November 18, 2023 • 39 mins
Corey Meyer and his co-founder and long-time friend Charlie Pehrson started Steelhead Outdoors when they had children and wanted to store their firearms securely. They weren't satisfied with what they found on the market and decided to make their own safes. Meyer combines his natural ability and passion to create modular gun safes that firearms owners can take with them when they change residences. The durable safes can be passed down to the next generation. Corey draws upon his mechanical engineering background and hands-on experience in the automotive industry to design innovative products using premium components. All products are Made in the USA in Minnesota. Gun safes, pistol lock boxes, gun cabinets and accessories are available at steelheadoutdoors.com.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Tradition, conservation, family, theodors. It matters to you, it
matters to us. This is HuntingMatters presented by Houston Safari Club Foundation.
Here's Joe Bitar. Good morning,everybody. Welcome back to Honey Matters on
KPRC nine fifty. This is yourhost, Joe Bitar. I am Ramon
(00:25):
Robles. What you been up to, man? Well, you know,
we got the big Thanksgiving coming upThursday. Got my stretch of pants on
already, Yeah, And I wasjust thinking, we haven't really discussed the
top three Thanksgiving foods, okay,And I just thought maybe you would lay
yours out for me and then wecould compare and contrast. Let's rock and
roll, Okay, my fried turkey, I do a I do a Cajun
(00:47):
fried turkey kind of kind of abig deal, kind of world famous about
it. How long does it taketurkey? For? Forty five minutes in
the friar, in the friar done, leave the oven open. My wife
could cook all of our other deliciousstuff. Second food is my wife's corn
bread dressing from the South. It'snot stuffing, it's dressing, which is
an improvement on my mother's recipe madewith sage sausage. Oh man, it's
(01:11):
a sausage corn bread dressing. Andthen the third thing is it's a tie
between spinach Madeline, which is spinachwith Monterey Jack cheese and bread crumbs.
I know exactly what it. Oh, oh gosh. And then the corn
sew fle or the third one totie on the third place is a cauliflower
dressing. It is flat fried cauliflowerflorettes with small cube roast meat and rice.
(01:37):
Okay, now listen, bitar,you can't name three things as your
number. They're tied for No,they can't. Let's hear you're smart,
all right. Number one, yeah, of course is chilled cranberries in the
can, yes, which we alwaysforget in the fridge every time we sit
down, which is a shame becausethey're the best. Number two is ham
honey baked tam Yes. And thennumber three is yeast rolls love it.
(01:57):
Yeah, so that the quintessential Thanksgivingplate. It's hard to pick up three
because everything my wife makes is ourfavorite, you know, we and it's
weird because you love those things,but you only happened twice a year,
Thanks you having your Christmas. Theother day, I was thinking it'd be
nice, you know, Sundays.Why don't you cook a panad dressing?
I might you know, Okay,it's on my list now I'm gonna ask
her. Would it lose its charmif you were doing it June fifth,
(02:21):
when it's ninety eight degrees outside?It would? But you got all those
months to wait till the next holidays? Is that why we like it so
much? Because we only have itonce a year? I think that's what
it is. It's gotta be ye. All right, Well, Happy Thanksgiving
to you, Happy to see youbefore then? Yeah, happy stuffing day?
Ye all right, we got ashow to get to. Okay,
Let's talk about Houston's Far Club Foundationa little bit real quick. All right,
(02:45):
So it's Thanksgiving. December first isour Young Professionals Society or group called
the Stagging DOV Society, Big Christmasparty at counter Attacks Dermy. Then there's
the Houston's Far Club Foundation, theother Christmas party which is at the Barn
in Cyprus, Texas. And thenthe big conventions happening at the Woodlands Waterway,
Marriott Hotel and Convention Center January nineteenththrough the twenty first, twenty twenty
(03:06):
four. Man we have got someincredible auction items, live auction items.
We're gonna have three live auctions.We're gonna have big raffles, We're gonna
have silent auctions and games and expoand banquets and live entertainment. So go
to we huntwegive dot org, clickon the convention button and check out all
the cool stuff. And if youregister before December first, you can buy
your banquet tickets at a heavily discountof price. That early bird special ends
(03:27):
December first for banquet tickets. Ifyou're not coming to the banquets, which
you should be because that's where allthe fun happens at night. The expo
will be open all day every dayFriday, Saturday, Sunday, and you
can buy tickets for that at thedoor. So it just occurred to me
this may be something we should havesaved for off air. But that weekend,
I literally just put it together thatI will be at mar A Lago
really not even joking. Yeah,a other show that I work on,
(03:50):
taking a group of people out toFlorida hang out with the president. Yeah,
future president number forty five and numberforty seven, yep, And you've
done that before I'm going to missthis. This is a return yeah performance,
I got a thought to President TrumpHu again Yeah, man go to
his disco with the first lady again. Hilarious. Oh, before I forget,
we are running a contest, folksya you can win a fifty dollars
(04:13):
Bass Pro Shops Cabella's gift card.All you need to do is go to
the Hontymatter podcast on any podcast platform, subscribe to it, take a screenshot
of your subscription or your rating,and then send it to info I NFO
at we hunt we give dot org. That's info at we hunt we give
dot org. We're going to begiving away a fifty dollars bas Pro Shops
Cabela's gift card every month for thenext several months. And good timing because
(04:34):
it's almost Christmas and you need it. All right, let's get to our
guest today, Corey Myers. Coreyis the co founder of steal Head Outdoors.
Before I forget, let's give youtheir website, steal head outdoors dot
com. I like that name.It's kind of aggressive. Yep, Corey,
thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, yeah, thanks for
having me so Corey. We weretalking a little bit before we started the
(04:56):
show off air and Ramon asked youwhere you're from, and I think he's
said he was thinking you were fromFlorida or Georgia. Yeah, something.
It sounds like a southern excellent Whereare your Collins from today? Oh?
From Minnesota? Actually beautiful country upthere, yeah. Yeah. It kind
of runs from everything from the NorthCountry forest all the way to the southwest
(05:18):
corner is like Nebraska, just flatas far as you can see. Okay,
Core, Do you do you doa little hunting fishing up there in
Minnesota? Yep, yep. Sowe do deer hunting up kind of at
a northern deer camp that's been inmy wife's family for a couple of generations,
(05:39):
and then we go out west everyevery couple of years in search of
elk usually. So yeah, alittle bit of both. Awesome awesome.
Do you guys have pretty good waterfowlhunting up there, don't you? Yeah?
Yeah, there's a fair bit ofkind of ducks, ducks lose and
(06:00):
pothole lakes all around here. Evenyou know, within audible distance of my
house, there's plenty of shooting goingon. I don't get out much.
I wish I got out more.I I have had some friends that have
taken me out in the past.It's a ton of fun. Yeah.
Yeah, so we're gonna do we'reI want to do a deep dive on
your product line here because I wasfortunate enough to get one of your get
(06:21):
one of your your pistol boxes awhile back, and man, you guys
make a great product. I wantto talk a little bit in in detail
about that. But you're you're yourbackground's not in safe building, correct,
you had you did something else ina previous life. Yeah. Yeah,
So both my business partner and Iwe uh, we've been in metal fab
for a long time, but wecame to metal fab through automotive hot rod
(06:46):
building, working for a company thatdid automotive aftermarket extension parts and uh and
then I actually did some like solarenclosures and stuff and uh. Yeah.
So both of us from engineering backgrounds, lots of metal fat backgrounds, but
no, no, no safe experienceexcept when we started shopping for safes and
(07:09):
thought that we might be able tomake a better mouse trap. Yeah.
That's a it's actually a good segue. I was going to ask you,
you know what, what kind ofgot you into this but you you just
basically weren't satisfied with what you wereseeing out there, correct, Yeah,
so basically we were. We wentto the normal you know, suspects of
stores and we looked at, hey, this safe is not too heavy.
(07:30):
I could I could fit it inmy basement. I had a kind of
a hoofy house where I had asplit stairwell or starrow with a corner and
it went back the other way.And the place I had available to put
a safe was a big one wouldn'tfit up there. So when I got
down to the small one that thatsort we looked at that we could move,
I was like, well listen,really big enough. And then when
(07:51):
we got to the ones that werebig enough, it's too heavy. Yeah.
And if you finally, when Iwas light enough to get up my
stairs and around the corner, andit wasn't necessarily something that you want to
buy, get too light? Gotit? Okay? Hold that thought,
I want to pick that up.On the other side. We got to
take a quick break here on Hontingmatters KPRC nine fifty. Have to that
(08:41):
is what you listen to when you'regoing to the deer blind. Yep,
get you in the middle my hypemusic. It's also you know the Minnesota
things. Yeah, Minnesota. Yeah, but I know you listen, this
is going to the deer band withyour high heels on. I do you
know what? You knock them,but they get good traction in the field.
