May 10, 2026 • 43 mins
-- Who actually was behind the fight to throw out the leaders, replace board members, and redirect the NRA to its core values? Buz Mills, owner of the famous gunfighting school Gunsite, pulls back the curtain.
-- Sometimes you want to conceal a handgun, and sometimes you don't. What goes into making a good holster to fit the particular need. Mike Barham explains the process they use at Galco Holsters.
-- What really happens at a multi-day class in gunfighting?
Gun Talk 05.10.26 Hour 3
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
-- Sometimes you want to conceal a handgun, and sometimes you don't. What goes into making a good holster to fit the particular need. Mike Barham explains the process they use at Galco Holsters.
-- What really happens at a multi-day class in gunfighting?
Gun Talk 05.10.26 Hour 3
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Ah yeah, we're still here. I'm Tom Gresham. This is
gun Talk. You can check us out over on x
that's the Elon Musk formerly known as Twitter platform. I
am at gun Talk over there. Of course, we have
our videos everywhere. You can find videos Facebook, YouTube, Spotify,
everywhere else. Just look for gun Talk or gun talk Media.
We're putting up a gazillion videos right now that we
(00:36):
shot over at the n Show. We did a lot
of video. We had a whole team of people run
around a lot of cool product. We just found anything
that was interesting in it. And a lot of times
it was small. Sometimes it's the big manufacturers, but sometimes
it's as little guys who have the interesting thing. So
and sometimes that's how the little guys end up becoming big.
So there you go, check it out. You can find
a lot of things there. And now, as you know
(00:57):
by now we are at guns the training facility in
north central Arizona. We're near Paulden out in the High desert,
having a good old time over here and visiting with
our old friend Buzzmills, who is the owner of Gunsite Bus.
You basically saved Gunsite what twenty six years ago or
so twenty seven twenty seven years ago? But you had
(01:19):
been a student here. You're taking class yees. Yeah, I've
been a student here and I thought it was I
thought the mission was it is worthwhile. It was very worthwhile.
Could not be could not be duplicated. And it all
comes down to the instructor staff. The method that Cooper
(01:43):
used to fill his instructor cadri was just just couldn't
be beat. And I thought they had the right formula.
They just needed a good businessman to come in and
help run this thing. Put some capital behind it.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well we did. We put a lot of capital in it.
And uh, it hit me at the right time because
I just sold out my interests in the cellular industry
and my wife was about to chase me off because I.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Was you were running around the house. He said, get
out of the.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
House, get out of here, go away, go to go
find something to do, you know, And so it worked,
it worked out great. She brought her out to Arizona,
and she fell in love with it, and so we
made the deal and and it's been.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, you not only saved Gunsight, but I'm just and
you would never make this claim, So I'm gonna make
it for you because I know the people behind the scenes,
and people say what's going on with the NRARA, and
I tell them all the things that are good and
everything else. But the reality is, you're the guy who
saved the n RA A. Well, yeah, I know, I
(02:52):
had a lot of help, and I get I gett
You're the man who saved the NRA bisebills. You did. Okay,
there it is, so tell me where we are now.
I mean, you basically got fed up with the foolish
as that was going on there because we've been talking
about this for years, the whole Wayne LaPier thing and
all his cabal and all that, and you were on
(03:12):
the board and you were trying to fix it from
within and he finally, I mean, it just took a while.
It did.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, you know when the when the investigation started out
of New York with the Tisha James Attorney General. When
the investigations started, that was in twenty nineteen. Well, we
had we had our annual meeting that year was in Indianapolis.
And and so I stood up at the at the
(03:41):
annual meeting, In fact, Nugent was studied and ted Ted
stood up. He SAIDs right next he used to sit
right next to me on the board and H and
he read them the Riot Act. And then I got
up and I talked for about twenty minutes, and I
couldn't get a reaction out of anybody. Nobody said a word.
(04:03):
It was just quiet, like the old sprint.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You could have heard a pin drive, yeah, you know,
and uh and and so UH. From that moment on,
I was persona on grata because, as the judge said,
and in the final UH final decision in twenty twenty four,
the judge, the judge said that the plurish plarif proliferation
(04:33):
of directors that circle the wagons around Lapierre instead of
around the NRA caused this this UH, this debacle.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So they weren't serving the NRA. They were serving Wayne LaPier.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Exactly exactly, because it was a matter it was a
matter of of UH where the benefits were coming from.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Who gets the perks, and you only get the perks
if you're on Wayne's team.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's right, okay, and so and so that went on,
and you know, I watched that for years and years
and UH. And then when when they when the trial,
when the trial was finished, the first portion of it
was finished in at the end of February of twenty four,
I got on the phone and I circulated the the
(05:19):
Cherry verdict sheet to all of the all of the
members of the board, because the administration was still telling
the board that, oh, we won this, we won this,
we want that was the weirdest thing. It was.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It was so weird.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
But the fact of the batter is is that there
were sixty eight questions that the jury had to answer
either yes, no, or how much.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And so.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Of the sixty eight, sixty four questions were all guilty
guilty guilty against the NRA, against the NRA, and and
UH and the president and UH and the board representatives
were all coming out and saying, oh, we won, we won,
we won, we won, which was nonsense. It was it
was all. It was all pure bs. And so I
(06:07):
started pointing this out to people and started getting drawing
people together. And so then in May, see, in May
the twenty fourth was the annual meeting, and that was
in Dallas, and so on the twenty second, that was
the annual meeting of members in Dallas, and the president
(06:30):
and his staff were all made their presentations, and in fact,
the members at the annual Meeting of Members there's twelve
fifteen hundred members there, laughed them off, laughed of my
off the.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Dock because the members recognized that to be bs and sense.
They did.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And so we came down to the vote and we
had the vote at the at the board meeting on
the twenty fourth of the four officers president and vice president,
first vice president, second vice president, and EVP, which was Lapierre.
We won three out of the four. We won seventy
(07:13):
five and we elected Doug Hamlin the new EVP. And
so that was that was monumental. That was I mean,
that started turning the ship. I'm just going to say
he started turning the ship around.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Here. Let me take a quick break here. I want
to continue this story on the backside. Bottom line on
this one is you know what, I think they messed
with the wrong marine when they messed with you.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Well, you know what we say in the Marine Corps
were either your greatest friend or your worst anemy.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
There you go, choose wisely right, Yes, take your pick,
all right, We'll be right back right here at gun site.
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Speaker 2 (10:40):
I guess what. It's a birthday day. This is Jeff
Cooper's first dage. Colonel Jeff Cooper, who founded gun Site,
who actually created the basically the whole idea of modern
pistol craft, the technique of the modern pistol, wrote a
bunch of books. If you are not familiar with it,
you really owe it to yourself. Colone Jeff Cooper would
have been one hundred and six. Today we're celebrating it
(11:03):
by being out here at Gunsight, the training academy that
he founded, having a fun time out here. I'm going
to be taking a Jeff Cooper commemorative or memorial if
you will, two fifty class. That's their five day pistol
class with a bunch of other people using the nineteen
eleven pistol, iron sights and leather holsters. As they say,
if Jeff Cooper wouldn't have carried it or shot it,
we're not going to be doing it out here. So
(11:24):
there you go. We're talking right now with Buzz Mills.
He is the owner of Gunsight, saved Gunsight. But also
and I'm just going to tell you right now, Buzz,
you are the guy who saved the NRA, and the
stories are we got to write a book about this same.
We've got to get this thing done because the fights
that were involved, some of the dirty tricks that were underway,
some of those guys who were running the NRA were well,
(11:46):
maybe you can't say it, but I can say it.
They were just crooks. Yes, you can say it. I
can't say. Yes, you can. They were just crooks, yes,
and they were taking money not by the bush or
basket load, but by the train car load. Yes, out
of there. And when you guys finally took over under
your leadership and your orchestration, and what you did when
you looked in there, my sense is that the cupboard
(12:08):
was pretty close to bear. It was.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
It was, it was, It was real bear. Now, you know,
a moment ago you mentioned they were here on Jeff
Cooper's birthday and and the father of the modern technique
of the pistol. But it's also mother's day. Yes, so
let's don't leave our mothers out and uh, well we
do that at our own peril there we do.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
That is correct?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
You know that that's a that that could be more
devastating than a pistol wound.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
There you go, that's right. No, you're right then, and
you get I'm so guet, I'm sorry, ghead.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Uh. Jeff Cooper did change. He changed the uh the
way we teach, the change the way we fight, and
and that was that was what he started out doing.
And uh, it wasn't easy, but he had enough plus
press and enough publicity when he opened gun Site in
(13:02):
nineteen seventy six. The first class was here October the fourth,
nineteen seventy six. And one of those, one of those
graduates is going to be with us in October fourth
this year, October third this year at the fiftieth anniversary Wow.
But when that was all getting started, the Army was
(13:22):
standing up Delta Force, okay, And so the colonel that
was standing up Delta Force was a very smart guy.
