Podcast Episode 2 – Shot Show 2024!

Podcast Episode 2

Welcome back to the Muddy River Tactical podcast this is Kyle Mason. I’m gonna be your host today. I’m joined here today with as always the owner, CEO, man in charge, my brother Kevin Mason. And I’ve got Brett Davis our gunshot manager here and we’re gonna have another week of talking about guns, gear, outdoors, concealed carry and all the stuff that God loving Americans love to do. 

We kinda ended the last show, barely getting into you guys going to Shot Show. We talked about Kevin skateboarding the mini cooper across the curb and how they look like a couple driving around Vegas in there. That will come up again. I’m looking forward to it. That’s the highlight of Vegas at this moment. Yeah. So better than all the guns, you two riding around seeing Hoover Dam in the Mini Cooper was the way to go. Brett looking like a gorilla in a micro machine. You were there too jJust remember. I know I’m sure I looked great. 

Alright so to recap you guys, get into Vegas late. Flights were canceled and there’s only two seats on the plane and you get in late. You’re supposed to have a Nissan Sentra but you end up with a mini cooper and you guys are driving around town from the Airbnb to the show. So when you finally get to the show, I know you talked about that it’is huge. There’s so much to take in and it’s kinda overwhelming at first. So what do you really experience when you first get there or what hotel was is it? So it was at the Caesar Palace and Venetian Expo Center. We got there and we had not registered yet because this was a spur of the moment deal because as Kevin said yesterday, the trip was canceled, and we didn’t do our due diligence and get registered and get tickets amd all that stuff. When we get there, the first step is to try to find where you’re going and it’s not an easy task. I mean it’s five stories and the Venetian and what two stories in the Caesar? Yeah so it’s across a walkway across the road and it’s two other stories. So there this isn’t one big like Bartle Hall expo center. No this is multiple floors, multiple buildings, multiple centers. Yeah It’s multiple bar Bartle Halls for sure. It’s big Oh wow. And how many vendors would you say they had there like a thousand? I think they said twenty five hundred vendors and there was fourteen or fifteen miles of aisles. And I’m not shitting you at all, we’ve talked about not being in shape but even Julie, our legs hurt so bad. At the end of the first day, just because you walk and walk and walk. So for the average person it’s like hey I’m gonna fly to Vegas I’m gonna get a shot show for a day and come back. There’s no way they’re doing it. You ain’t seeing everything in a day. We didn’t see everything in two days. We didn’t know why it takes five days to do this show and I mean it it takes five days. It’s a lot. 

But a lot of it seems like, like I said this is our first time going and Brett’s first time too and he’s been in the gun business longer than I have as far as gunshot stuff. We went with a purpose for the holster company. And like I said the holster company is direct to consumer focused. It feels to me and Brett can chime in. To me Shot show is more beneficial to people that are for a holster company anyways, if you were trying to sell to these guns hops or sell other stuff, like we stopped and talked to some guys that did bags and different stuff like that but that wasn’t the main reason we were there. I mean if we want to sell our product to distributors that’s where you want to go. For sure. Okay. And so you get there,  is there some sort of map if you’re like hey I wanna go check out the Canik booths or I wanna go check Sig. Well it’s not a map It’s a book. Okay and then it’s literally a whole book. You get it to when you register, you get a book of every vendor which is in one book and then the next book is a map of each page. 

Now do they somewhat try and group them like all the gun companies together or do they just kind of shotgun them out? That’s what we thought. We thought okay If we get to floor number whatever two or whatever that’s where the Caniks and Walthers and sig and Smith and Wesson? No. because the first floor, we went to didn’t have a gun manufacturing at all. It was like apparel and stuff. A ton of AR parts. I mean there’s you know how many parts on there that people make for ARs just because of how modular they are. It was a ton of that. So we thought okay we’ll get to the next floor and it’ll be what we’re looking for. Not necessarily so does it have like a a vibe of, like I don’t wanna call it like big city gun show but like major distributors and then like, on the other hand, like the local gun shop with the guys trying to sell all their stuff too Is it everybody there Is it like major players mainly? It’s everybody and I think what surprised me more than anything was there was a lot of, I don’t know what the best way to put it is, they were in the market or industry maybe from manufacturing.

But here’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. We go through and we’re taking pictures and stuff you know obviously. We get to this booth they have this cool rifle, this thing’s set up. The guys are like freaking out on us about taking pictures. Well what it is, all these people come from overseas or wherever and they manufacture something for the gun industry. They’re trying to take pictures and I don’t know if they have an app on their phone that somehow is measuring or something with their phone, they can recreate this stuff. Okay so it’s almost like a 3D scanner on their phone or something.  That was probably half of the show to be honest. I’m surprised they would put it out or they would hide it behind some dealer. And that’s the weird thing. We’re like well what’s the point of the shot show if you can’t show stuff? Right. They’ve been making ARs forever and they’re all you know more or less the same you know the specs are close on most of the parts and they are interchangeable. So It came down to like they’re taking pictures of like guns like the handguns and going all around and taking video of it and stuff. Or they can make an off version of it. They’re scanning it then or whatever. Optics were a big one. Yeah optics were the biggest one because most of those optics come from over overseas anyways. There’s very few that are from over here directly. So if one’s popular they’re trying to figure out how to knock it off to get to the next one. And that’s where the airsoft do techs and Trigecons and all those come from eBay because they’re scanning them. They’re throwing a $3 lens instead of you know incision parallax lens in there and then just ripping them off. Yep.

So what booth would you guys say you know did the best booth at the show that you really enjoyed. I think it was so overwhelming that I never really focused in on one booth. There was a few of them that were interactive. I really liked those booths. Like you could go in and use an optic, look down at closed room for thermal. They would shut the doors, let you actually use the product like it was meant to be used. There were some other interactive booths like, I forgot what brand it was. It was a pretty big company but they had like a poker table. And if you played poker you got a chip and you get a free t shirt. There was there was a lot of that stuff but it was so busy. I mean you’d have to stand there for hours to go through those booths but that was cool. The one that stuck out to me the most probably was the companies that have multiple like a US company and a foreign company. Like HK CZ. How different those two companies are and they just do not work together. So it’s not like Toyota, you get a Toyota here and there. No It’s you walk into the booth and they just don’t even mingle in the booth like when you’re talking to each other. They’re separate. Like if you ask them a question about a US gun or product that we wanna talk to them about nope. We have to get you somebody else. It’s was shocking. So like CZ, the shadows are made here in Kansas City and then something else is made there. Do they make them both places or do you even know? We don’t know.