They're great. They're good. Thatmake you calves look great. I
gotta tell you, man, theyreally pump you up. Welcome back to
(09:03):
Honey Matters KPRC nine to fifty.This is your hos Jo Vita and Ramon
Roeblist joined today our guest Corey Myers. Corey is the founder, co founder.
I guess we don't want to slidehis partner of Steelhead Outdoors, Charlie
be upset with us, Whitney Corey. You know, yep, he might
be. You're getting all the attention. Corey. Let me ask you a
(09:24):
question, what uh what is thestate dish of Minnesota. If if you
were an ambassador to the Minnesota brand, what dish would you be making?
Oh? Man, I mean Ihave a feeling people would say some kind
of like Tater Todd hot dish orsomething, but it's not my favorite.
I'd probably check like, yeah,it's a really Midwestern thing. And it.
(09:46):
I don't know. I'm not afan. I'm sure a lot of
Midwestern uh listeners probably offended by mesaying that after listening. But but I
don't know, maybe something with wildrice, like wild rice soup, because
we got some good wild wild wifewild rights up here. Not you know,
I don't think you could find thatstuff. So okay, Corey,
the really bizarre thing is that yousaid that. But Tater tot Hot Dish
(10:07):
is Ramon's stripper name when he usedto be when he used to be a
male stripper, that was the strippername, Tater tod Hot Dish. It's
not appetizing, you know what?They got back to the heels. I've
had a lot of a lot ofpast moments. I'm never going to forget
that. I'm writing that down Tatertot Hot Dish TD. What's t THHD
(10:31):
up too? Oh, Corey,listen, I brought to kind of cut
you off before window to break.So you were telling us about you know,
you got you were kind of doingthat Goldilocks and the Three Bears thing
with your safe before you guys startedbuilding stafe. You couldn't find one that
just wouldn't work for you. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, So we were
trying to check all the boxes andwe couldn't find one that did. And
(10:52):
then so there's a couple other companiesthat make safes that come apart or modular
safe, uh, like a lotof folks will call them in industry,
and there actually isn't one until wecame around that was bull of Fire insulated
handmade in the USA. So wethought, well, we can fix that
being metal sab guys. So youknow, we started developing our safe in
(11:13):
twenty sixteen, and then we builta lot of safes, tested them,
threw them away, put them inan oven, and then launched our line
of Nomad safes for sale in earlytwenty twenty. Okay, And so you
know, We've talked to people onthis show, and I've talked to people
(11:35):
that are in the in the manufacturingside of whether it's gun safes or or
optics or whatever, sourcing sourcing materialsand things like that in US, and
I listened, Ramona and I bothbuy US made products whenever we can.
That can that can get you know, kind of be difficult, kind of
expensive, can it? Yeah?Yeah, I mean there's always that's what
(12:00):
like the one hundred percent made inUSA is always kind of tricky. There's
always little things, right, likelike some nuts and bolts and screws,
Like you can get aircraft ones thatare made in USA, but you need
like a number eight screw to holdthe dial on. You're safe, Like
odds are that's coming imported somewhere,whether it's Portugal or China or Taiwan.
(12:20):
So yeah, but finding the littlecomponents is tricky. Like even for example,
our pistol boxes, we ended upfinding like a like an aircraft cable
manufacturer locally to make that security cablefor us because we didn't want to buy
one that came from overseas if wecould help it. So we do whenever
(12:41):
possible at all. We work withnot only made in USA stuff, but
we try to work with local vendorstoo, just because you know, it's
the community that we live and livein Eden, and you know, we
like to keep that money around asmuch as we can, you know.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, tellus a little bit about your product line
for those listening who are not familiarwith that, you guys, you guys
do say if you do pistol boxeskind of give us a broad sweep of
(13:05):
all the products kind of the productsyou guys offer. Yeah, so we
can kind of start top down thesafe the ones come apart, and that
means they come in pieces. Youcarry the panels down one at a time.
Those, you know, are onthe mid mid price range as far
as safes go. And then comingdown we have our pistol boxes. We
have both push buttons, simplex fastaccess boxes as well as key boxes.
(13:31):
And then on the lower end ofthe product spectrum, we have our accessories
like our magnetic case keeper, whichhas been super popular. Perfect Christmas gift
for anyone listening. It's hooks onany safe magnetically, whether that was made
by us or made by anyone else. Even hook on your beer fridge and
hold eight soft cases. That's likereally popular around Father's Day, Christmas,
(13:52):
things like that. It's forty ninebucks, so it's in most people's budgets
for holiday shopping. Almost fits ina stocking, but not quite. Ramon's
looking at the website shopping right now. He's he's got a couple of things.
I think it's going to be anexpensive show for me. I have
a feeling when you guys, howdo you how do you guys look at
(14:16):
the at the at the product developmentprocess to create a safe that you would
want to own. I'm sure thatwhen you build safe, you're like,
you know, this is something I'mbuilding that I would want to own.
How how do you guys go throughthat through that process of creating new products.
Yeah, So when we first started, actually we thought, well,
hey, if the safe's going tocome apart, it should be as big
as possible, because everyone says they'resafe it is too small. So there's
(14:39):
an old picture floating now and somewherein the back of our website. We
built one that like you guys couldhave dinner in or you could have a
date inside of it, but butyou couldn't move it. Like even though
the pieces were separate, they're stilltoo heavy to move. So we started
whittling it down and then our nextprototype was uh, you know, filled
with cement in the panels and eachpanel weighed like three or four hundred pounds.
(15:03):
Then we sold a couple to localpeople and it's still very very very
nice safe, but it was verydifficult to move, and we thought,
well, people are going to buythis because two guys can just move it
into basement. So then we starteddesigning around that as our key metric,
Like, if two people can carrythese panels in the basement, we've succeeded.
(15:24):
So let's make the best safe wecan inside that envelope. And we
feel that I've definitely done that.There's always going to be a safe to
as higher fire protection or more security, but it's probably going to be heavier
and harder to move. So whenyou look in the parameters of what's a
safe two people can move into basement, and what's the best one that fits
that requirement, I think we've builtjust that. I'm looking at the rustic
(15:50):
nomad, beautiful looking safe there.My question though, is is it true
that if you hold a stethoscope tothe little safe you can kind of crack
it? Or is that just kindof a livestyle. Yeah, I think
that's I think that's mostly a livessale. I know it's certainly not true
with with the electronic locks. Ithink safe crackers they know some of those
(16:11):
guys really know what they're doing.But there's a lot of auto dialers and
things like that because it's not thateasy as it looks in the movies.
But even the locksmith's needs special needreally specialized equipment. Because if you get
locked out of your safe with amechanical lock of really good locksmith is most
likely drilling in there. Yeah,and not probably not manipulating the die a
(16:34):
most likely that's true. These areall electronic keypads, so yeah, I
guess that would be a little different. Yeah, I've got a safe problem
at home with a cheap safe.I'm on, if we have time at
the end of the show, I'mgonna ask. I'm gonna ask. I'm
gonna ask. Corey. Are givenmy SOB story here, give them an
you're twenty to maybe crack it foryou. Yeah, by phone remote,
just send me and add something somethingon my phone and pop it out.
(16:59):
And I know this is kind ofan obvious question, but real quickly.
We got about a minute left beforeyou go into our next break. Has
the We've obviously seen a huge increasein gun sales across the US. Has
the safe business increased exponentially with thattrend? Yeah? Yeah, especially deering
when you know all the guns wereyou couldn't buy anything. So the industry
kind of pulse that you hear atthe shows and such is that last year
(17:22):
was a booming year for everyone.This year's kind of like flat the same
not that same explosive growth that everyonesaw last year, because you could tell,
I mean people were out like twentyweeks lead time on stuff, right
and now you know, we justlook across the industry. People are much
quicker lead times than their stock atstores. So things are a little a
little flower than last year. ButI mean we're coming off quite a boom
(17:45):
of a year for all things gunstwo right right, Okay, man,
I just have got tons of questions. I'm looking at the products and stuff
here, but we're going to takea quick break here on Hunting Matters,
back with our guests Corey Myers withsteel Head Outdoors. See you on the
other side, folks, Once upona time to dress so fast through the
(18:18):
boots of dime in your price.Then you people call say it be webbed
all you're by a fall. Youthought they were off alrighty, welcome back
here to Honeymatters on kp r Cnine fifty. I'm catching Ramone off guard
(18:41):
at the board over there. Thisis your host, Joe betar Ham Ramone
Robless and we are joining to geta by our guest Corey Myers. Corey
is the co founder of still HeadOutdoors. Check out their website and get
your credit card out Stillhead outdoors dotcom. Round you you got your modular
safety? Do you know? Here'shere's the scary thing of all the gun
equipment, all the things that Ibought, I do not have a safe.