He'd been through Vietnam and all that, and so he
called Cooper and he said, you know, my guys don't
(13:44):
know anything about pistols, and we're going to be doing
a lot of pistol work in our job description, and
so would you teach would you teach my guys something
about pistols, because the Army doesn't know anything some long guns.
And Cooper said, sure, so all these guys Delta Force
came out here. No, yes, sir, And that was that
was that was really uh the first big contract that
(14:09):
that Cooper did and that and that was standing up Delta. Now,
if you go to their to their compound at Fort
Bragg or wherever it is now, they are four rules are.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
For gun safety that created.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
There at at the Marine Corps Special Opps Training Center
and at the Navy Special Apps Training Center. All of
the all of these people have either sent people en
mass on a government contracting gun site or individually. And
and uh.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well recently, and that's not not the last Special Forces
guys have been through this place. No, absolutely not. It's
all the time.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
We got a lot of them after the turn of
this century. Uh and up up through about two two
thousand and eight because w his administration dedicated money to it,
and then the subsequent administration didn't have didn't have money
for it.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
People say, well, you know, the military, they've got training facilities.
Why would they need to come out here because they
don't really teach what you teach here.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
No, no, And we change, we changed the doctrine for
all of these people, they accepted our doctrine and our book,
and so they teach and operate by our book because
and you know, you can go back farther. I've got
a letter from Wider. You know when he died. He
(15:38):
was in Los Angeles and he was a real estate developer.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I did not know, sir.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And so in nineteen thirty three he wrote this trisque
if you will, on gunfighting, and it was the modern technique. No,
but he knew that back in the eighteen eighties, eighteen nineties,
and the same thing that he discovered then. But people
people didn't assimilate it. They knew it, they read it
(16:06):
and so forth, but it didn't it didn't take hold.
It took Cooper, with his continuous UH publications of the
modern technique of the pistol to sell it.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
And he was an educator, so he knew how to
put together lesson plans and say this is how because
you teach a building block system, we're going to start
with the guns in the host How do we get
it out of the hoster? How do we load the gun?
And people say, well, why do they load the gun
that way? Because in three days we're going to be
doing reloads and dropping mags and doing things, and we
want you to do that the same way you did
(16:38):
the initial load. Basically, we're going to teach you one
set of skills and motions that you can use over
and over to do different things.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Absolutely, and and and it's so simple. You know, if
if if the I call it professional educators, Actually we
are professional, yeah, of course, but if if if the
people that teach our children in university taught the same way,
they could get a whole lot more information transferred into
(17:05):
these young skulls full of MUSHes.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Rush used to call there you go. All right, I
want to switch back to the NRA for a second,
because we were when we left this thing, basically the
coffers were bear. You guys took over, You kicked the
bad guys out, you started putting your new guys in.
Although that has taken a year or more to do that,
But I'm hearing right now that we're looking much better,
(17:27):
starting to move into the black and things are looking
really good as we move forward.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's exactly right. And you were at the annual meeting
this year. So now you saw the booth, you saw
the traffic at the show, you saw the vendors. You
saw and it was very upbeat, and it was it
was one hundred and eighty degrees out from the previous year, right.
And you saw Radio Row You did you go to
(17:53):
the Saturday night celebration.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They don't let me out on Saturdays.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Say, okay, well that's probably a good thing. Katie Pavlick
was the mc oh man and and she uh and
she put on a great shell. Uh. But the the
the tenor uh even the aroma. You know, that was
entirely different, right than what had been before. But that's
but that is that's this new team that's in place
(18:18):
and uh and and moving the ball down the field.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I had a guy come up to me there and
I was telling about all the things that are going on.
It's new and we're moving forward now. And he says, yeah,
he says, do you know what I don't. I don't
buy it. I just I don't. I don't believe. I
don't what you're saying. I don't believe. I said, well, okay,
I said, but you don't give it a year and
then come back and tell me. I said, but here's
the thing, this is my message to everybody else. I said, Look,
because there are people sitting on the sidelines right now.
(18:42):
I said, you said, when Wayne's gone, you'll be back.
You said, I am out until that guy's gone. Well
my message to them is, the guy's been gone for
several years. Now it's time to put up or shut up.
You either were blowing smoke then or you're blowing smoke now.
But it's time to honor your commitment and come back
(19:03):
in because right now your heavy rear end is sitting
in the wagon and the rest of us are having
to pull you along. That's it.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
You know, you can either you can either help us
move ahead, but you need to get You need to
get out of the wagon, one way or the other.
And I had people back in twenty four tell me, well,
when Wayne's gone, I'll be back. And then they said, well,
when we get rid of that lawyer that you used
a brewer out of New York, then I'll be back.
And then they had some other excuses, Well, when you
(19:31):
get rid of these people off the board that are
that are still dragging you down, then I'll be back.
So we've gotten rid of all of those. Now they've
run out of excuses and they're starting to come back.
Good they're starting to come back because and you can
see that at the show at the end of the
annual meeting. Is such a tremendous it's such a tremendous
It's a message.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It is a message. And I would just say this
for people who saying, wait, now we have all these
other groups that came along, Yeah we do. We have
great other gun rights groups' got second med foundations, have
got you know, fire's policy coalations, and the NRA works
hand in hand with those and all of it's legal activities.
People don't know that, but nobody in Congress ever says
(20:13):
what's going on with those groups? They don't. The only
thing they ever say is where's the NRA on this issue? Period?
That's the first and the only question. The NRA is
still that important. And if you're not a part of it,
I'm sorry you're sitting on the sidelines, and I'm tired
of your excuses.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Honestly, yep, yeah, well they don't have any excuses anymore.
If if if they're not with us at this point,
then they're not. We need to quit quit asking them
to come back.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
You have devoted some time, You have devoted years of
your life into saving the NRA, and you've done it
in a way that few, if anyone, else could have done.
And I want to make sure that the history is
written that you were the guy who made this happen.
Bus Mills, I know you. You are not a guy
for the spotlight, but you were working quiet well, sometimes
(21:02):
not so quietly, in the background, fair enough.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
That that's very true. Sometimes I'm not very quiet. But
like like you say, I am not the guy that
wants to be the ring master.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Nope. But you pulled everybody together and it was not
easy to get that board. You know, people say it
was too many people on the board. Patients, patients, Just okay,
you can only get one thing during a time. You've
been doing a lot of things that people say. But
I wanted patience, come on back in, be supportive. Let's
move the second Amendment, wagging forward, working, we're working on
(21:37):
the other things right Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
We're working on a lot of things right now. And
you know, the things were so thin when when helped
with the last year, we had to cut out the publications.
You know how expensive that stuff is, and so we
had we had to cut back on some of that
stuff and go with go with.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
More Digital ahead and go Digital Mills, thank you for
hosting us here. Always a pleasure enjoy being here, my friend.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Well, it's a pleasure to have you and your team,
you know, anytime, come on out and you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
It sounds good. All right, don't go far. We'll be
right back right here at Gunsite. Check it out gunsite
dot com. I guess that's when I have to stop
talking about guns so I can start talking about guns again,
because during the break we're talking about guns and holsters
and people who are coming here. Oh, doing the two
(22:34):
fifty class here at Gunsight, and Mike Barram Jernes just
right now from Galco. You're saying that Mike Daddy's going
to be hearing the show in the class, right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (22:43):
Mike's a friend and a friend of Galco as well,
and he mentioned to me that he was coming up
very much looking forward to it. And if he's not
wearing a Galco holstro, I want you to gently kick
him in the butt.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Sounds good. And now for those who may ring a
bell for a few people, Mike wrote the book which
were really the tell all the book about the Fast
and Furious scandal with Eric Holder at the US Attorney
General and how they were running guns down to Mexican
cartels in the hope of and actually the plan was
to send guns to Mexico, have those guns used to
(23:14):
murder people, and then use those murders as a way
to push gun control in the US. And that was
the actual idea behind the whole thing turned out and
ended up getting Brian and I'm pulling blank now. A
federal officer was, yeah, I know, I just I just
had it and I'll pick it up just a second.
(23:35):
One of the federal Law Enforce officers was killed with
one of these fast and furious guns, and Mike Daddy
blew the whistle on and said, look, this is what
was going on. There were actually gun stores who were saying,
we can't be selling to these people, and they were
calling the ATF, the ATF saying go ahead and sell
it to them, it's okay. And they're going, we know
these are cartel members buying these guns. We shouldn't be
(23:57):
doing this. And the governments tell them, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yea run down to Mexico, it's okay. Send him to
the narco terrorists down there.
Speaker 8 (24:03):
Yeah, absolutely evil. And like you said, Mike, blew the
lid off that whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
He did. So I've never met him, so I'm looking
forward to that.
Speaker 8 (24:11):
Galco was actually honored to host a couple of book
signings for OH at Shot Show and the NRA Show.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
For those who don't know, we don't explain what Galco is.
