Concealed Carry Pistols / Concealed Carry in Schools

Episode 5 of the Muddy River Tactical Podcast

Welcome back to the Muddy River Tactical podcast. I am your host Kyle Mason I run CNC and design all of our holsters fun stuff like that. Joined today as always by Kevin Mason, the owner CEO, President, man in charge. I mean Brett Davis, he runs our gun shop. He’s our firearms expert and gonna talk to him a lot today about all things firearms. Give me all the way into the bus. All the way under. It’s like Episode Brett Episode. Brett forty five seconds in and here we go. Don’t even know who Brett is. It’s been your friend thus far. All he’s done is talk crap about how we over talk him. So we’re just gonna let him talk for an hour. Yeah for four weeks. All you guys do talk to each other I don’t get any airtime so they’re asking you showers. Even my wife that talks more than anybody’s like you guys are overtalking me. Like you’re just not used to anybody else talking. It’s like well we’re pretty interesting guys. We got a lot of stuff to say. Well in the normal world, neither of you talk. Let’s just be honest. Well maybe because we don’t like you. That that is true. We are fairly quiet when you know kind of self not self absorbed but like you know just kinda introverted when it comes to being, you know, social and you get us in front of a microphone and you got to look at me all of a sudden. We got Brett and a gun shop that wants to talk to everybody. Yeah. Oh yeah. Kind of the Platt City hangout for sure some come in there smoke some cigarettes. Yeah we need a smoke patch and he’ll be good. Well if we can get like a vent hood over the top of work station where we can just vent it outside then we don’t need smoke breaks no more. Yeah Look like a chimney.

Alright so on today’s episode, that will be his next employee by the way. Alright Let’s start. Alright Welcome muddy family. Welcome so on today’s episode we’re gonna talk about as a company of some of our favorite concealed carry guns that are popular step that a lot of our customers have had good luck with. Not necessarily all encompassing lists or that these are the best things or the only things because there’s a million guns out there. But just kind of a general ten thousand foot guide of what’s really popular and why we think they’re good and you know maybe what’s not so great about them, we’ll talk a little bit about some different calibers, popular guns, semi autos versus revolvers kind of all that we’ll get into. We’ve got an article we’re gonna go over too today about concealed carrying in the news. Kind of interesting about school boards allowing concealed carry for staff members in schools and the trend with that.

But we’ll kind of wrap all that up and then have our viewer question of the week but let’s just kick it off and go with some of the top you know most popular concealed carry guns out there. Just starting with the basics as far as calibers. So what are the most popular calibers that people are carrying in? First off I would like to start by I’m no expert like Kyle said earlier, I am just the hobbyist, that happens to work at a gun shop. Alright Let’s start with that. As far as popularity nine millimeters, by far the most popular caliber, not probably not just in our shop here in Kansas City area I would assume it’s across the country. It’s easiest to find, cheapest to find most of the time and whenever a pandemic happens or something like that happens, nine millimeters is usually the easiest one to find to help yourself out. Well and with the price being lower and like you said more available it goes back to what we talk about all the time is training and you can actually find the most you can train with it instead of having some obscure caliber that even if you wanted to train you probably aren’t gonna shoot your last twenty rounds at the range when you need them you know for self defense. For sure.

So as far as the nine versus like the three eighty and forty five, nine is the most popular. Is that just do you think round capacity is why it became that way? Round capacity is definitely a plus and the technology. So nine millimeter plus p rounds have caught up to let’s say forty Smith and Wesson, which everybody knows a majority of the police departments across the country, carried forty Smith and Wesson and they’ve been jumping back and forth from nine millimeter to forty Smith and Wesson and over the years and now I think majority of them are at nine millimeter now. Just the critical defense ammo or the critical duty ammo that cops use a lot of times, the technologies that’s there. It’s got a better ballistic. So it’s not necessarily a bigger bullet, so the knockdown powers maybe not as much, but it penetrates further. And does more damage and that’s what they’re looking at you know, statistically. And for us it comes down to what everybody’s carrying. You have to have it and as far as three eighty goes, forty five wonderful calibers not bashing forty, I’m not bashing any of it. Just in our area forty doesn’t sell anymore. It’s just there’s still guys that have it. Because there’s a lot of handguns. There’s a lot of guns that’s you know take forty Smith and Wesson but you have to carry it am I wrong? Would you say that’s wrong Kevin? No We we gotta carry the ammo still for sure but as a gun shop I couldn’t tell you the last forty that you’ve actually ordered that I’m aware of as far as a new pistol because when we first opened we had a few thinking that we would need them. And I think they sat there for a couple of years. When I started this roughly seventeen years ago that’s what majority of the customers bought forty Smith and Wesson. But nine was still just starting to take off and now it’s completely flipped. And it’s just a wonderful caliber now for across the board, point in self protection, all the above.

So when you’re talking about concealed carry ammo you kind of touched on defense rounds. I know Hornady makes a critical defense when I work security. We all had the I believe they were spear gold dots is what they recommended and we’re not sponsored by them. So for concealed carry though, you definitely want some sort of, defense round not just you know. Yeah So the defense round, it has an expandable bullet. So when it hits a target, it expands and does all the damage in that one area. A target round that you would shoot at paper or anything like that is a solid bullet and it’s more likely to just penetrate and go through the target, hit the backdrop as well whether that may be other people walls whatever it may be. So if you’re truly defending yourself, you’re gonna want a critical defense or something hydro shock from federal or spear gold dot from, all the above. We’re not really recommending a certain brand because I will tell you in the gun shop you have to try all of them because some guns don’t like certain brands. Some guns don’t like certain self defense ammo, so that’s we’re not gonna get too deep into that today. But I will say on that subject as far as training and shooting, don’t shoot full metal jacket and assume that whatever defense round you’re carrying is gonna shoot the same. Absolutely not because it does not all the time. Sometimes it does but not all the time. And I actually had that on my notes here because you’ll see people go buy you know a thousand rounds of bulk, cheapest, whatever you know x y z ammo brand, and I always wondered you know at short distance it may not matter but I think if you get out at all it’d probably. And the other thing is talking about all these concealed carry guns kind of a start to that is you gotta realize no matter if it’s us or anybody else and what brand it is so it’s not bashing any of them.

