December 21, 2025 • 44 mins
In This Hour:
-- A small company in Idaho makes bespoke ammunition. Ted McIntyre describes how Lost River Ammunition caters to special needs.
-- Is a custom-made, expensive handgun worth the money? It depends, but Tom is loving his first-ever custom 1911 pistol from Cylinder & Slide.
-- It's been 70 years since the 44 Magnum cartridge was introduced. In that time this round has reached iconic status.
Gun Talk 12.21.25 Hour 1
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
-- A small company in Idaho makes bespoke ammunition. Ted McIntyre describes how Lost River Ammunition caters to special needs.
-- Is a custom-made, expensive handgun worth the money? It depends, but Tom is loving his first-ever custom 1911 pistol from Cylinder & Slide.
-- It's been 70 years since the 44 Magnum cartridge was introduced. In that time this round has reached iconic status.
Gun Talk 12.21.25 Hour 1
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:11):
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Speaker 3 (00:29):
He was the first and he's still the best. For
thirty years, Tom Gresham has been your trusted source on
all things ballistic, new guns, Second Amendment, personal protection, be
part of it, Paul, Tom talk gun. Now, here's Tom.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Oh, Yeah, we're gonna do this thing. Hey, I'm Tom Gresham.
I'm glad that you are here. Heck, I'm glad i'm here.
Where can we talk about guns and shooting and cool stuff?
And yeah, we'll talk politics. We'll wrap that in here too. Basically,
it's a bunch of folks getting together talk about this
and that we do not because we don't anyway, we
do not have to agree, but we don't. Also, we
(01:12):
can't be disagreeable. We can exchange ideas and I can
disagree with you, you can disagree with me. It doesn't
mean that you know you're wrong, but it does mean
that I'm right. I mean, as long as we understand
that right. If you want to be part of it,
it's he is he Give me a call, Tom Talk Gun.
That's the number, Just me, Tom, Tom Talk Gun. Wow.
(01:36):
A lot of things going on. We've got a lot
of things to talk about today. We're gonna talk about
a boutique ammunition company. This making some of the coolest
AMMO for particularly for hand guys. That makes them rightful
mo too, but really more for like bear protection, personal
protection against four legged gritters, some really interesting stuff and
(01:56):
it's counterintuitive some of the things that they're making. You well,
that didn't make sense, but then when you test, you go,
oh oh oh, I get that. That makes sense. Now. Well,
we talked a little bit about one of the dreams
for a lot of hunters, not everybody, because a lot
of people I think don't understand it, and that is
(02:19):
going to Africa to hunt. Well, I talked to somebody
who made his first hunt there, wrote a book about
it and kind of has the premore on how you
can do it and what's involved with that should you
want to, we'll talk about that as well. And then
we're going to get into long range shooting. I mean
we're talking extreme long range stuff. There's some gun geekery involved.
(02:43):
There's some stuff here that's just it's so far down
the rabbit hole that I got lost in the conversation.
But it's fascinating. We're were doing that as well. And again,
it will always take your comments, your questions. You can
point out and say, hey, Tom, I think you're wrong
about something cool. Let's talk about that. I managed to
(03:03):
tick off an entire continent. It looks like, at least
it feels that way with my comments about Australia after
the mass murder at the Bondi Beach, and on X
made some comments there talking about the Prime Minister, and
basically they just they're primed to do a knee jerk
(03:28):
gun control reaction. They have all these gun control laws
ready to go, and then when something like this happens,
they just pull them out and they put them forward
and they shove them through. And a lot of the
measures that they're calling for that they're going to do
in Australia have nothing to do with the murderers at
Bondi Beach. It's just what they wanted to do. It's
(03:51):
more restrictions. It's like, oh, okay, you can't have you know,
right now you can have licenses for six guns. We're
going to reduce that to four guns. Yeah, that has
nothing to do with this. Oh oh oh, the one
I love. Yeah, people are just more. They're jumping all
over you from Australia. Mind your own business. You don't
know what you're talking about. We're safer than you are,
(04:11):
and go, yeah, well you know you don't have freedom,
but yes we do. We have lots of freedom. Really.
They announced this week they're going to start arresting people
for speech, for speech that goes against the government, for
speech that would offend. They're doing the basically the UK thing. Right,
(04:32):
So this one got my attention and I'm kind of
putting all this together and starting to make sense now
because you're thinking, oh, right, how in the world can
so many people be so oblivious to facts? How can
they be so much let how can they be so brainwashed?
(04:57):
And then I see this the story coming out of
Australia where the media is talking about belt fed shotguns. What, yeah,
you know, like the ones that we used in the
Bondi Beach massacre. Now I understand these were straight pool
basically bolt action guns. They have those for shotguns as
(05:19):
well as rifles. They're not even semi auto, they're manually operated.
But they're calling a belt fed. Now, we in the
US know what a belt fed gun is. It's a
bunch of ammunition linked together in a belt and generally
run through it for auto like a machine gun. And
(05:42):
you know, he's, okay, there's belt fed. But they're talking
about belt fed shotguns over there, and I had to
dig around and find out what are they talking about.
Turns out you're gonna love this. Turns out that in Australia,
the media has dubbed the belt fed shotgun as a
(06:04):
shotgun that is fed ammunition that is attached to the
person's belt. So you reach down to your belt and
you pull out a shotshell and you put it into
your shotgun and that becomes a belt fed shotgun. How
(06:30):
in the world could you live in Australia and actually
know the facts. Now, look, there are a lot of
gun owners in Australia. Don't make that mistake. A lot
of people here think, oh yeah, you can't own guns
over there. Yeah you can. You got the Australia Shooters Union,
very good group. You've got Aussie reviews on YouTube. Check
out the Aussie Reviews really good channel, and he does
(06:53):
good reviews on guns. So there are a lot of
people who own guns in Australia, but when I say
a lot of people, it's a much much smaller percentage
than we have here of gun owners and the majority
of the people there. It appears just looking at it,
absolutely taking at face value everything the government is telling them.
(07:17):
I had people tell me, what, what do you talk about?
Nobody's guns for defense here? The police were there in
ten minutes. They stopped the shooting in ten minutes. And
you know what I'm saying, is like, really ten minutes?
I responded. I said, well, if you think ten minutes
is quick, or if you think that's a short period
(07:39):
of time, let me suggest that you hold your breath
for ten minutes. Ten minutes is an incredible number of
lifetimes because a lot of people lost their lives in
ten minutes. Thirty seconds is a good lot's time to
(08:02):
a mass murder. Well, the police are never that close. Yeah,
you just figured it out. But you know who is
there who can respond in thirty seconds the people who
are on the scene. Of course, in Australia, that's not
gonna happen because they're not armed. You can't be armed.
(08:22):
You can't walk around with your carry gun the way
we can in the US. And of course they count
and say, well, you know, because you can carry your
guns there you have all this crime. No, actually it
doesn't work that way. We have all the data. People
who are licensed to carry guns, who have permose to
carry guns essentially don't create or don't commit crimes. Essentially,
(08:43):
they commit crime at a rate of roughly one percent
of the general public. That is, the average person who
does not have a carry permit is one hundred times
more likely to commit crime then the person who does
have a carry permit. That's information from the Florida Department
(09:06):
Law Enforcement when they studied that, and it carries across
the country. But of course, when you're brainwashed and you think, well,
the guns are what cause the crime, it couldn't be.
Because we have people with radical terrorist tendencies and they
simply want to murder a lot of people, that's what
(09:28):
they show up for. It couldn't be that it has
to be the guns. Yeah, no, I don't think so.
So anyway, that's been an interesting thing. If you want
to follow that, go over to x X dot com
or use your app and I am at gun talk
over there and you can see what people are saying.
And hey, if you want to support my position, a
(09:51):
little backup would not be a bad thing. When we
come back, I have a range report for you. Yep,
I got that pistol and I've been talking about ordered
it months ago. It came in. We finally got it
to the range yesterday. Real question is, well, is it
worth it? How'll have that when we come back?
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(11:07):
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Speaker 7 (11:15):
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Speaker 8 (12:50):
Hick on forty five here, congratulations Tom, and I know
it must have been really fun and interesting, you know,
having worked with John Browning you know through most of
those designs, so all your work.
Speaker 9 (13:01):
In the fireman industry.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, thanks, Hi cock. I always got to be as
smartie in the crowd, isn't there? Hey have Tom Gresha.