Speaker 8 (24:19):
Okay, Galco is the Great American Leather Company. We've been
what it stands for. Yeah, that's what Galco stands are
a little known fact, but I did not know. People
have sort of assumed that because the founder is Richard Gallagher,
that it's Gallagher Company, but it's actually the Great American
Leather Company.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I'll be there and.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
Yeah, if you knew Rick Gallagher, you would know he's
way too humble to do something with him. So he
liked the Great American Leather Company. And so that's that's
what Galco stands for. And we've been making holsters since
nineteen sixty nine. Started in Rick Gallagher's garage in Chicago.
Things do start in some garage, right, Yeah, it was
(24:57):
you know, and people say, oh, it started in the garage.
It was kind of his in his living room, and
in his living room he also had a completely disassembled
Harley Davidson, and he was cutting leather right next to
this his other hobby.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I love it, and.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
So he started back then, and it was nineteen sixty
nine and kind of the height of the hippie movement.
And Rick just loved working with leather, and he was
making things for hippies. He was also a musician, so
it was a little bit in guitar scraps and guitar
trip oh you name it, and fringe, leather vests and
leather bracelets and leather pants, you know, possibly with or
(25:34):
without a butt, all these things he was making. One day,
a Chicago police officer comes to a shop and says, hey,
could you make me a shoulder holster? And Rick said, well,
I'm a gun enthusiast, but I've never made a holster.
But let me do some research and see what I
can come up with. And this is back in the
day that even in Chicago, you could go to a
(25:55):
public library and read books about holster making. So Rick
that did some research and came up with the horizontal
shoulder holster, which he made for this Chicago police officer.
Police officer absolutely loved it, started wearing it. Word got
around and within a year or two, Rick had a
sort of a line of Chicago police officers at the
(26:18):
door who is shot next to his disassembled Arley Davidson.
And that was really the start of things for what
was then called the famous Jackass Leather Company, right, which
in the early eighties became the great American leather companies.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
People know the Jackass Leather Company for the shoulder holster.
Speaker 8 (26:34):
That was correct. That the signature product that remains Galco's
flagship product. We still make the modernized version of that
called the Miami Classic two. And you know where that
vice exactly. That's sort of the second part of the
story is. Back in the early eighties, Michael Mann made
a movie called Thief with James Kahn. Awesome movie, by
(26:56):
the way, good in that one, Yes, James Kahn came
to Gunny.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Talk about exactly.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
So the the original Jackass Holster had a little part
in that movie on kind of one of the henchmen.
But Michael Mann thought it was super cool and dramatic looking.
So when it came time to equip his hero Sonny
Crockett on Miami Vice, he wanted a horizontal shoulder holster.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Amazing.
Speaker 8 (27:28):
Yeah, and and sort of the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
Galco made the holster for Don Johnson. Mister Gallagher actually
went to Miami to personally fit Don Johnson with the
holster that he wore on that show. And you can't
really ask for better marketing than having your shoulder holster
on the hero of the most popular TV rights And
(27:52):
and that just sent Galco really into the stratosphere.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
So where's the Alco located.
Speaker 8 (27:57):
On the north side of Phoenix and we've been since
nineteen eighty three in Phoenix, moving from Chicago. So you're
making these are made in America products, absolutely, Yeah. We
source our leather domestically, which can be difficult. Actually in
the current environment. There are only two tanneries left in
the US that produce the quality of vegetable tan leather
(28:18):
that we need, so we have to compete with other
companies for those. And then of course we have our
the craftsmen that we love, some of whom have been
with us thirty, thirty five, even forty years.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It's funny because we had Rob Lake, you know, from
simpiy Row.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Yeah. Rob, Rob's a great guy.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, I mean, and you guys are all in the
holster business. The leather holster business, and we were talking
leather holsters and Kaydaks and talk about how for me
one of the things I love about leather holsters. Yeah, okay,
we got the smell and the field and the sound
and all the rest of it.
Speaker 8 (28:48):
But they last, they do they do. It's you know,
I talk about the history of the company, but we
get inquiries to our customer service department for people who
have had a Miami Classic forty years and oh, you know,
can can you recondition this for you?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Actually, yes, we can. Really the service we often most
companies will say, are you kidding me? We're all that
forty years ago. We're not doing that now.
Speaker 8 (29:10):
We will recondition pretty much any holster as long as
it's in reasonable condition, no corn, leather, things like that.
Obviously we can't fix, right, but we recondition holsters all
the time, some holsters that have been in service twenty thirty,
sometimes forty years. So yes, if you just do some
maintenance to your holster, just like you should maintain any
(29:31):
life saving piece of equipment, your holster will last.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You, which leads me to ask, Okay, so what kind
of holster, Mike, or what kind of maintenance are we
doing on this one.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
You know, it varies a little bit geographically because climates
are so different. So here in the Arizona Desert, Okay,
it's very dry. So you do need to condition your
holster cleaning condition your holster a little bit more often
than somebody who lives in a human climate, somebody who
lives in savany.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
What what do you mean when you say condition.
Speaker 8 (29:59):
Well, you there are products holster cleaners and conditioners, Galco
cells one that is basically equivalent to something that you
would buy in a tack shop or an upholstery cleaner
that you could buy at Walmart. Any of these things
work great, Just do it, Just do it.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
The main thing is that you want to rehydrate that
leather because leather is it used to be the skin
of an animal and it will dry out.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And especially what if you live in the swamps of Louisiana.
Speaker 8 (30:32):
Then you still need to clean and condition your leather.
Cleaning is important on carry holsters, especially because they're pressed
up against your body and they're exposed to your sweat
and contaminants and things like that. So you do want
to clean them periodically. But in terms of conditioning them, again,
a dry climate, you probably want to do it every
couple of months, whereas if you live in New Orleans,
(30:54):
for example, or another very humid climate, you can get
away with doing it twice a year.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Other than that, just wear it, wear it.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
Yeah, that's the most important thing. Break where your holster
and where your gun?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, because they will. And in fact, it's like we're
sitting here, the three of us, We got our buddy
Bob's over next to us, and you know, everybody's wearing
a gun. Absolutely because that's what you do. We were
laughing online. I just put hey, I was in Prescott
Valley yesterday and I saw a guy wearing a nineteen
eleven and a Yackey holster, and you posted said, yeah,
that's what we do here. And you have a Pie
County that's just reopen carry and it's library in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 8 (31:28):
Yeah, oh, it's very common, very common. I see nineteen eleven's,
I see revolvers, I see Colt single action armies really
occasionally yeah wow. Yeah. But you know, you walk through
a walmart here at Prescott or Prescott Valley, Arizona, particularly
im Prescot where there's still sort of a sort of
a strong cowboy culture I've seen Ruger single actions, Coult
(31:49):
single actions, but the single most common gun I see
nineteen eleven.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
No, kid, of course you've got the influence of guns.
I'd be in here. Correct, it is correct. You know
how many raven stickers? I see what I have on
cars when I drive around town. And it's funny. I
was wearing a hat with a raven on it some
years ago, went to the movie theater and figured, nobody
knows what this is. It just looks like a bird, right, yes,
for those who don't know. The raven is a symbol
(32:14):
of Gunsite. And I walked by this guy looked at me.
I could tell him. People just stared at me and
thinking what's going on. He looked at me and he
just pointed at me and went Gunsite. I just nodded.
It's like two kindred souls passing. You know.
Speaker 8 (32:28):
It happens to be all the time here. You know,
I grew up in Connecticut, but I went to gunsite
shortly after I moved out here to Arizona in two
thousand and three. And I'll wear the gun Site raven
stuff a hat, maybe a sweatshirt, something like that. But
all the time I was on a hike not too
long ago, and I passed the guy on the trail
(32:49):
and he just looks at me, points at the raven
on my chest. He goes, how you doing, gun site?
Just you're part of the family. I was in Walmart,
you know, pushing my shopping cart and the guy goes by.
He points at my chest and he points at his hat.
It happens all the time here. The gun sight influence
is tremendous around here.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
All right, So you've been right. You make Holsher for everything.
I mean, no matter what your pistol is, we try.
You've got pretty much unless it's really weird. Why the
nineteen eleven what's the deal? Why do you like nineteen elevens?
Speaker 8 (33:22):
Well, you know, the nineteen eleven, despite or maybe because
of its age, has endured. There are millions and millions
of copies out there. And whether you're a new shooter
or a very very experienced shooter of you know, forty
fifty sixty years, this gun works for you. Nineteen elevens work.
(33:45):
And it's a tremendously easy pistol to shoot, well because
of the short trigger. But also it's a tremendously easy
gun to carry because it's such a slender pistol, you know.
