Maybe this is me, but I have yet to buy in or become particularly, uh, enamored
with, uh, any sort of red dot on a handgun.
I don't know why.
Well, okay.
But yeah, you do know why.
Well, you have thoughts of why.
I have thoughts of why.
Okay.
Welcome to episode two.
That's right.
Episode two of the frugal firearms podcast, the podcast designed to help you
get the most out of your shooting dollar.
I'm here with my cohost Ken.
Ken, say hello to our listeners.
Hello listeners.
I appreciate you guys tuning in to listen to us today.
Ken, what are we doing here?
Why are we here?
Why are we spending our Sunday recording something when we could be, you
know, doing something else?
Spending is the operative term there.
I mean, this is frugal firearms and what we want to get is we'd like to get
value for the dollars that we spend.
So, uh, we're here to talk about some of the things that we consider
to be high value items.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And if you, uh, if you dear listeners haven't checked out our first two
episodes, uh, episode one and episode zero, um, the collector's edition, that
was actually a beta that we decided came out pretty good.
So we posted it to all the different, uh, podcast aggregators.
What we want to do here is we want to highlight the idea that you can get more
for your dollar if you listen to our advice, uh, and if you don't like our
advice, um, you can contact us at frugal firearms podcast that's firearms plural.
So frugal firearms podcast at gmail.com.
And we also hope that you will like and subscribe on the various podcast, um,
distribution, uh, networks, according to which one you prefer, because that
helps more and more people see the show.
Uh, and that'll help us sustain the show.
Absolutely.
So what are we going to talk about today?
Oh, well, I guess for the first thing that I do is talk about our disclaimer.
Right.
So I'm not a lawyer.
I don't play one on TV.
Are you a lawyer?
I play one on TV.
I'm an engineer and, and you're, you're an IT engineer.
So yeah, no.
So if you listeners think that what we're talking about is, uh,
legally sustainable advice.
No, you're wrong.
Um, and, and if you need legal advice, either concerning the legality of products
that we talk about in your area or our perspectives on self-defense or, uh, any
other topic that we might meander into, because this is a pretty free form show.
Yep.
Yeah.
That that with your local lawyer.
Uh, and by the way, I do mean local lawyer.
And why would I say that?
I would say that because, uh, different municipalities have different local
rules and what may not get you in trouble at the state level might get
you in trouble at a different level.
Absolutely.
There's local, state, federal, and international.
And we were close to the Mexican border down here.
Yes, we are.
We will never cross the international border with any firearm or firearm related item.
You know, that's, that's an interesting thing.
You know, in Mexico, I have a friend who does have a property in Mexico and as
an American, and he does have approval to bring, you know, uh, have a weapon in Mexico.
Mexico has in their constitution, the right to own firearms, the way they manage
the problem to keep people from owning firearms.
I mean, people who are not drug cartel people, let's just get that out of the way.
They get anything they want.
They get whatever they want.
Yeah.
And some of it shipped in from the United States with government support.
Yeah.
Uh, thank you, Eric.
Yeah.
Holder.
Yes.
They have, they have one gun store in the country and it's in Mexico City.
So if you want a gun, yep, you have the right to go buy a gun and you have to
get yourself to Mexico City to do it.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Uh, the city of 9 million people, you're going to go down there and you got to
travel there from all over the country is huge.
It's a huge country.
I mean, it's not as big as the U S but it's still, yeah, it comes from some
distance.
It's a substantial piece of property.
Absolutely.
And, uh, and the, you are not allowed to own a firearm that has a military caliber.
Right.
So, uh, but again, a lot of the share the drug cartels and they, right.
Okay.
You have to finish that out.
You seek the appropriate legal advice if you need it folks, because this show
is about our opinions and our opinions only and no one else's.
So I wanted to thank the people who have, uh, early adopted us and who have
already subscribed and listened.
I'm able to look at the analytics on that.
And I thought it was interesting when I started looking at the heat map of, of
who's been listening and the age groups and genders and so on.
The thing that struck me was this big dot right in South Central Kansas.
And I thought, why are there so many people in South Central Kansas turning
into the tuning into the show Heartland of America.
So I zoomed in on it and it's in the middle of a reservoir.
They live on a houseboat.
Yeah.
And all of them, right.
They're, they're in the, the, they're right in the middle of the Cheney reservoir.
And I thought, okay, something's wrong here.
It turns out that that's the geographic center of the country.
And this is for people who listen to the show and didn't put their city in.
So that's fine.
So that, yeah, but all you people listening on the houseboat in Cheney reservoir.
Thank you.
So I realized that when in listening, you know, in editing the last two shows that
I didn't exactly keep to my word.
I said that we were going to cover some topics that we didn't because this is a
free form show and in the 45 minutes to an hour we're talking.
Lots of rabbit holes to go down.
Yeah.
We just forgot.
So let's, let's kind of catch up on that.
Um, I mentioned that I was going to talk about ammunition pricing.
Yeah.
Uh, a good website for that.
And there are several, I think there's one called ammo.com.
There's a, there's a few others, but my favorite one that I would recommend to
listeners is ammo seek.com.
Ammo seek is, is good because you can dial in exactly what you want in terms of,
uh, not just caliber, but grains, how much shipping you want to pay.
And perhaps you don't want to pay any shipping, um, whether it has brass or
steel cases and you can get very, very particular and then find the best
pricing on ammunition.
So for, for anybody who can have ammunition shipped directly to them, which
I think is most of the country right now, but not the people's Republic of California.
Not here.
No, not here on the left coast.
Not here.
Uh, but here you can, what you can do.
Uh, here you can use a firearms dealer who also has a California ammunition
license, which is by the way, a separate thing.
Uh, but if they have a California ammunition resales license, they can
receive the shipment for you.
You're going to have to obviously pay them for their trouble and their, and
legitimately for their time to do that.
But you can still get ammunition at a much lower cost than probably going down
to the, you know, whatever other limited source you have.