I'm glad you're back with us. Our number here is well,
let's do it both ways eight six six eight two
five five four eighty six. See that's why I don't
give it out that way. Who can remember that? Tom
Talk gun. That's the number easy Tom talk gun and
we're open lines. If there's something on your mind, give
(13:26):
me a call. We are days away from Christmas. Happy
Christmas and Merry Christmas. Happy Honekah. Glad that we could
all be with our families as much as we can.
Do you have any Christmas gun memory, shooting memories, hunting
memories for us? Christmas? We always did some hunting around
(13:48):
Christmas time. I mean not journally, not on Christmas Day.
We usually before and after we would go out because
it's the right time of year. And then of course
in our family, my family, it was pretty common for
there to be a long package underneath the tree, a
rifle or shotgun, something, maybe even a handgun. I figured out, hey, yeah,
(14:13):
if you got any thoughts about that or stories that
come to mind, by all means to give us a call.
I figured out the way to get what you want
is to buy it for yourself. I mean, as obvious
as it sounds. If you don't want to take any chances,
and if you want to make sure you get exactly
what you're looking for, just get it for yourself, which
I did. I was in just happened to be literally
(14:37):
I'm not kidding. Just happen to be going through Fremont, Nebraska.
A few months ago. We were going through the celebration
of life for our buddy Ray Elgin, who's been on
the show here a number of times. And of course
Ray passed away earlier this year, and we were driving
to that and I stopped in Freemont. We were literally
at the sweet shop getting on ice cream, and I
(14:58):
just checked my phone, as I always do for gun
stores near me. It's a thing, and up pops cylinder
and slide. Is that the cylinder and slide? Bill offerds
his place, the world famous pistol smith. For sure enough
it was, and called and he was there, and so
I went over there. We spent an hour going through
(15:19):
his place and look at guns and looked at how
they make them, and it was cool. It was really fun.
And then by the time I did all of that,
I said, you know, Bill, could I get you to
make me a gun? Because they said, Look, they sell
all sorts of parts kits, so if you want to
slick up or improve your nineteen eleven or your Browning
(15:40):
High Power or whatever, cylinder dash slide dot com. But
they also make guns. A few handmaide. He said, yeah,
what do you want? I want a good range gun
nineteen eleven, a carry gun, a fighting gun, a serious gun.
He said, yeah, we can do that. We started the
(16:00):
project and I've talked about it here, and you know,
as things to do, it grew like topsy, as they say,
I succumbed to those very expensive three words might as well,
and yeah, the price went up, and when I forgot
the filing voice, it was like, oh okay, But then,
you know what. I look around at other nineteen elevens
(16:23):
from the high end makers and it wasn't terrible, and
every part in it hand selected, special metallurgy, polished, fitted,
and he set me in a note. He says, now
be sure a little bit when you get it, because
it's really tight. So okay, cool, we do that. I
got it in and it's weirdly spectacular and unassuming at
(16:45):
the same time. It doesn't look fancy at all. It's
not fancy really, it's just a working TOOLIM basically, you know,
this is what and he's not. I don't think he's
allowed to say it, but some Navy seals, come on,
you don't have to dance around it. He's made some
(17:07):
of these with the Seals, and this one is very
similar to what the Seals got. It's forty five. In retrospect,
I kind of wish i'd gotten it in nine, but
that's okay. It's classic forty five. And who knows, if
I like this enough effect and sell enough other guns,
maybe I can get another one in nine. That's say,
(17:28):
nothing real fancy, but gorgeous, beautiful polishing. Everything fits tight, tight, tight,
but it's polished to the point where it's reliable. And
that's the whole deal is Their thing is reliability first.
Now that is super accurate, but reliability first came to
a set of really playing grips. They said, well, what
(17:48):
do you want to do for grips and just put
something you got there? Something is nothing because I ordered
another set of grips from Bobby Tyler, the Tyler gun Works.
Now that's the place you got to go. Take a
look at if you have not wandered over their Tylergunworks
dot com. Look at what they do. They're amazing stuff.
So those are we coming in? So we took We've
(18:10):
had rain and snow for several days. I didn't want
to take the gun out in bad weather, so took
it out yesterday. First time went out with my buddy Brad,
who's a good shooter. We probably put two hundred rounds through.
It did not have a single hiccup, I mean not
one issue using Wilson Combat Mags got a feed of
(18:31):
the best just using regular ballammo two HU and thirty
grain ballammo. The one thing that really struck me stood
out to me was how much I was kind of
surprised and delighted at a gold bead front site. It's
(18:51):
real old school, and I wanted to go old school
in this. It's not fiber optic, it's not treatium night's sight,
it's a gold and it's the heiny front side actually
the Heinie ledge rear sight as well. Richard Heine's stuff
really good and you could add those Tati gun you want.
(19:13):
I was surprised. I guess I had read about it
for decades, but I was just surprised at how much
that gold bead picks up light in almost any light.
If there's any light out there, it'll shine. And at
first I thought, well, everybody says it's a gold bead,
so it's a They put a brass bead in the No,
it's gold. It's fourteen carrot gold. Well, I mean it's coated,
(19:37):
you know, plated, but it is fourteen carrot gold on
this little bead in the front side. Holy cow, and
it just glows very quick. The trigger is exquisite. And
it actually got slightly better. I don't know how I
could get better, but it got a little bit better
after two and a rounds, to the point where you
got to think about it and going oh okay. Because
(19:58):
I didn't want it be that four to five pound.
I told them, if you can get to three and
a half pounds, that's what I would like. And that's
about what it is. Shoots you accurately. So what am
I going to do with this thing? Well, I'm going
to shoot it a lot. Now. I got to order
a bunch of forty five ammo. Of course, put in
a call Jeff Hoffman over Blackhill's AMMO because they make
(20:20):
really good AMMO. And I signed up. And we'll talk
about this a little bit later in the show. I
signed up for a class at gun Site, I think
about it. Jeff Cooper nineteen eleven Gun Site, And of
(20:40):
course you can take any of their hanging classes with
the nineteen eleven. But they have a special class once
a year and it marks the anniversary or the birthday
of Jeff Cooper, the founder of gunsite and the founder
of the modern technique of the pistol, and the guy
who basically first introduced the world to the eye idea
that a semiauto pistol is better than a revolver in
(21:03):
a gunfight, which was heresy fifty years ago. And in
this class they do once a year, the dealers very simple.
You use a nineteen eleven pistol with iron sights, no optics,
and leather holster and leather mag pouches, no kaiteeks. Well
(21:27):
I like that. I mean, I get it. I'm old school.
I started with all that stuff. And now it's fun
because you get to say, okay, well, which holster, who's
making really good leather holsters? Well, actually a lot of
people are. Now It's amazing how many good outfits out
there making a really fine leather. And then you go, yeah, well,
(21:47):
I already wear a gun belt every day, and I
like a leather gun belt, so I've got a whole
selection of those. That's not a problem. So now I'm
looking at holsters and looking at this and that got
to get some more mags. It's like I said, I
like the Wilson combat megs. This is going to be fun. Yeah.
I know. People say, well, is it worth it? You
paid a lot of money for this gun. Nobody can
(22:09):
answer for you whether something is worth it, But I
can just tell you it's spectacular and I am very
happy about it. And I have already forgotten about the money,
and I'm just delighted to have a good gun. Maybe
you could treat yourself the same way. Hey, let me
come back boutique ammo or handguns. Yeah, somebody's doing that.
(22:36):
As you know, we love when small companies do well,
especially in obviously our firearm space. And you know, it's
just not an easy thing to start any company, but
particularly when you're out there competing against some of the
big guys. And right now we're joined by the folks
from Lost River Ammo. Ted McIntyre joins us. Hey, Ted,
(22:57):
appreciate you being there.
Speaker 9 (22:59):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
So you're down in well Quinn Falls area of Idaho.
How in the world did you get into the AMMO business.
Speaker 10 (23:07):
It's kind of a natural progression. I've been a handloader
for many, many years, and after a career in law
enforcement and being overseas, I decided to break out.
Speaker 9 (23:19):
On my own and become my own boss.
Speaker 10 (23:21):
And had a bunch of people always asking me for
AMMO and things like that, and you a bunch of
people in the industry, and there was niches that the
big companies were not really filling right, and as a
handgun hunter, I really knew what they were and it
was really not a matter of and also the smaller
(23:44):
companies as well, the boutique companies. There tends to be
a lot of companies that try to push things always
to the max, just the max of whatever is possible,
and I kind of went into a different area of
what was really not really what was possible, but more
is what's practical as a as a shooter, we know
(24:08):
that for example, like a forty four magnum you you know,
you can you can push like at two forty to
you know, fourteen hundred feet a second or something like that,
But really a sweet spot might be twelve hundred feet
a second, or it's plenty to take down an animal,
but that's really your accuracy spot is right in there.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
And it makes it more shootable. Well, I'm looking at it.
