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From TOP SHOT to 1,100 Articles: What Frank Melloni Learned That Can Make You a Better Shooter · Making Shooters Better

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: One instructor told me to load the sandbag, press into it, and one told me not to really press into it.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I think you've just learned competition shooting, right?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's tons of ways to solve that problem.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Gear comes into it, situation comes into it.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's very, very, very, very few, even at the basic levels of shooting, very few blanket answers for anything out there.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: And once someone starts throwing that out, like you said, you know, humility is gone.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: They've established themselves as the say-all be-all, which is a very fine line to walk.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Making Shooters Better, brought to you by Laser Ammo.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: My name's Terry Vaughan.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a former Royal Marine Commando as well as a season four competitor on the History Channel's Top Shot.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Most shooters don't have a gear problem.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: They have a diagnosis problem.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: They don't always know what's actually holding them back, so they buy another optic, another trigger, another gun, or they just dump more rounds downrange and hope improvement eventually shows up.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: My guests today have spent years attacking that problem from just about every angle imaginable.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Frank Maloney is not only a teammate from season four of Topshot, he's also a president of Renaissance Firearms Instruction, a competitive shooter, precision rifleman, handloader, hunter, instructor, and prolific firearms writer, whose work has appeared in American Rifleman, Guns and Ammo, Handguns magazine, book and barrel, and name just a few.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: But what makes Frank interesting isn't how much he knows, but how willing he is to still question what he's learned.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we're going to talk about why being self-taught can be both a gift and a curse, why good instructors avoid pretending there's only one answer to a problem.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: When does equipment really matter?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: When does it absolutely not?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And why deliberate, measurable practice beats simply spending more rounds downrange.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Fourteen years after Top Shot, Frank and I finally get to sit back down again and chat about all the things we've learned since the show.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: He has less hair, mine has gone considerably grayer, and it just goes to show that none of us escapes the passage of time while still keeping that original factory finish.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Let's roll the episode.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: All right, Frank, hello and welcome to Making Shooters Better.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, thanks for having me on the show.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of a bit of a reunion of sorts.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is after a few years, isn't it?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think we bumped into each other at uh Shot Show.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Was it this past year?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: This year uh we've we bumped into each other a few times.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yeah, this this year at Laser Ammo, I stopped by.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I remember Colin, I remember swinging by, I forgot where I was on my way to Barbara, and um we knew we were going down where you were.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: We wanted to stop because my wife used to work with you guys too for a long time.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I know Ken and and all the guys there.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh we started talking, I think we were talking to Ken, and then you popped up, and I was like, as long as there's a top shot working here, right?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Although it's kind of funny though, because I had to actually catch your attention because you were like, I don't know who this dude is or why he keeps trying to get in my eye spaced.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, do you not remember me?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: You had more color in your hair last time I saw you.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had more of it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that was 2012.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think we we might have had actually we've probably just had a few phone calls.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know when the last time we saw each other in person was.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's it may have been maybe 2013, 2014.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because I did go to Shot Show for a couple of years after Top Shot.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: But no, it's been a while.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I neither confirm nor deny that I may have been colouring my hair back then.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: It managed cheaper to colour it than to buy it back, I'll tell you that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was always funny because I would tell the kids it was my medicine because it made Daddy feel better about the fact he was covering up his grey.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: But it was always it's funny because my wife was like, Will you please stop doing that?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like for the love of God, just let your grey be grey.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually I reached a point where it was just too much trouble, so then I let it go.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then I did have someone comment on a social media post that I put out, and they said, How much have you aged?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you'll look great, man.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously, you know.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're really it's just it was funny.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, You cheeky bugger.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, Well, you know, yeah, 10 years can be hard on you.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks for coming on, mate.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: I know you were super busy with all the writing that you do these days, and we'll get into a bit more of that as we go through the podcast.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I start the episodes with the same question.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: So, how old were you when you first started shooting?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's a multi-part answer, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've started shooting air guns.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's put it this way.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I always get this this question, not to not to take your question away.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: I always get this question, um, how did you or what made you choose shooting, like as a career and everything?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I always say it never chose me, uh, or I didn't choose it, it chose me.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're always my favorite toys growing up.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um when I say toys, I'm talking pre-air gun years, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: So elementary school, younger even.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So um I lived or I grew up in in Nassau County, which is it's a suburban part of New York, more urban than suburban, but still suburban.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it houses are too tight.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think Queens, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Familiar with Queens anyway, readers, uh, readers, viewers, listeners are familiar with Queens.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's very similar area.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, not enough backyard to shoot an air gun.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents wanted to move to Suffolk County, which was much more, much more rural, still suburban, but I mean there's farms, there's hunting grounds in Suffolk County.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the way they bribed me to go along with the whole deal was get an air rifle.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I was 14 years old when I started shooting um relatively accurate air rifles, air rifles um that were accurate enough to show you if this is your trigger press, um, this is your breathing, this is any of your fundamental errors, and not just uh a round ball going down a smooth bore that could wind up anywhere, right?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say 14 for air rifles.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: By age 16, I was renting rim fires, and by 18, I've already had my first rim fires, center fire rifles by 21, and I didn't get my first handgun till I was about twenty seven, um, because of New York State laws at the time.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So long answer.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: But that was funny because a lot of people started, I started with air rifles, same thing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was about seven or eight when I first got my very first one.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: But we lived out in the country, and it was a great tactic by my parents to get us out from under their feet.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: They'd be like, just take your air rifle out into the country and go shoot things.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh but it was amazing to me because that experience taught me exactly what you just mentioned with trigger press breathing, because I had a scope on one of the rifles.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't just iron sights, and it it was always funny to me that when I would really focus, I could feel my heart rate, I could feel where it was, and trying to kind of semi-time it between what felt to me like those little bumps you get in the crosshairs.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't like anyone was teaching me.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just went down into the lane and shot and realized, oh, god, that I messed that shot up.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd focus more on some of the breathing and the trigger press and trying to make everything smooth without necessarily knowing, you know, from a teaching or being taught standpoint whether that was going to have any effect at all.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: It did, obviously by default, increase my ability to shoot well.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: But it was self-taught.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: I was just down there shooting, plinking away because it got me out from underneath parents' feet.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh most of most of my shooting was self-taught um till about top shot, and then after top shot, or even even before top shot, I started I started seeking professional instruction because self-taught is a gift and a curse, and it's something that you mentioned that I I always like to talk about with people that don't understand guns and why people shoot and enjoy shooting guns, is uh is the self-awareness that comes about it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean the world freezes and you're just left with you, and you really get a good a a good opportunity to feel these nuances that you don't always that you wouldn't feel in other sports, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh if you're playing basketball, you're running around, everything happens so fast, you really have to stop and think about what happened.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: But shooting, you're in the moment and you're thinking about it as it's happening.