I'm so looking forward to the Bruin decisions and the Supreme
Court and the Heller decision striking down so much of this and getting back to.
Freedom.
We used to have it here in this country.
Used to have it here in the state.
Yeah, we did.
We did.
Well, you know, I've had, I had that conversation with someone else this
morning too, on a slightly different subject about whether or not it's better
to avoid being involved in organizations or in areas where you're losing
or whether it's better to stay in fight and basically get in behind enemy lines.
And, you know, I respect both perspectives on that.
So amuseek.com is a great place to go look, uh, to find ammunition at a lower
cost or look for calibers that maybe you don't have available locally.
And that's an opportunity that you'll want to take.
If you use a lot of ammunition, you buy it in bulk.
Uh, you can save a lot of money that way.
Someday we're going to have to talk about reloading because reloading is one
of the things that I do and I enjoy.
And, uh, the fact that you can save 50 cents or 50% to maybe two thirds on the
cost of, uh, ammunition, most ammunition.
And the other advantage is the fact that you can load up a very specific, uh,
bullet weight with a very specific amount of powder that's flat out not
available commercially anywhere.
So, uh, but to do that and do it well, you really got to get into it with
the chronograph and range time.
And, and every rifle, even if you have two identical rifles, they behave
differently due to the barrels and all sorts of things, but it's
a really fun thing to do.
Yeah.
And that's part of the value of, of the activity.
Remember, you know, this is the frugal firearms podcast and, you know, the
focus is on value, but there's a construct of value that is what's the entertainment
value, not just the monetary value.
Absolutely.
And, and the satisfaction that you get from doing something on your own that
maybe you did better than you could go by in the store.
Yep.
So, uh, I agree.
That's going to be something that, uh, probably you'll lead the topic on that
Ken, because you have experience in that area and I don't, but when we get to that
point, that is something definitely worth covering.
The other thing major faux pas on my part, uh, was not covering the value ratings
because we said that we're going to get value ratings to the various, uh, things
that we review on the show.
And then we just ran right away from that and didn't do any of it.
So we're going to catch up a little bit and hopefully, you know, if we fail
to do that in the future, uh, readers or listeners out there will remind us of
that and get us back on track.
So how are we going to do that?
We're going to do a Likert scale.
You know, that's the one of those famous, fun words.
We said it was a one to 10 scale.
So, okay, one to 10 scale.
One to 10 scale.
And the one, and the one to 10 scale is what?
The one to 10 scale is not just the, uh, the quality of the thing.
It's the value proposition of the thing.
All right.
So a very inexpensive thing might rate highly and the best in class
might actually rate poorly.
Sure.
So a one, a one, uh, star or a one, uh, wouldn't call it a star, but that
would be a not so great and then all the way up to 10, which would be
considered to be an excellent value.
Exactly.
And I'm going to start off with one of the first things that I reviewed,
which was the Athlon Talos BTR, uh, low power variable optic, which is a one to four.
And I, you know, made a great case out of why I think that's an excellent value.
The fact that the, uh, the visual field is very, very flat, which to me as a
photographer is a very important thing and then completely forgot about giving it a rating.
Is it an illuminated reticle?
It is an illuminated reticle.
And the way they did the illumination, I actually liked to a little better
than other reticle.
Sometimes you only have essentially a very small dot or you have the
entire area illuminated.
Uh, I actually kind of prefer a hybrid approach to that, but the amount of the
range of light that you can get out of it, I think it's to me, it's spot on.
Right.
Cause a lot of people would question, why do you want a one power scope?
Well, you know, the reason I like a one power scope and it is pretty darn close to
you.
If you ever hear one power scope, can I put quotes around that?
Because a one power scope is not, it's sometimes like 0.9 or 1.1.
Uh, it's close enough.
The reason that I think a one power scope is good is if your
distance vision isn't perfect.
Yeah.
Because you can then adapt the scope to account for your less than perfect vision.
Now my right eye is 2015, so I have really good distance vision in my right eye.
My left eye is not quite as good and I'm right eyed and I'm right eye dominant.
As am I.
But the, the fact is that I can still get a much better view through a prism scope
or through a traditional glass scope, even at one power.
So it also helps, you know, literally narrow your, not that you want a wide
field of view, but it does tend to focus you put quotes around focus.
It focuses your attention exactly.
And that's why it's a value.
And the ranges I shoot, I don't really need more than four power.
Um, we're going to cover a scope in a future show, uh, which is going to be a
three to 15 power that, well, it just isn't available in less than three to 15 power.
But for its purpose, I think it still fits the bill of being a value proposition.
But the nice thing about the, the Talos, you know, even though it is essentially
the bottom of the, of the Athlon line, it's, you remember, it's not just about
the product, it's about the company behind the product.
And I managed to break one.
I managed to knock the reticle loose out of the scope inside the interior side
the scope and you just type from the outside, right?
Yeah.
Disassemble it.
And that's optical quality.
And you, yeah.
It wasn't, I wouldn't say that it was a super hard hit.
I, it, it also wasn't gross negligence.
I didn't drop the thing out of a helicopter.
I didn't run over it with the truck, but the reticle came loose
and needed to be replaced.
I sent it into them and in no time at all, they had a new one back to me.
That's excellent customer service.
And even on a budget scope.
So they probably lost money on the entire deal because there's probably not enough
profit margin, but they still covered the product and honored the warranty.
So reputation means something to them and that's an excellent quality.
So I'm giving that, I'm giving that scope at nine.
I'm giving that a solid nine, 10 by the way, for me is going to be really hard to get.
Okay.
Now we're going to talk about the also previously discussed
Smith and Wesson shield.
Shield.
What are we both on Ken?
We both on shields.
I actually, yeah, there's the gen one shield.
The other interesting thing is they're not only gen one shields, they are California
edition gen one shields.
And one of the odd things about that is California requires a chamber flag indicator.