I'm looking at a lot of your animal that you
offer over at Lost River Ammo company dot com, and
a lot of it is loaded to be shootable where
you could hit things. But and here's the key, that
is where you become take advantage of the fact that
you're an experienced handloader. Using the right bullets allow cartridges
(24:49):
like forty one Magnum, forty four Special forty four Magnum
to do what they need to do without really beating
up the shooter.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
Yes.
Speaker 10 (24:57):
Yeah, it was really a matter of not what's possible,
but what's practical. And if you were a handloader, would
you be loading this yourself. That's really the niche that
I filled. And it really took off, and the response
has been just excellent, so much positive response from people,
and a lot of quite a bit of the customer base,
(25:21):
oddly enough, are handloaders, and they just say, well, you're
making what I would load myself. It's so convenient just
to buy from you because I don't have to handload it.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
It's just easier. Yeah, and you've already done your work
if you would talk about it, because I think you
got a lot of I mean, you've got other things,
but You've got a lot of revolver loads here, and
one of the things you do is really select the
bullet the projectiles with care. You want to talk about that.
Speaker 9 (25:46):
Right, Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 10 (25:48):
It's just based on personal experience and experience of other
shooters as well that I know and respect, some of
my mentors and some other people in the field.
Speaker 9 (26:01):
Things that I.
Speaker 10 (26:02):
Know absolutely work, the classic bullets such as the Keith
styles and full loadcutters and things like that, and certain
you know, certain things you know, not just generic things
and there. And it's accuracy based because a lot of
times what is offered is really just based on creating
(26:24):
numbers just whatever is the fastest, hottest, most as, bestest.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Well you know the deal speed cells and you are
out there trying to make you know, a million rounds
a day, and you know, what are people going to buy.
They're just going to look at all the numbers that go, Okay,
that's the fastest load. I'll go with that, whether or
not have actually worked.
Speaker 10 (26:43):
And and honestly, I could make more money if by
push things to the edge of the envelope, but I really,
uh prefer just to make things that are you know,
extremely accurate, and are you know, are good for you know,
the shooter and the gun because a lot of my
(27:04):
customer base are people who carry their.
Speaker 9 (27:07):
Guns in the back country. They're going into grizzly.
Speaker 10 (27:09):
Country, they're going to the brown and bear country and
things like that, and pushing things to the.
Speaker 9 (27:14):
Edge of reliability is not good. So I do tend to.
Speaker 10 (27:20):
Work with the projects, and you know, reliability is far
more important than getting an extra twenty feet a second,
because I'd rather have something.
Speaker 9 (27:30):
That's one hundred percent.
Speaker 10 (27:31):
Reliable than adding another, you know whatever, fifteen feet a second.
So I find those windows first. You know, there's it's
paramount and importance when you're looking at something that can eat.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
You eat you all, right, Ted, You mentioned that you've
got some mentors, and you know, you and I have
some of the same friends in this business. Who are
the folks that have influenced you.
Speaker 10 (27:54):
One of the people that really turned me on to
powder code of bullets is a gentleman by the name
of Dick Thompson over in Soda Springs, s Idaho. It's
a little tiny town. But the interesting thing about him
is he's killed practically everything in the West and then
now Africa with exclusively with handguns. But he's not a
(28:20):
sponsored shooter. He's not one of these guys that works
for the big companies and things like that. And the
interesting thing is he's documented it all and he's just
a phenomenal storyteller. But he casts his own bullets and
he does all these things, and he's just a basically
self made man.
Speaker 9 (28:35):
He has gotten into.
Speaker 10 (28:38):
You know, I don't know, ten fifteen years ago, he
really started making the poly coated bullets.
Speaker 9 (28:44):
What is that?
Speaker 10 (28:46):
So the poly coat is it's as it states, it's
a polymer coating on a hard cast bullet, and the
polymer coating produces it's a basically like a Pauer jacket
on a hard cast bullet. It reduces friction ads lubricity.
You can push a hard cast bullet basically faster. With
(29:11):
reduced friction. You also keep the guns significantly cleaner. And
there's literally no downside to it. It's one of those
rare things where there just is no downside to polymer coating.
It keeps the guns just incredibly clean. You know how
like with traditional hard cast or cast the lead bullets,
(29:31):
about every one hundred and fifty or so rounds you
really need to break out the toothbrush and cleaner guns.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 10 (29:38):
So I did the thirty two h and R Ultimate
Cherry Project with Lipsy's Jason Klausner, which you know at Lipsey's,
Smith and Wesson had created some animal for them, and
I was using the new thirty two hn R.
Speaker 9 (29:58):
Multilant Carry j frame.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
I fired over one thousand rounds through that jaframe without
cleaning it and it was still it was still functioning
just fine.
Speaker 9 (30:08):
The ends up. The only reason why, and that was
one hundred green wadcutter load that I made.
Speaker 10 (30:14):
The only reason why I ended up cleaning the gun
was I started to work on development of the new
one hundred and thirty grand semi wadcutter load.
Speaker 9 (30:23):
I need a new baseline.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Sure you start start with a clean gun.
Speaker 9 (30:26):
Yeah all right.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
I got to ask you because I'm looking at your website.
You got some really interesting loads here that just aren't
available other places. But the one that got my attention,
and I know the people who you know, had Lipsis
and Brian and the folks who work with the revolvers
and all. You're making a thirty two eh NR load
that shoots wadcutter bullets, not semi wadcutter, I mean, like
(30:47):
real wadcutter. But people are actually after testing choosing to
use these as a defensive load.
Speaker 10 (30:54):
What's going on, Yes, wadcutters to so usually in J
frames short barrels in general, despite what people say, holowpoints
are really sketchy.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
Whether or not they're going to open up.
Speaker 10 (31:10):
And most of the time, and I used to be
a criminal investigator, I can tell you this most of
it because I've done a ton of autopsies.
Speaker 9 (31:17):
Most of the.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
Time, halopoints don't open up a solid bullet penet like
a full wadcutter. Profile penetrates straight, and it penetrates deep,
and it doesn't need to be pushed that fast. I
carried a thirty eight special jframe of four forty two
in my pocket for you know, twenty years as my
(31:38):
secondary gun. Wadcutters just perform extremely well and they don't
have much recoil. The thirty two jframe or thirty two
wad cutter one hundred grain wadcutter, you don't have to
drive it that fast, has extremely low recoil and penetrates
extremely deep as it ends up. Because the high sectional density,
(32:00):
you can actually you don't have to drive it that
fast and you get just exceptional penetration. And I actually
was really surprised. Again going back to Dick Thompson, he
was a big proponent of the thirty two caliber. He
was telling me about thirty two h and r long
before the Smith Lesson project. Oh okay happened. But I was, honestly,
(32:23):
I was a bit dismissive of that. He was he's
been killing.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
We all were we all, like you said, thirty two
you kidding me? It's like, really, come on.
Speaker 10 (32:31):
Well he's you know, he's killing badgers and all sorts
of things with it, you know, one hundred.
Speaker 9 (32:35):
Yards away and things.
Speaker 10 (32:36):
And I thought, well that's great, but I don't want
to get into another cartridge and things like that. But
so fast forward to this project and I made this
AMMO and people are asking me, well, how far do
you or how far do you think this is going
to penetrate?
Speaker 9 (32:50):
And I thought, well, it's only a little hundred drain bullet.
Speaker 10 (32:53):
It's only doing you know, like seven ninety eight eight
hundred feet a second. My guess is you know, maybe
fourteen to fifteen inches max, right, And I said that's optimistic.
I'm always skeptical about things, and I said, you know,
that's that's the furthest it.
Speaker 9 (33:10):
Will penetrate, is my guess.
Speaker 10 (33:12):
And so Jason calls me back and he says, yeah,
we did a bunch of testing and he says it averages.
Speaker 9 (33:18):
Between twenty two and twenty four inches. He said, it
blows right through the block.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
That's crazy, sore. You're getting lower velocity, easier to shoot,
and yet deep penetration. And with that watt cutter bullet,
you don't need expansion. It's just cutting a hole all
the way through, yep.
Speaker 10 (33:34):
All the way through, So it doesn't need to be
driven faster, which I found was funny because later on
the load was duplicated by.