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: And i in many instances, in many shooting sports, you have time to correct a problem before you actually finish the shot.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of my favorite aspects about it, without a doubt.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: But you're right, that's rare.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like in most things, because it's an ongoing activity with ongoing movement, you know, sports being an example, y it's very hard a lot of times to self-correct.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas with shooting, depending on the shooting that you're doing, if you feel yourself about to rush a shot or you're already uh too heavy on the trigger press or your support hand is not where it needs to be, you can make those adjustments before actually following through and sending that round.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, big part of it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um one thing that comes with being self-taught though is you also self-teach a lot of wrong stuff.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh I, you know, ironically, you know, these days and especially years ago when we were doing much more volume, um I would say my uh my my penance for that is having to unteach a lot of self-taught shooters.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because there are habits you've picked up that you weren't even aware you'd picked up as a habit until somebody outside of your sort of scope of knowledge is able to point that out for you, and then you go, oh, didn't realize I was even doing it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, just a quick reminder: if you're enjoying the episode, don't forget to hit that like button.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Your support means the world, and it helps us keep pushing forward, creating this content.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now, back to the podcast.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I read on the website one of the articles I had from you that you describe yourself as one of the most well-rounded professionals in the shooting industry.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, what does well-rounded mean to you?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then what do you think most shooters become too narrow in their training?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: I just can't wait to see my inbox after you said that.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um I like that that you you caught the one of the most, not the most.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't the most and the best anything.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I learned that very early on writing.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because even if you're right at that moment, the world changes.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, but um I would say a lot of trainers um fall into fall into this category.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what well-rounded to me means is you need to, or for me, for me, me personally, um, what it means to me was uh being proficient in everything that your students might need you to be proficient in.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Jack-O-Ball, master and nun, you know, I say that's me 100%.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um rifle, pistol, muzzle loader, all the disciplines that, you know, all the branches of different ways of shooting those in competition.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I like to be a few steps beyond uh I don't want to say beginner, but you know, basically an intermediate skill level where if I compete in any of these, I'm gonna land in the middle of the pack.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, that's a success.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a little hectic because I try to maintain these skills in all of these different areas, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's uh it's tough.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: It also needs a little bit of explanation when I work with students to explain that.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh one of the things that that you get a lot is, well, should you be trying all these different disciplines and you know, shouldn't you really just hone down on one and perfect it?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes we forget that shooting is supposed to be fun.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if I wake up that morning and I want to go shoot shotgun, break some clades, I should go do that.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: If I wake up another morning and I, you know, want to tear it down on an ipsick course, I should go do that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um that's the way I address it.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that I teach that a lot too.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in that process, you're gonna find things that you're just not interested in.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, dub season reminds me every year I'm not very interested in shooting shotguns because it'd be like 10 boxes of shells to maybe three or four doves.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh I I I think that's kind of a kind of a healthy balance, and then it it it makes it not like work.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So uh our season a top shot.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the prize was a pro shooting contract.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And um let's see, I want to make sure I talk about this without breaking any kind of NDAs.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just again keep it on me.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when that came around, I was like, that doesn't sound really great.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I was like, I don't, I never want to have to go shoot one gun, practice, put that kind of pressure on me, travel and shoot when I don't want to.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's it takes a lot of the fun, turns it into work, you know, which ironically, after the show, I I've kind of done a lot of that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: But um yeah, I mean that's that's kind of my thoughts on that.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that a lot of people forget the fun aspect of shooting and experimenting with a variety of things because you're right, it does afford you the time to kind of experiment, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: I actually really love artery, recurve bows, but I only discovered that like for that particular discipline whilst getting ready for top shot.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I was very fortunate once I realized I was going to end up on the show, I kind of put the word out with everybody that I I knew and said, look, help me, please, because I don't want to make an idiot of myself or at least limit the chances I make an idiot of myself.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had a whole group of people would come in.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: We'd go to the range on Saturday, and there would be people would bring in a variety of firearms.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: But one of these Saturdays, we actually went out to the country, did long-distance shooting, but also archery.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, I've never done this before.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, recurve bow hunting is very instinctive.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a lot less of, you know, pull back, take aim, release, or it was for me the way that I was taught.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just, it was pull and release, like sort of an instinctive, I'm gonna shoot it in that direction.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And it turned out I did pretty well at it, but I had no idea I was gonna enjoy it as much.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the one thing I did learn very quickly was without putting that leather brace thing on your forearm, I was like chink, I'm like, oh, that was skin, and I think it was mine, and that bloody hurt.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I did.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, I'll get the sleeve on and have a go.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I really did enjoy doing that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I found it quite therapeutic because I would screw it up if I thought about it too long.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if I would just pull and release, it it tended to be fairly close to where I wanted that to go.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: But again, it was fun.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to be great at it, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, that's that's kind of where I where I like to keep it.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I like to be where now there's some things that people peg me for and come to me for specific instruction um that they're expecting me to be really good at both teaching and demonstrating.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be able to demonstrate.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't demonstrate a skill and demonstrate it better than the people you're teaching, you don't have to be grandmaster at everything, but if you can't demonstrate it and then explain where even you could improve, then you can't teach.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But w some of the things that I I focus on are like long range shooting, precision ammunition.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the reason I'm further in those disciplines than others is because I enjoyed them.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um not that I have to, but I do.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um it's a great point of of how preparing for Topshot brought about all these things.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um living in New York, I didn't have a lot of exposure to a lot of gun owners, a lot of hunters, you know, uh especially in Long Island area, especially growing up in Nassau County, you know, closer to the city.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um but after Topshot, uh boy did that change 180, right?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we had so many, so many enthusiasts, professionals.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um Keith Gibson actually opened my eyes to hunting.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: When we when we started, when we started, we were at the show, we were talking and hanging out, you know, and uh my attitude towards particularly deer hunting was always um, you know, that's uh a nine-inch target inside of 50 yards.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's no skill there.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, well, hunting shouldn't be about skill, shouldn't be about making a tough shot.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: It should be about positioning yourself not to have to take a tough shot, which is excuse me, um a little contradictory to some of the stuff uh that we talk about with long-range hunting, right?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: To where sometimes you have to take a three, four, five, six hundred yard shot or beyond shooting across a canyon or something like that for an animal during the last last day of the season, which I still I'm still a big proponent of, right?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: But anytime you can get closer, you should.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I learned about uh I learned a lot from Keith because uh Keith actually also showed me a little bit about um uh traditional archery.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So up to that point, the only experience I had, and it was also very, very little, was uh compound bows uh and muzzle loading, you know.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like uh it's like, hey, you like you like loose gunpowder, stick it directly in the gun.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of interesting stuff there.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, never stop growing, never stop growing, never stop asking questions.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: So, as we've touched on Topshot a little bit there, what else did you take away from it?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in addition to maybe perhaps picking up a love or an understanding of hunting, what did what did it did it reveal about you?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, proficiencies.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: What did you take out of it above and beyond?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think everyone saw it.