Actually it’s funny. We had a customer in recently in the gun shop that used to work for CZ here in Kansas City. Said they’re shutting down this location and moving it all to Kolt. The truth to that I don’t know. Obviously there’s nothing on concrete evidence on that but it’s the same thing. Just two different companies not working together. And then what do you do right? So you’re just kinda stuck at their mercy right now. Well I’m talking about the CZ booth why we’re there. So at the CZ booth the main gun we’re looking at is the new CZ Shadow two compact. It’s the newest CZ that’s out. The guy that we’re talking was from the Czec side maybe. So anyways he’s super nice dude hes talking and I was like okay, well what can you tell me about the pistol? He goes well it’s not really a competition pistol but it’s not a concealed carry pistol. And I’m like, for us, people are gonna concealed carry that. Oh for sure. Well people, like just to interject. People concealed carry S&W 5.7 which is a foot long, you know in training. Well he was talking because of the double single action on it. How the action of that pistol works. Over there, they wouldn’t consider that a carry pistol. But in this market, everybody’s gonna carry it or some people made a good point too, if you’re in a competition three gun stuff, they have all the different classes. So that may not be a, I don’t know all the different classes but if it’d step you down and you could use that pistol in like a Glock 19 category.

So in layman’s terms, it’s like the demolition derby. They’ve got modified, semi modified. Yes different classes of what you can run it in. Which makes sense to me I mean for me that shadow wouldn’t be something I would carry anyways just because of the sheer weight of it. Not even necessarily size but just the weight but that’s to each their own. Like you said we sell appendix holsters for the biggest guns they make and people carry it appendix so who am I to say that. Yeah and I guess there’s something to say if the best gun to carry in my opinion is the one you’re comfortable with and that you’ve trained with so I can see why somebody know has their pistol that they like. You know it may not be the most comfortable and it may not be the best to conceal. You know so that’s probably why you get a lot of it. But on the same point in time there’s probably better options you know that they could and that’s the good thing about the market. Like if you go to Shot Show you can see even some of the booths we went to with not mainstream gun companies. They have some very good guns out there but a lot of them are close to something else you know. Not necessarily a knock off but  another version of something that’s already out there. Glock is a big one when there’s a lot of separate companies that want to perfect the glock. So the glock 3 patents are out, so that’s why you see glock 3’s redone into shadow systems, the dagger from Palmetto State, all of those because can do whatever they want with it at this point.

Which is a great interjection and kind of sidestep and we’ll get back to it but something that I feel that we do really well than a lot other companies don’t is we make molds for the Shadow systems because we’ve tried the glocks. That’s what everybody does and they don’t fit right. They’re close but they’re not right. So you checked out CZ. I thought I some pictures of a new Canik that came out. What were you guys thoughts on the new Canik were they the TTI combat is that what they are? Yeah it was more or less a compensated version of what they already have. And it and fancied up with some taryn tactical, which taryn tactical does a lot of magwell different stuff. It’s a fancied up one and I would say out of not just Canik but all the booths as far as pistols go which is what we were there to do. By far and wide that’s what we were trying to concentrate on, there was very few new pistols. But with that said over the last two or three years there’s been a ton of new pistols coming out. But what the trend was no different than that Canik where they just put a compensator on it. The FN booth said the same thing, well we got this gun but with a compensator on it. It was all of them doing that same type of stuff.

Okay so far I’ve never shot a pistol with a compensator on it for somebody that’s at home listening, what would be the benefit of having that compensator? Is it less recoil? Is it less muzzle flash? It depends on what you’re talking If you’re talking about a concealed carry pistol, I don’t think it makes as much difference. In all honesty do you Brett? Muzzle rise Yeah I mean muzzle rise and stuff will change some. Target picture doesn’t move as much so it’s quicker on target. They really started for the competition guns is what they started for and then they started making these micro nines. So they put it on there to make the gun a little less snappy. They’re still when you go to a eighteen or twenty ounce gun, it’s still gonna be snappy with a compensator on it. You know there’s no fixing that, it’s a weight thing. Um, so to me for a concealed carry version, it doesn’t trip my trigger too much so to speak as far as what I would want, but a lot of people seem to want that. So I’ve noticed they’re pretty loud. They are loud. I mean I will notice I will give you that, it’s loud. So kinda almost direct some of the sound up instead of forward , yeah Instead of forward is coming up or out.

So is there any anything that was underwhelming to you or any new products that you’re like man that wasn’t the best or I’d hoped for better. I would say the amount of pistols that we saw, new pistols. So I was expecting more new product and I know we kinda talked about it the other day like watchtower firearms that was out there with Rob O’Neil that we’ve done some advertising with. They’ve got the twenty elevens like they’re Apache. Like we were talking about is that kind of the trend Is everybody going twenty elevens now. Because I know you got like the prodigies out Twenty elevens. I mean as far as a nineteen eleven platform, a single stack. I won’t say they’re outdated because I mean people are always gonna carry the seven round, eight round, nineteen eleven’s, but it’s a modern version of them. They shoot amazing. Even the prodigy shoots amazing. But you’re getting a double stack polymer gun and you’re getting the quality and fit finish of a nineteen eleven. That’s kind of what they’re doing. They’re higher end guns. No different than staccatos. You get what you pay for to some extent on that. With that said, for us, In the holster market you don’t tend to do as many holsters for them because no different than I have a staccato from the YouTube stuff. We use it in the holster shop some. It’s not one that sits out there because it’s a three thousand dollar gun. Right But I don’t feel like carrying that gun.

And I have that conversation with a lot of people when it comes to like deer rifles and stuff. Like our dad carried the wooden deer rifle for years and he was like don’t scratch it, don’t touch it, you better not put it on the ground. You know you claim defense and you know whatever. If you can’t hit them with a five hundred dollar pistol the twenty five hundred dollar pistol ain’t gonna help you. Yeah exactly so for me and maybe it’s just because I’m cheaper, I’ve never shot a twenty five hundred dollar pistol but you know I like my XDS or I’ve got a nineteen eleven. And if I’m shooting, I like shooting my nineteen eleven because I feel like I can hit. We’ll just keep you jaded on that so you don’t try to take our expensive ones. There’s a difference but in concealed carry close quarter stuff it’s gonna be next to nothing as far as reality. Oh for sure.