Speaker 9 (33:40):
Some other manufacturers and they pushed it.
Speaker 10 (33:42):
Harder, and the only thing they did and after twenty
two and twenty.
Speaker 9 (33:45):
Four inches, there's no reason I'm driving faster.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
So the only thing you're doing is end up making
guns harder to shoot by providing more recoil to the shooter, right,
which is the opposite intention of the whole project of
providing low recoil guns for the shooters. So so yeah,
I just kept it right at you know, eight hundred
feet a second. So you get a gun that produces
(34:09):
barely more recoil than a twenty two magnum in a
J frame. You get six shots in the gun, and
you know virtually anybody can shoot the thing.
Speaker 9 (34:19):
It's just it's an amazing little cartridge.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
It really is for our self defense rig you know,
both the revolvers and then there are more than one
revolver were obviously made for the thirty and we're talking
about guns in their chamber for the three twenty seven
Federal and as well as chamber for the three thirty
two h and R. You just shoot these same light
wadcutter loads, but they're good defensive loads. I mean, it
(34:42):
almost defies what we think we know.
Speaker 10 (34:45):
Right, yeah, absolutely, And as it ends up, because of
that project, I ended up developing a one hundred and
thirty Graine semi wadcutter poly coat bullet. There were some
heavier bullets out there, but they weren't poly coded. As
I talked about, there's no reason not to have a
polycoded bullet. So I made a one thirty grain have
(35:07):
the mold made, how to manufacture, make it for me,
and they sent me out fifty thousand bullets and I've
been producing ano from those, stuck them in developed a
jframe loads, stuck them in there, and initially I had
the rounds going over one thousand feet a second and
it was.
Speaker 9 (35:24):
Way too hot for the jframes.
Speaker 10 (35:26):
As far as shootability, I slowed it down to the
point where it was comfortable for people to shoot in
the jframe and where the really kind of the goldilock
spot was, where it wasn't hurting your hand was eight
hundred and fifty feet a second and you still got
over thirty inches of penetration. Yes, so you're you know,
(35:50):
if you're running into you know, pit bulls or things
like that, you have plenty of penetration. And because of
the design, you know, if you need to reload your handgun.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
It's a little bit easier to reload a semi wad
cutter than there's a wad cutter exactly.
Speaker 10 (36:09):
So what guys have been telling me they're doing is
they're carrying the wad cutters as their primary load, and
they're carrying the semi wadcutters as their reloads. I've got
a Ruger l CR that I also carried as a
pocket gun. Especially in the winter time, I usually have
a you know one or the other in a you know,
(36:30):
winter pocket.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
You're the exact same with me. I've got that thing
sitting in my coat pocket and winter. It's just what
I say, the fastest strawest already have the gun in
your hand.
Speaker 10 (36:40):
Yeah, that's that's exactly it. And you know, the LCR
is just a tiny bit bigger than the Japrian, a
little bit bigger grips, and I load it with the
one thirty grainers because it's actually quite comfortable to shoot.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Well had I would here. We could talk for hours
about this because we're kindred souls on this, but I'm
going to run out of time here. I wanted to
people to your website, Lost River Ammo company dot com.
Make it all sorts of AMMA, not just for revolvers though, right.
Speaker 10 (37:07):
Yes, yes, absolutely got some bunch of semi auto not
a bunch, but a few semi auto loads, and they're
again oriented towards outdoor carrying, self defense and things like that,
you know, for people going into the back country and
of course for home defense and things like that.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
But yep, fascinating stuff. I mean, I love what you're doing.
It's interesting things you can't find other places different Ammo
and people can just order it directly from you.
Speaker 10 (37:33):
Right, yep, absolutely, there's no middleman. So I try to
keep keep everything you know, as low prices I possibly can.
Speaker 9 (37:42):
When you order more than one hundred rounds, I pick
up the shipping.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
So all right, sounds good. Well, Ted McIntyre, thank you
so much. Lost River Ammo company. You're doing some interesting stuff.
We'll catch up with you later and continue this conversation.
Well that was fun. I did that conversation to go
over a couple of days ago with the Ted interesting stuff.
What they're doing over there at Lost River Ammo kind
(38:06):
of define what a lot of people want, which everybody
wants the fastest sloads, who has the most philosophy. But
when you start shooting them into ballistic gel you find
out that that's not necessarily what you need. And those
hard cast lead bullets that are wadcutters, and you got
to look up if you don't know what wadcutters are.
(38:27):
They're just flat. They look like two chunks of a
tube or something, but it's solid, and you got the
full diameter bullet cutting a hole through stuff, and they
just work and they have deep penetration. So anyway, I
just I love the story of people who start off saying,
you know, I think I can do this, and they
got a passion and then they follow it. And that's
(38:49):
how we get people who make custom nineteen eleven's or
custom Ammo or Bobby Tyler Tyler Gun Works making incredibly
beautiful guns and pistol grip said everything else. I mean,
aren't we lucky to have all of this available to
us and we can customize the stuff we own or
you can get new things. And oh yeah, by the way,
(39:10):
it's only a few days till Christmas. Treat yourself. I've
top gresh. This is God talk. Be right back. Well, well, well,
guess who just turned seventy No, not me, the forty
(39:36):
four magnum did. It was introduced seventy years ago this month.
Forty four magnum cartridge. I was going to say handgun cartridge,
but of course it's chambered in rifles as well, so
you can get it in a lever action rifle, which
is great fun. By the way, if you get a chance.
The Marlins and the others that are available out there,
(39:56):
just tons of fun. But it was created, created, is
fathered if you will by Elmer, Keith, and maybe a
little bit by Skeeter Skelton to gun writers of the time,
way way way back, and they were handloading forty four
special AMMO really hot, cranking it up. I mean in
(40:17):
the process. I think Elmer may have blown up a
revolver too with his experimentation. But they went to Smith
and Wesson and Remington and got each of them to say, well,
you know, the Smith would make the revolver, would make
the AMO. And then Smith said, well, you know, if
Remiden would make the AMMO, we would make the revolver.
(40:37):
Good enough, let's go. So we ended up with the
forty four magnum, of course, made famous by Clount Eastwood
in the Dirty Harry movie. The first one. The most
powerful handgun in the world. It'll blow your head clean
off great lines. Clearly not the most powerful handgun anymore,
but still very powerful. If you have one. What's it
(41:00):
like to shoot? It? Like to get your range of
ports on your forty four magnum. For a lot of people,
it's more than they want to shoot all the time.
I'm one of those people. I have forty four magnums.
I don't shoot full house loads on them very often.
But I do love shooting reduced loads in them, and
kind of like the three fifty seven magnum where you
(41:21):
can shoot thirty eight specials in them. If you have
a forty four magnum, you can shoot forty four special
in your revolver, in your lever action greatly reduce recoil
and with the right bullets, very effective, just like we
were talking about with ted over Lost River ammunition. Use
(41:42):
good bullets and look when it starts out with a
forty four caliber, you don't really need expansion if you
have a good semi wadcutter bullet and a Keith style
bullet if you will, Yeah, named after Elmer Keith. They
just keep going. They cut a hole, they go deep,
and they just work. Work for self defense, they work
for hunting, pretty much work for anything. Forty four magnum
(42:05):
I've been around for seventy years. It is the standard
by which a lot of revolver cartridges are Judge, is
it as powerful as you know? Is the forty four
magnum good enough for bear protection? Well? Yes and no.
The answers always hit the pins, right, I mean, we
know that, but man, it's fun to have a forty
(42:26):
four magnum. It's fun to go out and shoot them,
and it's really a lot more fun when you're using
lighter loads in it, and you got these big revolvers
and then they become pussycats to shoot, and generally speaking,
they're accurate. I love the six twenty nines of the
twenty nine and the Smith family, but I've got them
in Rugers and I've got them in others as well.
But like I say, I do like those lighter loads,
(42:48):
So I'm really a fan, honestly of the forty four Special.
I think there's a very very slight resurgence and interest
in it. But you don't have to buy a revolver
or chambered for forty four Special. In fact, you'd be
hard pressed to even fine one. But just get yourself
a forty four magnum revolver and then gets you a
(43:08):
good supply of forty four Special AMMO and you're good
to go. There also are some smaller revolvers chambered for
forty four Special, some five shots out there, and those
make really good defensive guns, and not to mention, they're
not bad when it comes to defense against four legged
critters as well. Do you have a forty four magnium.
When did you get it, Why did you get it?