You got a sample of one? So just because a glock nineteen is super reliable for everybody, doesn’t always mean yours is gonna be and I’m just using glock nineteen as an example but I’ve had a lot of guns I’ve done reviews on that were great and shot thousand rounds through them and never an issue than people in the comments, well I’ve had problems and this and that, but they could have one thirty cent spring that’s defected on there. It’s springs. It’s ammo. There’s certain guns that won’t shoot the way that you’re gripping the gun can cause malfunctions and that’s one one topic that we’ll probably get on into the future. We’re not really trainers or anything like that but you know, muzzle jump or any kind of grip angle anything can affect the way that your gun shoots.

Now what about optics because you’re adding weight to the slide? Well that, like how do optics affect the cycling the handgun? On nine millimeter it doesn’t seem to as bad but I have noticed on some of the three eighties because it doesn’t have as much. What’s that recirculation or whatever recoil. Yeah Recoil, pressure of the slide. They will sometimes but the worst and it’s not even normally three eighty but the twenty twos. There’s so many of these twenty two pistols on the market now. The sig, three twenty two the FN five zero two. All of those are going to optics because guys are using it on his trainer pistols the glock forty four. Same thing. Twenty twos by nature are not super reliable in pistols anyways, but you put an optic on one of those. It seems to be the most problem. But it could happen with any of them. We’re also starting to see optics go from aluminum to polymer frame as well So you’re gonna have a few options to help combat that problem you know with twenty twos or three eighties. Even nines because there’s gonna be some nines that have pretty big slides heavy. Slides you know when you start putting optics on top of that you could you could see a potential for a problem in talking about twenty twos. I’ve always heard you know and people can carry whatever they’re comfortable carrying but I always heard the drawback to a twenty two being a rimfire cartridge it’s not as reliable. This is a center fired nine millimeter three eighty so a lot of trainers won’t recommend twenty two for self defense and it’s a smaller round and stuff on top of it as well. Twenty two would be better than having anything but it’s not anywhere close to ideal for just a defense situation there’s zero stopping power to that.

I mean there’s statistics out there that twenty two kills more people in the country I don’t know where the numbers are and I don’t know if it’s true or not. You hear it all the time but I’m gonna tell you right here I’ll never stand in front of one. I’m not gonna test that theory whether it’s gonna work or not. I wonder, I don’t know I’m just talking I wonder if that stat you’re talking about is because more people have random twenty twos you know old twenty two. There’s those people that have no training background of firearms out there messing with twenty two pistols. Well and I think it’s kinda like more people are killed by cows than sharks. Well think about how many more people come in contact with the cow than a shark in their daily life. They’re everybody’s grandpa. Like you said had a twenty two so there’s more of them out there so it’s a higher probability that people are gonna run across on and a lot of young people like I know when we first got going to start shooting it was a twenty two and you’d take yours if you got to the woods and planck around. So, I mean it could be younger and experienced shooters as well. Correct. But did you say more people were killed by cows than sharks? Yeah. You never heard that? Oh yeah cow farts, you didn’t know about all that? No Okay No, not the cow farts but they’re like people getting like kicked and trampled and stuff like that. Sounds good if not unless you go to the Bahamas and watch the news her.  So if you’re if you’re watching this podcast and you can Google it and prove either Brett or I wrong, you prove Brett wrong it’s gonna be a hat. First person proves Brett wrong you get a hat. You don’t believe everything you see on the internet. But just know that I’m right. I trust our customers and our followers of our podcast to give us correct information that’s all I’m saying. Oh boy.

Alright Moving right on. So we’ve talked about the Caliber’s. There are a bunch of really popular guns Brett. We’re like we said this year episode but what are you selling a lot of in the gun shop? What are people asking for, what are like, you know not the top ten but what are the go to concealed carry guns or the popular ones? You’ve got your main brands in our shop is glock, sig, and Springfield right now, Smith and Wessons really coming on strong right now because they’ve been coming out with a metal few models that are really nice. Are the equalizer selling very well? Yeah. So that’s the equalizer is basically the new model of the Easy shield that they came out with and don’t take this the wrong way but it’s a wonderful option for elderly, you know, men and women that don’t have the strength to pull back a handgun. That scenario, it’s a wonderful option. So the equalizer is basically the same gun but they made it a double stack so it holds more rounds. So is it easy? Does that designated? It’s like easier to charge or cycle? Yes Yeah So it’s basically it’s a hammer fired gun and that’s how they got it so easy but the it’s really simple to rack the slide on top. So and they also made some serrations put some grips on the back of the slide. They made some other options to make it easier for you as well but the spring isn’t as stealth on that gun. This as a normal handgun but what I’ve noticed is even though there’s like the equalizer now but easy nine and easy three eighty, the nine was drastically harder to work than the three eighty version Yeah. It’s because of the recoil difference. Different springs and things. It’s still better than a traditional slide but it’s not the three eighty.

So like if you look at Ruger’s security three eighty, it’s a light rack. It’s a three eighty because it’s easier to work and those equalizers they’ve got not per se of safety. It’s more like a passive safety where in the back of the grip you have to push it in. They actually have both. They offer a safety grip. Yeah they have the grip safety and they also offer an option with a manual safety as well. Okay So alright. That is something that a lot of companies are going away from and some are sticking to because there are customers that want a safety on their gun but glock for instance you’re not gonna get a safety. It seems like most of the companies that are still producing weapons with safety’s on them other than the nineteen eleven platform. But as far as a striker fired platform like that seems to be all the guns that are more geared towards either the women elderly, or like an entry level gun like what the easy would be. Because they’re not They don’t have the training to feel comfortable with one without the safety. So in this may be a bad analogy and just stop me if it is It almost seems like you know some of these guns are geared to be like a racing bike, like for a track for racing where some of them are geared to be more like a cruiser type bike. Once you get to a certain point yes as far as the what I would consider traditional carry guns you know anything seven hundred dollars and under which is what most people are carrying. Are pretty much all in the same wheelhouse but then if you get up to like, shadow two or staccato or some they’re a whole different animal as far as what they’re capable of. Not saying that the other guns aren’t capable of that but for your analogy of it, it really doesn’t happen until you get out of the what I would consider really popular carry guns.