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I needed I needed to work with handguns.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that and that I'm not ashamed of that, you know.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was very open about it too.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: By the time we we started recording the show, I had like something like two years worth of handgun experience, you know.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh uh I accepted it.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um how could I not?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I never expect to be good at anything right away.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And two years of shooting is realistically like 20 range sessions if you're dedicated, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe maybe 30.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I didn't expect to be good.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I went out, I sought all the pistol instruction I could.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I shot as many different pistols as I could, um, you know, or handguns, let's put it that way, because it was revolvers and semi-autos.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: I made sure to mix it up quite a bit.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I made sure to speak to people from different disciplines, you know, not just uh Ipsy shooters, but also, you know, bullseye shooters, you know, guys like Will.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I really, really honed that in.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I say this publicly whenever I teach a handgun course.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was my toughest discipline to learn.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was the worst at it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And because of that, I believe it made me a better coach because I don't teach from uh, well, this is the way you do it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was taught the right way, and I'm teaching you what I learned.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I teach from a this is the way to do it, and I can show you why the wrong ways don't work because I've tried them.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And also helps me identify a lot of error that you'll see that come from someone doing things the wrong way.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then there seems to be a connection when I work with students doing that because I can explain to them why I did it, why I thought that would work, how much I've tried it, you know, and if they don't believe me, I can cut to a scene that's now on YouTube of me blowing a hundred thousand dollars over a 12-yard shot.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's one of the things I think everybody should take away from an experience like Topshot is some humility.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's an understanding that you know, so is often the case.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Either you're not nearly as good as you think you are, or even in my case.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I went into that experience knowing that I was gonna get spanked like a red-headed stepchild and that very likely I was gonna screw something up.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: But the problem was not necessarily accepting that because that was fairly easy.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: My problem was dealing with the emotional kind of fallout of the pressure I was putting on myself to perform to the standard I thought someone on top shot should perform, rather than stepping into these competitions going, it's all for fun.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like my life is not really on the line.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: So why am I not just enjoying the hell out of this experience?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: It took me several episodes, I think, to find a place where I was like, okay, I've stressed myself out, I'm not thinking clearly, my hands are shaking like a leaf.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: If I don't calm down, I'm gonna blow this just on purely on nerves.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I think where you're coming from with teaching the way that you do, the not only the humility, but also a deep understanding of what didn't work through experience and what now does, that's a fantastic place to teach from.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think that immediately connects us as instructors to our students.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you stand in front of a grandmaster and they say, This is the way you do it, and there's no humility there at all, and it's also there's only one answer to a problem when there could in realistically be a myriad, it can be a little overwhelming if you individually cannot perform the instructions the way the instructor is telling you to do it.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: But if an instructor says, look, there are four different ways we can do this, try each of these and let's find out which one works best for you.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I know personally what worked for me because I've screwed it up so much.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can teach from that position.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's super helpful for students.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: You already train very hard to make the shot, but do you also train to make the decision to shoot or not shoot?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: At the range, you usually know when the drill is going to start.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know what the target is.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: You probably even know when the drill is gonna be over.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: The real world gives you none of that, it gives you uncertainty, movement.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Innocent people painting threats and sometimes a reason not to do that at all.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's where the smokeless range of VSD Pro comes into its own.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you're training at home individually or teaching students, working with armed security, preparing law enforcement officers for the real world.
• 22:16
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• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because having a target is only part of being prepared.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: The harder question is knowing when to act, when to not act, and when the situation has changed completely.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Don't wait for the real world to give you your first scenario.
• 22:37
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• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Visit laseramo.com, select simulators and targets, and then smokeless range to find out more.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: And now back to the episode.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't you don't want to learn from somebody that's a that's an absolute know it all.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um this year we taught uh this year, just a few weeks ago, uh, we taught our first intro to PRS course.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a discipline I don't have a ton of experience in.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Most of my long-range stuff is from a bipod, from a bench, right?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So PRS is really the best saying I heard about it is the the art of applying sand to a rifle, right?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Balance on a sandbag, see out, see what you could do, solve the problems, you know, rifleman tasks, which, you know, um in 2012 was very different, you know.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, actually, 2012 is when PRS is really starting, but two years before was very different.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that involved using a loop sling or a hasty sling or you know, the field, the NRA field positions, right?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: So very different.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things for those who don't know, what does PRS stand for?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: PRS, well, what does it stand for?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Was it often uh referred?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it actually stands for precision rifle series, and it's a it's a it's a competition league.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of people will say it stands for precision rifle shooting, you know, um, which sure.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing, but one is the real definition.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: But when you hear PRS, generally we're thinking of um a target rifle being supported through unconventional means.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Real shooting, practical shooting.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the other one I've heard, practical rifle shooting, which also fits.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not true, it's not correct, but fits.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, um, but to the point we were just making, I had a student give us feedback and he said, and we have four instructors on this course, each one works at a stage, and the students rotate through the stages.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, one instructor told me to load the sandbag, press into it, and one told me not to really press into it, which is the right answer.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I think you've just learned competition shooting, right?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, throw it up there, there's tons of ways to solve that problem.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Gear comes into it, situation comes into it.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's there's very, very, very, very few, even at the basic levels of shooting, very few blanket answers for anything out there.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: And once someone starts throwing that out, like you said, you know, humility is gone, they've established themselves as uh as as the say all be all, which is a very fine line to to walk.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: I had to learn that as an instructor very early on, because you need to have control of the classroom, you know, you need to have uh credit, you know, you need to be um credible, I guess, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at the same time, you don't want to be the overarching make everyone so uncomfortable they feel not comfortable enough to answer, ask a question.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that that kind of thing.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it is a line, it's the skill that has to be developed for sure.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Agreed.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I also think a lot of it comes down to making your student as comfortable as possible so that they feel free to ask the questions that they need to ask.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because the minute I think you run into someone that knows everything about everything and their way is the only way.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: We're not free to explore other options.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: But if uh I always taught from a position of uh this is my suggestion, try this.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: And if it doesn't work, we'll adapt it or we'll look for alternatives.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was never this is the way it should be done.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes you just run into someone who physically can't shoot that way or can't get that position, right?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: There are limitations.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was always about meeting them wherever they were, giving helpful suggestions.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: If they took those suggestions and ran with it and it improved their shooting, fantastic.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: If it made it worse, let's backtrack and figure out where we can correct or improve if this sort of philosophy or teaching structure didn't work.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's just always difficult, I think, for instructors to change up how they teach if they aren't humble enough to realize that that's not going to work for everybody.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, guns are 600 years old and we're still learning how to shoot them.