(43:31):
Do you shoot it or have you kind of put
it in the safe and said, yeah, that's not much
fun to shoot. Kind of pull it out again. I'd
love to get your range of ports on your forty
four magnum. Hey, when we come back, I want to
talk a little bit about hunting and well maybe if
you will Mecca for hunters Africa, all over Africa. It's possible,
(43:52):
it's doable, but how do you go about it? Yeah,
we're going to cover that. Be right back to more
gun talk.
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Speaker 2 (00:11):
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Speaker 3 (00:29):
He was the first and he's still the best. For
thirty years, Tom Gresham has been your trusted source on
all things ballistic, new guns, Second Amendment, personal protection, be
part of it, Paul, Tom talk gun. Now, here's Tom.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Oh, Yeah, we're gonna do this thing. Hey, I'm Tom Gresham.
I'm glad that you are here. Heck, I'm glad i'm here.
Where can we talk about guns and shooting and cool stuff?
And yeah, we'll talk politics. We'll wrap that in here too. Basically,
it's a bunch of folks getting together talk about this
and that we do not because we don't anyway, we
do not have to agree, but we don't. Also, we
(01:12):
can't be disagreeable. We can exchange ideas and I can
disagree with you, you can disagree with me. It doesn't
mean that you know you're wrong, but it does mean
that I'm right. I mean, as long as we understand
that right. If you want to be part of it,
it's he is he Give me a call, Tom Talk Gun.
That's the number, Just me, Tom, Tom Talk Gun. Wow.
(01:36):
A lot of things going on. We've got a lot
of things to talk about today. We're gonna talk about
a boutique ammunition company. This making some of the coolest
AMMO for particularly for hand guys. That makes them rightful
mo too, but really more for like bear protection, personal
protection against four legged gritters, some really interesting stuff and
(01:56):
it's counterintuitive some of the things that they're making. You well,
that didn't make sense, but then when you test, you go,
oh oh oh, I get that. That makes sense. Now. Well,
we talked a little bit about one of the dreams
for a lot of hunters, not everybody, because a lot
of people I think don't understand it, and that is
(02:19):
going to Africa to hunt. Well, I talked to somebody
who made his first hunt there, wrote a book about
it and kind of has the premore on how you
can do it and what's involved with that should you
want to, we'll talk about that as well. And then
we're going to get into long range shooting. I mean
we're talking extreme long range stuff. There's some gun geekery involved.
(02:43):
There's some stuff here that's just it's so far down
the rabbit hole that I got lost in the conversation.
But it's fascinating. We're were doing that as well. And again,
it will always take your comments, your questions. You can
point out and say, hey, Tom, I think you're wrong
about something cool. Let's talk about that. I managed to
(03:03):
tick off an entire continent. It looks like, at least
it feels that way with my comments about Australia after
the mass murder at the Bondi Beach, and on X
made some comments there talking about the Prime Minister, and
basically they just they're primed to do a knee jerk
(03:28):
gun control reaction. They have all these gun control laws
ready to go, and then when something like this happens,
they just pull them out and they put them forward
and they shove them through. And a lot of the
measures that they're calling for that they're going to do
in Australia have nothing to do with the murderers at
Bondi Beach. It's just what they wanted to do. It's
(03:51):
more restrictions. It's like, oh, okay, you can't have you know,
right now you can have licenses for six guns. We're
going to reduce that to four guns. Yeah, that has
nothing to do with this. Oh oh oh, the one
I love. Yeah, people are just more. They're jumping all
over you from Australia. Mind your own business. You don't
know what you're talking about. We're safer than you are,
(04:11):
and go, yeah, well you know you don't have freedom,
but yes we do. We have lots of freedom. Really.
They announced this week they're going to start arresting people
for speech, for speech that goes against the government, for
speech that would offend. They're doing the basically the UK thing. Right,
(04:32):
So this one got my attention and I'm kind of
putting all this together and starting to make sense now
because you're thinking, oh, right, how in the world can
so many people be so oblivious to facts? How can
they be so much let how can they be so brainwashed?
(04:57):
And then I see this the story coming out of
Australia where the media is talking about belt fed shotguns. What, yeah,
you know, like the ones that we used in the
Bondi Beach massacre. Now I understand these were straight pool
basically bolt action guns. They have those for shotguns as
(05:19):
well as rifles. They're not even semi auto, they're manually operated.
But they're calling a belt fed. Now, we in the
US know what a belt fed gun is. It's a
bunch of ammunition linked together in a belt and generally
run through it for auto like a machine gun. And
(05:42):
you know, he's, okay, there's belt fed. But they're talking
about belt fed shotguns over there, and I had to
dig around and find out what are they talking about.
Turns out you're gonna love this. Turns out that in Australia,
the media has dubbed the belt fed shotgun as a
(06:04):
shotgun that is fed ammunition that is attached to the
person's belt. So you reach down to your belt and
you pull out a shotshell and you put it into
your shotgun and that becomes a belt fed shotgun. How
(06:30):
in the world could you live in Australia and actually
know the facts. Now, look, there are a lot of
gun owners in Australia. Don't make that mistake. A lot
of people here think, oh yeah, you can't own guns
over there. Yeah you can. You got the Australia Shooters Union,
very good group. You've got Aussie reviews on YouTube. Check
out the Aussie Reviews really good channel, and he does
(06:53):
good reviews on guns. So there are a lot of
people who own guns in Australia, but when I say
a lot of people, it's a much much smaller percentage
than we have here of gun owners and the majority
of the people there. It appears just looking at it,
absolutely taking at face value everything the government is telling them.
(07:17):
I had people tell me, what, what do you talk about?
Nobody's guns for defense here? The police were there in
ten minutes. They stopped the shooting in ten minutes. And
you know what I'm saying, is like, really ten minutes?
I responded. I said, well, if you think ten minutes
is quick, or if you think that's a short period
(07:39):
of time, let me suggest that you hold your breath
for ten minutes. Ten minutes is an incredible number of
lifetimes because a lot of people lost their lives in
ten minutes. Thirty seconds is a good lot's time to
(08:02):
a mass murder. Well, the police are never that close. Yeah,
you just figured it out. But you know who is
there who can respond in thirty seconds the people who
are on the scene. Of course, in Australia, that's not
gonna happen because they're not armed. You can't be armed.
(08:22):
You can't walk around with your carry gun the way
we can in the US. And of course they count
and say, well, you know, because you can carry your
guns there you have all this crime. No, actually it
doesn't work that way. We have all the data. People
who are licensed to carry guns, who have permose to
carry guns essentially don't create or don't commit crimes. Essentially,
(08:43):
they commit crime at a rate of roughly one percent
of the general public. That is, the average person who
does not have a carry permit is one hundred times
more likely to commit crime then the person who does
have a carry permit. That's information from the Florida Department
(09:06):
Law Enforcement when they studied that, and it carries across
the country. But of course, when you're brainwashed and you think, well,
the guns are what cause the crime, it couldn't be.
Because we have people with radical terrorist tendencies and they
simply want to murder a lot of people, that's what
(09:28):
they show up for. It couldn't be that it has
to be the guns. Yeah, no, I don't think so.
So anyway, that's been an interesting thing. If you want
to follow that, go over to x X dot com
or use your app and I am at gun talk
over there and you can see what people are saying.
And hey, if you want to support my position, a
(09:51):
little backup would not be a bad thing. When we
come back, I have a range report for you. Yep,
I got that pistol and I've been talking about ordered
it months ago. It came in. We finally got it
to the range yesterday. Real question is, well, is it
worth it? How'll have that when we come back?
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Speaker 8 (12:50):
Hick on forty five here, congratulations Tom, and I know
it must have been really fun and interesting, you know,
having worked with John Browning you know through most of
those designs, so all your work.
Speaker 9 (13:01):
In the fireman industry.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, thanks, Hi cock. I always got to be as
smartie in the crowd, isn't there? Hey have Tom Gresha.
I'm glad you're back with us. Our number here is well,
let's do it both ways eight six six eight two
five five four eighty six. See that's why I don't
give it out that way. Who can remember that? Tom
Talk gun. That's the number easy Tom talk gun and
we're open lines. If there's something on your mind, give
(13:26):
me a call. We are days away from Christmas. Happy
Christmas and Merry Christmas. Happy Honekah. Glad that we could
all be with our families as much as we can.
Do you have any Christmas gun memory, shooting memories, hunting
memories for us? Christmas? We always did some hunting around
(13:48):
Christmas time. I mean not journally, not on Christmas Day.