So do they just have like better internals like more polished like better manufacturing specs to them or just all in all? Well if you go to like a staccato or something it’s not a mass produced gun. It’s a custom fit gun. Hand built pretty much and different tolerances. It’s just a lot of different things to it. To a traditional person including myself like I said on the other episode we have this staccato at the shop. It’s a wonderful gun. It’s not something that I’m gonna carry probably. Three thousand dollar gun carrying just doesn’t I don’t feel as needed you know.

Alright So talk a little bit about the easiest one of the ones I saw come through that we just did a holster for the new legions for the three sixty five AXG legions. Those things are sweet. They’re sweet and you can go to YouTube and check out my video on it. I’m not necessarily a fan of it for what it’s made for. It’s a sweet gun but if you look at the three sixty five series any of them, the traditional three sixty five that started with ten rounds. The three sixty five series has always been geared towards concealed carry. Even the X macro is geared towards concealed carry. There are inch wide gun where the AXG legion doesn’t interest me too much. It’s not that it doesn’t shoot good, but it doesn’t shoot that much better than the X macro I didn’t think. The metal frame does feel good. The grips feel good but it’s all coming with extra weight. True. I mean you go up to a the time it’s loaded a thirty something ounce gun. At that point, it it’s heavy and not what I wanna carry and then the other thing on the AXG legion is for a carry gun I personally want, you know a thinner one like an inch thick which a lot of these new guns are. But the Magwell a part of the AXG series has a flared Magwell, which makes reloading mags faster. But it’s one point four inches. So what’s the point of having a thin gun when the grip is what’s hard to conceal and then making the grip an inch and a quarter or inch and a half more or less and what’s the difference in price point? I know the one we have we make sure the guys aren’t banging it around. It’s five hundred bucks. Yeah It’s every bit of from the tech ops is seven fifty to eight hundred to twelve fifty probably twelve hundred twelve fifty on the AXG.

But if you’re a guy that is gonna upgrade so there’s guys that buy the X macro and then buy a metal frame for it If you’re going to do that you might as well get the AXG. Because you’re gonna come out with a better gun I think with the AXG, if you’re gonna go that route and don’t mind the weight. Well and for people that may or may not you know have one already or they’re considering getting one, the holsters aren’t the same. When they came out you know we had tested them in the regular. In theory they should be but they’re not. So the metal being a metal frame, it’s the rail part of the gun is that much wider that it they do not work I mean if you really wanted to you could heat a Kydex holster up for an x macro and make it work but I wouldn’t suggest that for people that don’t do that all the time. Yeah if not you’re gonna get it dragging the inside of your holster. The light bearing holsters are even worse because then you put the light on it and it intensifies that gap. So the light bearing holsters you couldn’t heat to make work if you wanted to. Right.

Alright So talk about the legions you know like I said we’re big seller of glock. Just that’s what people want. So what are people carrying glocks? I know I see a lot of orders I’m making for like nineteen’s, forty threes. What are the people always gonna carry any of the glocks but I’d say the forty three is still the most popular in one of the configurations of it 43X MOS is probably the top sold one right now in our shop. Nineteen was huge popularity but GOC is working on just about every model they can put together and when I say that they’re putting every slide and every grip frame. They’re swapping it back and forth. And, like the forty nine they just came out with I believe is a border patrol, model they created for the border patrol. It’s just constant. So it’s got the longer slide shorter grip frame like a nineteen grip frame holds fifteen rounds but it’s got a seventeen slide on it. That scenario or vice versa. The longer like seventeen grip with the nineteen slide. Mhmm And the thing with glock is it’s you know glock nineteen, a glock nineteen x a glock forty five, essentially the same damn guns different color different grip length I mean It’s a different internal parts just and just they’re the same parts are just longer or shorter because it you know you got trigger bars or longer or whatever it may be. But that’s what changes on some of these models. Obviously the round count you know capacity amount on each one is different. nineteen x like Davidson’s just came out that nineteen x m o s, which is a tan, not glock forty five, a glock forty five is the nineteen slide with a seventeen grip frame. The nineteen x is a tan version of that with a d loop on the bottom of it. So glock is the traditional like what you would consider Apple of the phone world. It never really come out with much new but sell you a new model. Oh every time. Yep. Well instead iPhone thirteen, you got the fourteen now and the camera is two megapixels better.

Well and I didn’t realize that you know because when I start making all these molds I’m scanning every gun so it doesn’t matter to me but I’m talking to Brady’s like oh well that game’s this but know this frame with that side and they just call it a different number. They Frankenstein parts together but I guess whatever works part of what makes our holsters better to you because like I said I get all sorts of ads on my Facebook all the time and this weekend, x y z holster company has an ad that pops up and they’re pressing you can tell it’s a glock frame but, you know it’s a huge length on this barrel and they’re cutting straight across at different lengths on their trim jigs. A lot of them make a glock nineteen holster, but don’t have it wrapped the bottom so the bottom can be flush, but then they can put a seventeen in it or a twenty six and it’s just not the way we do things but a lot of people do that for sure. Yeah and it was just kind of weird seeing that and that’s why they all stopped flat instead of having that extra curve down there which after seeing them and handling them enough it was like definitely a huge benefit I think for carrying ours versus others.