So most of the shields that you'll see in the 49 other states or other parts of the
country, they just have a, like a little peephole that's drilled right at the base of
the, of the base of the cartridge as it's in the, in the, in the, in the, in the
cartridge as it's inside the chamber.
And you can kind of look down in it, you see a little tiny peephole.
And if you see brass in there, then obviously you've got a round in there.
California required a little pop-up flag, which pops up this little like red flag
sticks up about a three quarters of an inch long and it rotates up and it's a,
actually it's one of the odd things that I actually like.
And the reason why I like it is it's tactile and I can feel it in them in, in
complete utter darkness.
If I were to grab my shield and the complete darkness, I wouldn't have to go,
is it loaded or not?
I mean, I can't see down.
It's too dark.
I can't see the through the little peephole, but I can just feel across there.
And if it's tactically up, then I can, I know instantly that it's a, that it's a
loaded chamber.
So would you say that the, now knowing that both of us own 1.0 is not 2.0 is
not 2.0 is the standard one.
I've seen the 2.0.
I think that the value proposition for the 2.0 is about equal to the 1.0.
I mean, my got mine for just frankly north of $200 and it was new.
Yeah.
Now they cost more.
Not surprising.
Now, what would be the basis for value proposition of a shield?
You'd have to compare it to other competitive things out there.
We do.
I was incredibly impressed at its accuracy.
The first time I took out my shield, I was firing just your Winchester
white box ball ammunition, target ammunition, nine millimeter, 115 grain.
And I was, this thing only has like a three inch barrel, a little under three
inches, I think I'd have to look at the specs and I was basically firing at
milk jugs full of water at a distance of about 75 to 80 yards and hitting them
every single time with basically a concealed carry gun, which I was
anticipating was going to have far less accuracy than it had.
So from that perspective, I was extremely impressed.
And I, my experience and remember listeners, I'm not the best shot out there.
Actually with my Glock, I am.
You've had that forever.
Yeah.
With my, with my Glock, I'm, I even surprised myself how good I am.
And with my shield, I'm less good.
So I think that for me, the, the value proposition on the shield is
perhaps maybe a little less.
Now I did a comparison yesterday on handgun hero.
You know what handgun hero is?
Let's talk about it.
Handgunhero.com is another recommended site.
If you're interested in, in comparing visually and in a very easy way by
doing electronic overlays of the size of guns, you can compare any two guns
you want and change the opacity of whatever gun you're looking at on top
and make it disappear or, or become a hundred percent.
You can look at the both sides and the back of the gun.
And if you're, if size is a concern on, on your carry gun, it's the site to go to,
but they also list prices.
And I verified that against another recommended site, which is gun.deals,
which I mentioned last time.
Yep.
And the shield is running less consistently less than to me, what the,
the best in class for me is the Glock 43.
True.
So to me now, again, a lot of people I'd say, well, what about the Hellcat?
Well, sure.
Or, you know, what about the Taurus makes some, some good nine millimeter
or the Ruger offerings or I mean the Hellcat is more expensive for certain.
Uh, probably because I'm a Glock guy and I actually think the trigger on the,
and this is going to horrify a lot of people.
I think the Glock 43 trigger is actually very, very good.
At least it's very, very good for a Glock.
To me, that's the class lead.
To me, that's the class leader and looking at the street prices of that,
you can save, I think around a hundred dollars getting the shield.
I believe so.
And, and sadly the 43, since we again, live here on the left coast here in the
people's Republic of California, and we love to be goose-stepping with the governor.
Um, is that 43 available here on the primary market here in the state of California?
Not to me.
It's not, no, not to you either.
It is a law enforcement.
Of course, law enforcement.
Right.
And of course they do come up on the secondary market, which is where a law
enforcement officer who purchases one of these things, uh, legally fine.
And they've shoot it for awhile and they decide that, you know what?
They just don't like it that much.
And then they end up selling it on the secondary market.
And when they do, it's perfectly legal then to buy it on the secondary market.
It's also perfectly legal to make it really, really, really, really expensive
on the secondary market.
Which is what they do.
Yeah.
They typically double to triple the price.
So say it costs $500, just brand new in almost any other state in California.
If you buy the same thing on the secondary market, it'll be somewhere
between a thousand and $1,500.
Yeah.
Not going there.
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
It's the only way to legally acquire some of these guns because in the
state of California, we still have the roster, the handgun roster.
There's not been a new handgun added since 2013.
Jackie, my watch, that's 10 years.
So all those great handguns you've seen on the cover of guns and ammo and
the NRA magazines and everything else, we don't get them in California,
at least unless you're in law enforcement.
And remember, if you haven't listened to earlier editions of the show, and
let's say you're new to the show and you're thinking, why are these
morons living in California?
It's because the value quote proposition and quote of our lives indicate that
California right now, at least is the place that we want to be.
And I mentioned the whole stand and fight thing earlier.
So, you know.
California is a beautiful state.
It is.
Beautiful coastline, mountains.
It's got beautiful weather.
It's got forests.
It's got Yosemite.
It's got some of the best things.
Taxes and fees and income tax and property tax and sales tax.
Yes.
And it's run by insane politicians.
That's right.
And we are one party state.
And by that means there really is no, there's no Republican representation.
There's Republicans in the Senate and in the state legislature, but they
basically have almost no effect because two thirds of the entire legislature is
run by the single party, the Democrat, left wing of the Democrat.
That's insanity.
Yep, it is.
So, but let's not, we're not doing a political show.
No, we're not.
We're not doing that.
And remember, and by the way, our Democrat friends out there, and I
actually mean that, I mean, that sounds...
We have Democratic friends.
Yeah, it sounds...
We're family members.
It sounds sarcastic to say that.
And I really mean it.
I mean, I have close family, you know, intelligent people who I
simply just don't agree with.
So, you know, you guys, that didn't sound right.