We usually before and after we would go out because
it's the right time of year. And then of course
in our family, my family, it was pretty common for
there to be a long package underneath the tree, a
rifle or shotgun, something, maybe even a handgun. I figured out, hey, yeah,
(14:13):
if you got any thoughts about that or stories that
come to mind, by all means to give us a call.
I figured out the way to get what you want
is to buy it for yourself. I mean, as obvious
as it sounds. If you don't want to take any chances,
and if you want to make sure you get exactly
what you're looking for, just get it for yourself, which
I did. I was in just happened to be literally
(14:37):
I'm not kidding. Just happen to be going through Fremont, Nebraska.
A few months ago. We were going through the celebration
of life for our buddy Ray Elgin, who's been on
the show here a number of times. And of course
Ray passed away earlier this year, and we were driving
to that and I stopped in Freemont. We were literally
at the sweet shop getting on ice cream, and I
(14:58):
just checked my phone, as I always do for gun
stores near me. It's a thing, and up pops cylinder
and slide. Is that the cylinder and slide? Bill offerds
his place, the world famous pistol smith. For sure enough
it was, and called and he was there, and so
I went over there. We spent an hour going through
(15:19):
his place and look at guns and looked at how
they make them, and it was cool. It was really fun.
And then by the time I did all of that,
I said, you know, Bill, could I get you to
make me a gun? Because they said, Look, they sell
all sorts of parts kits, so if you want to
slick up or improve your nineteen eleven or your Browning
(15:40):
High Power or whatever, cylinder dash slide dot com. But
they also make guns. A few handmaide. He said, yeah,
what do you want? I want a good range gun
nineteen eleven, a carry gun, a fighting gun, a serious gun.
He said, yeah, we can do that. We started the
(16:00):
project and I've talked about it here, and you know,
as things to do, it grew like topsy, as they say,
I succumbed to those very expensive three words might as well,
and yeah, the price went up, and when I forgot
the filing voice, it was like, oh okay, But then,
you know what. I look around at other nineteen elevens
(16:23):
from the high end makers and it wasn't terrible, and
every part in it hand selected, special metallurgy, polished, fitted,
and he set me in a note. He says, now
be sure a little bit when you get it, because
it's really tight. So okay, cool, we do that. I
got it in and it's weirdly spectacular and unassuming at
(16:45):
the same time. It doesn't look fancy at all. It's
not fancy really, it's just a working TOOLIM basically, you know,
this is what and he's not. I don't think he's
allowed to say it, but some Navy seals, come on,
you don't have to dance around it. He's made some
(17:07):
of these with the Seals, and this one is very
similar to what the Seals got. It's forty five. In retrospect,
I kind of wish i'd gotten it in nine, but
that's okay. It's classic forty five. And who knows, if
I like this enough effect and sell enough other guns,
maybe I can get another one in nine. That's say,
(17:28):
nothing real fancy, but gorgeous, beautiful polishing. Everything fits tight, tight, tight,
but it's polished to the point where it's reliable. And
that's the whole deal is Their thing is reliability first.
Now that is super accurate, but reliability first came to
a set of really playing grips. They said, well, what
(17:48):
do you want to do for grips and just put
something you got there? Something is nothing because I ordered
another set of grips from Bobby Tyler, the Tyler gun Works.
Now that's the place you got to go. Take a
look at if you have not wandered over their Tylergunworks
dot com. Look at what they do. They're amazing stuff.
So those are we coming in? So we took We've
(18:10):
had rain and snow for several days. I didn't want
to take the gun out in bad weather, so took
it out yesterday. First time went out with my buddy Brad,
who's a good shooter. We probably put two hundred rounds through.
It did not have a single hiccup, I mean not
one issue using Wilson Combat Mags got a feed of
(18:31):
the best just using regular ballammo two HU and thirty
grain ballammo. The one thing that really struck me stood
out to me was how much I was kind of
surprised and delighted at a gold bead front site. It's
(18:51):
real old school, and I wanted to go old school
in this. It's not fiber optic, it's not treatium night's sight,
it's a gold and it's the heiny front side actually
the Heinie ledge rear sight as well. Richard Heine's stuff
really good and you could add those Tati gun you want.
(19:13):
I was surprised. I guess I had read about it
for decades, but I was just surprised at how much
that gold bead picks up light in almost any light.
If there's any light out there, it'll shine. And at
first I thought, well, everybody says it's a gold bead,
so it's a They put a brass bead in the No,
it's gold. It's fourteen carrot gold. Well, I mean it's coated,
(19:37):
you know, plated, but it is fourteen carrot gold on
this little bead in the front side. Holy cow, and
it just glows very quick. The trigger is exquisite. And
it actually got slightly better. I don't know how I
could get better, but it got a little bit better
after two and a rounds, to the point where you
got to think about it and going oh okay. Because
(19:58):
I didn't want it be that four to five pound.
I told them, if you can get to three and
a half pounds, that's what I would like. And that's
about what it is. Shoots you accurately. So what am
I going to do with this thing? Well, I'm going
to shoot it a lot. Now. I got to order
a bunch of forty five ammo. Of course, put in
a call Jeff Hoffman over Blackhill's AMMO because they make
(20:20):
really good AMMO. And I signed up. And we'll talk
about this a little bit later in the show. I
signed up for a class at gun Site, I think
about it. Jeff Cooper nineteen eleven Gun Site, And of
(20:40):
course you can take any of their hanging classes with
the nineteen eleven. But they have a special class once
a year and it marks the anniversary or the birthday
of Jeff Cooper, the founder of gunsite and the founder
of the modern technique of the pistol, and the guy
who basically first introduced the world to the eye idea
that a semiauto pistol is better than a revolver in
(21:03):
a gunfight, which was heresy fifty years ago. And in
this class they do once a year, the dealers very simple.
You use a nineteen eleven pistol with iron sights, no optics,
and leather holster and leather mag pouches, no kaiteeks. Well
(21:27):
I like that. I mean, I get it. I'm old school.
I started with all that stuff. And now it's fun
because you get to say, okay, well, which holster, who's
making really good leather holsters? Well, actually a lot of
people are. Now It's amazing how many good outfits out
there making a really fine leather. And then you go, yeah, well,
(21:47):
I already wear a gun belt every day, and I
like a leather gun belt, so I've got a whole
selection of those. That's not a problem. So now I'm
looking at holsters and looking at this and that got
to get some more mags. It's like I said, I
like the Wilson combat megs. This is going to be fun. Yeah.
I know. People say, well, is it worth it? You
paid a lot of money for this gun. Nobody can
(22:09):
answer for you whether something is worth it, But I
can just tell you it's spectacular and I am very
happy about it. And I have already forgotten about the money,
and I'm just delighted to have a good gun. Maybe
you could treat yourself the same way. Hey, let me
come back boutique ammo or handguns. Yeah, somebody's doing that.
(22:36):
As you know, we love when small companies do well,
especially in obviously our firearm space. And you know, it's
just not an easy thing to start any company, but
particularly when you're out there competing against some of the
big guys. And right now we're joined by the folks
from Lost River Ammo. Ted McIntyre joins us. Hey, Ted,
(22:57):
appreciate you being there.
Speaker 9 (22:59):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
So you're down in well Quinn Falls area of Idaho.
How in the world did you get into the AMMO business.
Speaker 10 (23:07):
It's kind of a natural progression. I've been a handloader
for many, many years, and after a career in law
enforcement and being overseas, I decided to break out.
Speaker 9 (23:19):
On my own and become my own boss.
Speaker 10 (23:21):
And had a bunch of people always asking me for
AMMO and things like that, and you a bunch of
people in the industry, and there was niches that the
big companies were not really filling right, and as a
handgun hunter, I really knew what they were and it
was really not a matter of and also the smaller
(23:44):
companies as well, the boutique companies. There tends to be
a lot of companies that try to push things always
to the max, just the max of whatever is possible,
and I kind of went into a different area of
what was really not really what was possible, but more
is what's practical as a as a shooter, we know
(24:08):
that for example, like a forty four magnum you you know,
you can you can push like at two forty to
you know, fourteen hundred feet a second or something like that,
But really a sweet spot might be twelve hundred feet
a second, or it's plenty to take down an animal,
but that's really your accuracy spot is right in there.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
And it makes it more shootable. Well, I'm looking at it.
I'm looking at a lot of your animal that you
offer over at Lost River Ammo company dot com, and
a lot of it is loaded to be shootable where
you could hit things. But and here's the key, that
is where you become take advantage of the fact that
you're an experienced handloader. Using the right bullets allow cartridges
(24:49):
like forty one Magnum, forty four Special forty four Magnum
to do what they need to do without really beating
up the shooter.