Alright so talk about some popular guns. It’s seems like everything we’ve talked about has been all semi automatic pistols. Is there a reason for that just more rounds? Or is popularity I mean it is more rounds? It’s let’s see, they’re lighter to shoot. Easier to shoot, lighter weight to carry, the more round count and just it’s just a new time in in the world. You know what I mean back when they were probably seventies eighties something like that the cops were carrying revolvers.  So I’m sure everybody that was what was available because semi auditors were all metal back then and they were heavy and it’s more expensive and not as reliable. So things would just change. They’re progressed, reliability, lightweight, you know just you can do anything. They’re like a Lego you know what I mean? Handguns especially glocks. I know we keep talking about glock but they’re so popular in the world because cops carry them, security guards carry them. Everybody carries a glock and they’re like a Lego I mean you can do whatever you want. Any part on that gun you can change it that whole entire gun will be completely different if you wanted to. And it got more aftermarket parts than anything on the market combined. The other one that I’ve been pretty impressed with since I started working here is all the Caniks because before I started you know I wasn’t real familiar with them or is that a fairly new gun to the market or they’ve been around. You’ve got the made in the USA part that slowed them down for a long time because they’re not made in the USA. They come in I believe it’s Turkey. And so you got that stigmatism stuck with them a little bit but they’re essentially a glock with a better trigger and extra parts in the box. You get a holster. You get not a good holster but you get a holster. So we there’s a video out there Kevin throwing one in the trash. That was a classic. Yeah If anybody ever wants to go see that that was a good one.

But the issue I have with Canik. I love the caniks I’ve never had bad luck with them but as a whole, the MC9, there was a ton of people that had issues with them. I mean all over the internet, a ton of issues. The one we still have in the holster shop I’ve shot a lot of rounds through it I’ve never had an issue in the world. But it still makes a guy think about it. You know there’s not a time I don’t shoot that gun that I don’t think about everybody else’s problems because there are so many of them. It’s funny you say that I’ve not had I’ve not sold one that anybody’s ever had a problem with. Yeah I don’t think we have locally but I’m just talking about internet and I mean I can’t tell you the amount of people that have bought holsters for them and then do it before they ever get the holster asking if they can return it because they had nothing but problems. Again do we think it’s because they’re watching other reviews and they’re not giving it a fair chance or do we really think they’re having problems? I think they really had problems I think it was the early batches of them no different than some of the sigs you know and even the popular guns and that’s why alluding to earlier that no matter what gun it is it’s not gonna be guaranteed problem free. There’s no such thing. Well no there’s a human element and even the SIG three sixty five when it first came out they had issues that they recalled the first ones. When the three eighties had their recoil springs were bad so I mean there’s nothing that’s outside the realm of possibility and main next has gotta come in kinda like we touched on briefly last week.

You know if you shoot that gun all the time and you’re not cleaning it and it’s getting well and the other thing is and I don’t know how much of this affected it or not but a lot of these guns here recently have been in in the COVID times. Where ammo was harder to get Mhmm. You know you get the factory ammo angel fire Prime example Angel Fire’s close to us. We had great luck with him for a long time. I wouldn’t trust any of it now I mean, through I had it not shoot through a couple different guns I won’t mention, so I take it to like a glock or something I’ve had for a long time that I know shoots everything and it won’t shoot. So ammo’s part of that too that no matter what people think it’s always the gun and that’s not always necessarily the fact. So I shouldn’t bash can it too much but there was overall problems with something along the way.

Well you bring up COVID that’s a great point because a lot of stuff you’re shooting today was made then and it’s not even just the ammo companies. It could be the powder that they’re getting or the primers or everything that goes into that. Well I mean I can tell you the amount of people during COVID that you went to including our shop and could not find ammo were buying anything they could buy on the internet, and most of it was remand. Mhmm Stuff I mean it wasn’t straight new in the box. Ammo or the new in the box ammo. I mean you gotta think how hard they were running to make ammo, or maybe they weren’t whatever. But you know quality control can come into it. So I guess that’s a fair point on ammo wise. Well quality control and just the work for some general in that time. I mean everybody no matter what industry you were in you were trying to get people to come to work. And you know at the end of the day and we’re not talking about anybody specific but you know quality control had to have almost just by not necessity just almost naturally just tooka back seat because people you had to get orders out and you know these companies aren’t gonna not ship, you know when they’re trying to like I said run two three shifts you know get max production out. If the demand is so high they can’t afford to have quality control either.

That and that’s a business side of a decision not and it doesn’t always work There’s a company in the past that I dealt with and during a school shooting, tourists shut down there in one department so they can keep up with mass production. And it showed it was bad I mean I had barrels that looked like they just went through a machine shop and never even cleaned them I mean they were so terrible. And wasn’t a bunch of gas blocks. Yeah Gas blocks were a problem you know, barrels on them were just you can see all the machine marks in them They didn’t polish anything and they were just trying to get everything they possibly could out. And I’m sure this last stent through COVID and I mean it was what two, three years long deal and now ammo’s still a problem on certain things. Now powder’s gonna be a problem to get supposedly and obviously you can go. That’s a big rabbit hole we can get into but we’re not going to but it’s just it’s a weird thing right now.

Alright. any other games we wanna talk about before we kinda move on I wouldn’t say anything in particular but it all goes back to like Brett said last time. Go with whatever you’re gonna shoot and make sure it’s what’s comfortable for you There’s so many good guns on the market right now that it’s hard to say, hey here’s the top five. Because what I shoot good you won’t shoot good. What feels good to me may not, but there’s a lot of good guns. Everybody from Ruger, New Taurus’ have been great. Mhmm I mean there’s not in my opinion there’s very few bad guns on the market anymore. Just because technology and everything has caught up to what used to be, you know a budget gun was maybe at work maybe it won’t. Most of them as a whole have been good. You know it’s just what fits you and what you’re good with.

Real quick to get back to your revolver versus semi auto question that we started this whole thing on. A revolver is going away as far as people carrying but there is a time and place if you have a woman or man that doesn’t really wanna think about anything when they’re gonna protect themselves. You pull a revolver out and you pull the trigger until it clicks I mean until it stops I mean that’s it. There’s nothing. There’s no safeties. There’s no slides to rack. There’s no loading. There’s nothing. You just literally pull it out of the holster and you pull the trigger to get away is what you’re trying to do. There’s way less that could go wrong. You don’t deal with the jamming issues. If one round doesn’t fire, it’s you pull the trigger again. It’s not a jam and malfunctioning and we talked about putting down a battery on a semi auto if they’re up really close to you. A revolver doesn’t have that problem. You just you pull the trigger like I said and take what’s going on I know quite a few cops as a backup pistol, have a revolver. Most of them have it on their vest somewhere but if they ever were on the ground or something in that situation, you don’t have to worry about pressing against something and not shooting. That’s what my father-in-law had a revolver around his ankle, and he still may carry it even though he’s retired now but definitely when he was active duty he had most of them do. Yeah I just wanted to get that out there that revolvers are not. There’s nothing negative about them. They’re just not as popular anymore and they’re not obsolete they’re still around. There’s people that want them but it’s mostly the little bit older generation. There’s very few people in their twenties that are coming in asking for a revolver.