• 26:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're still learning.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, think about think of like the early FBI pistol training, you know, the I can't do it in a chair, but you know, that whole deal, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, gear changes, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: There was a there was a time when weaver made a lot of sense, but now we have front-facing body armor.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Weaver doesn't make a whole lot of sense anymore, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you have to be open to that.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be open to that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, otherwise you get to like, so it's funny, when I when I first started, when I first started instructing, one of the things that I I never ever ever did was go after another instructor, never go after their clientele, never even look at what they were doing.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh if they came at me at social media, I used to smile, it's like, well, good, I own them for that day.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of finding clients, they're they're bugging me and they're looking really bad right now.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things I did do though, always, and it's hard not to, is observe other instructors when they're teaching, because a lot of the facilities that we use are are wide open.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in my early 30s when I started, re when things were really going, like 30, 31.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd be looking at instructors in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and seeing how they taught and what they were teaching and how dated the information was.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, if you're if you're teaching cup and saucer still, right?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and I said to myself right away, I said, I will never be that guy.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I will never, I was like, I will always stay, or at least try to stay as current as possible.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if somebody calls me out as being dated or something not working, that's my mission that day is to do the research, figure it out, and see if this is a fed or see if this is really solving a problem.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I need to interject this because this is kind of funny.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: You and I, over the course of these last few years, even though we haven't been in touch that much, have had a shared student, right?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was teaching uh firearms and tactical classes while I lived in Wyoming.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a guy show up with his wife and daughter.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember, it may have been two daughters.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a few years.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: But when he got out of the car, I went down to greet them from the the range itself to say hi.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And as soon as he got out of the car, he said, This is not for me.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is for my girls.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't I don't need to have anything you're gonna basically teach.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it it shocked the hell out of me, to be honest, because I never met this dude before.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I said hi to his uh his wife and daughter, but ultimately I came back to him and said, Okay, I I just want you to qualify why you don't think there's anything for what I'm about to teach for you.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if he ever told you this, but he said, I am already getting trained by someone off of Topshot.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't need this instruction.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: And my jaw just about hit the floor, and it made me literally laugh out loud as I said, okay, that's very interesting.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um who have you been instructed by in what season?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when he told me it was you and it was season four.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: You knew that he did a lot of work.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said you believed him.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, oh, okay, yeah, you're right.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You you're good.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: You got you, yeah, you're right.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Can you why don't you do this?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't believe that he had the audacity.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, I don't care who he had said he'd been taught by, right?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: He may have, if he'd have said, listen, I have in I've been instructed by every grand master in the country, and there is nothing you can teach.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he would have had a leg to stand on, possibly.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: But some of the best instructors, some of the best students that I've ever run into are always people that say, there's something for me to learn, myself included.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's always something else I want to learn and pick up.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast is a great example.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: I've had some incredible shooters as guests for this podcast.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: And they all approach shooting from much the same place.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: That is, they're humble, they're ready to learn themselves, they'll share the information they think will work best for you, they'll adapt if this individual can't fulfill the lessons they're trying to teach.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, they're all humble people for the most part.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I've loved learning from them.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: So when he said, I don't have anything I need to learn, I was somewhat shocked.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it was funny because my answer to him at that point was, okay, well, let's go off on to the range.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um you and I will just shoot a quick drill.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: And if I shoot better than you and faster than you and more efficiently than you, perhaps I have something to teach.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, sure, very condescendingly, and off we went.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: And when we did that, that shooting drill, just a quick uh pistol drill, and he was seconds, seconds behind my time.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, maybe there is something for me to learn.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that was when I broke to him that I was also on season four of Top Shot and my military background and the fact I've been teaching for bloody years.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, it's always best to enter into these situations with a little bit of humility and understand there's always something to learn, even from a low-hanging pleb like me.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: I've got something I can teach you if you're willing to learn.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: And he did over the course of that instruction, which took a couple of hours, he did pin his ears back, he closed his mouth, and we had a great shooting experience, his girls included, but it was just funny to me that he said, There's nothing I need to learn, at least from you, because I've already had this instruction.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: It seemed so myopic to me to think that there was nothing else to be learned if you had been taught by this specific person.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I could tell you, if he's one of my students, he missed a serious lesson.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's you're not going to learn it all from one person.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I'm very blunt about that when we teach.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very blunt.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I open and close each course with that.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: One is this is only day one.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I end with go learn from somebody else as well.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, nobody has learned it all from one person.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, couple of points there.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of the worst training dynamics to work with is always the family.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because the odds of everyone there being super eager to receive the training, uh, and they just happen to live together, very, very low.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there's always someone that we call internally um the drag-along, right?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the drag along is somebody that's quite literally being drug along to the course.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it isn't always uh the spouse, either it isn't always the wife.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: Quite often it's the husband to where the conversation goes something uh to the effect of I want to have, I want to get a gun in the house.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're a moron, you're not getting a gun, but I really want one.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's my money, I should spend it.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, fine.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna get a gun, then you have to go to training.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, fine, you're coming with me.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then they become my problem.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that happens quite a bit.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um parents bringing their children out, you know, also very, very common.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: The children are often that drag along.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: So when that happens, um, they're already tuned out.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So um we have a strict, and this is really more of an insurance policy than or insurance set policy than ours.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't have a spectator.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: The only people that are covered in our courses are W-2 employees, instructors, and paid participants.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's the language of the policy.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: No spectators.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's a whole different type of insurance, like something that you would do if you own a sport uh sporting field, right?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we can't have them anyway.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um when someone is dragging someone along, the dragger also doesn't get a whole lot because their concentration is on the people they've brought out.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the first things that we do is we separate them on the firing line as far apart as we can.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Husband, wife, and so on and so forth, separate instructors, separate everything.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they give us some lip about it, and I remind them, I say, Well, you're here.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you're here, that means you've and and I'll steal this from from uh someone I admire very much.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's Ken Campbell from uh from Gunsight.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's the CEO of Gunsight.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, And why did you give us all the money?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: He said, if you're gonna argue, why did you give us all that money?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's exactly my point.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you came here to train.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know you want to do something great with your wife, and you guys can go practice together, but right now, let us give you the information and you're gonna get double the investment because you're gonna get it from two different instructors, and then over lunch you can talk about what you learned.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the best things.