And you might say, okay, it's a heavy gun if
you get it in and all deal model. Okay, but
you can get it in an alloy free R model
and you have been able to do that since nineteen
forty nine.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, you've got half a pound off it right there.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
Right exactly. And for those reasons ease of shootability and
ease of carry, the nineteen eleven just endoors.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
And for those who are willing to, it's really easy
to customize to get. If you want slim grip panels
on it, a shorter trigger, I drop safety, you can
get it to fit your hand without much work at all.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
Yeah, that's right. And I have pretty small hands myself,
so my nineteen eleven's usually slim grips and short triggers.
They work great for me.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You know. And of course now you can get them
in nines, and the nines at least in the full
sized pistols run really well. Some of the smaller or
you know, the commander size they're getting where they run
real well. And I will tell you a nine to
elevate nineteen eleven is a thing of beauty. Just there's
so much fun to shoo. It really is just a
little story about that.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
Is back in four or five, when dots were really
just becoming miniaturized and things like that, one of my
friends had a five inch steel springfield nineteen eleven, good trigger,
and we mounted an old a Tasco Optima two thousand,
which was one of the early micro dot sites, right,
(35:18):
And we took that thing out to the desert and
we just shot it and shot it and shot it.
And what a tremendously easy pistol to shoot. Well, it
shot so well we just started calling it the Jedi weapon.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
It's like cheating, it really was.
Speaker 8 (35:33):
And you know, we carried commanders and things like that,
but they were all iron sight guns and whatever. But man,
this five inch steel nine milimeter with a dot site.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Not moving, yeah, just I mean the dot doesn't come
off the target.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
No, I mean it'll stay right in the radical.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Right, had dances out there all it does.
Speaker 8 (35:51):
Yeah. Just such an easy pistol to shoot. Well, such
a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
So you get to see what's going on with the
business just in the minute. So I got left here
where are we with gun sales, holster sales, everything else?
Because I know there was a slump.
Speaker 8 (36:03):
Yeah, yeah, we call it Trump slump two point zero,
and that did hurt the business. But Galco has been
able to do some streamlining, make some investments in machinery
and personnel, and we have despite that slump, we have
(36:23):
raised our sales, things have evened out, Things have definitely
steadied for us, and we are looking forward to moving
forward into the future.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Don't you find it also gives you a chance to
kind of reassess the line and say, Okay, what do
we really need to be making and what maybe probably
isn't really holding its own right now?
Speaker 8 (36:41):
That's exactly right, And that's some of the streamlining that
we did was we had been making Kaidex holsters, for example,
for about a dozen years. We dropped the Kayitex line
entirely to concentrate on premium leather products like our new
Master billing.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And that's what's on my hip at the moment, because
you know, I get to try everybody's holsters. This is
your Master built series is among the best leather I
have ever had a chance to wear. It is perfect
and smooth and fast out when you take it out
of the box, you put the gun in there. To me,
I had no break in of this culture at all.
Speaker 8 (37:19):
And that's part of the way we design the Master
Built series is that we dry them on what's called
a last and essentially it's the shape of the gun.
So when it dries, it doesn't require any break in
at all, unlike holsters that are just wet molded. And
when you wet mold leather, it shrinks a little, okay,
and just as part of the break in process, you
simply have to remind those fibers where they're supposed to be.
(37:42):
But because of the way we dry the Master Built series,
it takes longer and it's a little more labor intensive,
but the resulting holster typically doesn't require any break in
at all, which is massive.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
I've done the whole deal of it, putting a gun
in the plastic bag and shove it in the holster
and get it. You know, yeah, you can get there.
Speaker 8 (38:00):
It works.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
You know it works.
Speaker 8 (38:01):
This works. It's called blocking.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, and we know we've done that for years, but
this one out of the box. Man, the gun went
right in the whole store went whoa, that is slick.
Speaker 8 (38:09):
It's nice.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
So you guys are killing it right now. You're really
doing a great job.
Speaker 8 (38:12):
Thank you Tomate.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
By the way, congrats on the book. So tell people
about your book. I got twenty seconds.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
Sure, it's called Many are called the Lion of Deseret,
and it is a dystopian apocalyptic future with a religious background.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Right, guys, might as well just put it all on
the blender and crank it up right. Yep, we'll congratulations.
I know the book's doing well.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
It is.
Speaker 8 (38:32):
Thank you very good.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
All right, thank you sir. All right, don't go for
We'll be right back with more gun Talk. We're having
a good time over here at gun sit if you
want to check it out. Gun site is g U
N S I T E dot com and of course
gun talk, which sometimes I get which one am I doing?
Gun talk? Gunsite, gun talk you find is at gun
talk dot com and everywhere you can find videos, and
obviously you can find this radio show as a podcast
(38:55):
anywhere you get your podcasts, and we're doing that. So
it's just great fun to be out here having a
good time, hanging out with my friends, carrying cool guns
in neat holsters. On the birthday of Jeff Cooper. He
doesn't get me better than Matt. So we can talk
(39:15):
about guns around here. Jeez, I swear we're talking now.
You're not on here. I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. Mike,
mike'surfer gun. Am I back on? Note? Actually put that on.
You need to talk about something here. We're putting Mike
Barron back on here. We were talking about this super
slick silicone whatever the heck stuff is. Draw easy, draw easy, okay,
(39:36):
And you put it inside your leather holster. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (39:38):
Yeah, it's a silicon base. It won't harm the leather,
it won't harm the finish of your gun or anything
like that. And all it does is make the inside
of your holster a little bit slicker, a little bit smoother.
And if you have a holster that you're having a
little bit of trouble maybe breaking in or it's not
the gun's not coming out quite as smoothly. It's as
you'd like a little bit of that drawease on your fingertip,
a little bit on a Q tip to you know,
(40:00):
kind of get in there, especially around the trigger guard. Okay,
that will smooth things up, slick things.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
It comes in like a little two ounce bottle.
Speaker 8 (40:06):
Yeah, it comes in a little little tiny bottle.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Our buddy bops this, I want to gallon.
Speaker 8 (40:10):
Right, he wants a gallon because he has a thousand
holsters apparently, but even Bob will admit that you can
treat probably five holsters with the bottle that kept.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I would just tell people when you buy it, just
to go ahead and order two bottles.
Speaker 8 (40:23):
Just just get bottles if you have more than a
couple of holsters.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
The stuff does work. I've been using it getting ready
for this class because this was like the all other class.
So yeah, I think I had like five or six holsters.
I'm getting ready for this thing and going, okay, we'll
treat them all with this stuff.
Speaker 8 (40:37):
Right, So now you're glad you had two bottles.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yes, exactly right. I know I am exactly right. So
it's cool, and it's available on your website, yes, sir,
But actually, anywhere you get gun stuff, I mean, you know, pretty.
Speaker 8 (40:47):
Much anybody who sells holster accessories, gear things like that
should have the draw easy in stock.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Okay, good deal, all right, thank you. I just want
to make sure we got that in because it's like, hey,
it's more info. Yeah all right, all right, good deal,
you bet well, thank you, sir. All right, so we're
talking about gunsight and training ideas and what we do
out here. I guess this is where I do my
call to action, which I do regularly, and I know
people are probably tired of hearing it because they can
say you're sorry about training. The reality is the problem
(41:17):
is you don't know what you don't know until you
come out and do this, either here or Range Ready
or thunder Ranch or someplace. Just go someplace, but be
particular about where you go. Find a good place, and
there are half a dozen really good places around the
country where you can go. Once you go, you go, Oh,
(41:39):
Now I realized that I was Can I say bone stupid,
that's not kind. I was ignorant, Okay, I didn't know
what I didn't know one of those deals. And then
you realize, wow, there's actually more to this that I
need to know. So then you're looking for the next class.
It's honestly, it's the reason I keep coming back here
and taking the two fifty class. Yeah, they got a
(41:59):
three fifty class the next one, and I may do
that if they say it's okay, because they may watch
me in this two fifty class and say, yeah, you
don't need to do that anymore. You don't need to
come back anymore, sir, thank you very much. So there
you go. But no, why do I keep taking the
same class over and over because I learned something every
time I come, and it is a perishable skill and
(42:20):
they get to train on stuff. Please don't make the
mistake of confusing practice with training. And I've tried to
figure out how to explain the difference to me, it's
real simple. If there's no instructor, it's not training, it's practice,
and practice is okay. But don't confuse you going out
to the range and making holes in paper with training.
(42:42):
You get your training so you know what to go practice.
The other part of it is, after a year or so,
you've lost twenty percent fifty percent of what you learned
in training, you better go back and yeah, I know
more than that. What they say is like every day
after your training, it's one percent you've lost. I think
that's probably not wrong at all, and you need to
(43:04):
go back and work on it and get another set
of trained eyes to watch you and work on you
and go, yeah, you're doing that, okay, but this part
we're here, we need to work on that. That's why
we do this stuff, all right. Everybody. I need you.
Here's the deal, make the commitment. If you're going to
carry a gun for self defense, it means you're willing
to save your life and the life of your loved ones.