Now I will say you know we see some weird stuff come through the holster shop I saw him making an inside the waste band holster and it wasn’t a cult python but it was for a giant like bear hunting revolver. Yeah The other day I mean this thing had a barrel like a foot long on it. So I made one for, friend of ours here locally that it was a tourist wasn’t a seventeen HMR revolver. It’s like a six and a half inch barrel tracker seventeen HMR pistol which is just cool to begin with but they do hogs and stuff all the time. So that’s what they’d use for the hogs. And he’s like I just need a holster and he wears bibs all the time I just need a holster. We made him an inside holster with an ulti clip and he loves it. He shows everybody I’m like quit showing people because that was a pain in the ass to make. I don’t wanna make another one. Quit showing people.

Well it’s funny you talk about the holsters and like do we have any plans in the future to do like any chest rigs? Cause I saw like a lot of people like my brother-in-law is gonna go like fly fishing and he wants something like up in bear country. He can have strapped to his chest flies out there fly fishing. Do we have any plans for Chest rigs? Well my plans are different than the boss man’s plans. Well I mean you’re the CNC guy. The Kydex part is the easy part. The strap to fit everybody as a universal strap is the hard part. No different than like leather shoulder holsters and why you don’t see very many on the market. It’s hard to get a good strap system that fits everyone well. Okay. Well it’s just that dynamic. If it wasn’t for that we could have them out in a week because I mean the Kydex part is right in our wheelhouse of what we do. Finding the strap system is a little bit different because I’ve seen a lot of different strap systems on the different ones on the market and they all have their flaws I mean there’s guys that come in and want us to make a strap system for one of their holsters and it’s just it’s not our wheelhouse I guess is the best way to put it.

Well and the other thing that made me think about it is on that strap system there’s not a lot of pressure to keep it in place because the video I saw that made me think about it this weekend was this guy’s riding a mountain bike and it’s to show how great the retention is on this holster. And he’s going off jumps and everything and his firearm is right in that chest rig, but that thing’s gotta be so tight in there. I don’t know if he needed to draw whether he could physically draw it out of there or not. And that’s the hardest part about the strap system is how to make it. You don’t want it straight nylon where it has no give because then you go to move and you’re trapped. But if it has too much flex your gun’s gonna be flopping the whole time you’re walking or climbing or biking whatever you’re doing. So it’s just I don’t know that I also for me hunting wise, I use a chest rig but it’s it’s a pack. It’s because I got I have binoculars, I have a range finder, I have my hand gun on me you know, everything a flashlight, just to have it holster on my chest. Little little debbies? Yes I don’t have a holster for them. You gotta get the Christmas tree cakes. Those are the best ones.

We don’t use holsters for this but no but I do think that’s a really good idea. You know everybody wants to you know, make fun of like tactical and all that but if you get a chest rig you can put attachments we’ve got that will go on chest rigs for architex holsters now. You can put a tecklok or something on there and you know attachments stuff like that. And put one of our holsters on a chest rig where it’s not necessarily just straps but it may be a more stable platform.

Perfect. Alright. Well we will move on next part we’re gonna start doing this try and do it weekly but just to try and stay topical and stay with questions viewers may have that are coming up in the news this week we’re gonna go over an article that was in Colorado Springs Gazette and this kinda caught my attention at first because Colorado tends to lean more left on a lot of their policies whether it be you know recreational drugs or whatever it may be. But this article is about school boards are considering concealed carry for faculty and staff essentially, where teachers coaches, you know nurses whoever. As long as they’ve got a concealed carry permit, can go and be school protection officers basically. And it doesn’t give specific numbers and I should have got them but it said a growing number of Colorado’s a hundred and seventy eight public school districts are enhancing security by allowing screened and trained faculty and staff meaning principals coaches, janitors, teachers, school nurses and secretaries to volunteer security officers who can carry concealed guns.

It goes on to say they’re quoted by saying we have a crisis in this country of school masters that must be resolved. Army faculty and staff is not the right course for all districts, but for others it might provide the best most tactically effective and efficient way to assure a mass murder won’t be a lone gunman while cops race to the scene. It’s a sad fact but the best defense against a bad person with a gun is often a good person with a gun. Typically students faculty and staff have no option but to hide under desks or in closets as a shooter kills, at will without resistance. Few districts can afford an adequate number of uniform security guards who are easily detected by criminals, goes on to say rural districts in Colorado. Law enforcement has a twenty minute arrival time to most scenes and in Colorado Springs they’re having a shortage of officers like everybody is and their average response time is fourteen minutes and twenty one seconds. And that’s enough time for a psychopath to do unfathomable damage. So it’s kind of a lot and the first part of this article will go through the rest later but just initial thoughts on what do you guys think about faculty in schools, being able to concealed carry? We all have kids in schools that when I read it I kinda had to digest it for a minute. I personally think it would be a great thing with the right stipulations on it. My first initial thought are teachers are hard to come by nowadays as well no different than police officers. Kids are a whole different generation. We’re in the generation of you can’t say anything to any kid. You know you deal with all that. So they already have a difficult job you just have to find the people that are willing to do that and take that responsibility and go through the right training. Because as far as concealed carry in a school is gonna be a different thing than a normal concealed carry. Because you got everybody around you. You got twenty kids in your classroom. It’s not just a defending yourself situation.