Yeah and I was watching a deal on History Channel and a lot of people have probably seen it but they were talking about like snipers and their tactics and things like that and they had this sniper instructor on there and he runs a shooting school out in Arizona for long range shooting. And he said the most common question he gets is what’s the most accurate rifle I can buy before I come to class. And this guy said I tell all the students the same thing. You can go buy any deer rifle off the shelf at Walmart and it is gonna be more accurate than you can shoot. Until you train hours and hours and you know these long range rifles, these guys are shooting thousands of rounds a week in different weather conditions, humidity temperatures all this stuff, you know to be able to shoot eight hundred, thousand, twelve hundred yards whatever it is and that’s to that point on rifles. So long range shooting’s a whole different thing than deer rifle or coyote hunting You know?

Well, in handguns that trend unfortunately, and that’s another reason why we always are promoting people to go train and you know at the end of every YouTube video it’s keep practicing and always be prepared because go shoot. Like if you only shoot that gun, I don’t care you’re talking a pistol or a rifle. Once a year, you’re not gonna be proficient with it. I don’t care if you are a military guy and twenty years ago shot all the time, it’s a muscle memory thing You got to practice to some extent, which you know ammo’s expensive I get it, but you’re not doing yourself a justice if you buy that pistol and never go train with it. Well and think about there’s a lot of guys that used to throw darts or bowl in a league or play softball, it’s all muscle memory and you know you gotta stay conditioned. You know I used to be able shoot free throws lights out but I go try and shoot ten right now when I make four of them. Yeah That’s like saying well when I was fifteen I was the fastest kid so I’m fastest kid now. Well not so much. Yeah I used to think I was in good shape still and when I was still down pure air we’d go play Sand volleyball. And I used to be fairly athletic. I’m like I’m gonna smoke these kids and dude there’s twenty year old dudes there that aren’t as athletic as I used to be and they would dominate you. And especially like you try and do sand volleyball or something you run three times and you’re done Yeah.

The booth I will say though before I lose my track on it that I was happy to see and the owners were super cool on and were excited to get one of the pistols is the Rost Martin. Who owns that Oh. Sorry I had to put you on the spot. Ive got his card on my desk . Super nice guy him and his wife own it. They’re out of Dallas Texas, American made pistols. It’s kind of like a glock clone in some type of ways, but it’s gonna be a four hundred dollars pistol, and it feels really good. The trigger, It’s hard to say just dry firing it without shooting it a lot. I think it’s got potential for sure. And just being a US company and the owners being cool is hard not to root for them. Well and how they can keep that four hundred dollar price point I mean that that’s a good selling point right there because there’s you know tons of people that don’t have six, seven, eight hundred dollars to go spend on a pistol Yeah And even if they do they don’t want to That’s why I tell people all the time that come in the gunshot when you start talking about the training thing too If you do have eight hundred dollars don’t spend the whole eight hundred dollars on the gun and not buying enough ammo to go shoot it. Right. I mean it don’t matter what you buy You ain’t gonna be good with it if you don’t shoot it. Well and you know not to toot our own horn but same thing for our holsters. You’re gonna conceal carry you know there’s some holsters that are cheap and there’s a reason that they’re cheap and they don’t fit as well and you know from my armed security background, you want your firearm to be secured to you because you don’t know. You may be rolling around, you may be getting out of your car. I mean it doesn’t matter what it is and that’s the problem with holsters. They are the same way as people say Brett likes this gun so his buddy goes and buys that gun. Well it may not work for you. Not that there’s not one gun that’s perfect for everybody. No different than holsters. So it’d be like Brett saying oh I wear this holster and you’re going well I wear this one. And me going off of what you guys say and not trying my own stuff.

The best question I get every day is what what gun fits best? That’s the one that fits you I mean I can’t tell you what’s gonna fit you. And please don’t come in and buy a gun for your wife. Oh yeah I mean it happens all the time. Bring your wife with you. So they want the pink sparkly or it don’t matter about the color? Make sure it fits them because what fits you as a husband does not mean it’s gonna fit your wife. And the trend for that too is most new gun owners, this isn’t just women. This is the guys that come in and they want a concealed carry pistol. They will go pick the smallest thing there. Okay that’s great to conceal, but it’s not the greatest to shoot. If you’re not proficient with it, it doesn’t matter. So there’s a fine line into all of that that a lot of people don’t fully think about when they’re buying a pistol. And then don’t understand why they can’t shoot it good.

Yeah It’s funny that you brought that up because my brother-in-law Jake came over to the shop yesterday asking about that Glock 26 because that’s what he’s looking at and you know we we’ve got a twenty six we’ve got a forty three. And he’s a Glock fan He’s got a seventeen right now and I was like look we got the twenty sixes but I don’t like them. The last time I shot one my fingers wrapped around the bottom the barrels were I didn’t feel like I could hit anything with it I was like you know before you buy one you know at least come up to the shop look at some, feel them in your hand. So you know it’s just kinda weird that you know we’re about that and I literally have that message on my phone from this morning. Yeah I mean it happens all the time and that’s the good thing about this podcast and YouTube and just everything is pushing knowledge to these people especially after COVID, the amount of people, even Platte City that we’ve known all of our life that were people that we would be like they are never gonna buy a gun. Oh for sure. We’re in their going I want a nine millimeter and that’s that was the only thing they cared about. Just the nine. They didn’t care what brand and the only reason is because somebody told him we’ll get a nine millimeter. And then that’s crazy like, I’m all about gun rights but don’t put yourself in that situation. Go get the training with it. Training training training training training for sure.

Now it does seem that nine is by far and away the most popular caliber three eighty. Like it doesn’t seem like many people are carrying forties anymore. Around here I can speak for this I can’t speak for all over the country but around here, technology is caught up with forty from nine. Nine plus hornady round is what most police departments are carrying now The technology is just there. It’s just better ammunition. Kinda like five six versus  two three you get a little bit more pressure pop. For the for the police departments they carry forties forever because it was a step down from a forty five but they got a few more rounds. But then like most police departments are carrying glocks so take a glock nineteen which is a nine millimeter version. They are carrying glock twenty threes which is the forties. Well you could only get thirteen rounds, isn’t it thirteen rounds compared to fifteen or it it’s a round capacity difference. So when one department would switch they would all switch. So like say if they were somewhere in a bad situation, they all have glock nine millimeters, they can all use the same mags. Makes sense Is what it really goes down to and other officers.