People on the left, people who don't agree with our perspective, as long as
they agree with the idea that self-defense is a fundamental human right.
It's a fundamental natural right.
Are welcome to...yes, you're right.
Yeah.
Natural right.
Natural right to all animals, all animals, including human beings,
have a right to self-defense.
It is a natural, we could say, God-given right.
So no matter, no matter what you identify yourself as, you still have a right to
self-defense and you're welcome on this show, if, by the way, if money is also
an issue and you want to save it.
Okay.
So we've covered...
So what's your number for the shield?
My number for the shield is very good.
I would have to properly say a seven to an eight.
And the only reason it would have been higher when if all we were
looking at were Gen ones, it probably would have been an eight to a nine.
But now that the Gen twos are out and better than that, a gun that we, another
gun we can't get, which is the shield plus, which is basically the same thing
as the shield, except instead of using a single stack magazine like was
what we have in California, it has a staggered stack magazine, which gives
you, I think 12 rounds instead of the maximum 10 or eight that we get.
I think it's just eight that we get in our existing one.
So you pick up like another four rounds with a staggered on the shield plus.
And the nice thing with the shield plus is it does fit in all of the
existing holsters for your shield.
Cause it just fattens up the grip by about a, not even a quarter inch or something.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a, I'm looking at it right now on gun.deals.
It's a 10 round.
Um, and the price point is still running about 10% less or so than, than Glock 43.
Yeah.
And that's 10 rounds with, with the standard length magazine.
If you, if you do the extended magazine, you pick up probably another two rounds.
So it's probably like 12.
I guess I'm going to get, I was thinking about giving it a seven.
I think, I think maybe since they've maintained the price advantage, I, I
guess I'd have to go with an eight.
I guess if it was the, if it was a Glock 43 for this, then at the same, if it
was cost competitive with, with the Glock 43, I think it'd probably fall to about
six in my estimation only because of the price advantage and the fact that they
really are advancing the model.
They are.
And they've done a great job.
I mean, the trigger on the, on the shields is very, very good.
Even the gen ones I have held.
I don't think it's a good thing.
I have held, I don't think it's better than a Glock 43.
Well, to be honest with you, I have not actually gotten the fire or Glock 43.
I did actually get to see one, hold one in another state.
That's why you should have gone to the shot show because you could have
dropped at least dry fired these.
That's true.
True point.
So, okay.
The next item up is, is a me item.
It's the LaRue, uh, MBT, uh, two S trigger, which I mentioned last time, which
is a, a parts kit trigger, not a drop in trigger for the AR 15 and, and variance
thereof, uh, that's a, that's a straight up 10 to me, that is as good as any two
stage trigger I've ever felt.
And I'm a two stage guy and the price point on it, it's crept up over time.
Understandably, there's something called inflation that perhaps a few of you have
heard of, but at the same time, I haven't seen anything cost competitive with it.
That is it's equal.
Uh, we'll see that new trigger tech drop in trigger that has a price point of
around $150, I wouldn't say would be the LaRue killer, but it's going to be, it's
going to give them a quote run for their money.
You know, I tried it at shot, uh, just sitting on the test stand.
And I would say that at the price point, that is the best drop in two stage trigger.
So again, the LaRue though, that I actually own straight up 10.
You have a gun to cover Ken.
Taurus 856, um, Taurus 856 is they make it a couple of different variants, but
the, the one that I acquired was stainless steel.
I liked the Taurus, uh, they used to have a bad reputation, but they've
gotten quite a bit better.
The nice thing, if a firearm was available in blue steel and also for a 20 or $40,
$50 increase, you can buy it in stainless steel.
I almost 99.9% of the time we'll, we'll opt for the $50 more expensive.
One to have it in stainless steel, just because I prefer the additional durability.
I mean, you can still rust stainless steel, so you want to keep it, you
know, clean and oil and stuff, but it's just a little bit more forgiving,
particularly in those environments where you might have high humidity.
Now we do not have high humidity in Southern California, uh, for the most part,
but again, uh, it's, it's just a nice little feature to have, if you ask me.
And there are some firearms that are available in the future.
If you want a black or dark one, they do have a stainless steel that's been blacked out.
They have like a melomite or Mela Mela.
I can't think of any of it.
It's a coating over the stainless steel to make it black.
Actually all the state, all of the M and P, uh, M and P Smith and Wessons,
which have the M and P shield and the M and P full size.
Those are actually stainless steel slides that have a black, uh, melanin,
melanin, melanite coating on it, whatever.
Well, it's not the stuff that, it's not the stuff that comes out of the
stuff that covers your kitchen counters.
No, no, no.
Yeah.
I can't think.
I've got to look it up.
That's melomite.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's a, it's a black coating that goes over stainless steel.
If you don't want that bright white steel, sort of a look to it.
But anyway, with the Taurus, uh, 856, uh, we had an opening of a local gun store
that opened here in San Diego recently and, uh, was able to pick one up for $299,
which I think is a tremendous value proposition.
Uh, came with a couple of grips, came with a wood grip and it came with a
polymer grip to it and it had a very decent, it's a six shot, 38 special
plus P rated, uh, which to be honest with you is, is very, very good for a home defense.
It was recommended.
I recommended it to a friend of mine who, uh, is a, is a widow now and she wanted
to get a firearm, a first firearm type of deal, and I was so impressed with it
that I bought one myself, which is high praise right there.
And that will definitely show in my increased, uh, rating for it when we get there.
So what do you rate it at?
I don't, I don't own one, so I, I'm not qualified to rate that.
I rate that as a solid nine.
I think it's an excellent value.
They make it in several variants.
They make it in a two, like two and a half inch or two and a quarter
inch is what I'd probably have on the snub nose.
They also make it three inch and four inch, I believe.
I think almost any variant of it is perfect.
You can buy a reduced power springs in it.
The springs are pretty, are pretty, uh, decent.