(19:06):
That Corey that you probably hear thatstory all the time, though,
don't you. Yep, yep forsure. And at then here's here's where
the problem comes in. When you'vegot pistols and stuff lying around in the
corners of every closet are full ofguns, You're right, goes, hey,
we got to do something about this. That's when you got to go
bout it safe. I know Ineed to buy a safe because I literally
(19:26):
just have my gun stacked in thecloset. Yeah, but I look at
it differently though. You buy safe, it's not full. It's an open
invitation. Your spouse always knows whatto get you, something else to put
in the safe, and you cantell her, hey, honey, we
can keep the important papers and thejewelry, not just for guns, our
wedding pictures and babies and yeah.So see, I've already thought there were
(19:47):
all this good point when I orderthat that custom safe that Corey is going
to build for me. Corey,could you build us a safe that on
the side says for pictures, youknow, for a safetyeping of wedding pictures.
Okay, good, good, Yeabsolutely, and put your wife's face
on. Yeah, that'll go overroll. Well yeah, get your face
on it. Oh look baby,you put your pictures here, and yeah
there's some room for guns. Butlook look at these pictures. All right,
(20:10):
good good? I like this guy. Speaking of custom safe, you
guys build custom safe correct. Yeah. We we have done a fair bed
of customs. Yeah, a lotof vault doors and safe too. Yeah.
Most of the customs are like smallvariations on the on the existing safe.
But yeah, we've done anything andeverything from full full blown custom projects
(20:33):
to you know, custom color ona regular safe. We have our powder
vender has like two thousand colors orsomething or any like that. What's the
most bizarre request you guys have had? Oh? Well, we made safe
for a guy I think he livedon in Florida. Uh. It was
like he had a very tight spaceyou wanted to put in. So it's
(20:56):
like seven foot tall safe that wasnarrow and it was all white with gold
accents and a gold dial. Itwas seemed like something from Miami Vice.
But it turned out super cool.That sounds like something Scarface would order.
Yeah or ramone. Yeah, Ineed all my high heels to your your
(21:21):
Prince Hills. Here he comes again, tater dot hot dish. Now,
when you're building these same Now,if I'm buying a safe, do I
worry about atmosphere in the safe?I mean, I know that might sup.
I don't know if I'm asking theright questions about temperature and humidity exactly.
Yeah, So I have a nerdyanswer for you. That's fascinating.
(21:42):
Most gun safes have sheet rocking them. Drywall, sheet rock, fireboard,
could be called any of those things. It's like basically the same thing that
your walls are made out of inyour house if it's built after nineteen seventy.
And that does a good job offire protection. Is why they use
it and why it's used in yourhouse. But that is made with moisture
(22:03):
when they cast it like cements,and the moisture that come that is in
your safe more often than not comesfrom the safe itself. So if you
have a room that's forty percent humiditybecause you have an air conditioning system,
You're safe will match the room unlessit makes its own humidity. So because
(22:26):
we're trying to make the best safe, because that two guys carry. We
have a material inside our safe that'sactually sergamic blanket like they're used in a
blast furnace or heat treating facility orspecialized industrial equipment with fireplaces, and that
is rated for twenty three hundred degrees. But it doesn't have any moisture in
it, so it's it's insulator,but it doesn't have that boiling water phase
(22:49):
change temperature stalling ability. But italso doesn't have moisture. So you're not
going to make your own humidity insideof your safe, so the humidity is
going to match the room it's inall the time. Okay, yeah,
you know I I go ahad andshare my sob story. Now. So
(23:10):
we had a cheap safe that wasin our house when we moved in,
and evidently, Corey, I'm sureyou've heard, we had a huge hurricane
a few years back that sat ontop of us for I don't know remember
what three to five days. It'sjust crazy. So you playing me out,
Oh it's no sad music. Okay, So Evidently this guy's house flooded
and he left the safe in there. So when I bought the house,
(23:32):
I was like, you couldn't tellfrom the outside that was bad. So
I said, oh, will youconvey the safe with the house because I
just throw my guns in there wasIt's not a custom safe, of course,
So anyway, I ripped out.Then I opened it up and it
was all rusted out from the bottomthird. So I cleaned it out.
I got all the rust out,I sand it down, replaced the drawwall
and stuff in it. I closedthe safe and it's when the push button
(23:52):
key button. It's not a key, it's a push button digital safe.
I closed the door and heard itgo and it shut and that one open
and I don't know that I've takenno I've taken the keepout off. I've
used the backup safety key the wholething, and I can't get the I
can't get I read to the wholeinside of the safe and now it is
locked shut. Corey, what doI do? Come on, man,
(24:15):
help me out. I think theonly thing if the backup ke doesn't work,
the only two options are to callthe manufacturer YEP and see if they
have the combo on file for somereason. Otherwise, well they want to
have the combo, they'll have themaster reset code on file, or or
you have to have a locks throwit out. Yeah, yeah, it's
(24:37):
you know, it's it's not theI've got the combination and it's the right
one. And I just think oneof those bolts in it was bad or
something. I didn't get all therust out or something, and it's just
locked up, so I can ohsure, yeah, when it locked itself.
Yeah, that's what it is.Your only choice. How much is
that going to run me? Alot of them are like three fifty minimum
(24:59):
the safe. I've probably just dumpedthe safe and get order one of yours
because it's not worth it. It'sjust frustrating because all the work it took
me, you know, several weekendsof projects of getting it all cleaned out
and doing them. I don't knowwhat happened. Anyway, we should give
it a go with C four ortenor right or something, just to see
what happened. Well, you can'thurt it because it's not working, So
yeah, we'll hallow it out anddo something to it. Corey. You
(25:21):
know, Ramona and I are kindof we're kind of firearms addicts, and
a lot of people listen to theshow are as well. How do you
guide a client to choose a safenot only that is what they want now,
but potentially what they want in thefuture, what they need in the
future, because you know, Imean, you know, you want to
plan ahead, and we all knowwe're going to buy more guns. So
yeah, So the number one thingis I always tell people to buy a
(25:44):
little bigger than you think you need. Our most popular one is actually the
Nomad thirty eight. The other thingwe do that's really popular is we build
a lot of double safe where there'sactually two totally different safes. They both
together, they're in the middle.So now you have about a fourteen to
fifteen hundred pound assembly in your room. And the benefit of it being a
(26:06):
double safe is that get two doors. So instead of you know, the
really giant safe might have a fouror five foot wide door, then you
have to have room for that bigdoor to swing, and then when it's
open it becomes extra tippy. Sothe smaller double safe works pretty well.
We're shipping one out tomorrow actually,where the gentleman said, look, you
know, I want it double safe. I really love one, but that's
(26:29):
a lot of money to shell outin one one time. So how I
just buy one now and I'll buythe second one later. So we're configuring
this first one to be ready togo to add the second one in the
future, and then that's when youcan add it when whenever he wants and
it's ready to go. Yeah,I like that concept. Not having heard
of that one giant door. Yeah, you know, I see where that
(26:51):
makes sense if you don't have roomfor you know, big old door like
that. And so when you say, like the no Man thirty eight,
the thirty eight is indicative how manyguns can no. We actually when we
were kind of poking around doing competitiveresearch, we found that, you know,
I like to say a twenty fourinch wide safe, someone might call
it a twenty gun, and someonemight call it a fifty gun, and
(27:12):
it's the same size safe. Sowe just go off the with some of
the other companies have recently switched todo in cubic feet, but sometimes the
height doesn't help you as much,or the death doesn't help you as much,
so ours is just it just goesoff the width. So it's the
easy number that people can remember.So that's a thirty eight inch wide safe,
got it? I like that.That's that makes it a lot easier.
(27:33):
Maybe I'm asking the wrong question orI'm asking the wrong person this question.
But right now we are leasing ourhouse. Is it okay to still
buy a safe? I mean,are they pretty movable or is it?
My perception is once you get asafe, you put it there, it
stays there. Yeah. No,So that that is like a perfect example
of where our safe would be perfect. So most the average American moves like
(27:56):
ten times in their life when youcount, you know, leaving your parents'
house and going to school or yourjob or whatnot. And the traditional safe
weighs seven hundred pounds. Beat amoving company around here, it's about one
thousand bucks to move cross pounds withlet's safe. Where are safe? It
comes in pieces, so it's asix hundred and fifty pounds safe, but
(28:17):
the heaviest parts of the door weighsone hundred and seventy pounds, so two
people can carry it down steps andthen when you get ready to move,
you simply open the door, takeout the same bolts you put in to
put it together, and you carryit out piece by piece, wrap each
panel in a moving blanket and youcan fit it under the tunnel cover of
a regular pickup truck. And we'vehad we've had a customer call me and
(28:40):
say he's moved it safe three orfour times, and he wanted just like
a new door steal and a coupleof new bolts because he had built and
assembled and hauled this thing so manytimes, and touch up paint. So
yeah, there's you know, likeI said, we've been building these things
for four years, so we've hadsomeone move it four times already in four
years. That's awesome. Yeah,yeah, you have no excuse taking a
(29:03):
break here real quickly on hunting MatterskPr C nine fifty C after the break
(29:34):
or Cowboll. I'm on cow Bell. I just I'm flashing back it's nineteen
eighty, maybe seventy nine, orriding around in my Toyota Silica with a
loover top on it, silver,got my cassette player going a little head
(29:55):
east. I'm going to assume itdoesn't matter, but Corey was not born
yet. I'm going to guess,Corey, were you born in nineteen seventy
nine, nineteen eighty No, sir, I told you come on line.