So I know like our grandpa back in the day, his service revolver was a thirty eight special so was there a transition from thirty eight to forty at some point in time or like, was forty five everything and they went down because it seemed like they’re trying to be too lethal with the forty five. And is that why they stepped down to a forty? Not that I know of. I know there’s departments all across the country that they get to use what they want to use. But it went from thirty eights to forty. Biggest reason was round count, cost of ammo and cost of ammo is still another reason why they went from forty to nine. And forty is not as easy to find anymore. There’s just reasons economical and comfort, you know a shooting that ballistics is better or getting better on nine millimeter. And they keep going back and forth. There are departments that have switched from forty to nine and then back. It’s just kind of a weird transition. I think forty five was never fully in with the police departments because of and back in the old days not so much but nowadays there’s a lot of women police officers. A woman trying to control a forty five and that size gun is gonna be hard Yeah and that that’s the biggest thing where I don’t you know working here I don’t even have a concealed holster for my nineteen eleven because the thing is so big you know and you got the big bullets in the bag. I wear an outside on it and I wear it you know on the side by side riding around the farm doing stuff like that So I can see where that would be way less appealing to have those big heavy rounds trying to carry around.

Now on the police departments in the nines you know we’ve got those pistol carbines in there. Are a lot of them going away from five six and running more pistol car beams in their car where they can you know use same mags or they? Not that I’ve seen yet but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. They have two three most likely for distance you know not necessarily close in quarters. They’re not using rifles most likely if they’re going through a house. Most unless it’s like a SWAT team, but a lot of that will go by areas. What happens here Kansas City will be different than wherever. And I mean the guys driving around western you know they’re gonna get bigger wider open areas. Well but I mean even in town too you know don’t know like you can get into a Walmart or you know big warehouse type deal and you need the range if you got an active shooter situation. Yeah I know departments will have full auto in some areas. Some will have just semi auto. They’ll have suppressed. It just really depends on the department. Yeah I know our buddy Brett when he was a motorcycle officer they had ARs, and they had them on the saddle bags. On their bikes when they’d ride around but, I didn’t realize police departments go through all the same ATF stuff that they don’t. They don’t? Nope. They can buy off of a head letter. You know I mean for like the heading of police departments, they can buy off that and just have it shipped directly to them. There are different rules. They can’t just sell them like anybody else that everybody still has to go through that process but yeah police departments have it a little easier. But I mean they should most of most of them are government. I thought that was pretty cool because I would have never thought them putting in the saddlebag but you know I guess there’s you know spot for everything there.

And walking around the shot show, we saw a lot of that stuff. Like a lot of the ARs were into pistol stuff. Daniel defense booths had a ton of AR pistols in it. Daniel defense had that h nine Yeah. Which is gonna be a cool pistol coming out. Pretty excited to shoot that. It’s kind of like a nineteen eleven platform but with a polymer frame, um, not polymer frame but was it polymer? I think they said the reliability of a striker fired gun. Okay. Yeah AR pistols are definitely making a comeback with the ATF stuff going on. Yeah The other one like we were talking about says ruger chargers like they’re selling us pistols but they’re clearly designed with the rail system on the back accept a brace or whatever they’re calling it now. They’re not real big fans of that.  So is there any more talk on that Is that kinda going back and forth still or, you know just kinda wait and see? As far as I know it’s just ATF had the option to appeal, but the rumor I heard is it wouldn’t do them a whole lot of good because the appeal court was one of the reasons they won. Didn’t got thrown out in the first place.

So I just pulled up the h nine. It says Stracker fired meets nineteen eleven So it’s like a nineteen eleven platform but in a striker fired gun. The one thing it felt great I thought in my hand, The trigger is a little different. So the trigger safety hinges from the bottom instead of the top. So it just had a different feel to it. I won’t say that’s bad because I haven’t shot it yet but it’s it feels different than the rest of your guns I’ll put it that way. It does feel good in your hand It’s smooth It’s I mean the grip on it’s non aggressive Well just have to see how fast those actually come out because the guy at the Daniel defense booth we were talking to the marketing guy about just getting one in for testing purposes to have for a couple weeks to do all of our scans with and send back. And he goes well they’re telling employees right now it’s gonna be two years before employees can even get one. Remember the guy saying that so I don’t know. That’s what sucks sometimes about like shot show stuff. You may see something like everybody sees us even we posted a picture of the h nine on there. Yeah and then people are calling me even before we got back from Vegas, Hey can I get one of those? Well hell it may be six months or year before we get one.

Yeah I wonder how much of that’s like they’re like oh hell shot shows here. We have to have something to show. It’s just kinda what we’re working on. It is some ways to be honest with you. We said we were kind of disappointed without the new guns coming out at Shot Show. But I feel like some of these guns have been coming out at other times of the year so no different than that Walter PD three eighty which I’m not a super fan of you guys and go to YouTube and watch that but it came out back in October.  So they were showing it at the shot show. I think it’s better for the industry to come out with stuff as it’s ready to come out instead of either hurry up and get it ready for Shot show or have something that could be good to the market and then have to hold it until Shot show. Which I think is what kind of happened in the past when they released twenty new guns all at shot show. I mean they released what ruger released those LC carbines and forty five ACP, haven’t seen any of those yet. Yep Smith and Wesson and lever actions haven’t seen any of those yet. I mean there’s some releases that come out that are really cool and I can’t wait to get my hands on them. But, I mean when I say get my hands on them I don’t mean just hold them I mean like shot show you can hold everything. You can’t shoot it. I mean I can hold a gun all day long but that does not mean that I’m gonna like it. So once I shoot it I can make a better you know judgment on that gun but so that’s kind of what I’m waiting for right now as a gunshot side. And for everybody waiting, we’re waiting with you.

Yeah and that’s the frustrating part for everybody and just how marketing works around the shot show is it, you know everybody coming together to work together in the industry is a great thing but then the customer side gets used to certain things and then want it now you know and that’s not how it it’s working unfortunately. In the perfect world when like say the h nine came out they’d be ready to send it to every gun shop or whatever but who knows what stage it’s really in. Maybe it’s not quite ready to ship yet or maybe it is nobody knows.