In other words, the trigger pole is pretty long and pretty, but it's very smooth,
very smooth, but it's a, it's probably got like an eight pound trigger pole,
which is fine on a revolver because you're rotating the cylinder
as well as cocking the hammer.
So that's quite a bit, but you can also put in, uh, different springs to reduce
that if you want, and you can do quite a bit of gunsmithing with it.
And there's a lot of, ton of different grips out there available.
Hogue makes one actually I did buy the Hogue grip added to it.
Liked it very much and it's gone into my, into my carry repertoire.
So good stuff.
So the next I, Oh, and what, oh, you, did you give it a number?
Was I not listening to you?
You gave it a nine.
Okay.
Gosh, I got, I got distracted there for a minute.
Um, I am going to now, well, actually we're both going to talk about
the AR seven that we reviewed now.
I think this is maybe what we're going to have our first disagreement
during this show about the value proposition of the air seven.
So if you don't know, uh, and you didn't listen to the previous episode,
air seven is a breakdown survival rifle that all stores in the stock.
Uh, it floats when it floats and, and, um, it's a fun little gun, but, uh,
I got mine, mine happens to be a Charger Arms, which dates it a lot because
it's about 30 years or so more than 30 years, 35, something like that.
35 years.
It's been a long time since I bought that and I bought it for well, less than
a hundred dollars and I don't know if it was audible on the podcast, but I just
pulled up the prices for those and I kind of gasped.
Almost 400 bucks.
Uh, yeah, or more than 400.
And that is astounding, uh, disappointing and I don't think sustainable and, and
Henry doesn't build rifles at a very fast rate right now, so I don't even know.
Henry build some great stuff though.
God.
Well, first let's talk about your Charger Arms version of it.
Okay.
The air seven and I highly, I like to buy since we're talking about frugal
and getting value, I'm very big into buying used firearms.
Okay.
But not everyone has that.
I mean, so where would you go for that?
You go to gunbroker.com or grab a gun or something like that.
Or just down to your local gun store.
I constantly am going through the racks at gun stores around town, uh, looking
at what comes in and the other thing is pawn shops, not all pawn shops you
can pawn a firearm at, but, uh, many of them do have that.
Pawn shops are a great place.
And the great thing about pawn shops are pawn shop will almost always
list the firearm at the current brand new price and it's like, well, they
want $500 for it or whatever the price might be.
Uh-huh.
Pawn shops are a suggestion.
You're like, nah, I'm not, I don't want to do that.
I will give you and cash speaks volumes at a pawn shop.
You can walk into a pawn shop and I've gotten 30, 40% off certain things
because you can sit there and go, Hey, that's unusual.
It's weird.
It's going to sit there for a year.
You wouldn't you prefer just that you, you bought it for 25 cents on the dollar.
Wouldn't you like to sell it for 50 cents on a dollar?
You're making money.
But isn't that, I mean, doesn't like if someone sells them, I don't know, a
Faberge egg or something like that, that they can't move.
There are unscrupulous things and there are people who, yeah, there are weird
things.
Okay.
But I mean, don't guns move right off the shelf at a pawn shop?
I mean, sometimes they sit there a long, long time.
Okay.
I don't, I don't frequent pawn shops.
I do.
I frequent pawn shops.
Okay.
I go to several pawn shops.
I'm not criticizing.
I know you're not.
Okay.
I'm just saying I've gotten some fantastic deals on some wonderful.
Let's go with your number then.
So we'd previously covered the AR7 and what we like and don't like about it.
But if you're going to get 30% off of a $400 gun, if you're lucky enough to find
it and it's in good condition that it's actually worth, like it's still worth 70%
of its original cost, how does that compare to the media gun you haven't seen yet?
But to me, the Winchester Wildcat, which comes in at more than a hundred dollars
less, which takes air, it takes the Ruger 1022 Rotary magazine, or it takes their
own magazine.
Interesting.
It takes both.
And I mentioned before that I think that probably indicates that Ruger's patent
on the design of their magazine must have expired a long time ago.
They've been building them since like 64.
Something like that.
Yeah.
And, but the Winchester Wildcat now it's not a breakdown gun.
So it's going to, its full size is going to stay that way.
But if I were to look at that, or let's just say even, you know, the Henry
Minibolt or something like that, well, that's not a semi-auto.
What, if you want it to be apples to apples, it needs to be another semi-auto.
I like the fact that the Air 7 is a semi-auto and breaks down small, but I, I'm
really not liking the $400 price tag on this at all.
And I would have to say that maybe I'll just accept a little additional size and
go for something that doesn't break down.
So I'm going to say that right now, God, the value proposition for me on
an Air 7 is about a four.
Yeah.
I would have to almost agree.
It's a four, maybe to a five.
I mean, it is a very nice, very compact thing.
If you just want to carry, you're going out backpacking, going out hiking,
you go in the distance and you want to take maybe a hundred rounds of 22 with
you, which weighs almost nothing and you weight really is critical.
Okay.
So I think the thing weighs like two and a half pounds.
Including the a hundred rounds of ammunition that can, you can definitely,
you know, make the, make the thing that saves weight on the backpack.
And, uh, so there is value to it, but I would agree because if it's, if it's
breakdown characteristic more than anything else, I guess, if you have to
have a breakdown gun, then yeah.
Yeah.
And then both are AR7s.
I bought mine used and you got your one used as well.
Your first one, your charter arms anyway, that was used.
Yeah.
But well, I'm having trouble remembering whether it was used or not.
It was used.
It wasn't.
Okay.
The, but then again, it had a bent barrel.
Well, that's true.
I had the, I sent the barrel into charter arms and they replaced the
barrel, which was good on them.
But, okay.
But what would we get into in cases where a person could have an SBR?
I mean, you want to pay a $200 tax stamp on SBR?
Well, if you're in Texas and it's a locally produced SBR, maybe you won't be paying that.
I'm not sure I'm ready to, I would, you know,
Well, we don't live in Texas.