I told I knew it. Iknow my Minnesota accent, and I know
the sound of their age. Coreyis Corey is thirty one years old.
(30:17):
I'm gonna say thirty ooh, thirtyfive. Yeah, I was gonna say
thirty eight. Okay, Yeah,there we go. Welcome back to Honey
Matters KPRC nine to fifty this yearhost Joe b Tai am Ramon Robles joined
today by Corey Myers, co founderof Steelhead Outdoors. Corey, I was
fortunate enough to get one of yourpistol boxes not too long ago. And
you guys, do you do acouple of HD pistol boxes and then handgun
(30:40):
lockers and stuff like that. Ilike the weight, I like the cable,
I like the design, I likeeverything about it. Why don't you
guys, Did you guys start withpistol boxes, you start with Safe or
did it all come together at thesame time. Yeah, we started with
Safe and we sell almost entirely factorydirecked. So customers call us, ask
(31:02):
us questions, look on our website, and then they're buying a safe from
us without lot oftentimes without seeing one, without touching one, and that they're
putting a lot of trust in usand doing that, and we're thankful for
that. We always thought, man, if we could come up with a
way for customers to do business withus by taking less of a risk with
someone they've never done business before,what could we make We've always had that
(31:25):
idea in our mind, and allof us at work have a couple of
pistol boxes, and we started torealize they're all imported, and the cables
are really light duty, and thelocks that the user are not really great.
So we thought, we see ifwe can build one to solve those
three problems. So we started,you know, from the ground up,
and most boxes are stamped and spotwelded. Ours are laser cut, formed
(31:52):
on the press break and then tigwelded together. And like we mentioned in
the previous segments, the cables aremade by a local company ten miles away
and they're made in the USA also, And it's about four times stronger than
the cables used on any of theother pistol boxes. If you go by
tentil strength, it's about it's aquarter inch to keb what's six thousand pounds
(32:15):
rated me? You know, thecable is not the ideal way to secure
a pistol box, but when you'retraveling, oftentimes that's your best option.
So yeah, why not go withthe best cable you can if you're forced
to use a cable? Yeah,yeah, like you said, traveling,
it's great too because you can grabit and just take it out and take
it into your hotel room or whateveryou need to do with It's just an
(32:36):
easy transport. And I like theway you guys describe your products. So
like, for example, on thewebsite, you've got the small, your
small H two pistol box, andit just says right there, you know,
it's designed to fit into tight spaces, but it fits a compact pistol
the size of a glock nineteen witha magazine or smaller. But that pretty
much tells you everything you need toknow. I'm sure you guys still get
a lot of questions about your products, but I was really impressed. I
(32:58):
wasn't impressed with the design struction thefact that it was made in the US.
And it's just you know, sometimeswhen you hold a product and you
just go, ah, it's okay, but I mean this thing is it
is solid? It is solid?Well yeah, and That's been a good
seller for us because I think,like you read about something online and you
(33:20):
go to the website, and youknow, our small pistol boxes one hundred
and seventy bucks and ship's free.It's not, you know, chump change,
but it's not a couple grand likea safe. So a lot of
people I think, go, yeah, we could take a chance doing business
with those guys in Minnesota and seehow it goes, and then they come
back. We have a lot ofrepeat customers even on those pistol boxes already.
(33:42):
What does the cord of a pistolbox do? You'll forgive me,
I'm a novice at all this stuff. So cable you mean, yeah,
yeah, the cable. I'm sorry, what is a cable do? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, no problem.So, so you have a little
pistol box right. It weighs elevenpounds. You can hold it in your
hand. The most common use forthese is like in a car, can
feel carried for holders. Go toget your license renew you got to go
(34:02):
into the cederl building. Some states, putting in the glovebox doesn't count as
locking your thistole up. In someinstances, you might want to be more
responsible than that, so you lockit in a little metal pistol box.
But now if the first customer criminalssees that, they just grab and run
away. So the cable you looparound something, whether it's the seat bracket
(34:23):
or something else you pull to thecar or a whole you drill, and
then that locks in the box sothey can't just run off of it.
You can still cut the cable,but the trick is to make it harder
than punch the window and run awaywith the gun. Gotcha. Yeah,
you're talking about earlier. But youhad a guy that ordered safe and you
(34:43):
delivered it. So you guys aredirect to consumer. Yep, yep,
right now we are for our safes. We're working on taking some distributors on
the small stuff because it's just easierto ship around and it's not customizable.
But yeah, on our big Safesand vaults right now, we're all we're
all factory direct, and most ofthem are customized to some extent, like
hey, I need some extra shelves, or we set the combos for people
(35:07):
before they ship out, which issomething that not a lot of people do.
Yeah, but they ship on apalette and five boxes and you signed
for the palette and then the truckdriver leaves it with you, and do
you have a helper you can carrythe pieces one at a time wherever you
like. That's pretty cool because mostof them you're you know, you're especially
(35:29):
if you never own a safe,it's kind of they can get kind of
intimidating. Well, it's going tocome to my house, and how is
it going to get to my house? Especially well, I've got stairs?
Now what do I do? AndI think that the concept of the module
safe makes it a little a littleless daunting. You just need one buddy.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I still wouldn't have enough,
but I know, you get aneighbor, you know, get your kids
(35:50):
enough safe or enough buddies. That'swhat I mean. Nobody, there's never
enough safe. You guys offer someI'm kind of a gear nerd, So
you guys offer a couple of accessorI like, because I'm a bow hunter,
I'm an equal opportunity hunter. Butyou guys have for a couple of
cool accessors. The boatkeeper and thecasekeeper. Can you tell our listening on
it's a little bit about those.Yeah. So the cool part about those
(36:13):
is they're very inexpensive to try outthe boatkeeper thirty five dollars and the case
keepers forty nine dollars. It ismagnetic, so it works on any safe.
It even works on a lot ofbeer fridges or tool cabinets or utility
cabinets. It just kind of attachesto the upper corner. And I said,
it's held down with magnets. Andthe boatkeeper has like elongated hook that
(36:34):
can go through the cam or theor the limb of a compound ball.
Keep it ready. A lot ofpeople have said, like, hey,
I keep my bowl in the casein the basement and the off season,
but in summer I love hanging inon my garage fridge or on my gun
safe and having it ready to goso I can shoot a couple of arrows
every night and do my cold practice. And then the casekeeper is great because
(36:55):
usually when you need your soft cases, it's right when you're standing in front
of your gun safe, right.And the alternative is most people crumble them
up and shove them in a rubbermaid somewhere or shove them at the bottom
of the safe. And then someof those ninety dollars beautiful canvas stop cases
get all creaked forever. So thecasekeeper lets them hang on the side of
the safe upright, gravity helps keepthem straight. They're ready to go,
(37:20):
so you grab a case, threwa rifleing in, go out hunting,
and then it's much more convenient thankeep them on the way. Yeah,
I think the case I mean,I'm a boat hunter, so I love
the boatkeeper. But the casekeeper isbrilliant because, like you said, they
end up in a stack in thebottom of your closet or in a rubber
maid or something somewhere, and thenthey eat up some space. And that's
a that's just a very efficient wayto how'd you guys come up with that
(37:42):
idea? That one? Actually wemet a guy at a show who's kind
of a looking to not make theseanymore, and we asked them, hey,
did we like license on or somethingwith buy me out? And I'm
sick of going to these shows.So we actually like took the product line
over from him and made it,made it our own, added our logo,
and got some better maignance and somedifferent power coding, so we put
(38:06):
our own spin on it and andyeah, so it's we're actually not the
original ventors of that. The onlyproduct on our on our website. Mm.
So we got about a little bitless than a minute left. So
Ramona, he orders this safe todayand it's coming as far away as possible
from Minnesota down to Texas, downto Houston, Texas. What what's it?
What's you going to expect on turnaroundtime on something like that. Yeah,
(38:28):
So we keep our like usually theRusty Safe, the recontactical Safe in
the brown Nomads. We keep acouple of each size and stock ready to
go, and usually our taxating scheduleis two days out and then shipping time
to Texas is pretty straightforward because there'sa good there's a really good line there
for a couple of carriers and prabyou there three days after its ships.