Speaker 9 (24:57):
Yes.
Speaker 10 (24:57):
Yeah, it was really a matter of not what's possible,
but what's practical. And if you were a handloader, would
you be loading this yourself. That's really the niche that
I filled. And it really took off, and the response
has been just excellent, so much positive response from people,
and a lot of quite a bit of the customer base,
(25:21):
oddly enough, are handloaders, and they just say, well, you're
making what I would load myself. It's so convenient just
to buy from you because I don't have to handload it.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
It's just easier. Yeah, and you've already done your work
if you would talk about it, because I think you
got a lot of I mean, you've got other things,
but You've got a lot of revolver loads here, and
one of the things you do is really select the
bullet the projectiles with care. You want to talk about that.
Speaker 9 (25:46):
Right, Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 10 (25:48):
It's just based on personal experience and experience of other
shooters as well that I know and respect, some of
my mentors and some other people in the field.
Speaker 9 (26:01):
Things that I.
Speaker 10 (26:02):
Know absolutely work, the classic bullets such as the Keith
styles and full loadcutters and things like that, and certain
you know, certain things you know, not just generic things
and there. And it's accuracy based because a lot of
times what is offered is really just based on creating
(26:24):
numbers just whatever is the fastest, hottest, most as, bestest.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
Well you know the deal speed cells and you are
out there trying to make you know, a million rounds
a day, and you know, what are people going to buy.
They're just going to look at all the numbers that go, Okay,
that's the fastest load. I'll go with that, whether or
not have actually worked.
Speaker 10 (26:43):
And and honestly, I could make more money if by
push things to the edge of the envelope, but I really,
uh prefer just to make things that are you know,
extremely accurate, and are you know, are good for you know,
the shooter and the gun because a lot of my
(27:04):
customer base are people who carry their.
Speaker 9 (27:07):
Guns in the back country. They're going into grizzly.
Speaker 10 (27:09):
Country, they're going to the brown and bear country and
things like that, and pushing things to the.
Speaker 9 (27:14):
Edge of reliability is not good. So I do tend to.
Speaker 10 (27:20):
Work with the projects, and you know, reliability is far
more important than getting an extra twenty feet a second,
because I'd rather have something.
Speaker 9 (27:30):
That's one hundred percent.
Speaker 10 (27:31):
Reliable than adding another, you know whatever, fifteen feet a second.
So I find those windows first. You know, there's it's
paramount and importance when you're looking at something that can eat.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
You eat you all, right, Ted, You mentioned that you've
got some mentors, and you know, you and I have
some of the same friends in this business. Who are
the folks that have influenced you.
Speaker 10 (27:54):
One of the people that really turned me on to
powder code of bullets is a gentleman by the name
of Dick Thompson over in Soda Springs, s Idaho. It's
a little tiny town. But the interesting thing about him
is he's killed practically everything in the West and then
now Africa with exclusively with handguns. But he's not a
(28:20):
sponsored shooter. He's not one of these guys that works
for the big companies and things like that. And the
interesting thing is he's documented it all and he's just
a phenomenal storyteller. But he casts his own bullets and
he does all these things, and he's just a basically
self made man.
Speaker 9 (28:35):
He has gotten into.
Speaker 10 (28:38):
You know, I don't know, ten fifteen years ago, he
really started making the poly coated bullets.
Speaker 9 (28:44):
What is that?
Speaker 10 (28:46):
So the poly coat is it's as it states, it's
a polymer coating on a hard cast bullet, and the
polymer coating produces it's a basically like a Pauer jacket
on a hard cast bullet. It reduces friction ads lubricity.
You can push a hard cast bullet basically faster. With
(29:11):
reduced friction. You also keep the guns significantly cleaner. And
there's literally no downside to it. It's one of those
rare things where there just is no downside to polymer coating.
It keeps the guns just incredibly clean. You know how
like with traditional hard cast or cast the lead bullets,
(29:31):
about every one hundred and fifty or so rounds you
really need to break out the toothbrush and cleaner guns.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 10 (29:38):
So I did the thirty two h and R Ultimate
Cherry Project with Lipsy's Jason Klausner, which you know at Lipsey's,
Smith and Wesson had created some animal for them, and
I was using the new thirty two hn R.
Speaker 9 (29:58):
Multilant Carry j frame.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
I fired over one thousand rounds through that jaframe without
cleaning it and it was still it was still functioning
just fine.
Speaker 9 (30:08):
The ends up. The only reason why, and that was
one hundred green wadcutter load that I made.
Speaker 10 (30:14):
The only reason why I ended up cleaning the gun
was I started to work on development of the new
one hundred and thirty grand semi wadcutter load.
Speaker 9 (30:23):
I need a new baseline.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Sure you start start with a clean gun.
Speaker 9 (30:26):
Yeah all right.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
I got to ask you because I'm looking at your website.
You got some really interesting loads here that just aren't
available other places. But the one that got my attention,
and I know the people who you know, had Lipsis
and Brian and the folks who work with the revolvers
and all. You're making a thirty two eh NR load
that shoots wadcutter bullets, not semi wadcutter, I mean, like
(30:47):
real wadcutter. But people are actually after testing choosing to
use these as a defensive load.
Speaker 10 (30:54):
What's going on, Yes, wadcutters to so usually in J
frames short barrels in general, despite what people say, holowpoints
are really sketchy.
Speaker 9 (31:09):
Whether or not they're going to open up.
Speaker 10 (31:10):
And most of the time, and I used to be
a criminal investigator, I can tell you this most of
it because I've done a ton of autopsies.
Speaker 9 (31:17):
Most of the.
Speaker 10 (31:18):
Time, halopoints don't open up a solid bullet penet like
a full wadcutter. Profile penetrates straight, and it penetrates deep,
and it doesn't need to be pushed that fast. I
carried a thirty eight special jframe of four forty two
in my pocket for you know, twenty years as my
(31:38):
secondary gun. Wadcutters just perform extremely well and they don't
have much recoil. The thirty two jframe or thirty two
wad cutter one hundred grain wadcutter, you don't have to
drive it that fast, has extremely low recoil and penetrates
extremely deep as it ends up. Because the high sectional density,
(32:00):
you can actually you don't have to drive it that
fast and you get just exceptional penetration. And I actually
was really surprised. Again going back to Dick Thompson, he
was a big proponent of the thirty two caliber. He
was telling me about thirty two h and r long
before the Smith Lesson project. Oh okay happened. But I was, honestly,
(32:23):
I was a bit dismissive of that. He was he's
been killing.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
We all were we all, like you said, thirty two
you kidding me? It's like, really, come on.
Speaker 10 (32:31):
Well he's you know, he's killing badgers and all sorts
of things with it, you know, one hundred.
Speaker 9 (32:35):
Yards away and things.
Speaker 10 (32:36):
And I thought, well that's great, but I don't want
to get into another cartridge and things like that. But
so fast forward to this project and I made this
AMMO and people are asking me, well, how far do
you or how far do you think this is going
to penetrate?
Speaker 9 (32:50):
And I thought, well, it's only a little hundred drain bullet.
Speaker 10 (32:53):
It's only doing you know, like seven ninety eight eight
hundred feet a second. My guess is you know, maybe
fourteen to fifteen inches max, right, And I said that's optimistic.
I'm always skeptical about things, and I said, you know,
that's that's the furthest it.
Speaker 9 (33:10):
Will penetrate, is my guess.
Speaker 10 (33:12):
And so Jason calls me back and he says, yeah,
we did a bunch of testing and he says it averages.
Speaker 9 (33:18):
Between twenty two and twenty four inches. He said, it
blows right through the block.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
That's crazy, sore. You're getting lower velocity, easier to shoot,
and yet deep penetration. And with that watt cutter bullet,
you don't need expansion. It's just cutting a hole all
the way through, yep.
Speaker 10 (33:34):
All the way through, So it doesn't need to be
driven faster, which I found was funny because later on
the load was duplicated by.
Speaker 9 (33:40):
Some other manufacturers and they pushed it.
Speaker 10 (33:42):
Harder, and the only thing they did and after twenty
two and twenty.
Speaker 9 (33:45):
Four inches, there's no reason I'm driving faster.