We don't live in Texas.
But would, but would the, I mean, what would you spend on building a decent SBR?
Now, I mean, it's, it's going to be a multiple of this, but it's
going to be a lot more versatile.
Yeah, it would be.
I mean, you could, you could do an AR type pistol with a 10 inch barrel, take down
with a, you can do a lot, but you're talking North of a grand.
Yeah.
But is North of a grand a better value than $400 on a 22 that has.
Well, I like 22s.
I think 22s are the advantage.
Yeah, they're underpowered, but in theory, yes, theory, you're going to be using it for,
you're not going to have Kodiak bear hunted with a 22.
Yeah.
As you talked about before, right?
Okay.
So next product up that we forgot to give evaluating to was the Jerry
Michalik, uh, 223 compensator and be very short about this.
That's about a nine.
Uh, it's an excellent compensator.
That does the job objectively better than most comps that both cost more and look
like they, you know, came out of a fantasy movie and could you spend less and get 80%
of the effectiveness actually?
Yeah, you can.
There are ways to do that and buy a really cheap comp, but I think that that to me is,
is my go-to comp and it doesn't cost much at all.
So moving on to the new product category here.
I have the hollow sun, right?
I wanted to, you don't have the hollow sun 407 K X two.
Do you?
I do know you do not.
I do.
And that's what sits on my shield.
And so why did I choose that being so value centric as I am, what I looked at the,
you know, the breadth of red dots out there, I found that most red dots, well,
they're dots and that sounds parenthetically obvious, but most of them are like very,
very bright dots that tend to kind of have a lot of glare if they're bright enough.
And your brain, I would say your eye doesn't like to look at bright contrast, the objects.
And that's true, except your eye doesn't have an opinion, your brain does.
But, but your optical system was put it that way actually doesn't like to look
at a bright object against a background like that.
And so looking at a red dot, the traditional red dot is actually so bright
actually slightly an unnatural thing to do.
And I also found that across the spectrum of what you can spend on red dots, that
you could spend a hundred or you could spend 300 and sometimes it's been 50.
Yeah.
And sometimes the difference is you're probably paying in durability at some point.
Well, you are paying in durability at some point, but at there are price points at
which the extra money you're spending isn't buying you much or anything.
The thing that distinguishes to me, the Holosun 407K with the six MOA dot is, is
not just that I'm not more accurate than that.
That is not the point.
It's that the dot isn't a bright, shiny star.
It is a disc.
And I don't mean a circle because I think circles are silly and distracting and, and
don't really belong on red dot sites.
It looks like the best analogy is a stoplight.
It looks, it's, it's just a red disc and it doesn't glare at all.
So it's actually, and it shows up somewhat, you know, translucently, but it also has
excellent definition and it ends up being something easier to pick up and easier to
stay focused on your target because it's not super contrasty.
It's contrasty enough, but it doesn't have the glare with the stars, you know,
right effects around it.
And for people with the stigmatism that matters, the optical glass is all right.
It's not as flat as I would like, but the, to me, the differentiator was that dot.
And I would say, and it does have Shake Awake.
It has a 50,000 hour battery, assuming it's not on all the time.
And I would, at its current price point, I'd give it probably an eight.
It would get a 10 if the glass was as flat as some of the more expensive ones.
So this mounts on the...
It's an RMSC.
You know, the C for compact, it fits on small receivers, or I'm sorry,
slides.
It fits on small slides.
It is not a Trijicon footprint.
It's an RMSC.
Right.
And I think maybe this is me, but I have yet to buy in or become particularly
enamored with any sort of red dot on a handgun.
I don't know why.
Well, okay.
But yeah, you do know why.
Well, you have thoughts of why.
I have thoughts of why.
Okay.
I mean, from a rifle perspective, absolutely.
A carbine particularly, great thing to have.
Red dot, wonderful thing to have.
I don't know, pistol, because you're increasing the vertical height of the pistol,
which is, in my opinion, is most of the things I would do for concealed carry.
So to me, it's something sticking up in the back and it's a little snag on something
at the worst possible moment.
I find it unnatural to rely upon it because what if the battery's out?
What if you knocked it down and it's just not working?
Well, that's called co-witness.
That's why you put suppressor...
I understand that.
High sights.
I get it.
But to me, I'm just, I'm an iron sights guy.
I learned on iron sights, been firing iron sights for half a century or whatever.
I like them.
I do like the fiber optic sights, similar to the 3DOT fiber optic sights on there,
which will use a natural ambient light in the room or whatever it might be.
And sometimes with glow, like Trijicon, you know, will have an additional glow.
But I'm more of an iron sights guy.
I haven't bought into this whole thing that these pistols have to have these,
these electronic optics on them yet.
I am an adopter, but I have both.
I have iron sights and red dot.
To me, the red dot makes the most sense for one particular reason above all others.
And it's not just the cool factor and stuff like that.
Like, you know, look how much more money I put into my gun.
It's the fact that I don't necessarily accept that people who, not, okay.
I'm going to stereotype our audience a little bit here.
We've, we've mentioned this before in previous episodes, people who train
all the time on guns and who put tens of thousands of rounds in guns every
year are probably baked into the front sight focus all the time every day.
And they have put that and, and perhaps they've been people who have pressure
tested that against real threats in the real world.
I surmise that most of our listeners are not those people and that they want
to get the most shooting enjoyment as they can out of their guns for the
limited amount of time that they're able to use them.
So I'm surmising that most people will, when faced with a real, real
life threatening threat that they have not been able to train against,
because it's really hard at a, at a square range where you're testing
against paper or even a picture of a bad guy, you know, it's not a bad guy.
You know that that piece of paper is not going to attack you.
In the street, put quotes around that, because you know, you always hear the
phrase, that'll get you killed in the street.
Okay.
I don't think that this advice will get you killed in the street, but I think
that people will have a tendency to focus on the thing that is attacking them.