The other thing is then you have if law enforcement comes which they will but the time that passes before even if it’s a two minute response time a lot can happen in two minutes in that situation. So that’s where this would be good. But also you gotta realize there’s gotta be enough systems in place that everybody is on the same page so that when police slot does come into school how they know that teacher with the gun is not who they are targeting. You know there’s a lot that goes into it but I think training would be the biggest thing in my opinion, training is the most overlooked thing in concealed carry in general. Absolutely. And that’s why we talk about training all the time because people don’t think about it. They in my opinion they don’t fully realize the responsibility they’re taking. And in that atmosphere it’s even more training because then you got protocols on what should happen. I don’t think you need teachers going to search for that person but in schools for instance there’s the door stops that they can use. There’s all sorts of shelter in place mechanisms. Yes I mean the statistics of them walking behind a door and it’s just it’s out there I don’t obviously have the numbers but if you lock yourself and people with you behind a door you’re just less likely to get affected by it because they’re not gonna break through a door to because it’s such happenings. It’s happening so fast. Yeah And my initial thoughts and like I said I thought about it for a day or two is number one like I said we don’t want these people to be police officers because that’s not what they are. So I don’t feel like they should be you know pursuing the suspect. I would say you know if they can shelter in place and protect kids that’s a good thing. The other thing is your people that are teachers have a servant’s heart where they’re not there’s some of our finest going by right now. But, not that police officers don’t have a servant’s heart but like they’re more nurturing typically to children and stuff like that. So I would be hesitant at first to make sure that people number one if they’re gonna carry they need to be willing to use that firearm if it comes down to it.

Number two would be securing it while they’re in class. You know, making sure kids you know can’t reach it or it’s in a good secure location at all times. I think the key to it for what you’re talking about is the concealed part. Just like last week we talked about concealed carry versus open carrying. Teacher open carrying wouldn’t be what you wanted. You wouldn’t want any of those kids to know what teacher because you’re not gonna get all the teachers to do it. And quite frankly you probably shouldn’t because some teachers just don’t have that skill set. You know this shouldn’t be a everybody do it type of thing but those students should never know who is concealing. In my opinion.

Which kinda leads us down to the next part of the article and it goes on to say any district considering this must contemplate the concerns of informed before green lighting board members should adopt impeccably high standards that only allow those who take rigorous gun safety defense courses to be selected. School should certify only those volunteers among that group that they must set a high fitness bar and character bar. And they should be trained by law enforcement professionals to act like cops in the event of a school. So when you break that down like police officer standard certification nationwide, post training is six hundred and sixty four hours minimum. Yeah. That’s a lot because you were training for if you’re gonna be a security officer in the school, you might not need to know every aspect of those six hundred and sixty four hours but I’m gonna guess it’s a vast majority of them because if you’re gonna be involved in shoot don’t shoot situations detaining people reacting to a crisis. Everything that goes into it that’s gonna be a vast amount of training.

I know in Missouri because I wanted to look it up and just see because that’s where we’re out of so I was curious about it but they’ve actually got laws on the books that says people can be designated. They have to have a concealed carry firearms permit. They can carry concealed firearm or defensive spray in school. They have the same authority to detain or use force against any person on school property as provided to people under chapter five sixty three which is like the law enforcement chapter. But the class when we talk about the training class, Missouri’s got a training class lined out, and just from the University of Missouri’s website, they offer a three week. It’s a hundred and twenty hour course to certify people as SPOs. And it trains them in all sorts of stuff from use of force emergency response building churches survival mentality, handcuffing and restraint, weapon retention disarming and ground fighting techniques, basic first aid and CPR combat first aid and forty hours of firearms training. That in my opinion just reading that is probably all necessary but that is a big ask for somebody who has a master’s degree in teaching and their primary focus. And are grossly underpaid to begin with and that’s both that you’re gonna lead it To my opinion on the whole matter. So you handed the this article to me and wanted me to read over it.

Now I’ll kinda go over my reaction to you handed me the article I don’t like the idea. And the biggest problem is I think there’s a mental focus that we’re not focusing on in schools everywhere in this country. And to just put guns in schools, I mean there’s a there’s a situation in a town just a few towns over where one of the teachers was one of the shooters not in a school set input at home or whatever and the reason may be. You just, I don’t know I believe in guns and I believe in protecting yourselves. I don’t know if I want my kids’ teacher having a gun on them while they’re in school. I just don’t know if I want that. I don’t they’re not paid enough. They’re not gonna have the training. It goes to the question of for like your opinion right now though it goes because you got parent teacher conferences. You know who your teachers are. You’re absolutely right and I’m only this is only my opinion you know what I mean. But I’m also looking at because schools let’s just be fact factual their government ran. They barely have enough money to pay these schools to feed the kids. And they can’t even keep that in check. Brief interjection, that’s the part I didn’t get to on this. The cost for this training is twenty one hundred dollars per person. But that’s no meals, that’s no lodging. So are you asking teachers who are underpaid to pay twenty one hundred dollars to get certified or are you gonna ask the school districts that already are cutting sports and not feeding kids And just a little insight because I had a sister-in-law that was a teacher. They’re buying in their own furniture and toys and books and stuff for their own classrooms. That should tell you something. Teachers have to provide most of this materials in their classrooms. They’re given bare minimums to teach our kids, and then if even if they wanted to, you know what I mean to ask them to go through the train cause the go to that course would be fantastic we’ll you’re gonna mandatory do it every year probably I would assume. I would think.

What’s irritating to me and it’s kind of the same subject but different is, I’ll just throw our local schools here. We got two schools within ten miles of here that has multi million dollar high school football fields. Yep. College type stadiums in a public high school but they will not pay to have more than one SRO at a school. Absolutely. Which is crazy. Which is crap. I know, one of my former drivers he reps high school football and I will not name the school around here but Google it and you can find it. And he said the head football coach just for coaching football at this school was getting a hundred thousand dollars on top of it It’s like we were paying a hundred grand so the high school can have a better football team I think at some point the priorities of any government, but schools, part of it are way off kilter as far as that there are schools. There’s those door stop things I can’t remember what they’re called that are proven to you cannot get in that room. If you look at the school shootings, they go down the hallway and try to get in whatever rooms. If every one of them shut they would have zero targets. Anyways and they won’t spend that money but they’ll spend ten million dollars on a high school football field.