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then your scenario, which I think is is very I uh it's strange, but not uncommon.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: If he's not interested in what you have to say, then why did he hire you to train people he loves?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've never, never understood it.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the worst things, one of the things that it almost sort of sometimes makes sense is when it's a like a state-mandated course.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're they're there for that reason.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: They need paper, they want to get out.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: More or less, when that happens, I I give them just enough to make them happy.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And most of my attention is making sure they don't do anything dangerous.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're not receptive, you know.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I I only have I only have so much time in that classroom, I could waste my I could either waste my breath with that person that doesn't want to receive it for whatever reason, or there's somebody who really is hanging on every word and will take the feedback.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can help that person.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's uh it's it's a grim saying, but step over the bodies, you know.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um a saying that goes with that, that that I I I say a lot publicly is the minute you think you know it all, you do.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's it.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: You've reached your cap, you're not learning anymore.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, that's just an awful attitude.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know who it was.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to know who it is.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hope he sees this.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, one of us gets an email after this.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: It would be funny.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's quite arrogant.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not something that I teach, but um, and if I want to play devil's advocate, um, which gives me another good talking point here.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's um sometimes when we hear basic and when we hear the word basic instruction, like the NRA is is big on this.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: There, the official names of the courses are basic pistol, basic rifle.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you think it's gonna be a repeat of a lot of information.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: But what's crazy is basic or more accurately called fundamental training, um it's one of those afternoon to learn, lifetime to master, which means that you can go through the same basic course a dozen times and take something new out of it.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can only retain so much, too.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if if me and you were teaching the exact same national standard material, like let's say it was an NRA basic pistol, I guarantee you you're teaching it different than I am.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're still teaching it to the NRA specs, but your message is going to be delivered different than I am and the same person.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Some things you're gonna reach him, and some things I'm gonna reach him, and it's just an awful way to live.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would hope his his motives were more about spend more time with my children, but it doesn't sound like that was the case.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, no, it's uh it's an awful way to awful way to train, uh awful way to live life in general, right?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: It took me back, probably because it was supposed to be tactical training that was sort of above and beyond the norm.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't know if I would ever have had the audacity or the balls to say to an instructor I just met, and obviously not research to say there's nothing that you can teach me without knowing there is nothing that the person can teach me.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: But you did the right thing.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you even after that, you weren't you weren't gonna teach him anything because he wasn't right, he wasn't gonna receive it.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: So when you come across someone that says, I I perhaps I just need a better gun, I need a better optic, I need better ammo, how do you determine whether this is an equipment problem that's limiting their performance or whether they're trying to buy their way out of a training problem?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a little bit of psychology and and instructing is more reading the person, or is more about knowing people than it is knowing guns, as crazy as that is.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you have to know the material, but you really need to know people.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look around and I'm gonna see if that guy's pulled up in a high-end car, if he's from a uh expensive neighborhood, you know.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and the first thing I'm gonna think is, is this how this guy solves all his problems, right?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if if that's the case, then I start entertaining the idea that maybe he is trying to buy his way out of it.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um then of course I look at the gear, you know.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um first I see if there's anything wrong with it.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, everyone knows X brand of gun shoots low and left, unless you're left-handed, then it shoots low and right, you know.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's never, it almost is never the sights, but sometimes.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and then we just have an honest conversation, you know.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: If the gear, if the gear's already top tier, you know, like if we're already at like Corvette level, you know, and he's talking about, or she is talking about, I get a good mix of this in both.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um he or she's talking about taking something to like the Lamborghini level, then it's usually going to be a conversation about skills.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things that's that's nice about I mean, we have dozens of sponsors for RFI, and um, I work with hundreds of different manufacturers through the writing side of things.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Usually I have something pretty top-tier around.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I let students use it because that helps me basically.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one, it fulfills a sponsorship obligation in that in that arena.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if I'm writing about it, it's always nice to get as many different opinions as possible.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'll give them some top-tier gear and see if it really changes anything.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, no.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, it very seldom is the gear, but there's a lot of gear out there, so it could be the gear sometimes.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, it it it's it's such a specific question.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh or or it's such a broad question.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if we narrowed it down to specifics, you know, I could uh I could probably give you a better answer.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh it's it's been a healthy mix of sometimes it's the gear, sometimes it's the personality.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I love that you have the gear on hand to be able to do that, because there's nothing better than that person perhaps standing in front of you saying, Oh, I could shoot so much better if, and it's and then the answer becomes you know, fill in the blank with whatever gear they feel like they need.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: When the reality is the equipment they already own is already more than enough for their skill set, and that's not the issue at all.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: But being able to hand them something that is the Ferrari and go, okay, well, let's see where your shots go, and they end up in exactly the same place.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like like everything else, it comes that comes from a lot of bad experiences.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, the uh I don't want to beat up some of my best friends own gun stores and are manufacturers, but there's plenty of bad ones out there, or or there's just plenty of bad employees, people that just need a job, don't care what it is, have a friend that works at a gun store and they're gonna work with him or her.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they give bad advice, sell bad gear and it shows up, or incomplete gear.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if I have a student that says, Hey, can you help me with my new AR-15?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: I automatically assume they don't have sites.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: I automatically assume they're gonna forget the magazine, I automatically assume they're gonna bring the wrong chambering.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I bring kit to basically solve these problems, and when I do, I grab the best stuff that I have because why not?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, my range bag started life as a 30 caliber ammo can.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um for our friends that don't know what that is, I doubt there are any.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: But basically something the size of a small tackle box, and now it's a 60-pound bag.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I transport it in the, you know, I almost never carry it on my shoulder, and if I do, it's for less closer than a hundred yards, um, because it's uh it's a collection of all the bad things that have not bad, but all of the mishaps that have happened on ranges regarding gear, you know.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it's uh it gets very interesting.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um you give somebody who's having um problem with trigger press, let's say in a rifle.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: And quite often, yeah, I'll give them that, you know, there's almost no reason to shoot a mil spec AR trigger anymore.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um but if that's what your department gives you, that's what your department gives you.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then you have to work around that.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I do a uh a fair bit of law enforcement in New York.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: We have the 12-pound triggers.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the first time I felt one was uh NYPD officer gave me it.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was a Glock 19, and I started pressing in.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Do you have an external safety on this?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said, No, that's the trigger.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then I wrenched through it and I was like, oh boy, okay, I get it.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense now, you know.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then it just we we work around it the best we can.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Trigger finger placement, follow through, you know.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then honestly, in the instance of triggers, which I know I just made it specific, um, it's more about what the back of your hand is doing than what your trigger finger is doing, right?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh are you squeezing?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are you meeting the trigger, right?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are you pushing the gun down as you press the trigger?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not Noticing it because of recoil.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, dry fire.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: Dry fire is great for that.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean things like that.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Track for a second.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: I thought you when you said 12 pound trigger press, you were speaking figuratively.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Was that was that real?