(38:52):
Awesome. That's cool man, Awesome, Well, Corey, thanks so much
for being here. Folks. Checkout the website for still Head out Doors
god to still Head outdoors dot com. We are out of time. We
will see you next week here onHoney Matters k p R C nine fifty.
Happy Thanksgiving. I got a shoto
Tradition, conservation, family, theodors. It matters to you, it
matters to us. This is HuntingMatters presented by Houston Safari Club Foundation.
Here's Joe Bitar. Good morning,everybody. Welcome back to Honey Matters on
KPRC nine fifty. This is yourhost, Joe Bitar. I am Ramon
(00:25):
Robles. What you been up to, man? Well, you know,
we got the big Thanksgiving coming upThursday. Got my stretch of pants on
already, Yeah, And I wasjust thinking, we haven't really discussed the
top three Thanksgiving foods, okay,And I just thought maybe you would lay
yours out for me and then wecould compare and contrast. Let's rock and
roll, Okay, my fried turkey, I do a I do a Cajun
(00:47):
fried turkey kind of kind of abig deal, kind of world famous about
it. How long does it taketurkey? For? Forty five minutes in
the friar, in the friar done, leave the oven open. My wife
could cook all of our other deliciousstuff. Second food is my wife's corn
bread dressing from the South. It'snot stuffing, it's dressing, which is
an improvement on my mother's recipe madewith sage sausage. Oh man, it's
(01:11):
a sausage corn bread dressing. Andthen the third thing is it's a tie
between spinach Madeline, which is spinachwith Monterey Jack cheese and bread crumbs.
I know exactly what it. Oh, oh gosh. And then the corn
sew fle or the third one totie on the third place is a cauliflower
dressing. It is flat fried cauliflowerflorettes with small cube roast meat and rice.
(01:37):
Okay, now listen, bitar,you can't name three things as your
number. They're tied for No,they can't. Let's hear you're smart,
all right. Number one, yeah, of course is chilled cranberries in the
can, yes, which we alwaysforget in the fridge every time we sit
down, which is a shame becausethey're the best. Number two is ham
honey baked tam Yes. And thennumber three is yeast rolls love it.
(01:57):
Yeah, so that the quintessential Thanksgivingplate. It's hard to pick up three
because everything my wife makes is ourfavorite, you know, we and it's
weird because you love those things,but you only happened twice a year,
Thanks you having your Christmas. Theother day, I was thinking it'd be
nice, you know, Sundays.Why don't you cook a panad dressing?
I might you know, Okay,it's on my list now I'm gonna ask
her. Would it lose its charmif you were doing it June fifth,
(02:21):
when it's ninety eight degrees outside?It would? But you got all those
months to wait till the next holidays? Is that why we like it so
much? Because we only have itonce a year? I think that's what
it is. It's gotta be ye. All right, Well, Happy Thanksgiving
to you, Happy to see youbefore then? Yeah, happy stuffing day?
Ye all right, we got ashow to get to. Okay,
Let's talk about Houston's Far Club Foundationa little bit real quick. All right,
(02:45):
So it's Thanksgiving. December first isour Young Professionals Society or group called
the Stagging DOV Society, Big Christmasparty at counter Attacks Dermy. Then there's
the Houston's Far Club Foundation, theother Christmas party which is at the Barn
in Cyprus, Texas. And thenthe big conventions happening at the Woodlands Waterway,
Marriott Hotel and Convention Center January nineteenththrough the twenty first, twenty twenty
(03:06):
four. Man we have got someincredible auction items, live auction items.
We're gonna have three live auctions.We're gonna have big raffles, We're gonna
have silent auctions and games and expoand banquets and live entertainment. So go
to we huntwegive dot org, clickon the convention button and check out all
the cool stuff. And if youregister before December first, you can buy
your banquet tickets at a heavily discountof price. That early bird special ends
(03:27):
December first for banquet tickets. Ifyou're not coming to the banquets, which
you should be because that's where allthe fun happens at night. The expo
will be open all day every dayFriday, Saturday, Sunday, and you
can buy tickets for that at thedoor. So it just occurred to me
this may be something we should havesaved for off air. But that weekend,
I literally just put it together thatI will be at mar A Lago
really not even joking. Yeah,a other show that I work on,
(03:50):
taking a group of people out toFlorida hang out with the president. Yeah,
future president number forty five and numberforty seven, yep, And you've
done that before I'm going to missthis. This is a return yeah performance,
I got a thought to President TrumpHu again Yeah, man go to
his disco with the first lady again. Hilarious. Oh, before I forget,
we are running a contest, folksya you can win a fifty dollars
(04:13):
Bass Pro Shops Cabella's gift card.All you need to do is go to
the Hontymatter podcast on any podcast platform, subscribe to it, take a screenshot
of your subscription or your rating,and then send it to info I NFO
at we hunt we give dot org. That's info at we hunt we give
dot org. We're going to begiving away a fifty dollars bas Pro Shops
Cabela's gift card every month for thenext several months. And good timing because
(04:34):
it's almost Christmas and you need it. All right, let's get to our
guest today, Corey Myers. Coreyis the co founder of steal Head Outdoors.
Before I forget, let's give youtheir website, steal head outdoors dot
com. I like that name.It's kind of aggressive. Yep, Corey,
thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, yeah, thanks for
having me so Corey. We weretalking a little bit before we started the
(04:56):
show off air and Ramon asked youwhere you're from, and I think he's
said he was thinking you were fromFlorida or Georgia. Yeah, something.
It sounds like a southern excellent Whereare your Collins from today? Oh?
From Minnesota? Actually beautiful country upthere, yeah. Yeah. It kind
of runs from everything from the NorthCountry forest all the way to the southwest
(05:18):
corner is like Nebraska, just flatas far as you can see. Okay,
Core, Do you do you doa little hunting fishing up there in
Minnesota? Yep, yep. Sowe do deer hunting up kind of at
a northern deer camp that's been inmy wife's family for a couple of generations,
(05:39):
and then we go out west everyevery couple of years in search of
elk usually. So yeah, alittle bit of both. Awesome awesome.
Do you guys have pretty good waterfowlhunting up there, don't you? Yeah?
Yeah, there's a fair bit ofkind of ducks, ducks lose and
(06:00):
pothole lakes all around here. Evenyou know, within audible distance of my
house, there's plenty of shooting goingon. I don't get out much.
I wish I got out more.I I have had some friends that have
taken me out in the past.It's a ton of fun. Yeah.
Yeah, so we're gonna do we'reI want to do a deep dive on
your product line here because I wasfortunate enough to get one of your get
(06:21):
one of your your pistol boxes awhile back, and man, you guys
make a great product. I wantto talk a little bit in in detail
about that. But you're you're yourbackground's not in safe building, correct,
you had you did something else ina previous life. Yeah. Yeah,
So both my business partner and Iwe uh, we've been in metal fab
for a long time, but wecame to metal fab through automotive hot rod
(06:46):
building, working for a company thatdid automotive aftermarket extension parts and uh and
then I actually did some like solarenclosures and stuff and uh. Yeah.
So both of us from engineering backgrounds, lots of metal fat backgrounds, but
no, no, no safe experienceexcept when we started shopping for safes and
(07:09):
thought that we might be able tomake a better mouse trap. Yeah.
That's a it's actually a good segue. I was going to ask you,
you know what, what kind ofgot you into this but you you just
basically weren't satisfied with what you wereseeing out there, correct, Yeah,
so basically we were. We wentto the normal you know, suspects of
stores and we looked at, hey, this safe is not too heavy.
(07:30):
I could I could fit it inmy basement. I had a kind of
a hoofy house where I had asplit stairwell or starrow with a corner and
it went back the other way.And the place I had available to put
a safe was a big one wouldn'tfit up there. So when I got
down to the small one that thatsort we looked at that we could move,
I was like, well listen,really big enough. And then when
(07:51):
we got to the ones that werebig enough, it's too heavy. Yeah.
And if you finally, when Iwas light enough to get up my
stairs and around the corner, andit wasn't necessarily something that you want to
buy, get too light? Gotit? Okay? Hold that thought,
I want to pick that up.On the other side. We got to
take a quick break here on Hontingmatters KPRC nine fifty. Have to that
(08:41):
is what you listen to when you'regoing to the deer blind. Yep,
get you in the middle my hypemusic. It's also you know the Minnesota
things. Yeah, Minnesota. Yeah, but I know you listen, this
is going to the deer band withyour high heels on. I do you
know what? You knock them,but they get good traction in the field.
They're great. They're good. Thatmake you calves look great. I
gotta tell you, man, theyreally pump you up. Welcome back to
(09:03):
Honey Matters KPRC nine to fifty.This is your hos Jo Vita and Ramon
Roeblist joined today our guest Corey Myers. Corey is the founder, co founder.
