into the muzzle that adds about an inch or two
the length of your barrel so it's just a little
bit longer than a threaded barrel would be or
you have the rapid fill adapter or the extender
shot extenders that we just talked about with
a laser at the end. And the lasers come, we also
make a simulated recoil kit called the Sidekick
for the AR -15 rifle that has a laser inside.
inside the chamber of the rifle. And these lasers
come in two main flavors. One is that they are
visible red lasers where your eyes can see the
laser hits and some electronic targets and some
camera -based targets can also see the red laser.
For example, the Mantis Laser Academy requires
the visible red laser because you are using your
smartphone camera. The other type of laser is
an infrared laser. So your eyes cannot see those
hits, but there are some targets that require
it. So many camera -based targets, you know,
we have a projector screen simulator projected
on a screen in a kind of movie theater type setting.
They typically require an infrared laser because
they have an infrared camera that scans the hit.
So we have infrared lasers available. And they
work with various simulators on the market, including
our own simulator that we introduced recently.
You can see the full details on our website.
It's a simulator package with some marksmanship
scenarios that have excellent analytics. So if
you are into looking at your shot placement,
at your split times, and really review what your
performance was, and you want to do the same
drill. and really get to the cutting edge of
where you can be with your performance, that
our simulator is truly excellent with those analytics.
That's how it stands out on the market. Very
good. And will you have that at the NRA show
next week, the demo? Yes, we presented it at
multiple shows, including SHOT Show in January,
and we'll have it at the NRA show that's coming
up next week, yes. I think you should go back
to TACCON to tell you the truth. I do. I think
that this would be a great ad. I just got back
from TACCON. We'll talk about that in another
show. But I mean, I think that you could have
a session there that would be very, very productive
for you because you've got all those national
level trainers who show up who maybe aren't experienced
with it. And you've got a very, very serious
audience. I think you should insert yourself
into that again. Yes, indeed. And, you know,
trainers are an excellent audience for us because
they can appreciate the topic that I wanted to
evolve a little bit. You asked me about how trainers
can use Schoolfire Trainer. And I mentioned that
they can basically work with an individual in
the comfort and safety of a classroom or being
off range. Let me mention this. A typical reaction
that we get at trade shows is that, oh, this
is an excellent training tool for beginners who
are scared of, you know, flinching, who are scared
of the sound of recall and so on and so forth.
And that's not wrong. It is, a cool fire trainer
is an excellent training tool for beginners.
So if you have somebody in your life, perhaps
a relative or, you know, a teenager that you
want to train up, cool fire is an excellent way
of doing it. But I would submit that CoolFire
Trainer allows you to train not just the beginner,
but also intermediate skills and also advanced
level skills. Earlier in this segment, we talked
about the malfunction clearance drills, and I
forgot to mention the failure to go into battery
drill. There's a way to set that up as well.
So I consider, and I'm certified as an instructor
under Masada Yub Group for LiFire, malfunction
clearance drills are, typically taught as a intermediate
type curriculum, that they are not taught in
beginner classes because you don't want to overwhelm
the student. So because you can teach the malfunction
clearance drills in a classroom setting, either
by choice or by necessity, you know, we've all
been to the range when it started raining and
thundering and the little league app told you
that lightning was a little too close and you
had to retreat to the clubhouse and just wait.
Training can continue even in that kind of environment
by teaching intermediate topics that we talked
about. But you can also teach advanced topics.