How committed are you? Only you could figure that out,
(43:28):
But it's like saying, yeah, I'm gonna put on this parachute,
but I really don't know how to use it. You
wouldn't do that, would you. Hey, have yourself a great week,
Happy Brother's Day all the moms out there. Thanks for
joining me. I'm Tom Gresham. This has been gun talk
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
Ah yeah, we're still here. I'm Tom Gresham. This is
gun Talk. You can check us out over on x
that's the Elon Musk formerly known as Twitter platform. I
am at gun Talk over there. Of course, we have
our videos everywhere. You can find videos Facebook, YouTube, Spotify,
everywhere else. Just look for gun Talk or gun talk Media.
We're putting up a gazillion videos right now that we
(00:36):
shot over at the n Show. We did a lot
of video. We had a whole team of people run
around a lot of cool product. We just found anything
that was interesting in it. And a lot of times
it was small. Sometimes it's the big manufacturers, but sometimes
it's as little guys who have the interesting thing. So
and sometimes that's how the little guys end up becoming big.
So there you go, check it out. You can find
a lot of things there. And now, as you know
(00:57):
by now we are at guns the training facility in
north central Arizona. We're near Paulden out in the High desert,
having a good old time over here and visiting with
our old friend Buzzmills, who is the owner of Gunsite Bus.
You basically saved Gunsite what twenty six years ago or
so twenty seven twenty seven years ago? But you had
(01:19):
been a student here. You're taking class yees. Yeah, I've
been a student here and I thought it was I
thought the mission was it is worthwhile. It was very worthwhile.
Could not be could not be duplicated. And it all
comes down to the instructor staff. The method that Cooper
(01:43):
used to fill his instructor cadri was just just couldn't
be beat. And I thought they had the right formula.
They just needed a good businessman to come in and
help run this thing. Put some capital behind it.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Well we did. We put a lot of capital in it.
And uh, it hit me at the right time because
I just sold out my interests in the cellular industry
and my wife was about to chase me off because I.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Was you were running around the house. He said, get
out of the.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
House, get out of here, go away, go to go
find something to do, you know, And so it worked,
it worked out great. She brought her out to Arizona,
and she fell in love with it, and so we
made the deal and and it's been.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Well, you not only saved Gunsight, but I'm just and
you would never make this claim, So I'm gonna make
it for you because I know the people behind the scenes,
and people say what's going on with the NRARA, and
I tell them all the things that are good and
everything else. But the reality is, you're the guy who
saved the n RA A. Well, yeah, I know, I
(02:52):
had a lot of help, and I get I gett
You're the man who saved the NRA bisebills. You did. Okay,
there it is, so tell me where we are now.
I mean, you basically got fed up with the foolish
as that was going on there because we've been talking
about this for years, the whole Wayne LaPier thing and
all his cabal and all that, and you were on
(03:12):
the board and you were trying to fix it from
within and he finally, I mean, it just took a while.
It did.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, you know when the when the investigation started out
of New York with the Tisha James Attorney General. When
the investigations started, that was in twenty nineteen. Well, we
had we had our annual meeting that year was in Indianapolis.
And and so I stood up at the at the
(03:41):
annual meeting, In fact, Nugent was studied and ted Ted
stood up. He SAIDs right next he used to sit
right next to me on the board and H and
he read them the Riot Act. And then I got
up and I talked for about twenty minutes, and I
couldn't get a reaction out of anybody. Nobody said a word.
(04:03):
It was just quiet, like the old sprint.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
You could have heard a pin drive, yeah, you know,
and uh and and so UH. From that moment on,
I was persona on grata because, as the judge said,
and in the final UH final decision in twenty twenty four,
the judge, the judge said that the plurish plarif proliferation
(04:33):
of directors that circle the wagons around Lapierre instead of
around the NRA caused this this UH, this debacle.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So they weren't serving the NRA. They were serving Wayne LaPier.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Exactly exactly, because it was a matter it was a
matter of of UH where the benefits were coming from.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Who gets the perks, and you only get the perks
if you're on Wayne's team.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's right, okay, and so and so that went on,
and you know, I watched that for years and years
and UH. And then when when they when the trial,
when the trial was finished, the first portion of it
was finished in at the end of February of twenty four,
I got on the phone and I circulated the the
(05:19):
Cherry verdict sheet to all of the all of the
members of the board, because the administration was still telling
the board that, oh, we won this, we won this,
we want that was the weirdest thing. It was.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
It was so weird.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
But the fact of the batter is is that there
were sixty eight questions that the jury had to answer
either yes, no, or how much.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And so.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Of the sixty eight, sixty four questions were all guilty
guilty guilty against the NRA, against the NRA, and and
UH and the president and UH and the board representatives
were all coming out and saying, oh, we won, we won,
we won, we won, which was nonsense. It was it
was all. It was all pure bs. And so I
(06:07):
started pointing this out to people and started getting drawing
people together. And so then in May, see, in May
the twenty fourth was the annual meeting, and that was
in Dallas, and so on the twenty second, that was
the annual meeting of members in Dallas, and the president
(06:30):
and his staff were all made their presentations, and in fact,
the members at the annual Meeting of Members there's twelve
fifteen hundred members there, laughed them off, laughed of my
off the.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Dock because the members recognized that to be bs and sense.
They did.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
And so we came down to the vote and we
had the vote at the at the board meeting on
the twenty fourth of the four officers president and vice president,
first vice president, second vice president, and EVP, which was Lapierre.
We won three out of the four. We won seventy
(07:13):
five and we elected Doug Hamlin the new EVP. And
so that was that was monumental. That was I mean,
that started turning the ship. I'm just going to say
he started turning the ship around.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Here. Let me take a quick break here. I want
to continue this story on the backside. Bottom line on
this one is you know what, I think they messed
with the wrong marine when they messed with you.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Well, you know what we say in the Marine Corps
were either your greatest friend or your worst anemy.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
There you go, choose wisely right, Yes, take your pick,
all right, We'll be right back right here at gun site.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
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(08:22):
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Speaker 5 (08:29):
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Speaker 6 (09:30):
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Speaker 7 (09:59):
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Speaker 2 (10:40):
I guess what. It's a birthday day. This is Jeff
Cooper's first dage. Colonel Jeff Cooper, who founded gun Site,
who actually created the basically the whole idea of modern
pistol craft, the technique of the modern pistol, wrote a
bunch of books. If you are not familiar with it,
you really owe it to yourself. Colone Jeff Cooper would
have been one hundred and six. Today we're celebrating it
(11:03):
by being out here at Gunsight, the training academy that
he founded, having a fun time out here. I'm going
to be taking a Jeff Cooper commemorative or memorial if
you will, two fifty class. That's their five day pistol
class with a bunch of other people using the nineteen
eleven pistol, iron sights and leather holsters. As they say,
if Jeff Cooper wouldn't have carried it or shot it,
we're not going to be doing it out here. So
(11:24):
there you go. We're talking right now with Buzz Mills.
He is the owner of Gunsight, saved Gunsight. But also
and I'm just going to tell you right now, Buzz,
you are the guy who saved the NRA, and the
stories are we got to write a book about this same.
We've got to get this thing done because the fights
that were involved, some of the dirty tricks that were underway,
some of those guys who were running the NRA were well,
(11:46):
maybe you can't say it, but I can say it.
They were just crooks. Yes, you can say it. I
can't say. Yes, you can. They were just crooks, yes,
and they were taking money not by the bush or
basket load, but by the train car load. Yes, out
of there. And when you guys finally took over under
your leadership and your orchestration, and what you did when
you looked in there, my sense is that the cupboard
(12:08):
was pretty close to bear. It was.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
It was, it was, It was real bear. Now, you know,
a moment ago you mentioned they were here on Jeff
Cooper's birthday and and the father of the modern technique
of the pistol. But it's also mother's day. Yes, so
let's don't leave our mothers out and uh, well we
do that at our own peril there we do.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
That is correct?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
You know that that's a that that could be more
devastating than a pistol wound.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
There you go, that's right. No, you're right then, and
you get I'm so guet, I'm sorry, ghead.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Uh. Jeff Cooper did change. He changed the uh the
way we teach, the change the way we fight, and
and that was that was what he started out doing.
And uh, it wasn't easy, but he had enough plus
press and enough publicity when he opened gun Site in
(13:02):
nineteen seventy six. The first class was here October the fourth,
nineteen seventy six. And one of those, one of those
graduates is going to be with us in October fourth
this year, October third this year at the fiftieth anniversary Wow.
But when that was all getting started, the Army was
(13:22):
standing up Delta Force, okay, And so the colonel that
was standing up Delta Force was a very smart guy.
He'd been through Vietnam and all that, and so he
called Cooper and he said, you know, my guys don't
(13:44):
know anything about pistols, and we're going to be doing
a lot of pistol work in our job description, and
so would you teach would you teach my guys something
about pistols, because the Army doesn't know anything some long guns.