Speaker 10 (33:47):
So the only thing you're doing is end up making
guns harder to shoot by providing more recoil to the shooter, right,
which is the opposite intention of the whole project of
providing low recoil guns for the shooters. So so yeah,
I just kept it right at you know, eight hundred
feet a second. So you get a gun that produces
(34:09):
barely more recoil than a twenty two magnum in a
J frame. You get six shots in the gun, and
you know virtually anybody can shoot the thing.
Speaker 9 (34:19):
It's just it's an amazing little cartridge.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
It really is for our self defense rig you know,
both the revolvers and then there are more than one
revolver were obviously made for the thirty and we're talking
about guns in their chamber for the three twenty seven
Federal and as well as chamber for the three thirty
two h and R. You just shoot these same light
wadcutter loads, but they're good defensive loads. I mean, it
(34:42):
almost defies what we think we know.
Speaker 10 (34:45):
Right, yeah, absolutely, And as it ends up, because of
that project, I ended up developing a one hundred and
thirty Graine semi wadcutter poly coat bullet. There were some
heavier bullets out there, but they weren't poly coded. As
I talked about, there's no reason not to have a
polycoded bullet. So I made a one thirty grain have
(35:07):
the mold made, how to manufacture, make it for me,
and they sent me out fifty thousand bullets and I've
been producing ano from those, stuck them in developed a
jframe loads, stuck them in there, and initially I had
the rounds going over one thousand feet a second and
it was.
Speaker 9 (35:24):
Way too hot for the jframes.
Speaker 10 (35:26):
As far as shootability, I slowed it down to the
point where it was comfortable for people to shoot in
the jframe and where the really kind of the goldilock
spot was, where it wasn't hurting your hand was eight
hundred and fifty feet a second and you still got
over thirty inches of penetration. Yes, so you're you know,
(35:50):
if you're running into you know, pit bulls or things
like that, you have plenty of penetration. And because of
the design, you know, if you need to reload your handgun.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
It's a little bit easier to reload a semi wad
cutter than there's a wad cutter exactly.
Speaker 10 (36:09):
So what guys have been telling me they're doing is
they're carrying the wad cutters as their primary load, and
they're carrying the semi wadcutters as their reloads. I've got
a Ruger l CR that I also carried as a
pocket gun. Especially in the winter time, I usually have
a you know one or the other in a you know,
(36:30):
winter pocket.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
You're the exact same with me. I've got that thing
sitting in my coat pocket and winter. It's just what
I say, the fastest strawest already have the gun in
your hand.
Speaker 10 (36:40):
Yeah, that's that's exactly it. And you know, the LCR
is just a tiny bit bigger than the Japrian, a
little bit bigger grips, and I load it with the
one thirty grainers because it's actually quite comfortable to shoot.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Well had I would here. We could talk for hours
about this because we're kindred souls on this, but I'm
going to run out of time here. I wanted to
people to your website, Lost River Ammo company dot com.
Make it all sorts of AMMA, not just for revolvers though, right.
Speaker 10 (37:07):
Yes, yes, absolutely got some bunch of semi auto not
a bunch, but a few semi auto loads, and they're
again oriented towards outdoor carrying, self defense and things like that,
you know, for people going into the back country and
of course for home defense and things like that.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
But yep, fascinating stuff. I mean, I love what you're doing.
It's interesting things you can't find other places different Ammo
and people can just order it directly from you.
Speaker 10 (37:33):
Right, yep, absolutely, there's no middleman. So I try to
keep keep everything you know, as low prices I possibly can.
Speaker 9 (37:42):
When you order more than one hundred rounds, I pick
up the shipping.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
So all right, sounds good. Well, Ted McIntyre, thank you
so much. Lost River Ammo company. You're doing some interesting stuff.
We'll catch up with you later and continue this conversation.
Well that was fun. I did that conversation to go
over a couple of days ago with the Ted interesting stuff.
What they're doing over there at Lost River Ammo kind
(38:06):
of define what a lot of people want, which everybody
wants the fastest sloads, who has the most philosophy. But
when you start shooting them into ballistic gel you find
out that that's not necessarily what you need. And those
hard cast lead bullets that are wadcutters, and you got
to look up if you don't know what wadcutters are.
(38:27):
They're just flat. They look like two chunks of a
tube or something, but it's solid, and you got the
full diameter bullet cutting a hole through stuff, and they
just work and they have deep penetration. So anyway, I
just I love the story of people who start off saying,
you know, I think I can do this, and they
got a passion and then they follow it. And that's
(38:49):
how we get people who make custom nineteen eleven's or
custom Ammo or Bobby Tyler Tyler Gun Works making incredibly
beautiful guns and pistol grip said everything else. I mean,
aren't we lucky to have all of this available to
us and we can customize the stuff we own or
you can get new things. And oh yeah, by the way,
(39:10):
it's only a few days till Christmas. Treat yourself. I've
top gresh. This is God talk. Be right back. Well, well, well,
guess who just turned seventy No, not me, the forty
(39:36):
four magnum did. It was introduced seventy years ago this month.
Forty four magnum cartridge. I was going to say handgun cartridge,
but of course it's chambered in rifles as well, so
you can get it in a lever action rifle, which
is great fun. By the way, if you get a chance.
The Marlins and the others that are available out there,
(39:56):
just tons of fun. But it was created, created, is
fathered if you will by Elmer, Keith, and maybe a
little bit by Skeeter Skelton to gun writers of the time,
way way way back, and they were handloading forty four
special AMMO really hot, cranking it up. I mean in
(40:17):
the process. I think Elmer may have blown up a
revolver too with his experimentation. But they went to Smith
and Wesson and Remington and got each of them to say, well,
you know, the Smith would make the revolver, would make
the AMO. And then Smith said, well, you know, if
Remiden would make the AMMO, we would make the revolver.
(40:37):
Good enough, let's go. So we ended up with the
forty four magnum, of course, made famous by Clount Eastwood
in the Dirty Harry movie. The first one. The most
powerful handgun in the world. It'll blow your head clean
off great lines. Clearly not the most powerful handgun anymore,
but still very powerful. If you have one. What's it
(41:00):
like to shoot? It? Like to get your range of
ports on your forty four magnum. For a lot of people,
it's more than they want to shoot all the time.
I'm one of those people. I have forty four magnums.
I don't shoot full house loads on them very often.
But I do love shooting reduced loads in them, and
kind of like the three fifty seven magnum where you
(41:21):
can shoot thirty eight specials in them. If you have
a forty four magnum, you can shoot forty four special
in your revolver, in your lever action greatly reduce recoil
and with the right bullets, very effective, just like we
were talking about with ted over Lost River ammunition. Use
(41:42):
good bullets and look when it starts out with a
forty four caliber, you don't really need expansion if you
have a good semi wadcutter bullet and a Keith style
bullet if you will, Yeah, named after Elmer Keith. They
just keep going. They cut a hole, they go deep,
and they just work. Work for self defense, they work
for hunting, pretty much work for anything. Forty four magnum
(42:05):
I've been around for seventy years. It is the standard
by which a lot of revolver cartridges are Judge, is
it as powerful as you know? Is the forty four
magnum good enough for bear protection? Well? Yes and no.
The answers always hit the pins, right, I mean, we
know that, but man, it's fun to have a forty
(42:26):
four magnum. It's fun to go out and shoot them,
and it's really a lot more fun when you're using
lighter loads in it, and you got these big revolvers
and then they become pussycats to shoot, and generally speaking,
they're accurate. I love the six twenty nines of the
twenty nine and the Smith family, but I've got them
in Rugers and I've got them in others as well.
But like I say, I do like those lighter loads,
(42:48):
So I'm really a fan, honestly of the forty four Special.
I think there's a very very slight resurgence and interest
in it. But you don't have to buy a revolver
or chambered for forty four Special. In fact, you'd be
hard pressed to even fine one. But just get yourself
a forty four magnum revolver and then gets you a
(43:08):
good supply of forty four Special AMMO and you're good
to go. There also are some smaller revolvers chambered for
forty four Special, some five shots out there, and those
make really good defensive guns, and not to mention, they're
not bad when it comes to defense against four legged
critters as well. Do you have a forty four magnium.
When did you get it, Why did you get it?
(43:31):
Do you shoot it or have you kind of put
it in the safe and said, yeah, that's not much
fun to shoot. Kind of pull it out again. I'd
love to get your range of ports on your forty
four magnum. Hey, when we come back, I want to
talk a little bit about hunting and well maybe if
you will Mecca for hunters Africa, all over Africa. It's possible,
(43:52):
it's doable, but how do you go about it? Yeah,
we're going to cover that. Be right back to more
gun talk.
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The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.