Well and I won’t say what school my kids go to because I don’t want it out there for everybody but it’s a newer school. And to even get into the school every door has a camera on it and you get buzzed into a sally port and you have to show your ID and it’s bulletproof glass around there. So and then you have to go into the office and you gotta get buzzed out of there to even get into the school. And that is you know new technology and they built it into school but you can retrofit a lot of schools to have some sort of security measures in place. And there’s again enough off duty cops always looking for overtime that would love to pick up shifts and even you know I would be more inclined to, there’s all sorts of former military guys that have great skill sets their natural protectors defenders, lots of military guys who are looking for work in their skill set who would be great SROs. Because at the end of the day no matter whether this article whether it’s a good idea or not the participating factor is how many people you have capable of doing that in a school and some schools will have zero that are capable of it. So does that mean there’s just no protection in that school? No I mean it comes down to tax dollars and I don’t care where your taxes are. What if you look at, like our commercial taxes, I have zero kids in this county. The businesses in this county and the amount of money that goes to the school for this county, why are they using that? You know they could use that on different things in my opinion. Yeah Definitely.

Alright So that’ll kind of wrap up that I mean we kind of discussed those concerns and you know I think ongoing training would be the big thing. No matter what school districts go I would rather have somebody there protecting the kids or not and especially when you get out in the smaller more rural districts that especially don’t have as much money. I think this may be more viable. But again it’s gonna be district by district and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. There’s just you know a lot of things to think about. The thing is though if you look at most of the shootings anywhere not just schools, it’s in areas that people don’t think people have guns. Schools being one of them. Mhmm. If you go to a lot of the country areas or whatever, the crime rate is different. For a reason. You know it’s the what do they call it soft zones or whatever, gun free zones where stuff happens. And that’s part of it because they know there’s one SRO in that building. I don’t care if you put one SRO he can be the navy seal you can’t protect a building with one dude You just can’t. When you’re talking about the size of schools we have here, it’s just not to get too deep but I know where a lot of billions are getting sent that could easily put a lot of SROs on a lot of schools across this country. Well and that’s a topic that we’d probably shouldn’t get into. But if you guys want my opinion, teachers should not be that person.

Well doing that there we have a lot of like you said cops, military there’s a lot of them that are qualified to do that. Well there’s a lot of them that get out and you know when you get out of the military they’re like alright. See you and you’re left out into the world. There’s not a lot of transition fun which is why you see like don’t know how to do anything next. Right and so that’s why like Rob O’Neil, he’s got special operators transition fund I think it’s called something different now but it’s to address that you’ve got highly trained guys and the suicide rate is out the roof because they went through that. Now they have nothing and you know I think you could really solve a lot of problems you know with one solution. Yep like Brett said there’s a lot of government, schools government, white house, as far as you wanna take that, money spent, not even spent in this country that could put ten SROs in every school. I couldn’t imagine how much how much safety you could put in on every school in this country and still save money but we’re sending it other places. On top of the schools that they’re closing they don’t have money to give them I mean come on. Our tax dollars across this country is just not being spent well and I don’t think our teachers should bear that right now and that’s my opinion you know and nothing’s fact on that I think some could but I think overall you’re not gonna get enough that are capable of it to really matter.

And I ultimately come back to kind of where you guys are. The one person can do one thing really great. So if you ask Brett to run a gun shop he’s gonna do it really good. Or if you ask Brett to come run the holster shop he’s gonna do it really good. But if you ask Brett to run the gun shop and the holster shop you can’t do it. Not capable. And I think that’s what you’re asking teachers to do when you’re asking them to be nurturing educators you know because you got kids from all different backgrounds coming to school and sometimes school is these these kids relief from a terrible home life. So you’re asking teachers to, in some cases be parental figures to these kids but then also have to be cops at the same time. And then schools now teachers are afraid to say anything for kids because you get sued for hurting somebody’s feelings nowadays. Yeah Imagine how as a teacher getting paid whatever they’re getting paid not near enough why would you want the legal responsibility. They’re sworn in law officers that are on trial for right shootings. How are you gonna get them to take that responsibility even if they are capable? Yeah that’s a great point I hadn’t even thought about but it really something you know because they don’t have body cams either and I think they’re at an extreme discount already just by hurting whoever’s feelings or saying something to them in a derogatory way or they’re mean and they’re getting fired and the kids are always right which is why we have a kid issue nowadays. But that’s a whole different subject.

Alright hey good talk guys. I enjoyed that. Viewer questions of the week comes from Michelle in Kansas City. And her question Kevin this is before Brett and I got here so this is gonna be all you big dog. How did you come up with the name and logo for Muddy River Tactical? Well that’s a weird story. So anytime you start, so this was probably, we talked about how it went from making them just for myself and then the guys at work. This was when we started selling the first ones on Etsy. When I put them on Etsy or was thinking about putting him on Etsy and I’m like what I don’t even know why I’m gonna call them. So trying to think of a name on anything sounds weird from the get go you know what I mean you can be a new company and come up with the best name and it sounds weird at the time because you’re not used to it or whatever. While I was driving the truck at pure air it was a North Kansas City. Is that the first pure air building. So no matter what everywhere you went you crossed the Missouri River within a half mile of that building. You literally got to stoplight turn to the left and you’re going across the Missouri River. And kind of the Missouri River and Missouri is always muddy and always rolling and stuff like that. So literally at King Price crossing over the river and just something about the muddy river because it is after a bunch of rain it was flowing and muddy and up high on the levees. I’m like well, muddy river and then at first, I second muddy river holsters but at the first you never know and it’s worked out now but you never know if you’re gonna broaden out into anything else because like I said I made the wallets at first too. So I was making the wallets so it’s like well maybe not muddy river holsters and then tactical is kind of a broad term in the whole industry as far as it can go from ARs to pistols the gear to whatever. So I thought it was just a kind of encompassed thing where if I was gonna sell the wallets it didn’t sound weird like it was just holsters or whatever. At that time I wasn’t thinking about a gun shop and you know I didn’t even think I could sell holsters.