And Cooper said, sure, so all these guys Delta Force
came out here. No, yes, sir, And that was that
was that was really uh the first big contract that
(14:09):
that Cooper did and that and that was standing up Delta. Now,
if you go to their to their compound at Fort
Bragg or wherever it is now, they are four rules are.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
For gun safety that created.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
There at at the Marine Corps Special Opps Training Center
and at the Navy Special Apps Training Center. All of
the all of these people have either sent people en
mass on a government contracting gun site or individually. And
and uh.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Well recently, and that's not not the last Special Forces
guys have been through this place. No, absolutely not. It's
all the time.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
We got a lot of them after the turn of
this century. Uh and up up through about two two
thousand and eight because w his administration dedicated money to it,
and then the subsequent administration didn't have didn't have money
for it.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
People say, well, you know, the military, they've got training facilities.
Why would they need to come out here because they
don't really teach what you teach here.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
No, no, And we change, we changed the doctrine for
all of these people, they accepted our doctrine and our book,
and so they teach and operate by our book because
and you know, you can go back farther. I've got
a letter from Wider. You know when he died. He
(15:38):
was in Los Angeles and he was a real estate developer.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I did not know, sir.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And so in nineteen thirty three he wrote this trisque
if you will, on gunfighting, and it was the modern technique. No,
but he knew that back in the eighteen eighties, eighteen nineties,
and the same thing that he discovered then. But people
people didn't assimilate it. They knew it, they read it
(16:06):
and so forth, but it didn't it didn't take hold.
It took Cooper, with his continuous UH publications of the
modern technique of the pistol to sell it.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
And he was an educator, so he knew how to
put together lesson plans and say this is how because
you teach a building block system, we're going to start
with the guns in the host How do we get
it out of the hoster? How do we load the gun?
And people say, well, why do they load the gun
that way? Because in three days we're going to be
doing reloads and dropping mags and doing things, and we
want you to do that the same way you did
(16:38):
the initial load. Basically, we're going to teach you one
set of skills and motions that you can use over
and over to do different things.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Absolutely, and and and it's so simple. You know, if
if if the I call it professional educators, Actually we
are professional, yeah, of course, but if if if the
people that teach our children in university taught the same way,
they could get a whole lot more information transferred into
(17:05):
these young skulls full of MUSHes.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Rush used to call there you go. All right, I
want to switch back to the NRA for a second,
because we were when we left this thing, basically the
coffers were bear. You guys took over, You kicked the
bad guys out, you started putting your new guys in.
Although that has taken a year or more to do that,
But I'm hearing right now that we're looking much better,
(17:27):
starting to move into the black and things are looking
really good as we move forward.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's exactly right. And you were at the annual meeting
this year. So now you saw the booth, you saw
the traffic at the show, you saw the vendors. You
saw and it was very upbeat, and it was it
was one hundred and eighty degrees out from the previous year, right.
And you saw Radio Row You did you go to
(17:53):
the Saturday night celebration.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
They don't let me out on Saturdays.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Say, okay, well that's probably a good thing. Katie Pavlick
was the mc oh man and and she uh and
she put on a great shell. Uh. But the the
the tenor uh even the aroma. You know, that was
entirely different, right than what had been before. But that's
but that is that's this new team that's in place
(18:18):
and uh and and moving the ball down the field.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I had a guy come up to me there and
I was telling about all the things that are going on.
It's new and we're moving forward now. And he says, yeah,
he says, do you know what I don't. I don't
buy it. I just I don't. I don't believe. I
don't what you're saying. I don't believe. I said, well, okay,
I said, but you don't give it a year and
then come back and tell me. I said, but here's
the thing, this is my message to everybody else. I said, Look,
because there are people sitting on the sidelines right now.
(18:42):
I said, you said, when Wayne's gone, you'll be back.
You said, I am out until that guy's gone. Well
my message to them is, the guy's been gone for
several years. Now it's time to put up or shut up.
You either were blowing smoke then or you're blowing smoke now.
But it's time to honor your commitment and come back
(19:03):
in because right now your heavy rear end is sitting
in the wagon and the rest of us are having
to pull you along. That's it.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
You know, you can either you can either help us
move ahead, but you need to get You need to
get out of the wagon, one way or the other.
And I had people back in twenty four tell me, well,
when Wayne's gone, I'll be back. And then they said, well,
when we get rid of that lawyer that you used
a brewer out of New York, then I'll be back.
And then they had some other excuses, Well, when you
(19:31):
get rid of these people off the board that are
that are still dragging you down, then I'll be back.
So we've gotten rid of all of those. Now they've
run out of excuses and they're starting to come back.
Good they're starting to come back because and you can
see that at the show at the end of the
annual meeting. Is such a tremendous it's such a tremendous
It's a message.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It is a message. And I would just say this
for people who saying, wait, now we have all these
other groups that came along, Yeah we do. We have
great other gun rights groups' got second med foundations, have
got you know, fire's policy coalations, and the NRA works
hand in hand with those and all of it's legal activities.
People don't know that, but nobody in Congress ever says
(20:13):
what's going on with those groups? They don't. The only
thing they ever say is where's the NRA on this issue? Period?
That's the first and the only question. The NRA is
still that important. And if you're not a part of it,
I'm sorry you're sitting on the sidelines, and I'm tired
of your excuses.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Honestly, yep, yeah, well they don't have any excuses anymore.
If if if they're not with us at this point,
then they're not. We need to quit quit asking them
to come back.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
You have devoted some time, You have devoted years of
your life into saving the NRA, and you've done it
in a way that few, if anyone, else could have done.
And I want to make sure that the history is
written that you were the guy who made this happen.
Bus Mills, I know you. You are not a guy
for the spotlight, but you were working quiet well, sometimes
(21:02):
not so quietly, in the background, fair enough.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
That that's very true. Sometimes I'm not very quiet. But
like like you say, I am not the guy that
wants to be the ring master.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Nope. But you pulled everybody together and it was not
easy to get that board. You know, people say it
was too many people on the board. Patients, patients, Just okay,
you can only get one thing during a time. You've
been doing a lot of things that people say. But
I wanted patience, come on back in, be supportive. Let's
move the second Amendment, wagging forward, working, we're working on
(21:37):
the other things right Yep.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
We're working on a lot of things right now. And
you know, the things were so thin when when helped
with the last year, we had to cut out the publications.
You know how expensive that stuff is, and so we
had we had to cut back on some of that
stuff and go with go with.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
More Digital ahead and go Digital Mills, thank you for
hosting us here. Always a pleasure enjoy being here, my friend.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Well, it's a pleasure to have you and your team,
you know, anytime, come on out and you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
It sounds good. All right, don't go far. We'll be
right back right here at Gunsite. Check it out gunsite
dot com. I guess that's when I have to stop
talking about guns so I can start talking about guns again,
because during the break we're talking about guns and holsters
and people who are coming here. Oh, doing the two
(22:34):
fifty class here at Gunsight, and Mike Barram Jernes just
right now from Galco. You're saying that Mike Daddy's going
to be hearing the show in the class, right Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (22:43):
Mike's a friend and a friend of Galco as well,
and he mentioned to me that he was coming up
very much looking forward to it. And if he's not
wearing a Galco holstro, I want you to gently kick
him in the butt.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Sounds good. And now for those who may ring a
bell for a few people, Mike wrote the book which
were really the tell all the book about the Fast
and Furious scandal with Eric Holder at the US Attorney
General and how they were running guns down to Mexican
cartels in the hope of and actually the plan was
to send guns to Mexico, have those guns used to
(23:14):
murder people, and then use those murders as a way
to push gun control in the US. And that was
the actual idea behind the whole thing turned out and
ended up getting Brian and I'm pulling blank now. A
federal officer was, yeah, I know, I just I just
had it and I'll pick it up just a second.
(23:35):
One of the federal Law Enforce officers was killed with
one of these fast and furious guns, and Mike Daddy
blew the whistle on and said, look, this is what
was going on. There were actually gun stores who were saying,
we can't be selling to these people, and they were
calling the ATF, the ATF saying go ahead and sell
it to them, it's okay. And they're going, we know
these are cartel members buying these guns. We shouldn't be
(23:57):
doing this. And the governments tell them, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yea run down to Mexico, it's okay. Send him to
the narco terrorists down there.
Speaker 8 (24:03):
Yeah, absolutely evil. And like you said, Mike, blew the
lid off that whole thing.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
He did. So I've never met him, so I'm looking
forward to that.
Speaker 8 (24:11):
Galco was actually honored to host a couple of book
signings for OH at Shot Show and the NRA Show.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
For those who don't know, we don't explain what Galco is.
Speaker 8 (24:19):
Okay, Galco is the Great American Leather Company. We've been
what it stands for. Yeah, that's what Galco stands are
a little known fact, but I did not know. People
have sort of assumed that because the founder is Richard Gallagher,
that it's Gallagher Company, but it's actually the Great American
Leather Company.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I'll be there and.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
Yeah, if you knew Rick Gallagher, you would know he's
way too humble to do something with him. So he
liked the Great American Leather Company. And so that's that's
what Galco stands for. And we've been making holsters since
nineteen sixty nine. Started in Rick Gallagher's garage in Chicago.