I guess we don't want to slidehis partner of Steelhead Outdoors, Charlie
be upset with us, Whitney Corey. You know, yep, he might
be. You're getting all the attention. Corey. Let me ask you a
(09:24):
question, what uh what is thestate dish of Minnesota. If if you
were an ambassador to the Minnesota brand, what dish would you be making?
Oh? Man, I mean Ihave a feeling people would say some kind
of like Tater Todd hot dish orsomething, but it's not my favorite.
I'd probably check like, yeah,it's a really Midwestern thing. And it.
(09:46):
I don't know. I'm not afan. I'm sure a lot of
Midwestern uh listeners probably offended by mesaying that after listening. But but I
don't know, maybe something with wildrice, like wild rice soup, because
we got some good wild wild wifewild rights up here. Not you know,
I don't think you could find thatstuff. So okay, Corey,
the really bizarre thing is that yousaid that. But Tater tot Hot Dish
(10:07):
is Ramon's stripper name when he usedto be when he used to be a
male stripper, that was the strippername, Tater tod Hot Dish. It's
not appetizing, you know what?They got back to the heels. I've
had a lot of a lot ofpast moments. I'm never going to forget
that. I'm writing that down Tatertot Hot Dish TD. What's t THHD
(10:31):
up too? Oh, Corey,listen, I brought to kind of cut
you off before window to break.So you were telling us about you know,
you got you were kind of doingthat Goldilocks and the Three Bears thing
with your safe before you guys startedbuilding stafe. You couldn't find one that
just wouldn't work for you. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, So we were
trying to check all the boxes andwe couldn't find one that did. And
(10:52):
then so there's a couple other companiesthat make safes that come apart or modular
safe, uh, like a lotof folks will call them in industry,
and there actually isn't one until wecame around that was bull of Fire insulated
handmade in the USA. So wethought, well, we can fix that
being metal sab guys. So youknow, we started developing our safe in
(11:13):
twenty sixteen, and then we builta lot of safes, tested them,
threw them away, put them inan oven, and then launched our line
of Nomad safes for sale in earlytwenty twenty. Okay, And so you
know, We've talked to people onthis show, and I've talked to people
(11:35):
that are in the in the manufacturingside of whether it's gun safes or or
optics or whatever, sourcing sourcing materialsand things like that in US, and
I listened, Ramona and I bothbuy US made products whenever we can.
That can that can get you know, kind of be difficult, kind of
expensive, can it? Yeah?Yeah, I mean there's always that's what
(12:00):
like the one hundred percent made inUSA is always kind of tricky. There's
always little things, right, likelike some nuts and bolts and screws,
Like you can get aircraft ones thatare made in USA, but you need
like a number eight screw to holdthe dial on. You're safe, Like
odds are that's coming imported somewhere,whether it's Portugal or China or Taiwan.
(12:20):
So yeah, but finding the littlecomponents is tricky. Like even for example,
our pistol boxes, we ended upfinding like a like an aircraft cable
manufacturer locally to make that security cablefor us because we didn't want to buy
one that came from overseas if wecould help it. So we do whenever
(12:41):
possible at all. We work withnot only made in USA stuff, but
we try to work with local vendorstoo, just because you know, it's
the community that we live and livein Eden, and you know, we
like to keep that money around asmuch as we can, you know.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, tellus a little bit about your product line
for those listening who are not familiarwith that, you guys, you guys
do say if you do pistol boxeskind of give us a broad sweep of
(13:05):
all the products kind of the productsyou guys offer. Yeah, so we
can kind of start top down thesafe the ones come apart, and that
means they come in pieces. Youcarry the panels down one at a time.
Those, you know, are onthe mid mid price range as far
as safes go. And then comingdown we have our pistol boxes. We
have both push buttons, simplex fastaccess boxes as well as key boxes.
(13:31):
And then on the lower end ofthe product spectrum, we have our accessories
like our magnetic case keeper, whichhas been super popular. Perfect Christmas gift
for anyone listening. It's hooks onany safe magnetically, whether that was made
by us or made by anyone else. Even hook on your beer fridge and
hold eight soft cases. That's likereally popular around Father's Day, Christmas,
(13:52):
things like that. It's forty ninebucks, so it's in most people's budgets
for holiday shopping. Almost fits ina stocking, but not quite. Ramon's
looking at the website shopping right now. He's he's got a couple of things.
I think it's going to be anexpensive show for me. I have
a feeling when you guys, howdo you how do you guys look at
(14:16):
the at the at the product developmentprocess to create a safe that you would
want to own. I'm sure thatwhen you build safe, you're like,
you know, this is something I'mbuilding that I would want to own.
How how do you guys go throughthat through that process of creating new products.
Yeah, So when we first started, actually we thought, well,
hey, if the safe's going tocome apart, it should be as big
as possible, because everyone says they'resafe it is too small. So there's
(14:39):
an old picture floating now and somewherein the back of our website. We
built one that like you guys couldhave dinner in or you could have a
date inside of it, but butyou couldn't move it. Like even though
the pieces were separate, they're stilltoo heavy to move. So we started
whittling it down and then our nextprototype was uh, you know, filled
with cement in the panels and eachpanel weighed like three or four hundred pounds.
(15:03):
Then we sold a couple to localpeople and it's still very very very
nice safe, but it was verydifficult to move, and we thought,
well, people are going to buythis because two guys can just move it
into basement. So then we starteddesigning around that as our key metric,
Like, if two people can carrythese panels in the basement, we've succeeded.
(15:24):
So let's make the best safe wecan inside that envelope. And we
feel that I've definitely done that.There's always going to be a safe to
as higher fire protection or more security, but it's probably going to be heavier
and harder to move. So whenyou look in the parameters of what's a
safe two people can move into basement, and what's the best one that fits
that requirement, I think we've builtjust that. I'm looking at the rustic
(15:50):
nomad, beautiful looking safe there.My question though, is is it true
that if you hold a stethoscope tothe little safe you can kind of crack
it? Or is that just kindof a livestyle. Yeah, I think
that's I think that's mostly a livessale. I know it's certainly not true
with with the electronic locks. Ithink safe crackers they know some of those
(16:11):
guys really know what they're doing.But there's a lot of auto dialers and
things like that because it's not thateasy as it looks in the movies.
But even the locksmith's needs special needreally specialized equipment. Because if you get
locked out of your safe with amechanical lock of really good locksmith is most
likely drilling in there. Yeah,and not probably not manipulating the die a
(16:34):
most likely that's true. These areall electronic keypads, so yeah, I
guess that would be a little different. Yeah, I've got a safe problem
at home with a cheap safe.I'm on, if we have time at
the end of the show, I'mgonna ask. I'm gonna ask. I'm
gonna ask. Corey. Are givenmy SOB story here, give them an
you're twenty to maybe crack it foryou. Yeah, by phone remote,
just send me and add something somethingon my phone and pop it out.
(16:59):
And I know this is kind ofan obvious question, but real quickly.
We got about a minute left beforeyou go into our next break. Has
the We've obviously seen a huge increasein gun sales across the US. Has
the safe business increased exponentially with thattrend? Yeah? Yeah, especially deering
when you know all the guns wereyou couldn't buy anything. So the industry
kind of pulse that you hear atthe shows and such is that last year
(17:22):
was a booming year for everyone.This year's kind of like flat the same
not that same explosive growth that everyonesaw last year, because you could tell,
I mean people were out like twentyweeks lead time on stuff, right
and now you know, we justlook across the industry. People are much
quicker lead times than their stock atstores. So things are a little a
little flower than last year. ButI mean we're coming off quite a boom
(17:45):
of a year for all things gunstwo right right, Okay, man,
I just have got tons of questions. I'm looking at the products and stuff
here, but we're going to takea quick break here on Hunting Matters,
back with our guests Corey Myers withsteel Head Outdoors. See you on the
other side, folks, Once upona time to dress so fast through the
(18:18):
boots of dime in your price.Then you people call say it be webbed
all you're by a fall. Youthought they were off alrighty, welcome back
here to Honeymatters on kp r Cnine fifty. I'm catching Ramone off guard
(18:41):
at the board over there. Thisis your host, Joe betar Ham Ramone
Robless and we are joining to geta by our guest Corey Myers. Corey
is the co founder of still HeadOutdoors. Check out their website and get
your credit card out Stillhead outdoors dotcom. Round you you got your modular
safety? Do you know? Here'shere's the scary thing of all the gun
equipment, all the things that Ibought, I do not have a safe.