And it will be hard to bring yourself back in the moment to remember to
focus on the front site.
And because of that, since the, the red dot superimposes the
aim point against the target, it's a single focal plane now.
And I think that's the reason why people are so concerned about that.
That's the reason that the red dot is not only the way to go, but also the way to start.
Now, like some people will disagree with that, say, learn the fundamentals first.
That'd be me.
And that would be you.
And I'm not, I don't disrespect that argument because I understand the argument,
but for people who are only going to put a limited number of rounds through their
gun and want to become as effective, as effective as possible, as fast as possible.
To me, it's analogous to, if I were to draw a car analogy, would I rather have a person be
able to understand vehicle dynamics with an automatic transmission or learn their way
through a manual transmission just because that's a fundamental.
I'd say I'd rather have them learn how to drive the car and let the
car figure out the gear changes.
It's, it's not a perfect analogy, but I think that the analogy is somewhat valid in the
sense that when you're dealing with a potential accident in a car, you know,
you need to worry about breaking, steering, and other vehicles around you.
When you're dealing with a life threatening situation in the street, you're dealing with
the threat, the sight picture, what's behind him.
Is it a shot you can actually take safely or not based on your skill, based on the range?
The thing you don't want to also have to think about is changing your focus when you've
already got now tunnel vision.
That's the reason I think that the red dot's the way to go.
I get it.
But, and I started out and have to have done a lot of trap and skeet shooting.
Okay.
And the thing about trap and skeet is with a shotgun, you do not aim a shotgun.
Sounds counterintuitive.
You point a shotgun.
Yeah.
You point it, but you do not aim it.
Yeah.
And that's because you've got all bunch of different factors.
We don't have to go into them here now, but as much of that, I think,
I also find it with a handgun at any distance where you're going to talk about like seven yards
or under the famous 21 feet or less.
To me, it's pointing it.
My quickest draw, it would be able to point, and I practice this with both lasers and I've practiced
it at the range, drawing and firing.
And I can pretty much hit a milk jug at 21 feet without aiming.
Oh, and that's a really good point too, because there's a certain value in learning
the consistency and quality of the presentation of the weapon.
Yeah.
And that's a body mechanics thing that everyone needs to, even if it's just dry fire or just
drawing practice in your house or at some safe location without using any ammunition,
you need to get the draw down to the point.
I mean, I'm going to bring up another controversial person who a lot of people will recoil when they
hear, you know, instructor zero, because a lot of people think he's all about himself and really
all he's doing is showing you how good he is.
But that guy has got to the point where his positioning, his entire presentation is good
enough that he can hit targets up to maybe a 10 inch circle at 50 yards with no sights at all.
And that just comes with a lot of practice and it comes with good body mechanics.
So I completely agree.
I could see the argument for minimal sights or no sights on a gun.
Yeah.
I think legally that maybe puts you in a handicap position because then they start talking.
Let's say you have a very motivated district attorney who starts questioning things like,
well, how good is your vision, sir?
And, you know, were you actually able to see the front sight?
Well, if you focused on the front sight and the target went out of focus, are you sure
that that guy was still a threat?
Exactly.
I understand all of that, but I also remember I did have an opportunity to train with some
probation officers and some sheriff's department people in a different state.
And they basically had, you know, drawing from their right hip, for example, which is where
they were carrying their nine millimeter drawing it really just barely pivoting it,
not even moving the pistol forward and firing with the pistol actually cocked over about
30 or 40 degrees to the right hand side.
Just literally draw, fire two rounds at a target, turn two rounds at another target.
Did they hit him?
Absolutely.
These are stomach shots of like, if you're being surrounded by a gang or something like that,
and you need to draw and drop multiple targets rapidly.
And I was fine with that.
And that was literally, that was just point.
That's the old Chuck Taylor speed rock method.
Yeah.
I remember that.
Yeah.
And if you don't know who Chuck Taylor is, look him up.
Great book.
He was one of the earlier, probably well-known trainers out there.
Okay. So you had a, just looking at the clock here, we have about 10 more minutes because
we'd like to stay and dear listeners, we do like to keep this under an hour.
And I didn't mention it before, but you know what?
We also keep this podcast clean.
Any, any mistakes in linguistics that we engage in during the podcast are edited out.
So you, you can, it is safe for women and children.
Absolutely.
But you wanted to cover a, another firearm that you think is a good value proposition.
What was that?
Yeah. I was walking through some of the, some of the stores recently, and I basically came across,
you know, what if you just wanted to have fun and learn the basics of the handgun safety
and so forth.
And there are a couple of things that are out there that I just thought were of tremendous value.
One is the Ruger Wrangler, which is a single action, sort of like a 1873,
sort of a peacemaker design in 22 long rifle.
It does not have a swing out cylinder.
It has a loading gate that opens on the side and it runs about 200 bucks,
200, 210 bucks, 220 bucks, somewhere in that range.
It is made out of, obviously a steel barrel.
And I think the, the receiver is of a slightly lesser material.
And then I compare that to Ruger's higher and a single action 22, which is a single six
of which I actually own one of the single sixes, which has adjustable sights on the front and the
back and a whole bunch of other very fancy things.
It comes around $700.
But the, the Wrangler, which I think for most people is a tremendously valuable gun.
It allows you to go out there and shoot six shots at a time.
And you have to unload each one of the brass ones individually.
And the advantage there is number one, you're going to slow down.
And that's one of the reasons why you train initially, like when you're teaching people,
you train with a Vultax gun because you want them to slow down and focus on the, on the
essentials.
And it's just flat out a fun gun to shoot.
So the Ruger Wrangler, I would highly recommend and it comes in a six, a six inch or six shot
cylinder, which is excellent.
They are now also baking a, a upgraded version of it.
Just came out with it.
I actually haven't seen one in the storage yet, which comes with both the 22 long rifle
cylinder, as well as the 22 Magnum cylinder.