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's what the trigger press is?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you look it up, Clock has it.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, I don't know if they have it on their on their uh website, but yeah, that's called the uh the New York trigger.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a it's a 12-pound trigger.
• 44:25
  unknown: What?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: 12.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm absolutely flabbergasted.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: What in the world was the thinking behind a 12-pound trigger pull?
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a hardware solution to fix a software problem.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't keep your finger off the trigger, one of the things that we do is we make the trigger very stiff.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that was that was the thinking when when they did that.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a few, there's a few, um, there's a few entities that have that.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think LA does it too, or California does it too.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: Or they might have, or at one point.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a twice.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: So when you when you start hearing about, you know, and I know you've done tons of podcasts, I won't go down the the this the uh the rabbit hole of shooting under self-defense.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when you when you look at hit rates for MYPD and why they're so poor, besides being shot at and you know, shooting in the in the dead of night, um, you have to factor in that 12-pound trigger.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: It gets very tough.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: It gets very tough not to introduce the rest of your hand when you have to wrench down something like that.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: Basically a double action trigger press in a semi-automatic pistol.
• 45:29
  unknown: Okay.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Without the light.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that absolutely blows me away because I I had no idea.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have very, you know, I I've heard the stories of the inaccuracy with the shootings and considered it, you know, potentially a lack of training.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um but knowing now that there's a 12-pound trigger on top of the things you mentioned in the dark low light or you know, being shot at themselves, you sort of tie all of those together and it's completely now understandable why the hit rate and hit ratio is so bad.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely insane.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you've competed with both handguns and long guns.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that there's sort of a common thread on what competition can teach about shooting performance that just traditional square range training often misses?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, kind of like we're just talking about, you know, shooting under pressure, right?
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it it isn't the pressure of getting shot at, but that beepy bully box, right?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Shooting on a timer, shooting with people looking at you, shooting when it matters.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's the other thing, right?
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you only get one run at it, um, teaches you a whole lot about yourself, right?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the first time I shot a uh uh any kind of practical pistol course, which was uh uh IDPA, I ran through the whole course and I realized I was like, I didn't look at my sights once.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and um it it it definitely teaches you that it's a different world.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I'm working with a student and um I teach I teach just slow fire shooting right off the bat, you know, aligned front sight, aligned rear sight, breathe, press, follow through.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then we'll progress into practical shooting to where it's like, okay, now we're gonna learn how to get on target faster, transition, right?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you don't don't need to use your sights sometimes, maybe you only need your front sight sometimes.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's three different or more even.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's just see the three confirmations, if you will, of the red dot, how to use that differently.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and one of the lessons for the two of them, I have a student that I've been working with for a while, um, which I've been blessed, been blessed.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've had numbers of students that I've worked with for years, some even more than a decade.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you get to see how they progress and go back.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that that uh they learn, and maybe I've learned from them, is that everything that you solve in slow fire comes right back in practical shooting, rapid fire, and vice versa.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I like that.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right, because as soon as you start rushing it or having to pick up the pace again after doing slow fire, you know, all those bad hammocks, the mechanics, the kinesthesiology starts to become a factor again.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's definitely a different sort of uh discipline to learn, okay, that slow consist consistent type of trigger press used where I'm perhaps bullseye training just as an example, static at the range, is gonna be very different.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: To my accuracy was moving between stations, having to uh uh navigate, shoot, no shoot targets, or maybe tiny targets, but you've got to do it against the clock.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very different discipline.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: So you've also done a lot of work with hand loading as well as precision shooting.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: What has that world taught you about accuracy, consistency, and shooter error that you think perhaps carries over um into different shooting disciplines?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy, this could be this could be a whole nother podcast.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a uh there's a maturity that you reach with hand loading.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it's you get to a point where how much precision do you actually need, right?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have to look at your target, learn your margin of error, and then it's like, well, as long as this ammo is this good, it's more important for you to make a lot of it to get to the range.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you find yourself where it takes you X amount of time, let's say it takes you five minutes to make a round, and because it takes you so long to reload your ammunition, you don't go to the range as much because you don't want to shoot it to clean it and reload it, then there's a problem, right?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: But uh if we uh when we start, I always I started and I I recommend this as well for most for almost everyone hand loading.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Try to make the most precise ammo you can, especially if you're early on, because if you have a and and this is also why I promote buying good gear.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now there is a a point of uh diminishing return, which I bet you we'll get to later, but there's certainly that point.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: But hit that point, right?
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you have an optic that you know holds zero, and you have a rifle that shoots sub-minute of angle or even minute of angle, and your ammunition is shooting minute of angle, and now you're shooting three minute of angle targets without any wind, you're left with one variable, the shooter.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have three MOA ammo and a mir kind of scope and a gun that shoots very differently when it's hot than when it's cold, um, you'll never be able to put it on you.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: You'll just say, well, that's that's accuracy.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you know four minutes of angle is accuracy, right?