(19:06):
That Corey that you probably hear thatstory all the time, though,
don't you. Yep, yep forsure. And at then here's here's where
the problem comes in. When you'vegot pistols and stuff lying around in the
corners of every closet are full ofguns, You're right, goes, hey,
we got to do something about this. That's when you got to go
bout it safe. I know Ineed to buy a safe because I literally
(19:26):
just have my gun stacked in thecloset. Yeah, but I look at
it differently though. You buy safe, it's not full. It's an open
invitation. Your spouse always knows whatto get you, something else to put
in the safe, and you cantell her, hey, honey, we
can keep the important papers and thejewelry, not just for guns, our
wedding pictures and babies and yeah.So see, I've already thought there were
(19:47):
all this good point when I orderthat that custom safe that Corey is going
to build for me. Corey,could you build us a safe that on
the side says for pictures, youknow, for a safetyeping of wedding pictures.
Okay, good, good, Yeabsolutely, and put your wife's face
on. Yeah, that'll go overroll. Well yeah, get your face
on it. Oh look baby,you put your pictures here, and yeah
there's some room for guns. Butlook look at these pictures. All right,
(20:10):
good good? I like this guy. Speaking of custom safe, you
guys build custom safe correct. Yeah. We we have done a fair bed
of customs. Yeah, a lotof vault doors and safe too. Yeah.
Most of the customs are like smallvariations on the on the existing safe.
But yeah, we've done anything andeverything from full full blown custom projects
(20:33):
to you know, custom color ona regular safe. We have our powder
vender has like two thousand colors orsomething or any like that. What's the
most bizarre request you guys have had? Oh? Well, we made safe
for a guy I think he livedon in Florida. Uh. It was
like he had a very tight spaceyou wanted to put in. So it's
(20:56):
like seven foot tall safe that wasnarrow and it was all white with gold
accents and a gold dial. Itwas seemed like something from Miami Vice.
But it turned out super cool.That sounds like something Scarface would order.
Yeah or ramone. Yeah, Ineed all my high heels to your your
(21:21):
Prince Hills. Here he comes again, tater dot hot dish. Now,
when you're building these same Now,if I'm buying a safe, do I
worry about atmosphere in the safe?I mean, I know that might sup.
I don't know if I'm asking theright questions about temperature and humidity exactly.
Yeah, So I have a nerdyanswer for you. That's fascinating.
(21:42):
Most gun safes have sheet rocking them. Drywall, sheet rock, fireboard,
could be called any of those things. It's like basically the same thing that
your walls are made out of inyour house if it's built after nineteen seventy.
And that does a good job offire protection. Is why they use
it and why it's used in yourhouse. But that is made with moisture
(22:03):
when they cast it like cements,and the moisture that come that is in
your safe more often than not comesfrom the safe itself. So if you
have a room that's forty percent humiditybecause you have an air conditioning system,
You're safe will match the room unlessit makes its own humidity. So because
(22:26):
we're trying to make the best safe, because that two guys carry. We
have a material inside our safe that'sactually sergamic blanket like they're used in a
blast furnace or heat treating facility orspecialized industrial equipment with fireplaces, and that
is rated for twenty three hundred degrees. But it doesn't have any moisture in
it, so it's it's insulator,but it doesn't have that boiling water phase
(22:49):
change temperature stalling ability. But italso doesn't have moisture. So you're not
going to make your own humidity insideof your safe, so the humidity is
going to match the room it's inall the time. Okay, yeah,
you know I I go ahad andshare my sob story. Now. So
(23:10):
we had a cheap safe that wasin our house when we moved in,
and evidently, Corey, I'm sureyou've heard, we had a huge hurricane
a few years back that sat ontop of us for I don't know remember
what three to five days. It'sjust crazy. So you playing me out,
Oh it's no sad music. Okay, So Evidently this guy's house flooded
and he left the safe in there. So when I bought the house,
(23:32):
I was like, you couldn't tellfrom the outside that was bad. So
I said, oh, will youconvey the safe with the house because I
just throw my guns in there wasIt's not a custom safe, of course,
So anyway, I ripped out.Then I opened it up and it
was all rusted out from the bottomthird. So I cleaned it out.
I got all the rust out,I sand it down, replaced the drawwall
and stuff in it. I closedthe safe and it's when the push button
(23:52):
key button. It's not a key, it's a push button digital safe.
I closed the door and heard itgo and it shut and that one open
and I don't know that I've takenno I've taken the keepout off. I've
used the backup safety key the wholething, and I can't get the I
can't get I read to the wholeinside of the safe and now it is
locked shut. Corey, what doI do? Come on, man,
(24:15):
help me out. I think theonly thing if the backup ke doesn't work,
the only two options are to callthe manufacturer YEP and see if they
have the combo on file for somereason. Otherwise, well they want to
have the combo, they'll have themaster reset code on file, or or
you have to have a locks throwit out. Yeah, yeah, it's
(24:37):
you know, it's it's not theI've got the combination and it's the right
one. And I just think oneof those bolts in it was bad or
something. I didn't get all therust out or something, and it's just
locked up, so I can ohsure, yeah, when it locked itself.
Yeah, that's what it is.Your only choice. How much is
that going to run me? Alot of them are like three fifty minimum
(24:59):
the safe. I've probably just dumpedthe safe and get order one of yours
because it's not worth it. It'sjust frustrating because all the work it took
me, you know, several weekendsof projects of getting it all cleaned out
and doing them. I don't knowwhat happened. Anyway, we should give
it a go with C four ortenor right or something, just to see
what happened. Well, you can'thurt it because it's not working, So
yeah, we'll hallow it out anddo something to it. Corey. You
(25:21):
know, Ramona and I are kindof we're kind of firearms addicts, and
a lot of people listen to theshow are as well. How do you
guide a client to choose a safenot only that is what they want now,
but potentially what they want in thefuture, what they need in the
future, because you know, Imean, you know, you want to
plan ahead, and we all knowwe're going to buy more guns. So
yeah, So the number one thingis I always tell people to buy a
(25:44):
little bigger than you think you need. Our most popular one is actually the
Nomad thirty eight. The other thingwe do that's really popular is we build
a lot of double safe where there'sactually two totally different safes. They both
together, they're in the middle.So now you have about a fourteen to
fifteen hundred pound assembly in your room. And the benefit of it being a
(26:06):
double safe is that get two doors. So instead of you know, the
really giant safe might have a fouror five foot wide door, then you
have to have room for that bigdoor to swing, and then when it's
open it becomes extra tippy. Sothe smaller double safe works pretty well.
We're shipping one out tomorrow actually,where the gentleman said, look, you
know, I want it double safe. I really love one, but that's
(26:29):
a lot of money to shell outin one one time. So how I
just buy one now and I'll buythe second one later. So we're configuring
this first one to be ready togo to add the second one in the
future, and then that's when youcan add it when whenever he wants and
it's ready to go. Yeah,I like that concept. Not having heard
of that one giant door. Yeah, you know, I see where that
(26:51):
makes sense if you don't have roomfor you know, big old door like
that. And so when you say, like the no Man thirty eight,
the thirty eight is indicative how manyguns can no. We actually when we
were kind of poking around doing competitiveresearch, we found that, you know,
I like to say a twenty fourinch wide safe, someone might call
it a twenty gun, and someonemight call it a fifty gun, and
(27:12):
it's the same size safe. Sowe just go off the with some of
the other companies have recently switched todo in cubic feet, but sometimes the
height doesn't help you as much,or the death doesn't help you as much,
so ours is just it just goesoff the width. So it's the
easy number that people can remember.So that's a thirty eight inch wide safe,
got it? I like that.That's that makes it a lot easier.
(27:33):
Maybe I'm asking the wrong question orI'm asking the wrong person this question.
But right now we are leasing ourhouse. Is it okay to still
buy a safe? I mean,are they pretty movable or is it?
My perception is once you get asafe, you put it there, it
stays there. Yeah. No,So that that is like a perfect example
of where our safe would be perfect. So most the average American moves like
(27:56):
ten times in their life when youcount, you know, leaving your parents'
house and going to school or yourjob or whatnot. And the traditional safe
weighs seven hundred pounds. Beat amoving company around here, it's about one
thousand bucks to move cross pounds withlet's safe. Where are safe? It
comes in pieces, so it's asix hundred and fifty pounds safe, but
(28:17):
the heaviest parts of the door weighsone hundred and seventy pounds, so two
people can carry it down steps andthen when you get ready to move,
you simply open the door, takeout the same bolts you put in to
put it together, and you carryit out piece by piece, wrap each
panel in a moving blanket and youcan fit it under the tunnel cover of
a regular pickup truck. And we'vehad we've had a customer call me and
(28:40):
say he's moved it safe three orfour times, and he wanted just like
a new door steal and a coupleof new bolts because he had built and
assembled and hauled this thing so manytimes, and touch up paint. So
yeah, there's you know, likeI said, we've been building these things
for four years, so we've hadsomeone move it four times already in four
years. That's awesome. Yeah,yeah, you have no excuse taking a
(29:03):
break here real quickly on hunting MatterskPr C nine fifty C after the break
(29:34):
or Cowboll. I'm on cow Bell. I just I'm flashing back it's nineteen
eighty, maybe seventy nine, orriding around in my Toyota Silica with a
loover top on it, silver,got my cassette player going a little head
(29:55):
east. I'm going to assume itdoesn't matter, but Corey was not born
yet. I'm going to guess,Corey, were you born in nineteen seventy
nine, nineteen eighty No, sir, I told you come on line.