And I think you can also get adjustable sights on it now.
And that's going to be around $300.
I still think at $300 for a 22 or 22 Magnum pistol.
It is an excellent value and I would highly recommend it to.
Well, what's it, well, I mean, but, but put a number to it.
Let's be objective here.
What's your score?
I think everybody should own one.
So I'm going to put it really high.
I'm going to do about an eight, eight and a half.
Okay.
Yeah, I guess we don't really have a linear scale here, do we?
We have a kind of a, like a bit of a logarithmic scale.
Like getting to 10 is going to be hard.
Yeah, I almost will never go 10.
Okay. And my last product for today is, you know, it kind of, I was going to talk about this
in the next show, but I'm going to move it up and it goes to the discussion about the red
dot that we just have, because I think that this is germane.
I'm going to talk about weapon mounted light and the weapon mounted light that I wanted to
highlight is the Olight Balder Mini.
The Balder Mini is a 600 lumen light, which puts it competitive with other lights in its size,
actually a little bit more, the competitively priced.
I won't mention it, but there's another fairly popular brand that costs about the same is 500
lumens.
And let me tell you folks something that you may not know.
Do not, do not, do not make a decision on a light based on a small difference in lumens.
Lumens is the way people perceive light is, we were just talking about logarithmic scales.
It's a logarithmic scale.
The difference in perception of a 600 lumen and the difference in perception of a 500 lumen light
is not the percentage that you would arithmetically calculate between those two.
It's hardly noticeable at all.
If you want to change the perception of the amount of light, you have to change it by quite a bit.
Same thing goes with noise, which is something that my day job requires expertise in.
So a 600 lumen light, it's big brother.
The Balder S is an 800 lumen light.
It's physically larger and I would say not worth the extra size because the size of the Balder
Mini allows it to be mounted and stay flush with a greater range of guns because it's shorter.
Does it use the same battery?
I don't know whether it uses.
Okay, let's back up here.
I don't know the capacity of the battery.
The way that Olight does their batteries is they have a magnetically mounted charger
that really works very well because it's a 360 degree charger.
It can mount any way you'd like and I don't know what the battery life is.
So there is that to consider.
But then again, the light is not unlike a red dot.
It may not constantly be on.
It's only going to be on when you tell it to.
The other thing that why is it try back to the discussion about the red dot?
We can have a conversation later about the validity or the need to have a weapon mounted
light or use a handheld light because I think that by itself is a separate topic that maybe
we'll cover when we have one of our training guests on.
But at the same time, it also has a laser.
Now the competition in the same price range does not include the laser.
And you might think, well, why do I need a laser if I've already got sights?
Or fiber optic sight if I already have a red dot, if I have something like that.
The reason that you would want a laser on a combination of a laser and a light is under
the assumption that you haven't gone through all the training necessary to become thoroughly
confident when you're faced with an actual threat in a real life situation.
And I have seen this work with novice shooters that having the dot on the target becomes
the thing that you focus on, not just through the optical red dot, if you so choose to put
that on your gun, but let's say you don't for reasons that you can mention were perfectly
valid, which it doesn't fit in the holster you want anymore.
The thing has become larger.
It's an added expense, but having the laser on there and putting the light and the laser
on the target does two things.
It helps disorient the guy looking at you, particularly if I mean, obviously this is
going to be when it's dark because that's when it matters.
But these things are bright enough that even in daylight, the light can be disorienting
and buy you time, which is important.
But putting that laser on the target allows you to have, you know, maybe not the perfect
aim point, but a good enough aim point that that becomes the focal point.
And you no longer have to worry about as much about body positioning, about whether you're
holding the gun perfectly.
Maybe you have a hand that's out of commission and now you're doing it one hand, but you
have a hand and now you're doing it one hand, you're doing it offhand.
It allows you to get on target quicker with effective shots.
And that's the reason I think that a laser, I don't, in other words, I don't think there's
a downside to it.
I think there's only upsides.
I don't think it makes it worse for an experienced shooter.
I think it makes it better for the inexperienced shooter.
And admittedly, a lot of people in our audience just don't get the time to shoot off enough.
That's true.
So expensive.
And to me, that combination of cost and the light and the laser, to me, it's a nine.
I straight up nine.
So we haven't, we haven't got to 10 yet, but it's a nine.
Do you have anything else you want to cover, Kevin?
No, I think this will be good for this episode.
And therefore we will conclude this one.
I'll tell our listeners that during our, we're going to have our first guest, which is going
to discuss the value proposition of training and why training is such a valuable opportunity
and why it's a good investment.
That's going to be on our very next show.
And that show should be coming up in next couple of weeks.
We're still working out the availability of our guests to talk to us.
And then that will be posted to all the same podcast aggregators.
If you follow the Facebook page, you can look us up at Frugal Firearms Podcast.
If you look in Facebook, that's where we have links to every site that we're on.
And we're on pretty much every aggregator now.
The big ones, of course, and even some ones that I had never heard of and are less popular.
But if that's the podcast aggregator you use, then no matter which one it is, please leave
us a comment, leave us a like, leave us, don't leave us a dislike, but if you have critical
comments, you can leave those there, or you can email them directly to us at
frugalfirearmspodcast.gmail.com.
Again, frugalfirearmspodcast.gmail.com.
Love to get your input.
If you have a product that you would like to highlight on the show, contact us.
If you're interested in advertising opportunities, contact us.
We're open 24-7.
Well, we don't read email 24-7, but you can always contact us and we'll get right back to you.
Either you can address things to either myself, Craig, or to my partner, Ken,
or just to either of us.
And we'll monitor that and be very responsive.
Because we're tailoring this to you.
We're tailoring this to the person who doesn't have unlimited money and wants to spend it wisely.
Thank you for your time.
Ken, any closing comments?
Nope.
Thank you for listening and we will talk to you again soon.
Thank you.
Thanks much.