Things do start in some garage, right, Yeah, it was
(24:57):
you know, and people say, oh, it started in the garage.
It was kind of his in his living room, and
in his living room he also had a completely disassembled
Harley Davidson, and he was cutting leather right next to
this his other hobby.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I love it, and.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
So he started back then, and it was nineteen sixty
nine and kind of the height of the hippie movement.
And Rick just loved working with leather, and he was
making things for hippies. He was also a musician, so
it was a little bit in guitar scraps and guitar
trip oh you name it, and fringe, leather vests and
leather bracelets and leather pants, you know, possibly with or
(25:34):
without a butt, all these things he was making. One day,
a Chicago police officer comes to a shop and says, hey,
could you make me a shoulder holster? And Rick said, well,
I'm a gun enthusiast, but I've never made a holster.
But let me do some research and see what I
can come up with. And this is back in the
day that even in Chicago, you could go to a
(25:55):
public library and read books about holster making. So Rick
that did some research and came up with the horizontal
shoulder holster, which he made for this Chicago police officer.
Police officer absolutely loved it, started wearing it. Word got
around and within a year or two, Rick had a
sort of a line of Chicago police officers at the
(26:18):
door who is shot next to his disassembled Arley Davidson.
And that was really the start of things for what
was then called the famous Jackass Leather Company, right, which
in the early eighties became the great American leather companies.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
People know the Jackass Leather Company for the shoulder holster.
Speaker 8 (26:34):
That was correct. That the signature product that remains Galco's
flagship product. We still make the modernized version of that
called the Miami Classic two. And you know where that
vice exactly. That's sort of the second part of the
story is. Back in the early eighties, Michael Mann made
a movie called Thief with James Kahn. Awesome movie, by
(26:56):
the way, good in that one, Yes, James Kahn came
to Gunny.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Talk about exactly.
Speaker 8 (27:06):
So the the original Jackass Holster had a little part
in that movie on kind of one of the henchmen.
But Michael Mann thought it was super cool and dramatic looking.
So when it came time to equip his hero Sonny
Crockett on Miami Vice, he wanted a horizontal shoulder holster.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Amazing.
Speaker 8 (27:28):
Yeah, and and sort of the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
Galco made the holster for Don Johnson. Mister Gallagher actually
went to Miami to personally fit Don Johnson with the
holster that he wore on that show. And you can't
really ask for better marketing than having your shoulder holster
on the hero of the most popular TV rights And
(27:52):
and that just sent Galco really into the stratosphere.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
So where's the Alco located.
Speaker 8 (27:57):
On the north side of Phoenix and we've been since
nineteen eighty three in Phoenix, moving from Chicago. So you're
making these are made in America products, absolutely, Yeah. We
source our leather domestically, which can be difficult. Actually in
the current environment. There are only two tanneries left in
the US that produce the quality of vegetable tan leather
(28:18):
that we need, so we have to compete with other
companies for those. And then of course we have our
the craftsmen that we love, some of whom have been
with us thirty, thirty five, even forty years.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
It's funny because we had Rob Lake, you know, from
simpiy Row.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Yeah. Rob, Rob's a great guy.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Yeah, I mean, and you guys are all in the
holster business. The leather holster business, and we were talking
leather holsters and Kaydaks and talk about how for me
one of the things I love about leather holsters. Yeah, okay,
we got the smell and the field and the sound
and all the rest of it.
Speaker 8 (28:48):
But they last, they do they do. It's you know,
I talk about the history of the company, but we
get inquiries to our customer service department for people who
have had a Miami Classic forty years and oh, you know,
can can you recondition this for you?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Actually, yes, we can. Really the service we often most
companies will say, are you kidding me? We're all that
forty years ago. We're not doing that now.
Speaker 8 (29:10):
We will recondition pretty much any holster as long as
it's in reasonable condition, no corn, leather, things like that.
Obviously we can't fix, right, but we recondition holsters all
the time, some holsters that have been in service twenty thirty,
sometimes forty years. So yes, if you just do some
maintenance to your holster, just like you should maintain any
(29:31):
life saving piece of equipment, your holster will last.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You, which leads me to ask, Okay, so what kind
of holster, Mike, or what kind of maintenance are we
doing on this one.
Speaker 8 (29:40):
You know, it varies a little bit geographically because climates
are so different. So here in the Arizona Desert, Okay,
it's very dry. So you do need to condition your
holster cleaning condition your holster a little bit more often
than somebody who lives in a human climate, somebody who
lives in savany.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
What what do you mean when you say condition.
Speaker 8 (29:59):
Well, you there are products holster cleaners and conditioners, Galco
cells one that is basically equivalent to something that you
would buy in a tack shop or an upholstery cleaner
that you could buy at Walmart. Any of these things
work great, Just do it, Just do it.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yes.
Speaker 8 (30:20):
The main thing is that you want to rehydrate that
leather because leather is it used to be the skin
of an animal and it will dry out.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
And especially what if you live in the swamps of Louisiana.
Speaker 8 (30:32):
Then you still need to clean and condition your leather.
Cleaning is important on carry holsters, especially because they're pressed
up against your body and they're exposed to your sweat
and contaminants and things like that. So you do want
to clean them periodically. But in terms of conditioning them, again,
a dry climate, you probably want to do it every
couple of months, whereas if you live in New Orleans,
(30:54):
for example, or another very humid climate, you can get
away with doing it twice a year.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Other than that, just wear it, wear it.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
Yeah, that's the most important thing. Break where your holster
and where your gun?
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yeah, because they will. And in fact, it's like we're
sitting here, the three of us, We got our buddy
Bob's over next to us, and you know, everybody's wearing
a gun. Absolutely because that's what you do. We were
laughing online. I just put hey, I was in Prescott
Valley yesterday and I saw a guy wearing a nineteen
eleven and a Yackey holster, and you posted said, yeah,
that's what we do here. And you have a Pie
County that's just reopen carry and it's library in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 8 (31:28):
Yeah, oh, it's very common, very common. I see nineteen eleven's,
I see revolvers, I see Colt single action armies really
occasionally yeah wow. Yeah. But you know, you walk through
a walmart here at Prescott or Prescott Valley, Arizona, particularly
im Prescot where there's still sort of a sort of
a strong cowboy culture I've seen Ruger single actions, Coult
(31:49):
single actions, but the single most common gun I see
nineteen eleven.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
No, kid, of course you've got the influence of guns.
I'd be in here. Correct, it is correct. You know
how many raven stickers? I see what I have on
cars when I drive around town. And it's funny. I
was wearing a hat with a raven on it some
years ago, went to the movie theater and figured, nobody
knows what this is. It just looks like a bird, right, yes,
for those who don't know. The raven is a symbol
(32:14):
of Gunsite. And I walked by this guy looked at me.
I could tell him. People just stared at me and
thinking what's going on. He looked at me and he
just pointed at me and went Gunsite. I just nodded.
It's like two kindred souls passing. You know.
Speaker 8 (32:28):
It happens to be all the time here. You know,
I grew up in Connecticut, but I went to gunsite
shortly after I moved out here to Arizona in two
thousand and three. And I'll wear the gun Site raven
stuff a hat, maybe a sweatshirt, something like that. But
all the time I was on a hike not too
long ago, and I passed the guy on the trail
(32:49):
and he just looks at me, points at the raven
on my chest. He goes, how you doing, gun site?
Just you're part of the family. I was in Walmart,
you know, pushing my shopping cart and the guy goes by.
He points at my chest and he points at his hat.
It happens all the time here. The gun sight influence
is tremendous around here.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
All right, So you've been right. You make Holsher for everything.
I mean, no matter what your pistol is, we try.
You've got pretty much unless it's really weird. Why the
nineteen eleven what's the deal? Why do you like nineteen elevens?
Speaker 8 (33:22):
Well, you know, the nineteen eleven, despite or maybe because
of its age, has endured. There are millions and millions
of copies out there. And whether you're a new shooter
or a very very experienced shooter of you know, forty
fifty sixty years, this gun works for you. Nineteen elevens work.
(33:45):
And it's a tremendously easy pistol to shoot, well because
of the short trigger. But also it's a tremendously easy
gun to carry because it's such a slender pistol, you know.
And you might say, okay, it's a heavy gun if
you get it in and all deal model. Okay, but
you can get it in an alloy free R model
and you have been able to do that since nineteen
forty nine.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, you've got half a pound off it right there.
Speaker 8 (34:07):
Right exactly. And for those reasons ease of shootability and
ease of carry, the nineteen eleven just endoors.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
And for those who are willing to, it's really easy
to customize to get. If you want slim grip panels
on it, a shorter trigger, I drop safety, you can
get it to fit your hand without much work at all.
Speaker 8 (34:27):
Yeah, that's right. And I have pretty small hands myself,
so my nineteen eleven's usually slim grips and short triggers.