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's that's a big point to handle that I think a lot of people miss.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most of us get into it or or or at least get interested in looking at it because we hear it's gonna save us money.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Once we realize that a box of ammunition isn't a dollar, you know.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to do a survey one day.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to go out and ask random people, uh, probably not around Pennsylvania, uh, maybe like in Manhattan, it'd be a great place to do this.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: So just be like, how much do you think a box of ammunition costs?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: And people are gonna think it's pennies around.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, um, most of us get interested in it because of the cost savings and then fall in love with it because of the precision.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: But then as time goes on, you realize accurate ammunition is a training tool because it eliminates all those variables.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then you get to the point where you can continue down the rabbit hole and go the bench rest route to where quarter minute of angle isn't enough, right?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or you can go the precision route and realize that if you're making half minute of angle ammunition and you're shooting a two-minute of angle target, you have more than enough buffer and ammunition, concentrate now on your wind reading, getting the rifle steady and everything else there.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: So there's uh there's a lot of layers to reloading that that you you kind of learn as as you go on.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's uh it's been it's been a fun journey, I'll say that.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: And just like everything else, it's I'm still learning.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: The tools are changing.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: I've never actually considered that as one of the benefits of doing hand loading.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: I will tell you honestly that's a lot of people.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is why that student didn't want to hear anything from you.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because I would only have considered hand loading to save money.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't have considered the additional benefits of knowing, okay, if I'm creating very accurate ammo for my long distance shooting or my precision shooting, that that takes one of the variables out or potentially minimizes one of the variables from the equation.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's great.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's also a fallacy that we kind of tell everybody you don't really save any money because you wind up shooting more, which is true.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the other thing that no one tells you is I would never in my life think of buying a desert eagle where I'm spending$4 a round for handgun ammunition.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: But if I know I can make it for 30 cents a round, all of a sudden that$2,500 gold-plated Desert Eagle starts like that, kind of would be cool to break out of the barbecue, you know.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, but uh yeah, a lot of life.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: So you've actually spent a lot of years now writing for publications like American Rifleman, Guns and Ammo, Handguns.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_02: When you're testing a product or evaluating uh maybe a new technique, how do you separate measurable improvement from marketing novelty or just simply wanting something new to work with?
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great question.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: Great question.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I can't believe that I'm doing that.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I still I'm I'm a little more than 1,100 articles in, and whenever I see my name in the mast head or in the byline of a store, I still can't believe that it's it's there.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, you you said it, the word measure, right?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's gotta be numbers there.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if if we're talking about a ported handgun, which is like the new the new hotness, ported carry guns particularly, are they really shaving time off my splits?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if I can normally run a split and a quarter, I can be a little faster than that, quarter splits with the same with a gun with the same kind of trigger, same size, now ported, but am I in the teens?
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is it doing that for me?
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then is it enough to matter?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um recoil, you know, do I feel do I feel less recoil?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Does it feel better?
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of not easy to measure, but it's there.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then of course, accuracy.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, accuracy is interesting because I I feel like we've hit we've hit the pinnacle.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um guns today, uh, and I'm using a very broad term in general, are more accurate than they're ever going to need to be.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's almost no application for as accurate as a factory rifle is today.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sub-ammo sub-moa isn't even a bench, isn't even like a feature anymore.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a benchmark, you know.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not hard to do.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we figured out how to make scopes that hold zero and resolve light pretty good for like 800 bucks, you know, and they're decent.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not the days where a scope is$3,000 to get a decent, you know, five to 25.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um handguns are seeing it too, you know.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was a time when you'd have to have a gun, and they're still out there and they still do excellent work.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, there were times where the only way to get a decent race gun was to have a gunsmith build it from scratch, you know.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, they're there, it's just it's just everywhere.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So um most of the stuff I review is gonna be a new offering to a category.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't see, and not just me, the the industry, most of the industry is seeing new offerings to a category.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're not seeing tremendous revolutionary stuff um because we've we've uncovered so much.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the things that I I I've seen that is that is happening is uh Federal's new peak ammunition.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they've they've changed the case, right?
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: So now we're using a uh steel case that can handle a lot more velocity, which is gonna ripple down and change all kinds of things.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing 6.5 Creedmore, that's faster than 6.5 PRC.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: So if that technology catches on, we're gonna see a big bump.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just the way that Hornady's and Burger's, you know, long OGI bullets have changed the way, or basically all these new cartridge introduction introductions are a result of that.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like one of the questions I'll get is what's the difference between 7 PRC and 7 Rem Mag?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, 7 PRC, you know, can handle longer, heavier bullets, flatter trajectories, more energy downrange, that whole package there.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not we're not seeing super innovation, but we're seeing a lot of improvements on things that are out there that we're currently working with.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then legal, you know, I mean, uh, we're finally making some headway with the NFA, right?
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: So suppressors are are common.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this PRS course we had, um, we had um 16 students on shooting PRS, and we had uh 17 uh building dope cards out to a thousand for our bench rest long-range course at the range together.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: I want to say about 40% of them had suppressors.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we changed the signup form of like, you know what?
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: We ask them everything about gear.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's time to ask them if they're shooting suppressors because we had more than enough people to make at least one, probably two squads, suppress the entire squad.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there was there's a lot of stuff there in that world too.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh every year, uh I'm gonna put my name on it, Aaron IM.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: My name on it.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_01: Every year I make a bingo shot, uh a shot show bingo card that circulates.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: I actually print a bunch of them out and hand them out too.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I if I got one to you this year.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: I may not have.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh the the bingo, the free square was did you hear we're making suppressors?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, everyone who can make something out of metal seems to be making a suppressor.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's there's a lot of that.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: And suppressors are are also very subjective.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's very expensive equipment in controlled environments to measure um decibels, excuse me.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially something that happens that fast, like a gunshot.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very hard to measure those.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of it does come down to really just how does it sound, right?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Tone, what's perceived volume, um, and then what it does to the gun, you know, how badly does it affect your point of impact?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Does it cool rapidly?
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can it take a sustained rate of fire?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all that kind of stuff.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's um it's part art, part science.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those kind of things, you know.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we we measure velocities and accuracy when we can, but there's really no way to measure feel.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, subjective versus objective.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: So someone listening wants to become significantly better over the next year, but perhaps they have limited time and money, as most people do.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: What would you tell them to start doing or perhaps even stop doing to improve or get better in the next 12 months?
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: Stop buying gear, right?
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, kind of the kind of the opposite of what I just said a moment ago, right?
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm not talking about improving gear.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, if you're really focused on improving, if that's if you shoot because you really enjoy the sport of it, you really want to get better at it, right?