Now is it getting better with availability across the board? Like I know during COVID we were talking last episode, we were bringing in personal guns so we had something to put on the shelf. Are guns getting back to where the production starting to catch up like across the board? It’s going in waves. So one time ammo is really hard to get, primers were hard to get. Right now ammo is coming back, primers are still hard to get but I’ve heard powder is almost nowhere to be found. It’s just coming in waves and then rifles, shotguns, pistols exact same reason. Sig right now for some reason are just very hard get gun to get right now. They were great all through COVID. And then now they’re just almost impossible to find And there’s no reason for it other than probably production They didn’t plan for it or something going like that I don’t know speak for that But, you know that’s what’s going on right now. It just waves. The funny part of one thing I was kind of shocked about at Shot Show I just thought of it because he said sig, sig Sauer was not there. Not at all. We went through and I’m like okay we’ve missed them somewhere. So we asked one of our distributors from the guns hop side andhe goes oh they haven’t been coming for what do you say two or three years? Did they say why Is there a reason? Only thing I can think is like we talked about it’s an industry So like Sigs whether they go to Shot show or not a gun shop’s customer is gonna ask for those guns. You know so it’s not like they need to go sell to these gun shops. The customers really drive what we’re gonna buy. Because you gotta have what the customers want.

So you’re basically saying that because I don’t know if you’ve known because this is our first time, we didn’t realize how big some of these booths really get I mean they spent hundreds of thousands on these booths. So I saw a deal like when you guys were going like they have the Texasized deer blind that’s as big as my house up on the lakes. Was that in shot show? Not this year we didn’t see it. I didn’t see it. They have some three stories tall. And the third story is nothing for but salesman to meet up there and do business you know. There’s just a lot of different things going on in there. Sig knows they’re gonna sell guns no matter what. So they’re cutting out their quarter million dollar expense, and they’re not gonna get hurt whatsoever. Because the big booth Smith and Wesson had twenty or thirty high end employees in it. Oh yeah you know suit and tie employee guys in there. So you take their salary for the week you take the hotels, the meals, the booth itself. I mean yeah it’s easy a quarter million dollar Probably a week to two weeks to set up and week to two weeks to tear down I mean on somebody’s booths they’re shipping their booths back and forth all that.

Now does that eliminate like a lot of the mom and pop companies from even being able to do it Is there like a cheaper booth? So there’s booths all the way down to like a ten by ten boot A ten by ten  tent. Like you would see with the table and flyer and stuff on it. The issue for that is like what me and Brett talked about while we’re coming home is us as a holster company going out there, being as we’re direct to consumer more than we are to dealers. I don’t know even if you spent ten grand on a booth which would be more than that, by the time you get it out there, people to work and stay for the show. I don’t see the benefit to it for us. And I think that’s where a lot of the small companies run into is unless you’re driven to do that, but a lot of these gun shops went forty percent off. So how are you gonna be driven to do that and take forty percent off? You know, our pricing structure just doesn’t do that. Whereas, a holster company that would sell our holsters for you know a hundred dollars that we sell for sixty to the customer which is long term screwing the customer. They have that market because then they sell them for sixty to the dealers. You know so we just don’t get into that dynamic of that. So for us a booth would not be beneficial at all. Well for us I mean same reason like you know people are probably curious about well I ordered this holster. Why is there four – five day lead time because we make every order for that customer. We don’t sit there in stock you know ten thousand glock nineteen holster.  Like we’d never be able to hire enough guys number one to make every holster out there with all the combinations. Color patterns and that’s something we haven’t talked about that, you know I think it’s really cool that we do by sublimating our Kydex ourselves. We’re able to offer these patterns and come up with stuff and do specialty prints for people that know other companies may not have and you know trying to stay on the cutting edge of what people want. But when you start getting into you know three or four carbon fiber colors you’d never be able to stock enough. So for us to have a booth it’d be counterproductive because ninety five percent of what we took there wouldn’t sell because it wouldn’t be the right orientation, the right clip, the right belt loops.

And gun shops are the same way I mean us having a gun shop literally four steps behind or in front of our holster shop, you’d think we’d be able to stock everything. We could have two hundred holsters in there and we’d never have what people want. And that’s us owning a holster company and a gun shop. So for a normal gun shop that’s ordering from us or any other holster company, the chances of them ever having what the customer wants anyways are slim to none because they’ll come in and they’ll have a black one there or a whatever Glock nineteen say. Well I want the black carbon fiber on it or I want this clip on it. It’s always something different. Which is great because we offer options where people can customize it to them. But from a wholesale shop side, that;s why our new holsters that we’ve been switching to is really helping with that because they’re cut for optic all the time now. They have all of our clip options available.

So Kyle before you came which you already know this but our holsters were either molded for the standard clip or the monoblock or the tuckable not both of them. Well now we mold them for both of them that way the customer can do whatever they want. Because some people order the standard clip thinking that’s what they want and it ends up not. Well then they’d either have to stick with a holster they don’t really like or exchange it or whatever Well now they can use a ulti clip one day if they’re not gonna wear a belt and then switch it to a tuckable clip or switch it to a monoblock. They have versatility to do what they want now where we’re not locking them into oh now you have to buy another holster. Which is really cool and you know kind of talking about the gun shops and the stuff that you will find stocked is I’ve seen of course you know my phone’s always listening so I get ads for holster companies all the time and I know they’re you know trying to lessen the amount of molds and they can pre stock stuff but they try to make everything a bit extra. So you flip your clips on one side or the other. Well, those are never gonna fit as good that something that’s designed to be worn on the right side or the left you know. Yeah They’re bulky It’s gonna add width to every holster when you do that. And we’ve had people ask to do that. We’ve just always not done it because no matter what you do in that form, not even us or any other holster company, it’s a halfway good one or way halfway good the other way. You’re never gonna get a hundred percent good inside holster that’s also a hundred percent good outside holster. There’s not such a thing. But they do it because we know how much molds cost.

We make our own molds now and how much room molds take up people don’t realize that we’ve got a library of molds. And you know we aren’t a quarter of way through and we got a library of them. So we’re talking just for the people at home you’ve got one gun okay so now you’ve got left and right so that’s two and that’s for the inside. Now you’ve got a paddle version with left and right so now you’re up to four. Then you’ve got a mach series, now you’re up to six Then you got the outside and you’re up to eight. So that’s eight molds for one gun without a light. By the time you do lights you’re about fifty. So for every light you’re doubling it. So you know you take what there’s just say two hundred popular handguns times fifty. That’s at what ten thousand molds? Yep. You better get to work Kyle. That’s all I’m saying.