I told I knew it. Iknow my Minnesota accent, and I know
the sound of their age. Coreyis Corey is thirty one years old.
(30:17):
I'm gonna say thirty ooh, thirtyfive. Yeah, I was gonna say
thirty eight. Okay, Yeah,there we go. Welcome back to Honey
Matters KPRC nine to fifty this yearhost Joe b Tai am Ramon Robles joined
today by Corey Myers, co founderof Steelhead Outdoors. Corey, I was
fortunate enough to get one of yourpistol boxes not too long ago. And
you guys, do you do acouple of HD pistol boxes and then handgun
(30:40):
lockers and stuff like that. Ilike the weight, I like the cable,
I like the design, I likeeverything about it. Why don't you
guys, Did you guys start withpistol boxes, you start with Safe or
did it all come together at thesame time. Yeah, we started with
Safe and we sell almost entirely factorydirecked. So customers call us, ask
(31:02):
us questions, look on our website, and then they're buying a safe from
us without lot oftentimes without seeing one, without touching one, and that they're
putting a lot of trust in usand doing that, and we're thankful for
that. We always thought, man, if we could come up with a
way for customers to do business withus by taking less of a risk with
someone they've never done business before,what could we make We've always had that
(31:25):
idea in our mind, and allof us at work have a couple of
pistol boxes, and we started torealize they're all imported, and the cables
are really light duty, and thelocks that the user are not really great.
So we thought, we see ifwe can build one to solve those
three problems. So we started,you know, from the ground up,
and most boxes are stamped and spotwelded. Ours are laser cut, formed
(31:52):
on the press break and then tigwelded together. And like we mentioned in
the previous segments, the cables aremade by a local company ten miles away
and they're made in the USA also, And it's about four times stronger than
the cables used on any of theother pistol boxes. If you go by
tentil strength, it's about it's aquarter inch to keb what's six thousand pounds
(32:15):
rated me? You know, thecable is not the ideal way to secure
a pistol box, but when you'retraveling, oftentimes that's your best option.
So yeah, why not go withthe best cable you can if you're forced
to use a cable? Yeah,yeah, like you said, traveling,
it's great too because you can grabit and just take it out and take
it into your hotel room or whateveryou need to do with It's just an
(32:36):
easy transport. And I like theway you guys describe your products. So
like, for example, on thewebsite, you've got the small, your
small H two pistol box, andit just says right there, you know,
it's designed to fit into tight spaces, but it fits a compact pistol
the size of a glock nineteen witha magazine or smaller. But that pretty
much tells you everything you need toknow. I'm sure you guys still get
a lot of questions about your products, but I was really impressed. I
(32:58):
wasn't impressed with the design struction thefact that it was made in the US.
And it's just you know, sometimeswhen you hold a product and you
just go, ah, it's okay, but I mean this thing is it
is solid? It is solid?Well yeah, and That's been a good
seller for us because I think,like you read about something online and you
(33:20):
go to the website, and youknow, our small pistol boxes one hundred
and seventy bucks and ship's free.It's not, you know, chump change,
but it's not a couple grand likea safe. So a lot of
people I think, go, yeah, we could take a chance doing business
with those guys in Minnesota and seehow it goes, and then they come
back. We have a lot ofrepeat customers even on those pistol boxes already.
(33:42):
What does the cord of a pistolbox do? You'll forgive me,
I'm a novice at all this stuff. So cable you mean, yeah,
yeah, the cable. I'm sorry, what is a cable do? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, no problem.So, so you have a little
pistol box right. It weighs elevenpounds. You can hold it in your
hand. The most common use forthese is like in a car, can
feel carried for holders. Go toget your license renew you got to go
(34:02):
into the cederl building. Some states, putting in the glovebox doesn't count as
locking your thistole up. In someinstances, you might want to be more
responsible than that, so you lockit in a little metal pistol box.
But now if the first customer criminalssees that, they just grab and run
away. So the cable you looparound something, whether it's the seat bracket
(34:23):
or something else you pull to thecar or a whole you drill, and
then that locks in the box sothey can't just run off of it.
You can still cut the cable,but the trick is to make it harder
than punch the window and run awaywith the gun. Gotcha. Yeah,
you're talking about earlier. But youhad a guy that ordered safe and you
(34:43):
delivered it. So you guys aredirect to consumer. Yep, yep,
right now we are for our safes. We're working on taking some distributors on
the small stuff because it's just easierto ship around and it's not customizable.
But yeah, on our big Safesand vaults right now, we're all we're
all factory direct, and most ofthem are customized to some extent, like
hey, I need some extra shelves, or we set the combos for people
(35:07):
before they ship out, which issomething that not a lot of people do.
Yeah, but they ship on apalette and five boxes and you signed
for the palette and then the truckdriver leaves it with you, and do
you have a helper you can carrythe pieces one at a time wherever you
like. That's pretty cool because mostof them you're you know, you're especially
(35:29):
if you never own a safe,it's kind of they can get kind of
intimidating. Well, it's going tocome to my house, and how is
it going to get to my house? Especially well, I've got stairs?
Now what do I do? AndI think that the concept of the module
safe makes it a little a littleless daunting. You just need one buddy.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I still wouldn't have enough,
but I know, you get aneighbor, you know, get your kids
(35:50):
enough safe or enough buddies. That'swhat I mean. Nobody, there's never
enough safe. You guys offer someI'm kind of a gear nerd, So
you guys offer a couple of accessorI like, because I'm a bow hunter,
I'm an equal opportunity hunter. Butyou guys have for a couple of
cool accessors. The boatkeeper and thecasekeeper. Can you tell our listening on
it's a little bit about those.Yeah. So the cool part about those
(36:13):
is they're very inexpensive to try outthe boatkeeper thirty five dollars and the case
keepers forty nine dollars. It ismagnetic, so it works on any safe.
It even works on a lot ofbeer fridges or tool cabinets or utility
cabinets. It just kind of attachesto the upper corner. And I said,
it's held down with magnets. Andthe boatkeeper has like elongated hook that
(36:34):
can go through the cam or theor the limb of a compound ball.
Keep it ready. A lot ofpeople have said, like, hey,
I keep my bowl in the casein the basement and the off season,
but in summer I love hanging inon my garage fridge or on my gun
safe and having it ready to goso I can shoot a couple of arrows
every night and do my cold practice. And then the casekeeper is great because
(36:55):
usually when you need your soft cases, it's right when you're standing in front
of your gun safe, right.And the alternative is most people crumble them
up and shove them in a rubbermaid somewhere or shove them at the bottom
of the safe. And then someof those ninety dollars beautiful canvas stop cases
get all creaked forever. So thecasekeeper lets them hang on the side of
the safe upright, gravity helps keepthem straight. They're ready to go,
(37:20):
so you grab a case, threwa rifleing in, go out hunting,
and then it's much more convenient thankeep them on the way. Yeah,
I think the case I mean,I'm a boat hunter, so I love
the boatkeeper. But the casekeeper isbrilliant because, like you said, they
end up in a stack in thebottom of your closet or in a rubber
maid or something somewhere, and thenthey eat up some space. And that's
a that's just a very efficient wayto how'd you guys come up with that
(37:42):
idea? That one? Actually wemet a guy at a show who's kind
of a looking to not make theseanymore, and we asked them, hey,
did we like license on or somethingwith buy me out? And I'm
sick of going to these shows.So we actually like took the product line
over from him and made it,made it our own, added our logo,
and got some better maignance and somedifferent power coding, so we put
(38:06):
our own spin on it and andyeah, so it's we're actually not the
original ventors of that. The onlyproduct on our on our website. Mm.
So we got about a little bitless than a minute left. So
Ramona, he orders this safe todayand it's coming as far away as possible
from Minnesota down to Texas, downto Houston, Texas. What what's it?
What's you going to expect on turnaroundtime on something like that. Yeah,
(38:28):
So we keep our like usually theRusty Safe, the recontactical Safe in
the brown Nomads. We keep acouple of each size and stock ready to
go, and usually our taxating scheduleis two days out and then shipping time
to Texas is pretty straightforward because there'sa good there's a really good line there
for a couple of carriers and prabyou there three days after its ships.
(38:52):
Awesome. That's cool man, Awesome, Well, Corey, thanks so much
for being here. Folks. Checkout the website for still Head out Doors
god to still Head outdoors dot com. We are out of time. We
will see you next week here onHoney Matters k p R C nine fifty.
Happy Thanksgiving. I got a shoto
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