They work great for me.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You know. And of course now you can get them
in nines, and the nines at least in the full
sized pistols run really well. Some of the smaller or
you know, the commander size they're getting where they run
real well. And I will tell you a nine to
elevate nineteen eleven is a thing of beauty. Just there's
so much fun to shoo. It really is just a
little story about that.
Speaker 8 (34:55):
Is back in four or five, when dots were really
just becoming miniaturized and things like that, one of my
friends had a five inch steel springfield nineteen eleven, good trigger,
and we mounted an old a Tasco Optima two thousand,
which was one of the early micro dot sites, right,
(35:18):
And we took that thing out to the desert and
we just shot it and shot it and shot it.
And what a tremendously easy pistol to shoot. Well, it
shot so well we just started calling it the Jedi weapon.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
It's like cheating, it really was.
Speaker 8 (35:33):
And you know, we carried commanders and things like that,
but they were all iron sight guns and whatever. But man,
this five inch steel nine milimeter with a dot site.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Not moving, yeah, just I mean the dot doesn't come
off the target.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
No, I mean it'll stay right in the radical.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Right, had dances out there all it does.
Speaker 8 (35:51):
Yeah. Just such an easy pistol to shoot. Well, such
a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
So you get to see what's going on with the
business just in the minute. So I got left here
where are we with gun sales, holster sales, everything else?
Because I know there was a slump.
Speaker 8 (36:03):
Yeah, yeah, we call it Trump slump two point zero,
and that did hurt the business. But Galco has been
able to do some streamlining, make some investments in machinery
and personnel, and we have despite that slump, we have
(36:23):
raised our sales, things have evened out, Things have definitely
steadied for us, and we are looking forward to moving
forward into the future.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Don't you find it also gives you a chance to
kind of reassess the line and say, Okay, what do
we really need to be making and what maybe probably
isn't really holding its own right now?
Speaker 8 (36:41):
That's exactly right, And that's some of the streamlining that
we did was we had been making Kaidex holsters, for example,
for about a dozen years. We dropped the Kayitex line
entirely to concentrate on premium leather products like our new
Master billing.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And that's what's on my hip at the moment, because
you know, I get to try everybody's holsters. This is
your Master built series is among the best leather I
have ever had a chance to wear. It is perfect
and smooth and fast out when you take it out
of the box, you put the gun in there. To me,
I had no break in of this culture at all.
Speaker 8 (37:19):
And that's part of the way we design the Master
Built series is that we dry them on what's called
a last and essentially it's the shape of the gun.
So when it dries, it doesn't require any break in
at all, unlike holsters that are just wet molded. And
when you wet mold leather, it shrinks a little, okay,
and just as part of the break in process, you
simply have to remind those fibers where they're supposed to be.
(37:42):
But because of the way we dry the Master Built series,
it takes longer and it's a little more labor intensive,
but the resulting holster typically doesn't require any break in
at all, which is massive.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
I've done the whole deal of it, putting a gun
in the plastic bag and shove it in the holster
and get it. You know, yeah, you can get there.
Speaker 8 (38:00):
It works.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
You know it works.
Speaker 8 (38:01):
This works. It's called blocking.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, and we know we've done that for years, but
this one out of the box. Man, the gun went
right in the whole store went whoa, that is slick.
Speaker 8 (38:09):
It's nice.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
So you guys are killing it right now. You're really
doing a great job.
Speaker 8 (38:12):
Thank you Tomate.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
By the way, congrats on the book. So tell people
about your book. I got twenty seconds.
Speaker 8 (38:17):
Sure, it's called Many are called the Lion of Deseret,
and it is a dystopian apocalyptic future with a religious background.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Right, guys, might as well just put it all on
the blender and crank it up right. Yep, we'll congratulations.
I know the book's doing well.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
It is.
Speaker 8 (38:32):
Thank you very good.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
All right, thank you sir. All right, don't go for
We'll be right back with more gun Talk. We're having
a good time over here at gun sit if you
want to check it out. Gun site is g U
N S I T E dot com and of course
gun talk, which sometimes I get which one am I doing?
Gun talk? Gunsite, gun talk you find is at gun
talk dot com and everywhere you can find videos, and
obviously you can find this radio show as a podcast
(38:55):
anywhere you get your podcasts, and we're doing that. So
it's just great fun to be out here having a
good time, hanging out with my friends, carrying cool guns
in neat holsters. On the birthday of Jeff Cooper. He
doesn't get me better than Matt. So we can talk
(39:15):
about guns around here. Jeez, I swear we're talking now.
You're not on here. I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. Mike,
mike'surfer gun. Am I back on? Note? Actually put that on.
You need to talk about something here. We're putting Mike
Barron back on here. We were talking about this super
slick silicone whatever the heck stuff is. Draw easy, draw easy, okay,
(39:36):
And you put it inside your leather holster. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (39:38):
Yeah, it's a silicon base. It won't harm the leather,
it won't harm the finish of your gun or anything
like that. And all it does is make the inside
of your holster a little bit slicker, a little bit smoother.
And if you have a holster that you're having a
little bit of trouble maybe breaking in or it's not
the gun's not coming out quite as smoothly. It's as
you'd like a little bit of that drawease on your fingertip,
a little bit on a Q tip to you know,
(40:00):
kind of get in there, especially around the trigger guard. Okay,
that will smooth things up, slick things.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
It comes in like a little two ounce bottle.
Speaker 8 (40:06):
Yeah, it comes in a little little tiny bottle.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Our buddy bops this, I want to gallon.
Speaker 8 (40:10):
Right, he wants a gallon because he has a thousand
holsters apparently, but even Bob will admit that you can
treat probably five holsters with the bottle that kept.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I would just tell people when you buy it, just
to go ahead and order two bottles.
Speaker 8 (40:23):
Just just get bottles if you have more than a
couple of holsters.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
The stuff does work. I've been using it getting ready
for this class because this was like the all other class.
So yeah, I think I had like five or six holsters.
I'm getting ready for this thing and going, okay, we'll
treat them all with this stuff.
Speaker 8 (40:37):
Right, So now you're glad you had two bottles.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yes, exactly right. I know I am exactly right. So
it's cool, and it's available on your website, yes, sir,
But actually, anywhere you get gun stuff, I mean, you know, pretty.
Speaker 8 (40:47):
Much anybody who sells holster accessories, gear things like that
should have the draw easy in stock.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Okay, good deal, all right, thank you. I just want
to make sure we got that in because it's like, hey,
it's more info. Yeah all right, all right, good deal,
you bet well, thank you, sir. All right, so we're
talking about gunsight and training ideas and what we do
out here. I guess this is where I do my
call to action, which I do regularly, and I know
people are probably tired of hearing it because they can
say you're sorry about training. The reality is the problem
(41:17):
is you don't know what you don't know until you
come out and do this, either here or Range Ready
or thunder Ranch or someplace. Just go someplace, but be
particular about where you go. Find a good place, and
there are half a dozen really good places around the
country where you can go. Once you go, you go, Oh,
(41:39):
Now I realized that I was Can I say bone stupid,
that's not kind. I was ignorant, Okay, I didn't know
what I didn't know one of those deals. And then
you realize, wow, there's actually more to this that I
need to know. So then you're looking for the next class.
It's honestly, it's the reason I keep coming back here
and taking the two fifty class. Yeah, they got a
(41:59):
three fifty class the next one, and I may do
that if they say it's okay, because they may watch
me in this two fifty class and say, yeah, you
don't need to do that anymore. You don't need to
come back anymore, sir, thank you very much. So there
you go. But no, why do I keep taking the
same class over and over because I learned something every
time I come, and it is a perishable skill and
(42:20):
they get to train on stuff. Please don't make the
mistake of confusing practice with training. And I've tried to
figure out how to explain the difference to me, it's
real simple. If there's no instructor, it's not training, it's practice,
and practice is okay. But don't confuse you going out
to the range and making holes in paper with training.
(42:42):
You get your training so you know what to go practice.
The other part of it is, after a year or so,
you've lost twenty percent fifty percent of what you learned
in training, you better go back and yeah, I know
more than that. What they say is like every day
after your training, it's one percent you've lost. I think
that's probably not wrong at all, and you need to
(43:04):
go back and work on it and get another set
of trained eyes to watch you and work on you
and go, yeah, you're doing that, okay, but this part
we're here, we need to work on that. That's why
we do this stuff, all right. Everybody. I need you.
Here's the deal, make the commitment. If you're going to
carry a gun for self defense, it means you're willing
to save your life and the life of your loved ones.
How committed are you? Only you could figure that out,
(43:28):
But it's like saying, yeah, I'm gonna put on this parachute,
but I really don't know how to use it. You
wouldn't do that, would you. Hey, have yourself a great week,
Happy Brother's Day all the moms out there. Thanks for
joining me. I'm Tom Gresham. This has been gun talk
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