So that’s how muddy river started and then the logo thing, I actually took it believe it or not is I can’t think of the website but you can send your name to them and it’s like the freelance guys. Yeah You send whatever the company’s name is and then they’ll send you back like, five or ten or whatever. And if you choose one then you can purchase it for like twenty bucks or whatever. It’s just you know freelance guys doing it and they take ten minutes to throw it together and that’s actually where it came from and it’s been the same ever since. Alright. And there’s minors like yeah out of the hoodies behind Kevin that you guys have been seeing all episodes. We took that and in house kind of switched it up. So you’ll see some variations of it but yeah so we switched that one mainly for like the gun shop because it’s got Platte City on it where we’re at but like the deer of it is for like a lot of guys that come in the shop are deer hunters and the mountains parts kind of the same and it’s just a different look at it but like if you look at overall on the internet, the river rolling through the mountains is what most people identify it as. That’s pretty cool.

Alright So with that, if they go to our website, www.muddyrivertactical.com, go to our store pick out something you really like If they entered the code MRT podcast. They get fifteen percent off their order, and that will also work in the gun shop but not on guns. We’re talking about holsters. Correct Yes. Holsters. Okay. website it’s good for everything on there. That’s hats, hoodies, t shirts the whole nine yards. Whatever you can find on there the only thing the only thing that’s on sale right now is the Harley Holsters. We make the Harley mount holsters. They’re already on sale for like twenty percent off coming into spring. So those won’t count just because they’re already discounted more than that but anything else will.

So just quick question for people because I know we haven’t talked about them yet on here. The Harley Holsters do those only fit Harley’s or will those fit any other saddle bags? We haven’t tried any have you tried any other saddle bags? Yeah it’s just gotta have a screw adapter style saddle bag. So like there are saddle bags that just mount on a motorcycle, but Harley’s have a special screw that you can take on and off. Okay so the Harley’s older than what is it Seventeen? Yeah Have like a pin in them instead of a screw. So if you have the pin, you have to update your hardware to the new style screw in and then you’re fine. Okay and for the people at home that can’t see this or they’re maybe driving it’s like almost like a z shaped bracket. It’s not a z shaped but kinda lightning bolt shaped bracket that goes from the screw and then our holster screws on to it. Our Kydex inside holster?

Yeah So a lot of it came from, I had a bike and Brett had a bike and now he’s got my old bike. But anyways, Worth Harley here in KC we do the bike nights and stuff down there. And guys asking about it and the main thing is because the question we give is well why wouldn’t you carry it on yourself? Well if you’re around motorcycles very much trying to conceal one in a t shirt going seventy miles an hour down the highway. Yep It’s very hard to conceal. So it goes to the debate of open carry verse concealed carry. On a motorcycle you’re not concealed so that way you can conceal in your saddle bag and then and when you leave the bike you can put it in a regular holster and carry it but if you’re going down the highway you still have access to it close, it’s secure, God forbid you ever wrecked your bike or something it’s secure in the saddlebag instead of going down the road or just a there’s a lot of things to it but it’s mainly the concealed factor of it. Yeah the only other ones I’ve seen recently and again it came up on an ad was one that like mounted to the handle but then you’re open carrying it and it’s right by their throttle. And yeah I mean if you’re gonna do that you might as well just wear outside holster and let everybody see it you know and I mean, there there’s what in next week or two we’re gonna do an episode on open carry versus concealed carry but in general, most people don’t want people knowing it’s there agreed. Alright.

Do you guys have anything else you wanna talk about before we let them go for today? No I just say because the whole thing was mainly on carry guns. If you look on our YouTube channel, there’s a whole video I did on it too that goes into some different guns and things to choose, but pick the biggest gun that you’re comfortable with concealing because you will shoot it better. Don’t just automatically go get the smallest gun. And assume you’re gonna shoot it well You know get I’m not saying carry a five inch barrel gun but don’t smaller is not always better and sometimes. Real quick around the table well just because there’s probably people wondering what we carry. And this isn’t just what are you carrying right now type scenario not what you should carry. I carry a p 365, SAS, because I have a belly, and I can’t have sights or anything on top. So I like the SAS version. Do you carry Kevin Sig 365 the regular one. Man, I got a springfield XDS nine millimeter. There you go. So we just gotta keep him jaded with the old stuff I mean in in reality the three sixty fives are just. They’ve been around almost the longest. They really started the micro nine trend and just overall they feel good in my hand. They shoot good. They’re hard to beat in my opinion. I agree. Awesome.

Well as always go to muddyriver.tactical.com We have a tab on there. It says Video’s Media. What do you call it I think it’s videos or podcasts okay. You can get all of our gun reviews. You can get all of our podcasts you can find links to all of our socials on there if you have any questions you can always email us support at muddyrivertactical.com. You can give us a call and please shoot us emails with questions you guys want either questions of the week or what you want episodes on. Because we can we talk about this stuff all day so we can ramble on about different subjects. If you guys give us what you want to hear, then we can go on certain subjects even if it’s a question of the week or five minutes thing but answer what you guys are looking for because it may be stuff that we haven’t necessarily thought of. Or don’t talk about in-depth enough just because for us it’s normal. We do it every day. You know it’s different.

Over the weekend I had somebody ask me and maybe this would be a great question while we’re talking about what’s your funniest hunting story? So maybe next week we can all share a favorite hunting story because I’m sure between all of us we could probably have an episode just on funny hunting story. Nope. I don’t know if Brett wants to do that episode. Do we just need to do it now again. Nope. No this is your episode Brett. That’s fantastic. Pray will take headphones off and leave. Mine’s more embarrassing than it is funny. No I’ve got one of those too I’ve got a work story that’s most embarrassing story. We’ll save that for another week because we’ll do it at the first and then watch them be awkward the rest of the show. Alright.

Well to everybody that’s still with us thank you for joining us for this episode like again Muddy River or like I said muddyrivertactical.com. We appreciate you guys and we will see you next week. See you guys. Thanks for joining