And let me give you a couple of examples. If
you want to do something like one -handed reloads
where you simulate that you've been shot in one
arm, you only have one hand available and you
need to reload your pistol. You drop the magazine
and you place the pistol somewhere on your body
between your knees or in your holster reverse
or in your belt or whatever else. You use your
good hand to insert a new magazine in the gun
and then you pick up the pistol and you rack
the slide somewhere. Some versions of these drills
you come pretty close to pointing the gun at
your own body, at your feet, at your knees, perhaps
at your hips. Or shooting from awkward positions,
shooting from supine or shooting when you're
lying on your side, when you need to take care
of where the gun is pointed relative to your
feet. Those are advanced skills. And if you can
train with your students, with their own real
firearm that behaves realistically and yet is
rendered safe, and confirm that they mastered
the technique, even under stress, even under
high stress rate, after doing jumping jabs and
push -ups, and, okay, show me that you know how
to do this, and then proceed to live fire, I
submit that that will de -risk the delivery of
your curriculum in advanced topics and allow
trainers to... really work with students until
they have it down pat and only then go to the
live fire range. So whether beginner, intermediate,
or advanced curriculum, a cool fire trainer is
of interest to firearm trainers who are serious
about delivering the best training using the
best tools. And yes, we should deliver this message
to TACCON, definitely. So as we start to finish
out here, Jan, do you have any other topics that
we didn't cover that you want to provide a little
bit more detail for that really distinguish CoolFire
from the rest of the competition or not just
even your competition, but other methodologies
by which a person would train and why they should
really be making the investment in your product,
knowing that it's not the cheapest thing out
there, but it's still frugal in the construct
of the training value you're getting and the
offset in costs like. You know, one thing we
didn't even mention was the ability to train
and then not have to clean your gun. I mean,
how many people, you know, think you can get
500 rounds out of a gun and then, I mean, you
could just put it down and not lube it and not
do anything else. But you don't really, except
for maybe, you know, lubing the rails, you don't
really have to do any maintenance on the gun
except to swap out the barrel. Floor is yours
if you have any other comments or topics that
you want to bring to our listeners' attention.
Yes, indeed. Cool Fire Trainer is an excellent
training tool for people who are time poor and
either money rich or money poor to boot. Because
it will save you money on ammunition, but it
will also save you so much time. We already touched
up on replacing some of your live fire range
visits, and you can train while you're baking
that pizza at home for 20 minutes. But Cool Fire
Trainer keeps your gun clean. So you don't have
to spend time cleaning the gun after a training
session. That appeals to some people. It appeals
to women for some reason because cleaning a firearm
with fingernails getting broken and stuff like
that, it simply is no longer necessary or it's
minimized after the minimized range visits. One
other demographic that really appreciates Cool
Fire Trainer are actually pregnant and breastfeeding
women. Because when you go live fire, you get
exposure to concussive noise, which is obviously
bad for the unborn baby. And with breastfeeding,
there's lead exposure, you know, before and after.
after delivery. So Hull Fire Trainer allows women
who are at that stage of their life to train
with a real firearm without these risks. And
we've had multiple competitive shooters enjoy.
you know, cool fire trainer with a pistol or
rifle in that stage of life. So let me talk a
little more about the rifle. I think that we
focused a lot on our pistol recoil kits for good
reason because that's the first type of recoil
kit that we came up with and it's available in
over 180 different mutations. But the Sidekick
AR -15 recoil kit is truly revolutionary in its
function and just its affordability. I mean,
we talked about the affordability. based on how
much money you're saving on ammunition. 5 .56
ammunition is even more expensive than pistol
ammunition. And it's even easier to shoot many
rounds in a live fire session. So using the cool
fire trainer sidekick where you convert your
AR -15 rifle by changing out the bolt carrier
group and gassing it up with CO2 from your local
supermarket, you get about... 80 to 100 shots
per fill. So you have basically three magazines
worth of ammo for every five seconds of filling
it with CO2. You can train at home. You can do
magazine changes. You can train with no magazine
in your rifle or you can put an empty magazine
and you get one shot to bolt lock. And that will
then force you to reload, to perform an emergency
reload, eject the magazine and replace it with
another magazine. We also provide the TAPREC
training inserts for the rifle magazine. So you
have a choice between training with no magazine,
with the magazine with the insert that allows
you to continue shooting. or an empty mag that
gives you one shot to bolt lock. So once again,
Cool Fire Trainer will cycle the action of your
rifle and make your real firearm behave realistically
and allow you to enjoy the benefits of this training.
So it's even more compelling than with the pistol.
The Cool Fire Trainer Sidekick for your AR -15
is just the best thing out there, and I would
urge everybody to... to take a look at it and
make it the next accessory that they get for
their rifle. And if you want to feel it out,
then join us at the NRA show next week at booth
705. Very good. Are you going to offer any law
enforcement, military discounts, or any other
discounts for our listeners, for example? Just
curious. Yes, yes, we are. We have law enforcement
and military discounts available through our
website. So there is a convenient process to
complete. Basically, submit a photograph of your
ID so that we know that you're bona fide and
then you will get a discount from us. And we
thank you for your service. I am a police academy
graduate, and I very briefly served as a reserve
police officer, so I have a lot of respect for
law enforcement. I come from a military family,
so I have a lot of respect for military as well.