Just the blocks I mean we’re making no matter straight blocks. The box are twenty, thirty, forty dollars a piece There’s almost sixty dollars a piece for the outside blocks. And the other thing people don’t realize is kind of being new to CNC, it was a learning curve for sure. But, you can have, sixty thousand dollar Haas CNC machine or you can have a ten thousand dollar, you know hobby level let’s just call it CNC machine. And you can only cut so fast. If you’re cutting metal that sixty thousand dollar machine will do it better because it’s a stronger motor. You need more spindles. Need more spindles, which is why we have a hundred grand in CNC machines running all day every day. And that’s why the modeling’s not bad.

I hear phone calls come in and why is it two weeks on the light? Well I have to model it which will take me a couple hours to make the mold right. Then we have to go cut it which takes a couple hours and then we test it. And you know by the time you’re the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth light combination in line, you know you’re four days out. And then we gotta make sure it fits right. You know fold it, test it to your gun and make sure it’s right when you get it. So, it’s not like a standard glock seventeen that we’ve made ten thousand of already. No. And that’s the misconception of the holsters is they think oh you just throw a light on it and mold it They don’t realize all the other stuff that goes in to make sure it fits. Making sure it goes in the holster. You know you’ll get people sometimes to go well on the light bearing holster it tops open some. Well yeah. Why does part of your light have to go through the top of the holster too. The way I try and explain it you know you started the muzzle of the pistol. And then you work your way all the way back to the striker. And wherever it’s fat on the front there’s gotta be a channel all the way down for that to slide in. So that’s where you get retention issues and you know especially you talk about blue guns and taping them up.

You tell me how you’re gonna realistically and consistently tape up light bearing holsters on a blue gun because that channel is not gonna be right. I guarantee you it’s gonna drag where some of the blue guns don’t even have the rails on there to put lights on. So the blue guns are inconsistent by themselves but then you put a light on a blue gun it’s ten times worse. And even having the models and you know measuring with micrometers and knowing what tolerances we need on them. There’s still adjustments that come in where you’re talking about with those sixty dollar molds. We may cut one and it may not fit and guess where that mold is. Gone in the dumpster. But that’s something we do because if I sell it that’s my product that’s our name on it and I don’t want to get one back that says, hey here’s you know a bit it looks like crap.

Well at that point we can control our destiny all the way around if they don’t fit long term which in manufacturing stuff can happen all the time. You’re never gonna send out a hundred thousand holsters and every one of them be perfect. Something can always happen, but when something happens we can fix the issue with us doing our own molds compared to when we’re using other molds,. You know they’re not making holsters off of them They don’t care. Well and you know kinda you know like we call it like the old way of where it’s a craftsman deal And you can have the best craftsman on earth and he’s not gonna ever cut two glock seventeen holes the same with the same outline the same jig, where now you can take our shells and stack up fifty of them and they look like poker chips stacked up and the holes are perfect. Pretty straight down all the hundred percent same shape. And the coolest part about it is we resisted going that route for a long ways. Because we didn’t want our holsters to be like if you look at a lot of holsters on the market without calling anybody out, there’s a lot of them that look identical. Right The reason for this is, they are not making their own molds. They’re buying molds from somebody and buying a trim jig from somebody. So they’re not even in charge of their holsters Yes they’re putting their name on it, but they’re only gonna fit as good as the guy using that same mold. Whereas us there’s nobody right, wrong or indifferent. It’s on us if it’s wrong  because we did it. So whatever that optic cut is cut for, that’s what they’re getting. Wherever the end of the muzzle is, that’s what they’re getting which is another thing you know going over the basics of why I think ours are better and well why I know ours are better then a lot of them? You know the guy’s buffing it comes down to the simple act of buffing and taking the time to have that nice polished finish all the way around the outside. Where it doesn’t drag on you. It’s comfortable It looks nice. The rounded edges like on the end of the muzzle we extend them all out. Where you don’t have that sharp edge digging into the bottom when you sit down in your car and avoiding corners on it you know rounding everything off.

I see tons of not forty five degree angles but like on some of them that aren’t. They are pretty blocky and it’s a lot of extra plastic and that all that extra plastic is just digging into you. It’s going to be uncomfortable, more to get in the way more. Well they’re not buffing them because we know with labor and stuff, It doesn’t seem like it would be, but the buffing and stuff takes more time than any of it does. It’s the fine tuning of stuff compared to just rush it through and put screws through it. Yeah and I know the other reason and our guys are great so this isn’t a shot at our guys I’m just speaking from managing for a lot of years . I’m sure a lot of these other companies too especially if you’re trying to mass produce these things, you’re not gonna buff them because know the number one issue when that CNC machine cuts it, those cuts and angles and corners are exactly how we want them. We tested them. You get the guy over there buffing well he takes the corner off and then he starts rounding them and he starts shaping them instead of buffing them. So we’re not you know, we’re polishing them. We’re not trying to recreate the wheel here.

 I have a quick story that gives me a reason that our holsters are different. This one time there’s a gun show in Tulsa Oklahoma. It’s one of the biggest in the country. I don’t know if you two have ever been there or not. It’s close to about like the shot show as far as size wise It’s it’s four stories of Bartle Halls. It’s been three years since I’ve been there but it’s pretty famous around the country for gun show and we’re walking through this gun show and we’re running because it’s right at this like middle of COVID, and certain guns. Remington just went out of business. Uh there’s certain guns that people are really just looking for focusing on and I wanted personal for like eight seventy shotguns. I was looking so we were basically running through this gun show and something caught my eye and there was this red holster sitting on a table with a pistol. And I knew instantly, it was a muddy river holster and I had only been working here maybe three four months at the time. This was years ago. Yeah I remember he sent me a text seen one And I’ve seen it as I knew instantly it was our holster and it’s just the details that we add to those holster hand buffing the round, round edges, the beveled ends like we put a bevel on every holster to make it comfortable. And that’s what a lot of these companies like Kevin was saying. They use these molds that everybody else uses. Well they don’t care about comfort. They’re just caring about selling their molds. We care about all of it. The details, not just customer service like Kevin said yesterday, the comfort level of that holster as well and that’s and it just stood out immediately as soon as I seen it on late on that table with all those pistols like well there’s ours.