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it's self-defense, right, which isn't a sport, hopefully never becomes a sport in your life.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you just want to get better on the draw, better at picking up, you know, picking up your first target, picking up your sights, and all that kind of stuff.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um minimize the amount of money or time you're spending buying different gear based on maybe I should get a ported barrel this year, you know, like things like that.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: Tiny things that don't matter.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: Get a gun that fits you well, whether it's rifle, pistol, or shotgun.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Get optics that match your budget and also are going to be um repeatable, right?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's a lot of options out there.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, good ammunition.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is, you know, I mean, obviously I'm a I'm a hand loader, um, but factory ammunition is almost making hand loading obsolete.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's still a lot of good reasons, but you know, you don't need a press to make submative angle ammunition anymore.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, to make it cheaper, you do.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: But so spend less on gear, spend more on training, get your dry firing in.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the biggest mistakes that we make, and I don't know if this helps or hurts budget when you have to pay a recurring um range fee.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: One of the biggest mistakes that we make in our training is we go to the range once a month and spend maybe eight hours there, right?
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or let's say five, and not everyone's as nuts as I am.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, instead, we should go to the range five times a month and spend one hour there.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that changes a whole lot.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think I think after your first five or six magazines, you know, your hand and everything else is already starting to get tired.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you may have already ran your drill through to the point where you're interested in it anymore.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and that'll reset the next week.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: That won't reset towards the end of a training session.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: So um that that's gonna be a huge one right there.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um doesn't help with the time, right?
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but dry fire will help you there.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can drire at home.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have to go to the range, I don't have to spend any money.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and you'll save your money by not buying gear, you know.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's that's where I would focus.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if there is one piece of gear, a rim fire.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: Rimfire, whether it's a semi-automatic or a revolver, um, just to get your reps in, just to get some recoil when you press the trigger.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tremendous training tool.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I've met uh countless people that don't own them.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, before you go spend the same amount of money on another session with me, go spend that on a rim fire, bring it to the next session, and make sure you get to the range with it.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just a just a great training tool.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I I don't even need to throw names out there or anything.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh or drop brands or anything like that.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's many good ones out there.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: Get one.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, I like that.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: I really do.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I love the more more rounds or more reps more frequently is gonna be a whole lot better than just lumping together four, five, six, seven, or even in your case, eight hours of training for once a month.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing to me how many people will say, well, I don't do dry fire at home because I when I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna shoot, I'll go to the range.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I'll do my shooting.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yeah, but you could be getting in 10, 15, 20 minutes a day in between those range sessions and probably improve exponentially, especially as you alluded to there, if you are taking down and taking stock of the data.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_02: What mm what skill are you trying to improve?
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then how are you going to measure the improvement of that skill?
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because arbitrarily sending rounds down range once a month without measuring those improvements.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's you're I mean, yes, it's great fun.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's therapeutic in some ways, but it's also very wasteful in terms of being able to quantify improvements in a specific area without having the data.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's why drills exist, right?
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: If I shoot the same target from the same distance under the same time standard with the same gun, I'll be able to see improvement.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: If I just go to the range with 10 different guns and put a few mags through each one, I'm not going to see improvement.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great way to enjoy the sport, don't get me wrong, but if improvement is your goal, that's not the way to do it.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_02: Agreed.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that's come out of this for me, I think, is that becoming a better shooter isn't about necessarily chasing the next best thing as far as gear and just putting more rounds downrange.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's about identifying what actually needs work, training that particular facet deliberately, and then measuring whether you're improving.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think given your experience across so many shooting disciplines, you've shown that breadth of experience can significantly improve your overall uh performance versus just um intermittently sending rounds downrange for hours.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I really appreciate you jumping on here to share that, mate.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate you and give me a platform to share it.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's uh it's great to connect.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I really am humbled by the invite.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I saw some of the names that you have there on the podcast.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I just really appreciate it.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh anytime, man, I'm always happy to get on here.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's been a pleasure.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: It really has, and it's great to catch up after so long.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, where do people uh get a hold of you or follow or read the articles?
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you want them to go?
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, um if we're looking for training, rfi shooting.com, that's rfi-shooting.com.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, fun, fun little story.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I named the company, I wanted to name it something that was all encompassing, and I thought people would have a hard time spelling Maloney, um, which has been classically true, but spelling Renaissance isn't much easier.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Renaissance Fire and Destruction.com or RFI-shooting.com, either one of those will direct you there.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's that's the main the main place you're gonna find me.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can check out most of my writing directly at the uh publications.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an old man.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: I still believe in print.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, newsstands where you're gonna find a lot of it.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you if you're not a member of the NRA, um, you know, we still I still stand by the NRA.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I still believe they're working and believe the restructuring is terrific.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's gonna be moving in the direction it needs to be moving now.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh with your subscription comes your choice of rifleman or American Hunter.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: I write for both of those entities.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hook and barrel is uh free at any gun store.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't want to say any.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um most gun stores have it out.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can pick a copy up there.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and almost all of these entities do digitize my work eventually for the websites.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: Guns and ammo, uh, do a lot for gunsandammo.com.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_01: I do a lot, uh, I mean, almost, if not every, uh SIP, which you'll find in a newsstand.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the uh the magazines that they press out for um uh individual topics like AR-15 or concealed carry.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I write for all of those.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I'm I left out a bunch.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um a good way, uh not just me, and this is uh an entity that I've I've stumbled upon, uh muckrack.com.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you search any author there, um it's just this third-party website that collects all your all your stories.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of my stuff is on there.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a bullet point list, and there's links there, you click away.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh easy way to find this stuff too.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you can email me through the website, my information's there.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an open book, I talk to everybody, I answer all my own emails.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I'm pretty easy to get a hold of.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_02: When that last one you mentioned, if you will send that to me as a message, I'll make sure to include that with the show notes so people can find it, because that would be a great resource.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, absolutely.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: Again, thanks for joining me, mate.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's been an absolute pleasure catching up, and you have such a uh broad mastery of so many different things and so many different areas now.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's fascinating.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been a real pleasure talking to you, mate.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_01: Always, always a pleasure to talk to you as well.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let's make sure we do this again soon.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: All right, thanks for listening and watching.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: Depending on the platform we're on, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe and leave a comment.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: We truly appreciate your support.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_02: It helps ensure that the content we create keeps getting created and we get the guests on here that you want to hear from for now.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's the end of today's episode.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you tuning in.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: I look forward to catching up with you all the next one.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_02: Cheers