Both segments are our loyal and enthusiastic
customers, so we welcome them with extra enthusiasm.
If the listeners have any follow -up questions
and things like that, besides seeing you at the
NRA show or other types of shows, I don't think
there are other opportunities to demo the product
elsewhere. And a follow -up question to that
would be, if they have other questions, who do
they go to? Our website is coolfiretrainer .com.
Our phone number is on the website. We are in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the Central Time Zone, available
from about 8 .30 in the morning until 4 .30 p
.m. And we are more than happy to get an email
from you at... to support at coolfightrainer
.com. Again, it's on the website or give us a
call on the number that's listed to answer any
questions that you may have on our products or
on just any concerns or questions that you may
have. We have many customers who follow us for
a long time before they make a decision to actually
get it. typically after they actually handled
it in person. So if we can accelerate that process
for you, you know, call us. We'll talk to you.
We'll answer any questions that you may have.
It really is as good as it sounds. It's your
own firearm that gives you simulated recoil by
cycling the action on each trigger pull and fire
as a laser, if that's what you have. Perfect.
Hey, thanks very much, Jan. That was an outstanding
show. And I will reiterate for the purposes of
the audience that I've owned a cool fire for,
gosh, Ken, when did I get that thing? Before
COVID. It was way before COVID. I've had it for
a long time. And I think it's tremendously helped
in my, you know, actual live fire capabilities
and giving me reps where, you know, Ken, you
mentioned this earlier. You know, you and I can't
get to the range all that often. And the ability
to train at home is, you know, invaluable. And
I mean, could you put a price on it? Yeah, I
guess you could. But do I think that the money
invested was worth it? Without a doubt. Without
a doubt. Absolutely. Yeah. So thanks very much,
Jan. You're welcome. My pleasure. Great seeing
you, gentlemen. And I look forward to seeing
you at the next trade show. Thank you for a wonderful
and professionally done podcast for excellent
questions. And I just look forward to the next
time. Thanks very much. Well, listeners, today
we've had an opportunity to speak to Jan at the
Cool Fire. And I think he's given us some really
excellent things to think about. And to be honest
with you. Rather than buying another firearm,
which, of course, we all love to do, I really
think that the next best frugal investment should
be something along the lines of this cool fire
that will really allow us to train at home. Yeah.
And when you think about that, Ken, I mean, how
often do we not go to the range because the range
is too far away or the range is too expensive
or ammunition is too expensive or we don't really
feel like cleaning the gun after we're done?
I mean, this obviates all of those problems.
So, you know, when you think about frugal, I
mean, gosh, what is your time worth, man? It
really does check all the boxes, and you wouldn't
think so just by thinking about it, but to be
honest with you, this really is a way for people
to train. And Rian had mentioned things about
pregnant and children around there, women with
young children are planning on being pregnant.
All of that type of thing was excellent. I hadn't
thought about it. It made a lot of sense. Well,
unexpected, not just because you and I are not
women, but at the same time, I mean, that really
brings a lot of understanding about the value
of when you think about products that are other
than, well, you know what, you know, there's
a new version of the Smith & Wesson Shield that
I need. No, you don't need that. What you need
is get good with the one you've got. So that's
what this product is all about. Next shows coming
up are going to include a very interesting product
that is a customizable target that you would
be able to order in mass. And even in a large
box of like 100 targets, never see the same target
twice. There's a lot of training value and actually
a lot of fun invested in that and a bunch of
other companies that are queuing up to get in.
So give a listen. And don't forget, by the way,
guys, like, subscribe, tell your friends. about
the Frugal Firearms Podcast at frugalfirearmspodcast
.com. And you can reach us at frugalfirearmspodcast
at gmail .com. So that's all I've got tonight.
Ken, anything else? That'll do it. Thank you
all. All right. Good night, folks. I know I've
been piggybacking off Craig's version for years
now, but I'm going to be saving up, and I'm going
to get one myself. Just don't buy another gun,
Ken. Ken, you have enough guns. I know that.
Just buy a cool fire, man. It's the collector
mentality. I'm a licensed collector. And, of
course, you're saving up money for your next
big purchase, and then something comes up. It's
like, oh, that is such a good deal. I can't pass
that up. So you end up blowing it all there.