And at the end of the day too it’s another accessory that you’re carrying around. No different than your watch or your hat or your tattoo. You know you don’t want some blocky thing that looks like Buzz lightyear should have it. Well the truth is you should forget about that holster. Once you wear it you shouldn’t even know you have it on. So that helps and the fact that all of our holsters we’re making them all optic cut now. You know some people might not have an optic but that doesn’t six months from now you’re not gonna buy one and the question we get all the time is well does it affect the fit if I don’t have an optic and no it does not? And we make them all with suppressor height sights and for threaded barrels. So anything you can do to your pistol, it’s gonna be covered. Know whether you have it now or not you know your decisions change down the road and we and like I said none of it affects any of the fitment any of the retention none of it. I know you had a blog post about it but the age old you know is Kydex gonna scratch up my gun. You know that was the from my understanding that came from the early days of Kydex where they didn’t really know.

Yeah I mean just give a brief if you think about it was leather for years from cowboy guns nothing but leather. When Kydex came around there’s leather makers, Galco gun leather you know some really big players that still make great holsters not downplaying them at all and I’m not saying it was them that were saying this stuff but like local mom and shop holster leather holster guys. The leather market is kind of trending out because it was generally speaking older people doing that. There’s very few younger generation kids that are in leather work now. But when it first came out, they’re freaking out because it’s taking a big chunk of their market. You know so they were like well there’s no way and they didn’t know. So it’s not like they’re purposely sabotaging and that it’s gonna tear up your gun. And some of the Kydex did because like what we talked about they’re using blue guns They didn’t know how to do it. They don’t have those rounded edges so it may drag. There’s a reason why there’s probably seven or eight top holster companies but you can find three hundred holster companies on the internet. There’s a reason for that. It also depends on the finish on your gun There’s high end companies that I’ve seen their finished scratch with barely doing anything to it I mean, yeah they’ll take care of them and they help that customer out but the next time they go to put that in another holster it’s gonna scratch it just the same.

At the end of the day if there’s things you can do to a holster to make it not wear as much but if you’re gonna actually use a pistol and train up with a pistol which you absolutely should if you’re gonna carry that pistol. If you think it’s not gonna get anywhere on it you might as well leave it in the safe because you’re gonna end up very upset.  I carried a springfield XDM or no not an XDM the original Springfield XD nine was what I carried working on security all the time. I mean it’s down to almost silver but I shot it all the time I mean that spring’s like perfect in there and well it’s really no different than leather. Leather wears just the same as Kydex. Any leather I think leather wears worse because in a Kydex holster once your gun’s in there it’s not moving. In leather, it’s always shifting back and forth. It’s almost like a sandpaper. Yeah In leather or kydex it doesn’t matter which one and that’s thing about us doing the leather holsters too is we can give you an unbiased opinion There’s good and bad on both of them, but the dirt lint debris in your holster is what’s gonna tear your gun up finish wise more than anything because it acts like a sandpaper texture in there that’s just rubbing back and forth.

Which would lead you know to kind of a side point that this isn’t for this podcast but know the importance of cleaning your concealed gun you know because you are just like your watch if you take it off right now there’s gonna be all sorts of sand and you know stuff in the in the band and there’s all sorts of stuff to that. And like I said that can be a whole other thing on people training and what we suggest with guns. Don’t carry a gun for four years. Never clean it. Never take the bullets out of the mag. The springs could wear out because I’ve heard the springs can get kinda sloppy. Yeah No pressure but you should at least once a year empty your mags. Sometimes you can even take the mags apart stretch out the springs. There’s maintenance you can do on guns but the people that come in with guns especially used guns that they go oh I carried it for three years and it looks like it just left the gun shop. You know they’re doing their self a misjustice right there. They’ve never shot that gun. They don’t know if they can hit the damn wall with that gun.

Yeah and that’s kinda like we were talking about that glock twenty six earlier. I haven’t shot as many rounds as you because you shoot all the time but when I was shooting all the time is when I shot that glock twenty six and I might as well have thrown the pistol at the target you know because I just could not hit what I wanted to.  And it’s all what you get used to. There’s some guys that can shoot them great and some that can’t, but what you shoot great I might not shoot great and vice versa. There’s no one pistol for everybody. And that’s the misconception of oh I shoot this pistol so there’s guys that come in and have shot pistols a lot but buy a new gun they think just because they can shoot that other gun that they don’t need to shoot this gun.

Yeah me for example. I love glock glock’s a great gun. I cannot shoot Glock to save my life I mean, I’m terrible with it and I don’t know why I’ve had every model I can think of and I shoot them all and I think it’s the angle grip.It’s a grip angle Yeah. But that’s, you know that’s the way it is. So I shoot other guns better than you know some brands but I’m not knocking glock for that. That’s on me you know so that’s why you have to test guns. If you can rent them that’s great. Maybe in the future we’ll have that option but it don’t look like it anytime soon. So do your training if you’re gonna carry it at least you know be responsible enough to be familiar with that gun. And you know train know how it shoots and know how it handles, know what it feels like in your hand. If it’s got a safety know how to operate the safety. And treat it like the you know responsibility that it is. Yeah Just don’t be negligent in thinking that your GI joe and can save everybody and you have no clue if you can or not.

Alright if you can’t clean it you can always bring it into the gun shop. I mean in all honesty I don’t clean mine I just take it to him in the gun shop and I’ll let him do it here real quick. So I like to put a funny story in here. So I know you’ve got a blooper real somewhere. Um tell me about when Brett installed that optic on your gun that may. Oh don’t even put that on me. Nope. So what happened there? Brett fixed it I mean does that count It was actually the Echelon. Echelon I think when it first came out, so Brett was busy. No way. Acting busy anyway Okay I believe I was in too big of a hurry to wait for Brett. Maybe that could possibly be part of it too. So it says to use these screws. So that’s what I used I ain’t no damn gunsmith. I don’t use the screws they said to use. I tightened it on there I made it through about three mags. And I got a blooper reel somewhere. The damn optic came off and whacked me right here and literally cut my forehead. He was at the house. You’re in the pool. Yeah. We’re in the pool at the house He was happy swimming i’m down there doing a review on this gun. I call him like hey you come down here and I think he thought I shot my foot or something. Yeah he was telling me he’s like hey I just need your help come over here I couldn’t find the damn optic a brand new four hundred dollar optics in the grass.

The best blooper though was doing YouTube videos when Jake came in the way. So when I started YouTube videos, I was using like a green screen doing it all sorts of crap. You know I’m not a video guy. They’re still not great but they came a long way from what they were. So I’d spent like four hours working on this one video because I’d keep messing up somewhere and couldn’t edit it out. Whatever. So I’m like twenty minutes into this and I finally got it good.  I’m in the back bedroom at in our house it’s got the shop and then the back bedroom in the shop not the house part. Right I’m almost done. I mean probably forty five seconds left. And Jake this was probably a year ago so he’s five you know. He opens the door and just a look on his face on the camera peaks in and I’m like, I just pause. I look at him I’m like, what the hell are you doing? He goes, oh sorry. So the funniest part of the blooper reel though and I’ll try to find it and put it up there I got it somewhere but I literally stand there for like twenty seconds like looked like the most defeated guy ever in the camera like scratching my head like, oh shit. Like well there went twenty minutes down the drain. Yeah and I’ve already spent four hours I mean this is probably the twentieth time I’ve tried to record this stupid video because I’ve always done like think it was a second or third video I ever did so I had no idea what I was doing. So now if we do that you’re able to kind of edit it out and just be normal. Yeah. You just roll with the flow. Yeah I just roll with it.Yeah if I look I look stupider and I normally do well it happens.

So any last minute things, we’re gonna wrap up here pretty quick. But any tips for people who may be going to shot show in the future. What would you tell them to do? What would you like to do I can tell you for us when we go back to the shot show we will probably go next year we’ll probably go for the range day part of it which is not the main show. It’s a range day where you can shoot those and that they limit that to even more than they limit the shot show. Um so we’re gonna go to that where we can actually shoot some of these guns and then do maybe one day at the show. They also have a supplier show that we missed. We didn’t know that. We missed the supplier show. Now is that the belt clips and Kydex companies, manufacturers in a lot of the stuff we’ve used over the years. We buy stuff in bulk enough you know four or five years ago we’d buy a thousand belt clips that time. Now we order twenty thousand belt clips. So the more volume you go up we go direct through a lot of stuff already, but there’s some stuff we still don’t have contacts go direct through, which will help us especially during the COVID times Luckily, in the COVID times we were a big enough player in the holster industry. That we could get whatever we wanted They would say hey we’re not gonna have this but we’re setting this much aside more than you’ll ever need to make sure. So where we weren’t lucky in the gun shop side as far as doing that we were on the holster side. And we need to talk to those companies because there’s future plans that we need to address, you know in the holster industry and we’re gonna need help with suppliers I mean that’s for sure. So yeah we’re always working on new things different things.

Next year hopefully the focus and hopefully the podcast helped some of this. Gun Shop side wise, we would like to sell some more stuff across the country to customers we already have. The issue with that is just throwing streamlight under the bus here because they’re the first one I can think of but like our cost on like a streamlight light through our suppliers is the same cost you can get one on Amazon. And we can get free shipping. Yeah. So it really we’d lose money to buy some of the stuff through our suppliers which is crazy. Well and you’d be doing them a disservice Amazon’s gonna have it there tomorrow by noon And that’s what I’m saying. So they get free shipping plus same cost as we’re getting. It’s hard for a company to make any money at that. And I’m gonna be honest I always have been a very honest person out outspoken person. I’m gonna let you that customer know to go here go there whether it’s hurting us a little bit or not. They’re gonna appreciate that for the future hopefully. And that’s one thing that we’d like to get fixed is so if we have our own website or whatever avenue we go just the first of them.

That’s how these people are selling guns and transferring guns and stuff like that. We have a huge loyal customer base already. That I can already tell you ninety percent of them will buy from us over anybody else anyways because of the service they’ve already got, but we need these suppliers to treat us the same as they’re treating the other people so that we can do that for our customers without hurting them.

Well I am super excited to see what this next year brings. I know we’ve got a lot of good products and you know we’ve got some new double stack. They’re not double stack dual mag holsters that are coming out that we just prototyped out. And the nine millimeter double stack, nine millimeter versions are on the website now. Yeah So check that out muddyrivertactical.com. Please follow us on YouTube. If you’re watching this on YouTube thank you. Go ahead and give us a like subscribe follow us all that good stuff. Follow us on Facebook Instagram Twitter. Spotify. So our podcast will be on weekly. We’re airing them on Thursdays is that is that what we’re doing? I think so because it’s kinda weird. We’re still learning the whole podcast thing. The video version of it is gonna be on YouTube because that’s where we can always put it the video version I think is always gonna be better because you guys can see what’s going on. Well you get to see dad pit over here in this mug. That’s why your camera didn’t work last time That’s why you’re on the long view. Yeah. He caught me on slow motion last time Kyle’s camera was slow mo on episode one So he looked like he is going, um, not moving very fast Let’s put it that way So he wanted me to look more like I do with him at work working. So he had it on like the super slow mo so you guys wouldn’t know the difference. Yeah It’s kinda like you know they say when you’re gonna go get your driver’s license go get buzzed at the DMV and then that way when the pulls you over and you’re drunk, they look at your license and you look the same. So they just let you go.

But Spotify and all that audio only what they can listen to If you’re listening at work you’re probably not watching the video anyways if you wanna watch the video it’s gonna be on YouTube. YouTube will be Thursdays at six for sure. Okay Spotify, I tried to schedule it yesterday for the first episode that’s going today. I tried to schedule it for today and it just posted it So I probably did something stupid but Wednesday or Thursday it will be on Spotify, but Thursdays at six on YouTube all the time. Yeah and for the people that made it this far again, we thank you and we appreciate you more than you know. Um we do have a code for all you. We’re an hour and six minutes in so thank you. MRTpodcast will get you ten percent off the website. I’m gonna switch it to fifteen to help him out. Fifteen even better. You are the man and you can get one of these sweet shirts. We’ve got hoodies. We got hats. We’re working on doing some range bags things like that you can get yourself a sweet holster um you know if you’ve got a loved one who may needs a holster. We sell gift cards too. Um anything you need. If you got questions reach out call us. People call all the time. We are here to help you guys. Uh we appreciate everybody and all the support. And for now we’ll go ahead and wrap for this week.  thanks again to Quentin Cox for doing our music. We appreciate him and again thanks.  we’ll see you next week See you guys. See you.